Today is the launching of a new journalistic venture, Quiet Time with Tad Moore, at the begging (wink wink) of one of our fantastic young publicists Amy. Boringly, it will probably just be writing and photos as for the second tour in a row I left the flip cam at home, to the frustration and dismay of our product manager who gave it to us (and who is a great guy who I hate to disappoint). The other guys in the band all have cameras and make videos, but most of the ones involving me are embarrassing and I do not yet have the rights to manipulate those videos to make me look cool.
Today is my birthday and tomorrow we kick off a tour in Philadelphia with Nickel Eye, featuring Nickolai of The Strokes, one of my favorite bands. However we've been on the road a little already this year so I'll try to wrap up our last few weeks.
New York
After some a strange rally/show and some "relaxation" in Miami we headed to New York for to play the brand new Bell House in Brooklyn. We got in the night before and, after a few Midtown Guinesses in the horrible atmosphere of some disgrace to the Irish race Midtown Irish bar (our hotel, which we love, is in MIdtown) we headed Downtown to a place called Les Enfants with Luke's brother (I wish my brother sometimes) Zach, where the bartender gave us free drinks, which everybody appreciated. . He went outside to smoke and came back dancing up and down the bar, pouring scotch everywhere, and I made sure to keep my glass out for him. I saw my friends Bjorn and even got to practice Italian with my new friend Nicholas. The next afternoon at a great little Italian place in Chelsea my dear friend Sabrina was like "ooh I hate that place," while referring to Les Enfants, and I had to object.
I can't remember the name of that little osteri'a (American keyboards are hard to do accents on) but I had a wonderful lunch there with my little link to the art world Sabrina, who I met in Italy years ago. A little vino, she had to get back to the gallery so I poured the rest of her wine in mine before heading back out into a nice day considering how cold it was, the sidewalk was covered in salt as lunch was long that day.
We drove by the scene of the US Airways flight that those poor birds got mixed up with on the way to Brooklyn. I hate US Airways as they even charge for water and treat their customers like cheap cattle, but I do like that hero pilot.
The show went well. I felt rusty but everyone said it went well so I stopped debating and hit the bar. I was lucky enough to see all of my friends, including legend to be remembered and he's only thirty Brandon Murphy and even some preschool friends from San Francisco. Two fans, Natalie and Natasha if I can remember, drove all the way from DC to see us. We partied with our fun publicists. Later, Dale almost got in a fight in the Bacci Ball Court at the Union Hall, in French!
Howie and Luke decided on more New York. Howie fancies himself a new New Yorker and a Seattleite new New Yorker fancies he.... but for me, a retreat through the New Jersey woods to the shores near the City of Atlantic considering my Miami memories were half haunting me and a New York birthday weekend with no responsibilities could have led to trouble, to say the very least.
Miami
Everyone had such a time, but I had so much on my mind. When I do, I tend to drink, and when I drink I tend to drink too much, especially when friends I rarely see are around. Miami is a place I thought I'd despise but ended up loving. The whole band tore up some club I can't remember the name of thanks to multiple bottles, a velvet rope, and a great guy named Joey. I spent most of my time at The Tides, looking at the beach drinking white wine and mojitos. I met a Dr., an awesome one, who described a method used to get Israeli children into the bomb shelters. As it's common for them to freeze up, they encourage the kids to tightly cross their arms and stamp their feet, which releases some sort of opiate-like sensation into the brain and gets them to loosen up enough to run in. He said the cases of Post Traumatic Stress of these children are rampant, and on the Palestinian side in most cases beyond repair. The Dr. was hilarious, too.. was like 60 and I think we made him stay longer than his awesome wife wanted them both too, but the Gators had won the National Championship and I think it was his weekend off.
The clouds in Miami look like they're made of blue Cuban cigar smoke, and the skies segue through different pastel shades throughout the day. Anyway, much of this trip is hidden from my memory. I don't remember the stone crab too well, and didn't see one flamingo. Fortunately, before Dale and I mailed it in and had to resort to eating seagulls, Howie's hospitable family took us in at West Palm (here we calm). Football, food and health for a day before we stormed through the swamps at sunset out of Florida.
So the tour has yet to begin and I'm already a tiny bit road-worn. It was quite a Christmas in San Francisco so this little birthday quiet time is much needed. We'll be moving through the cold via Madison and Minneapolis, Detroit and Chicago. I can't believe such cold cities with such culture, beautiful women, interesting architecture...... Of course I forgot my jacket again, it's been hanging in a North Beach closet since last July, fortunately John has two.
Frankies Gun! - The Felice Brothers
