At work, moving ~160gb of data from a SAN-attached volume to an NFS volume in order to free up space for our new database server. It’s more boring than it sounds, and I’ve been doing it for the past five hours. All week, I’ve been a ball of nervous energy in anticipation of this major WebCT Vista upgrade: we’re looking at a new database server, new SAN storage, at least three new app servers, and two application updates. Oh, and we had a complete disk failure on a management node, but it’s only used to, you know, process all new course requests. If we actually manage to complete this by Friday, I’m gonna buy myself a sandwich.
Lessee…
Thursday night I mixed Spoon at the Ridglea in Ft. Worth. Incredibly wonderful fellows, and a great-sounding band. The show was sponsered by Camel, which I think made everyone involved more than a little apprehensive.
Slept for an hour that night, then awoke at 4AM to catch my flight to Boston for two New Year shows. I feared a dreadfully long line at security, but things moved quickly enough. Took a Xanax before the flight in hopes that it would help me sleep, but I instead spent most of the flight shaking and halfway nodding-off, never really snoozing at all.
By the time I found the rendevouz spot in Somerville and greeted the OSRs, my mind was ready for a rack but my body was happy to waltz around the neighborhood. Found an excellent Portuguese (maybe Brazilian) caf? and bakery just down the street, and sipped the best espresso I’ve had in months while snacking on a lovely little lemon/almond tart thing.
Made my way back to the JamSpot (the actual name of this rehearsal studio), and attempted a little bum rack (using the NY Times as my pillow and the Financial Times as a blanket), but the hip hop/r&b band next door kept repeating the first 12 bars of their song over and over again and my mind just couldn’t rest.
After the New Year had remembered enough of their songs to not completely embarass themselves, we made our way over to the Middle East. Load-in and soundcheck were uneventful, save for exchanging pleasantries and WTF! w/ Kahoots and Nina Nastasia. The show itself was great on all counts: good turnout, friendly staff, and all three bands were excellent. Afterward, Donofrio set off for Winchester and his friend Brock’s house for a good night’s sleep.
The next morning after a nice breakfast w/ Brock, we took off for a farm owned by Josh’s family. There we picked fruit (amazing plums) and chatted with his relatives. Quite beautiful up there, but we had to split for NYC. On the way, found both The Great White North and Dr. Hook’s Greatest Hits on cassette, just as I did on the Shearwater tour. Could someone have just dumped a few thousand of these on an unknowing populace?
Anyhow, New York — Williamsburg, to be exact. Usual rock club stuff: load-in, soundcheck, shit-shooting. Caught up with Denton ex-pat and Northsix house guy, Deron Pulley. He gave me a CD-R of remastered Banes recordings, which made me happy as a lamb. Turnout again was good, not great, but everything went fine.
After the show I was to take the train back to my aunt’s apartment on the West Side, but after waiting for over 30 minutes and then seeing the Brooklyn-bound L on the Manhattan-bound track show up and sit there for 10 minutes, I said “WTF!” and left for a cab. On the street ran into Rebecca Gates, which was quite pleasant. The cab took 15 minutes, cost $18, and was the best idea I’ve had in a long time.
Sweet, beautiful rack @ Suze’s place; slept with the windows open, even. Spent the next day hanging with Jamie, eating food, drinking coffee, shopping for clothes in a flea market, and picking up a few records. I bought her a copy of G?tatch?w M?kurya’s ?thiopiques disc both as an early birthday gift and as a thank-you for putting me up so many times in Brooklyn.
My flight outta NYC was at 7:15, and I didn’t get into the cab until 5:10. I was sure I was to be fucked due to lines at security, but ’twas calm at LGA and I had plenty of time to down a Xanax and a couple of beers before the flight.
Whew!
Jams purchased this go-round:
- Mahmoud Ahmed Ethiopiques 19: Mahmoud Ahmed
- Colleen Everyone Alive Wants Answers
- Jackie Mittoo The Keyboard King Of Studio One
- Os Mutantes Mutantes
