Friday, March 21, 2008

Day Three: Ballard Street Band Insanity

We arrive just in time for dinner and meeting an assload of people from dozens of bands from as far away as Chicago and New York. Legendary bands, obscure bands, bands we've never heard of, bands we've known forever, bands who's every song we collect and trade, and bands who've never recorded a note.

And everyone is fabulously friendly and welcoming, and everyone's heard of us, making us feel like rock stars and like maybe our ability to sell ourselves exceeds our ability to make music.

We try something different and instead of spending an hour with the whole band choosing a set list for a 45 minute set, we divvy our three sets up and work on them in pairs. A brilliant move as we'd all come to the conclusion in Portland that long, tiring meeting are uh, long and tiring.

We're playing first at the New York Fashion Academy in Ballard, a place we're convinced is actually a hip name for a bar, but turns out is exactly what it sounds like. Because we're convinced it's a bar, we don't bring any booze which we regret. Later we're playing at Mr. Spots Chai House, which turns out to be the venue of the evening.

Hungry March is pointing at our drummers who are playing quieter and quieter convinced they are fucking something up, before they realize via boots in the ass that they are being pushed into the center for a solo


We played our set early in the evening out in the street and it feels like a warm-up set for us, not quite on yet, but alright. Then inside for an awesome set in which I don't even remember what we played, but it was good.

Then an amazing set with the Hungry March Band in which they push us forward for little solos. At one point in the jam, they're pointing at our base drummers who are playing quieter and quieter convinced they are fucking something up, before they realize via boots in the ass that they are being pushed into the center for a solo. Each of us takes a crazy little moment of the spotlight and we all keep it going and we're kinda flushed and woozy from the rhythm and the attention.

Then up to Mr. Spots Chai House for a remarkable set in which we brought down the house with our impromptu improv craziness made-up-on-the-spot Song X.

Crazy motha fuckin time.

1 comment:

Tara Fire Ball said...

Hungry March Band loves Trash Orchestra foreva!