Shortwave Dahlia - notes from 4/21/07 performance

We got together at the venue at around 8:00 PM. Met Lee from Simon pretty early on, who was incredibly good to us. I traded him a copy of the EP for a t-shirt. Dana came to the show and got some pictures which I cannot wait to see. We ended up with a small crowd but there were indeed some familiar faces in the room. Since Paul brought his B.C. Rich Warlock, I used my Samick and Robert from Clouded Son loaned me his Vox amp (I have GOT to get one of those.)

The set went off without a hitch for the most part. I thanked everyone for leaving prom early to come see us. I got to play second guitar on a few of the tracks (enjoying the axe most on "Song For Vara"). "Call and Response" was on-target as usual. I completely forgot the words to the new song, "A Novel Idea", but the music itself sounded pretty good. I ad-libbed my way through it and had a good laugh after it was said and done. "Vanity Tax" was great, "Discontent" is always good and to me was even better Saturday night than it was in March. I think I tried to make a joke about Mary Hinkley and ended up saying something about Henry Winkler having shot his husband. We wrapped up with "Automata" which sort of left things on an edge—it’s not a closer like "Survival" is, that’s for certain. We got lots of compliments from the other bands for doing something different, and the sound guy said this performance smoked our last one.

The good part about opening is you can just stop and enjoy everyone else’s shows and we did just that. Seafood Hotline and Simon mine from heavier places, but both are remarkable at what they do. Seafood Hotline are a somewhat sick duo who honest-to-god recapture the fury and strangeness of indie-label Nirvana, and I loved the hell out of it. Joe from the Hotline is such a cool guy, he made mention of us throwing down in Murfreesboro sometime. I can see doing that sometime. Simon were hilarious and heavy, stoner rock with a sense of humor and some art-rock leanings. They also take established songs and completely nuke the arrangements (their version of the Sex Pistols’ "Anarchy in the UK" is price of admission alone).

Altogether it was a good show. I’m already looking forward to May, and then to recording the album.