1 post tagged “albany”
last night i realized, i am a cross between an old man and a preteen girl.
caitlin rielly turned 23 and we danced around to led zeppelin and save ferris and stole beer from her housemates' keg, which was gross, but after two tall boys of miller genuine draft i was happy. p.s. never drinking one of those again. bud tall boys remain superior. anyway, everyone started freaking out to one of those bands, like the killers or something and i just got all grumpy because i just really can't identify with that shit. but it's good to know that my friends will default to the foo fighters. sometimes i miss listening to the radio when i was like, 12.
today at work we were listening to xm radio all day and this one station was literally everything i listened to when i was in middle school/beginning of high school. it was like they'd dug into the vaults of WRRV 96.9 in poughkeepsie circa 1998. eqx, which is out of manchester MA i believe, is pretty much the same. i listen to that whenever i'm up in the albany area.
speaking of albany. craig finn told a really amazing story when i saw the hold steady there last week. i'll try to recreate it as well as i can. he went into the dunkin' donuts where lark st. crosses delaware ave., and this woman caught the attention of a cop and goes, "hey! hey, remember me?" the cops says "um, i don't think so ..." and the woman's like, "you arrested me a few months ago! you know, right over there, out there ..." and the cop says, "ohhh yeah, i think i remember you. how you doin'?" and the woman says "oh i'm all right, i had a baby." and the cop responds, "oh i was gonna say, you lost weight!" the crowd totally lost and just started yelling "THAT'S ALBANY!" and craig's like, "yeah, that's albany ... i love it." great shit.
anyway. i feel like i had something else to say ... oh, right. so last night after cait's, i wasn't exactly ready to head home, so i ran into my friend dana and this other girl in my class whose name is escaping me, and talked them into a couple drinks at snugs. i was pretty drunk, so i ended up pumping the jukebox full of money and playing equal parts the replacements' "tim" and the hold steady's "boys and girls in america." i just sat on a barstool listening to the music, drinking a pint of PBR and watching knicks replays on tv. i was really happy. i'm turning into an old man, and it feels fine, actually.
so when i woke up this morning i looked at my phone and computer ... i had changed my myspace and my away message to hold steady lyrics and fell asleep listening to built to spill's "you in reverse." i had called about seven people, but no one i was embarassed about, so maybe i'm getting more of a handle on drunk dialing. i think i talked to miles on the walk home, and maybe drew too. which was cool, i'd say.
i'm listening to chavez, another example of something tom whalen recommended to me eons ago and i've put off for inexplicable reasons. i'm trying to get better at that, because when i finally listened to broken social scene, i was a little late for the train, but it was so fucking good it didn't matter. so far i like this. not uplifting, but nice and big and guitar-heavy with a scratchy-voiced dude. noticing a trend?
top 5 artists as of late:
1. the hold steady
2. the replacements
3. the constantines
4. the posies (jon auer's giving me an interview, i'm pretty psyched)
5. lifter puller
also, a song by catfish haven is on heavy rotation: "crazy for leaving you." fucking love it. they opened for the hold steady in albany. down-home, guitar-heavy again, no distortion, repetitive but not lulling, whiskey-soaked again.
the hold steady are playing at the stone pony in asbury park, NJ. i felt dumb when kevin falahee informed me that was to bruce springsteen what cbgb's was to the ramones, 'cause i didn't know that. there are a lot of things i don't know about music. i'm going to spend a lot of this break just reading my face off about music. anyway, i'm pretty sure it's a ridiculously appropriate venue and i can't wait.
my professor, rolling stone editor holly george-warren, has finally told me which member of the replacements she kicked it with, and i was surprised.
here's the catfish haven song i can't stop listening to:
