And Two-Double-Oh-Seven ensues.

Back in the big city. Back for a week now, and just beginning to get back in the groove of everyday life.

Time in Charlottesville was fantastic. Saw nearly everyone I needed to see, played a couple great parties, designed a show that was everything I hoped, had plenty of time to just goof around and start feeling at home again. Long days, longer nights-into-mornings, walking and hitching rides and working hard and exploring the city I used to know backwards. Getting home as the sun's rising. Sleeping in far later than I should. Seeing the family, having a much-delayed holiday, eating, conversing, making merry. Afternoons reading and drinking coffee, or on top of a ladder moving lights about to create a space that I envisioned. Evenings in rehearsals or playing records, then to the teahouse for beverages and plotting the next stage of mischief. Impromptu after-hours rock shows. The C&O with bundles of friends, creating ruckus, conversing, catching up, cutting up, disrupting the nice quiet lives of the staff. Up late into the night playing Risk and pinball and Katamari, eating popcorn, rolling dice, drinking sake and rye whiskey and red wine, getting crushes on girls, watching old movies, being young and laughing a lot and generally having a blast.

Can't wait to do it again.

-PAR

Comments

Farewell, Matthew S. Farrell

Matthew Farrell. Self-created raconteur, impresario, dandy, sponsor of the arts, cheerleader of creativity, perpetual inspiration. Our dear ice cream server Grace once jokingly referred to him as “the winner, and only contestant, of Charlottesville’s Oscar Wilde Lookalike Contest”, and y’know, she was pretty spot-on. Matt (I was told at various times to call him Matt, Matthew, or “just Farrell”, so to this day, I call him all those things) had his own style that was clearly modeled on his platonic ideal of a perfect gentleman. And this gentleman dressed like a Fitzgerald character, talked like a continental aristocrat who summered in some undefined New England coastal village, and walked like Groucho Marx. He smoked unfiltereds, often two at once, just for kicks, which he would hold when gesticulating excitedly as he greeted dear friends or total strangers. Pretentious? Yeah, a bit. Sincere? Always. Distinctive? Absolutely. At some point, I think I recall him saying someth...

DJ setlist, Pianos, February 3rd, 2010.

Here's the set from last Wednesday's gig... Another week, another fun throwdown at Pianos . This one was a bit mellower than previous weeks, and I was once again kinda pushing to see what I could get away with. Trying to mix my familiar tunes in different ways, incorporate different material, and only reaching for the standby songs/segues when I got myself into a jam and needed a second to breathe. The Rulers- Wrong 'Em Boyo Lafayette Afro-Rock Band- Hihache King Curtis- Sing A Simple Song Cymande- The Message Gang Starr- DJ Premier In Deep Concentration Marlena Shaw- California Soul Blackalicious- Deception CSC Funk Band- Bad Banana Bread The Meters- Chug-Chug-Chug-A-Lug The Soul Lifters- Hot, Funky And Sweaty Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band- Cissy Strut 6ix- I'm Just Like You Rudy Robinson & The Hungry Five- Get It Together (pts 1 & 2) Charles Wright- You Gotta Know Whatcha Doin' The Jackson 5- How Funky Is Your Chicken James Brown- Funky Drummer The Mighty...

On David (DC, Dave) Berman.

David Berman has left the stage, made his exit, delivered his final observations on the state of existence. I feel like it’s dumb to be tearing up at the thought of a Berman-less world, so I guess I’m dumb, and I guess I don’t really mind. I can't claim I knew him very well, but I thought of him as a friend. You know, the sort of friendships that form when you're both part of an amorphous social circle of weirdos in a small town at a certain point in time? Like that. Actually, exactly that. Everyone ends up at the same places, and it’s all a sea of get-togethers where everyone ends up in the kitchen, and a tiny club and a sushi bar and a Thai restaurant and a coffee shop and a bunch of patios in the summertime. You see different combinations of the same people, and there’s always beer and whiskey, and every wall is decked out with Steve Keene paintings, no matter which house or shop or café you’re sitting in. Now, a couple decades removed, defining specifics is onerous, an...

And... Go.

Search This Blog