This Past Friday

Buck, Corey, and I were on our way to the Cakeshop in Manhattan for a show with a friend of ours' band, sitting in Holland Tunnel traffic. The temperature was in the mid to upper 90's, and with no air conditioning in Buck's van, we were reduced to manually oscillating a small-ish clip fan, which was designed to oscillate, but had lost that function several hours before.
I was sitting shotgun, and with the window open I heard a man's voice calling from my right.
"Hey, you've got a leak there".
At this point, traffic was completely stopped and I got out for a look. The fluid was dark red and gushing. Transmission fluid- not good. We were about 500 feet from the mouth of the tunnel and there was only one turn-off point left before the toll booth. Somehow we managed to signal to the drivers on our right to let us through and the van limped its way in to the parking lot of the Holland Motor Lodge, an aged but otherwise nondescript-looking brick hotel whose lot was continuous with that of the Burger King to its right.
We sat outside in the heat as winds gathered and the sky darkened, making phone calls and just generally trying to figure out what to do. The transmission had completely cracked open and there was basically no hope of fixing it that would have been worth the money or effort. I was on hold with AAA to try and get a free tow to the gig when Buck told us he'd found a guy with a van that could pick up us and our equipment and take us there. Not free, but if we'd have sat around and waited two hours for the AAA guy, there was a good chance we would miss our set. I hung up. Still, the guy coming to get us lived in Williamsburg and Friday night traffic was heavy, so we were going to be waiting a while.
I went over to the Burger King and got cokes for everyone. Leaves, dust, and bits of paper blew over the concrete and opaque purple clouds drew closer. After a few minutes of this, thunder cracked and heralded a ferocious downpour and we were back in the van, using the last of its battery to power the non-oscillating oscillating clip fan as we watched through the rain for approaching headlights.

Waking the Naga

Here's a video I made for a project I put together that has a record coming out next month. The band (Coil Sea) is Michael Kuhl, Michael Lowry, Matt Pierce, Walker Teret, Jimmy Clay Wallace, and myself. Enjoy.

Coil Sea - Waking the Naga from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

This Weekend and Next Week

Haven't written here in a while. We actually have a fairly big and action-packed week coming up. Tonight (fri 2nd) we are heading down to Ocean City Maryland to mess around by the water and to get ready for a show we have there tomorrow. We're playing at Pepper's Tavern, right at 16th street and the boardwalk. Being that it's the 4th of July weekend and 16th street is known as "the party block", we expect nothing less than absolute insanity. We're sharing the bill (on the two that follow later in the week) with This Frontier Needs Heroes, a duo from Brooklyn NY who are really good friends of ours. They are a great time to watch and to hang out with. That's why they're coming.

Wednesday night finds us in Wilmington NC at Reggie's 42nd Street Tavern, and Thursday we will be at the Tin Roof in Charleston.
This trip is going to be awesome- things are gonna get wild, it's going to be very hot, we're all going swimming, and we're going to film it all. Hope you can make it.

New Release of Live Recording

We were selling this on tour as a limited-edition CDR called "Sister Ray", as it's based on the Velvet Underground song of the same name.
Aural Slate, the label subsidiary of auralstates.com, is also selling it as a digital release.
In a nutshell, it's a 53 minute jam that was recorded live at a party at a loft space in Baltimore called Granfalloon. We were invited to play and thought we'd do something different than just perform our songs. It was a pretty amazing experience to do the gig, actually. It would have been completely adequate, from our perspective, if the gig HADN'T been recorded, as the whole point for us was to challenge ourselves by jamming for nearly an hour and not bore everyone in the process. But there right in front of us was David Carter with his recording gear. When we listened back to it later, we were more than satisfied with both our performance and the recording quality, and figured that, what with the May tour approaching, it would be a great opportunity to have something new at the merch table. A friend of mine that I grew up with, R.A. Monaco, did the collage work that we used as cover art. You can buy the $5 download HERE.

Shows, Updates

So there are some new things fast approaching-

A project featuring myself and fellow Arbouretum player Matthew Pierce will have our first (and perhaps only) show at the Windup Space in Baltimore on Saturday, May 8th. We have finished a record, and the project is called Coil Sea- it is instrumental improv project. It has also been known as Dragoons, although that name was in use so we had to change it.

The lineup at the show-
David Bergander- drums
Michael Kuhl- percussion
David Heumann- guitar
Matthew Pierce- keys
Walker Teret- bass
Jimmy Wallace- guitar

also playing at the show is Barbez and Susan Alcorn.

And on May 12, our Spring Tour with Pontiak starts!
At the merch table, we will have reissued Song of the Pearl LPs, out of print Rites of Uncovering LPs (while supplies last), an incredible live performance tour CDR we really have to hustle to get done in time, probably some new shirts, and some other stuff.

Please check out our tour dates here!

Shows This Week

We'll be playing two shows this week with our new lineup, which is Corey, Buck Carey, and Matthew Pierce, and myself.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10-

At the Golden West in Baltimore with Scout Niblett and Sri Aurobindo.
Show starts at 10, and there is a good chance it will sell out- getting there early is recommended.

THURSDAY, MARCH 11-

At The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn with Iran (a Kyp Malone project).
I hear great things about the new Knit and we're excited to be playing it.

A live review plus free downloads of our most recent show at Bmore Music

Find it here.