As I write this it is well past midnight in the East. Today was a very long day, including trips southward to the depths of Jersey (if you can call Princeton “deep,” but honestly why would you?) and then to Fort Greene, Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. I don’t think I’ve blown more money in a single day since… birth. Which, is always a good thing when you’re trying to save up to get the hell out of Jersey.
Picked up Ian and headed for Princeton with a bag of old Nintendo Games and VICE sampler CD/DVD’s to sell. I spent my earnings on the first Neil Young record, some early R.E.M records, a good A Silver Mt. Zion record, The Who’s Live at Leeds, The first Lynyrd Skynyrd record, Palace Brother’s There Is No One What Will Take Care of You, the first Silkworm record, and a compilation that includes compositions from A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Down the road I found a copy of the soundtrack to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
A stop at home for a can of pop and then into New York and over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn, where I met Rachel and Alex to procure the drum set I purchased. It’s a nice Pearl Export (a silvery, glittery thing, if you want to get really technical) four-piece kit with hi-hat, crash and ride. From Brooklyn we drove back to St. Marks and stopped for burritos, where we met Ilya and then went across the street to Kim’s, where I found The Argument on vinyl for a few bucks, a Japanese copy of Pink Moon (because I lose things easily) and a copy of The Cosmic Jokers album Galactic Supermarket. It was actually playing as we were mulling around the store, so that sold me on spending more than I’ve ever spent on an LP for it.
Through the darkness and the rain we navigated our way back to the hometown and hauled the kit indoors for setting up.
The prospect of my being unfamiliar with the set-up process netted some jokes from Ian and Ilya. Then we jammed in a variety of tempos for about a half-an-hour as I broke the kit in. Ran upstairs, grabbed the DAT, and recorded another hour-and-fifteen minutes of some of the most ethereal music we’ve ever played. Rock-star-faces and pats on the back were exchanged, and several times we reiterated the theme of the evening:
[Listening back to what was just recorded]
“Wow. I’d pay to see these guys…”
“I already have. Countless times. I think they opened for somebody good.”
Like that, but with less hair
In a few days I’ll post a lot of clips. It sounded like a band from Germany, in the seventies, so we christened our trio… Actually I can’t remember. I do remember there being lots of adjectives in the name, though. Overall, it was much different from Musky Taint, which, for those keeping score at home, is another (and for me, less enthralling) musical venture of ours. Magic Space Cow Dogs! That was the name!
