“The only metropolitan NY-NJ area appearances for Radiohead and Jack Johnson this year are at All Points West, with each act playing a full 2 hour set!
Radiohead is headlining the festival on both Friday, August 8th & Saturday, August 9th, and will have unique performances each night, much like their past two-night shows over the years in NYC.”
The announcement goes on to note that APW is Underworld’s first announced American performance in the US.
Take the Jack Johnson news however you want. Two hours of Johnson’s brand of surf music is at least one hour, 56 minutes and 30 seconds too long for me. Four hours of Radiohead over two days is another story altogether. I’ll be bailing early Sunday morning to head back to Boston in order to catch the lads from Oxfordshire again Wednesday the 13th.
This is the story of three editors and a vendor. See what happens when writers stop being sober and start being: drunk.
Mark, Jay, Matt and I got an invite from Marilyn Monroe on the Las Vegas Convention Center floor to attend an open bar at the Hooters Hotel and Casino. This screamed class to me. Of course we were going. Marilyn Monroe + Hooters girls + Open bar = Mandatory attendance.
The liquor was provided by a company called ShowRack which Matt kept calling ‘the RackShow.’ Classy AND appropriate. I started the evening off by ordering a Bud Light then changed my mind to a Jack and Coke. I got both anyway. I’d been at the party 45 seconds and I was already double fisting. Yup. That’s just the way we roll.
Three shots of whiskey and three glasses of Jack and coke later — I was chasing shots of Jim Beam with Jack and coke, which is always wise — the open bar closed an hour early. Daunted, but determined, the four of us wandered downstairs to the Hooters bar to keep imbibing what I like to call ‘adult soda pops.’ Which we did. For a long time.
Eventually, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ start blaring over the PA. We’d been loudly drunk for a while now, but hadn’t reached abnoxious quite yet. That all changed with one word: Meow. Jay, a non-journalist, but all around great guy had been kind of quiet while we were at the bar. I thought he was just hammered, but I now realize he was simply biding his time. Waiting for the right moment to make his move.
“I see a little silloutte-o of a man/meow meow MEOW/meow meow MEOW/Can you do the fandango?”
You know that surprised look that you sometimes get on your face when someone drops some knowledge on you after drinking for a while? He got it from the three of us in spades. And thus began the long and magnificent decline that lead to the videos you see here.
We must have sat at the bar and meowed for a solid two and a half hours. We drove patrons away. Bartenders tried to ignore us. Hookers looked for easier pray. And still, we meowed. No song was untouchable. Eddie Money? Journey?Alice in Chains? Barry Manillow? Meow.
Finally, Tom Petty slithered down from the speakers to where we sat at the elbow of the bar. I remembered my phone and its video capabilities. I started filming. I don’t fancy myself much of a documentarian, but had I actually been doing a study of the affect of the word ‘Meow’ on drunk reporters in concert with music that is easily parroted, I’d be booking a flight to Cannes. As it is, cell phone video. 15 second clips. I hope you enjoy.
I’m waiting for my ride to get out of the shower before heading to Logan. I’m heading back to Chicago for a week for my Dad’s 60th birthday. I waited to pack until this morning because I had clothes in the dryer last night, and, at 12:30, I was beat and needed to get to sleep. I woke up before 6am to fish the remnants of my socks and jocks out and to pack.
I usually find packing in the morning before a flight stressful. There’s a preset amount of time you have before you need to be at the airport. Getting up early sucks, and you don’t have a choice about it.
On the plus side, I didn’t spend the night agonizing over whether or not I packed something. I didn’t wake up once and think, ‘Oh shit, did I remember to pack my maroon golf shirt?’ Well, shucks, I don’t have time to think about that because I’ve got to cram everything I have into a bag and rush out the door. And, I don’t have a maroon golf shirt.
It’s going to be a quick spectacles, testicles, watch, wallet and I’ll be out the door in ten minutes.
People live the right way in Munich. Maybe it was the Beerfest. Maybe it was the post card perfect weather in late September.
Everyone was friendly. And if they weren’t friendly to begin with, after a few beers they were. This snap was shot after a night of hard drinking with some just-made friends. I was walking from the Beerhall back to my hotel.
I don’t remember taking this picture — or the walk home for that matter. I do think I remember speaking perfect German to a Bavarian man while he, in turn, spoke perfect English to me.
It looks like the marquee of the theater near my hotel was in the background when I took this picture. It is fitting because no one knew who I was in Munich, except that I was the only American around. Valerie grilled me about George Bush. Freddy asked about traveling from state to state. I was on stage.
But if that isn’t a content look, then I’ve never seen one.
Posted by Brian 
Posted by Brian 
Posted by Brian 
