The city is a seductive place, and every time we come here, we think of ourselves living here a little bit more and more. Its raining today, a little muggy and windy. We're playing The Mercury Lounge on E. Houston. we were a little early so we loped around the neighborhood for a spell, talking on the phone, window shopping, Joel bought J. a beautiful guitar strap, very kind. I saw a 5 year old boy order an ice cream cone, vanilla with sprinkles, when he was handed the cone, his smile lifted my spirits. I remembered being right there where he was.
After soundcheck we split up. Rob, Derek, Cappadona and I went for Thai food, while J. and Joel went guitar/falafal shopping. The guys and I headed to the Bowery for Lovely Day Thai. The daily coctail special was an old fashioned Pims Cup, I was thrilled with that. The food/coctails were pretty good. Food 5 out of 10, coctails 7 out of 10. A little pricey for what you get...anyway. I guess the other guys didn't have as much luck as they reported having "The worst Falafal EVER." We all met up at around 8pm and headed over to The Library on Essex and E. Houston. This bar is a great hang with a crackin' juke box, strange cinema projections and cheap drinks. We hung out there for a while, lost in conversations fueled by the music. We headed back over to the Mercury around 9:30 and played at 10:00. The show was good, but I think we've played better. There is usually a thread connection going through us up there every night and at tonights show, that wasn't happening as much for some reason. The highlight for me, besides having a full house of people there, was playing a new song called The Grass and the Howls. The band was white hot...I loved it and I love them!

Post Show:
We spent some time after the show hanging out and catching up with New York friends. The room was buzzing with energy and laughter and smiling conversation. It was really nice. I ducked out to get a cup of coffee and check on the van. I walked out of the coffee shop, unlocked the van, got in and closed the door when all of the glass in the passenger side window spilled into the van. I got out and looked at the damage. Someone had broken it in an attemp to steal from us and must have gotten scared off. As rain poured down, I tried to clean all the broken glass off the seat but it was pointless. Joel called to see where I was and I explained what was going on. After we got the van back to the Mercury and loaded out, Kevin, our sound guy for the evening, gave me some plastic bags and a roll of gaffer tape. Thanks Kevin! We rolled over to Brooklyn where we are staying, filed a police report, got our bags together and said goodnight. Joel and Derek win the gold medal for taking the van to find parking and sleeping in it to watch and make sure nothing else happened to our rig overnight. They never once complained even though I new they were exhausted. They are such brothers, they are heros.

New York!!!

Forward!!!