#record shopping

19 Dec 2007
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December 12–San Francisco

We wake up in Chico and go to record store we like, where last time we bought Bee Gees Odessa on vinyl and a sweet Muppet Show poster. I saw in Seattle that the first season of Muppet show has been released on DVD, so if anyone is trolling for a Xmas gift to get me, then, ahem. In first grade I had a Muppet Show lunchbox, a metal one. On the reverse side was Pigs in Space. This prompted a bratty crossing guard to call me Miss Piggy for the entire year. It probably didn’t help that I have a rather upturned nose.

Our show is at the Rickshaw Stop, a club with unbelievable sound and the nicest soundperson/owner I’ve ever met. His name is Waldo. We are on a bill with familiars—Si Claro, Fishboy, and The Mantles. It is my favorite show of the entire tour. The sound onstage was so clear I almost ask Waldo to turn me down in my monitor.

Fishboy, especially John the drummer, destroy. I catch some of it on camera video. I am technology-impaired, so this seems like a miracle. I keep watching the footage, awestruck. It may as well be an old nickel arcade movie—gadzooks! what’ll they think of next?!

One of our friends, Chris, is obsessed with a bar we walked by earlier, which she has dubbed “The Santa Bar.” All night she keeps entreating us to return to The Santa Bar. I love that stuff, so it’s a given. The bar is terrifying, something out of a Stephen King novel. There are 1000 Santa Claus dolls packed into about 200 square feet. There are Santas on every surface–hanging from the ceiling, encased in glass, revolving on a Santa ferris wheel. The bartender is an unbelievable dick. He clearly doesn’t want us there and keeps hissing about how we’re playing the same fucking songs every fucking person plays: Fleetwood Mac, mostly. But we keep staying, keep singing along with gusto.

06 Sep 2006
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LOST, the series

Chico to San Francisco–Saturday Sept 2

Jason and Connie have a toy poodle named Honey. She looks like a lamb. In the morning, as usual, I am the first band person to rise. I take Honey for a walk in the woods across from the house. It is surreal: I am in my show clothes, my red lipstick still staining my lips, walking a toy poodle in the woods of Chico, California, in the early morning. Who am I?

We eat the Cap’n Crunch Connie so kindly bought. I opt out of the shower, wanting to get our from under foot ASAP. (I will clean up at a rest area two hours south.) Somehow, Steve and Pixie pull out of the driveway first, with Pixie playing the recorder in the passenger seat.

I am already starving again, so we eat a second breakfast in town. After that we go to a record store and score Nancy Sinatra, Beach Boys, Bee Gees Odessa with velvet record jacket, two Muppet Show posters, and a cassette of Replacements’ Tim, for when the ipod dies.

We get lost in San Francisco, because we always get lost in San Francisco—it’s the rule.

Finally, we arrive at Yoshi’s. Yoshi and his roommate Marjan make living here look so appealing. They have a massive apartment with those awesome curved windows, a spare room, and a healthy dose of fog curling in the air. Tomorrow night, we have a show scheduled with Yoshi’s band, Still Flyin. Since this will be Nick’s birthday, and we will have responsibilities, I declare that we must celebrate in advance. We walk around the Haight looking for Clark’s Wallabys, the shoes I want to get Nick for his birthday, to no avail. We eat burritos instead.

Later, at the bar, I keep buying Nick shots of Jagermeister, cackling as I deliver them. For some reason, Yoshi and I decide drinking Crown Royal at 4AM is a good idea. Decline of Western Civilization Part Two is on the television; it’s a documentary all about hair metal bands who are sure they’re going to make it, they just HAVE to (yet we the viewers know they never will). To stave off the potential larger implications/existential crises the show might trigger, I take another glass of whiskey as a prophylactic.

20 Jun 2006
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Les Francophonies

Sunday, June 18–Montreal

We have the day off, and fully intend to take advantage of an opportunity to do Francophone record shopping. But first Andrew makes us breakfast, as if having three virtual strangers and all their gear strewn about was an insufficient act of generosity. We hit three stores and find a jackpot. Tons of record singles—France Gall, Francoise Hardy, and Jacques Dutronc, and a Harmonium (70s Quebecois prog rock) album with a trippy butterfly drawing on the jacket. At Primitive, we meet Marie who informs us that the Michel Polnareff album Nick has in his hands is a huge steal. She gave it up from her own collection just this morning because she felt she “didn’t deserve it”. She is happy it will be traveling all the way to Portland, and recommends the store across the street, called Francophonies. As we leave she says, “Don’t be scared of the Celine Dion.” That was an understatement, as the store is an unofficial Celine Dion Museum, with about ten glass cases full of Celine paraphernalia, including her first albums, her perfumes, a complete discography, around 100 photos, and menus from her Montreal diner, called “Nickels”. I hope she knows about this place and visits regularly, as this man clearly wins the #1 fan award. More scores abound here, including a sweet Dutronc single, on which he looks like a Vegas Magician in his tux and mustache.

We get smoothies. They hit the spot, although our bodies might be confused by the introduction of fruit and vitamins. The boys note that the girls here are gorgeous, including the woman who made the smoothies.

A small crowd has gathered around Café Barouf to watch the France/Korea game from the street. We stand with them for a while but leave before Korea scores, thankfully.

The Fringe Festival is going on, and somehow this translates into a ten block long sidewalk sale, punctuated by drink tents. The main goods for sale appear to be socks, mangoes on a stick, and women’s sunglasses. Brazil has won in soccer, so people in green and yellow are having parades, impromptu dance parties, honking, screaming, all day long.

Claire, Andrew’s partner, makes butter chicken for dinner and rhubarb pie. We’ve won the kindness lottery.

I wonder how one orchestrates a move to Montreal from, say, Portland. . .