Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I Can Hear Music

Our good friends Terrence and Alicia married this past weekend in sunny Hatteras, NC. I say sunny, but it wasn't without an ordeal to get there. Initially they had planned for a Friday wedding, leaving Saturday for a relaxing beach barbecue, but with the nor'easter that surprise attacked the coast over the weekend, plans were shifted and they married Saturday. Our arrival was welcomed at 2am with ocean overwash on Highway 12! I guess that is what you get building a road on a thin strand of land between two large body of water! Regardless, congratulations! You make a wonderful couple, and were gracious hosts...

I DJ'd the reception, and in return, Terrence gifted me with a lot of latter-day Beach Boys CDs. It is no secret the ferocity of the love that Terrence has for the Beach Boys. So here I am back at home digesting about 12 albums worth of music. I am having to take breaks to retreat back to more familiar territory (Pet Sounds, Smile, Today!/Summer Days) but what is most striking is how the balance shifted from the mainstay (Brian Wilson) to the new guy (Carl Wilson) and little is lost. There are some questionable tracks, but before Pet Sounds, throwaway tracks were a mainstay of Beach Boys albums.

One cannot help but feel a sadness for what was lost within that group. Musically, individually... spun into franchises that are related by blood and little else.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Show this Wednesday!!

Wednesday, October 1st 9PM
M Room
15 W. Girard Ave (near Frankford) Philadelphia

w/ Victor Victor Band and Ganto Barn

The bill has been shifting more than sand on a coastal highway in a tropical depression (sorry Terrence and Alicia!) but we are excited to play our first show at the M Room!

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

My Samples Guide to Boulder

There is no mistaking that at one point in my life, I was a huuuge Samples fan. While others were cutting their teeth on Built To Spill, Will Oldham, Modest Mouse, and the nascent seeds of Indie Rock(TM), I was visualizing world peace through appropriation of world beat and Sting, repeat ad nauseam. It was all in the drums!

So here we go:
(note, 14th and Euclid street sign to come)

Tulagi's, site of some recordings for "Underwater People"

The Fox Theatre, home of several of my brothers' live tapes

The approach to Red Rocks (note the big fat rain smudge on the lens. This is the only rain we met the entire trip, coast to coast)

Red Rocks Amphitheater, since appropriated by Dave Matthews Band. The Samples headlined here several times in the early 90's. Not to mention two tracks from Under A Blood Red Sky.

Old Samples poster in the nice museum within the visitors center.

Patrick and one of said red rocks.

Your band flier here.

Jim at Hooked on Colfax, a few doors down from both the Ogden Theater, and the Bluebird Theater, site of the last show by the Samples original lineup. It was great to just play on the same block as the location of several of my previous heroes live tapes. Even if it was in a coffeeshop basement!

There are far worse places to be than Denver in the summer time!

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

It just dawned on me that we made California and did not visit In N Out Burger. How is that remotely possible? I blame the wafting mix of pine and eucalyptus that enveloped me while procuring tickets for and attending Radiohead in Golden Gate Park. I am a firm believer in local treasures (hence my Cherry Mash experience), and acted as porter in seeing an unspecified quantity of Boulevard Wheat from Lawrence, KS to Denver, CO. Had we been driving the other way, we would have surely ended up with Fat Tire east of the Mississippi. In N Out is more of a regional thing, but you can't get them back east.

Camp MFA has returned back to school for the season, and by school I mean life. And by life, I mean marriage. This weekend we celebrate the union of our guitarist Chris Kudela to his longtime girlfriend Megan Mitchell. Congratulations guys! We're taking a little time off while Chris and Megan sort through photographs, cards and write their thank you notes.

We'll be back in action Wednesday, October 1 at the M Room in Philadelphia. We're super-excited to be playing this venue for the first time. Matt promises he will have his amp checked out by then!

Hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day, and hope we weren't the ones keeping you up playing softly, albeit incorrect, covers on the front porch til the wee hours!
xoxox
mcmfa

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

"The One That Got Away" live in Denver


What you can't see:
- a very large table near the back of the room that I would have rather sat around, family style.

- very large, plush sofas lining the walls
- the barista upstairs who claimed we "saved the night"
- delicious, dry air devoid of any humidity pouring down from the Rockies