marlo eggplant winter tour (so far)

January 24th, 2010 by Dogwater | Posted in blah blah, downloads, live shit |

greetings from Baltimore where we are relaxing for a few nights before the next shows. we just got in a few hours ago after driving from Effingham, Illinois.

so, here’s how things have been going.

the tour was supposed to be put on in the spirit of a collab between scotch tapes from canada and marlo’s label/distro Corpus Callosum. the guy who runs scotch tapes was going to come along and play drums for marlo, even though drums are an odd choice to accompany drone. anyway, they practiced together for a minute and he said he was ready to hit the road and play 20+ shows.

the first show was in Seattle with great performances by My Printer Broke and Gohger. scotch tapes dude was supposed to come in quietly six minutes into marlo’s set. he started at one minute in. and got loud. so loud you couldn’t hear marlo at all while he wailed away at a ragged waltz beat. it was terrible. i threw my cigarette at him to try to get him to stop but i guess he was too moved by his awful drumming to notice.

to top it off he was a sleazoid douchebag so marlo decided to do the rest of the shows by herself and i came along to sell merch and keep her awake through long terrible drives like…kansas.

next up was Eugene, Oregon where she played the New Zone Gallery with I Died, Chefkirk, and Hobbyknife. this was an awesome show. everyone was great. i can only imagine how awful it would have been with those drums. here’s a little bit of marlo’s set:

after a little rest and a trip to Winco, the most awesomest store in the world, we were ready to hit the road again. off to sunny californy…

the san francisco show was at the Luggage Gallery, part of the Outsound Series, which has been running for twenty years or so. it was…arty. there was a guy sleeping in the doorway who the people running the venue didn’t get along with too well. fun! all in all it was a fun night with live stop-motion animation by Multifungi, a great and funny performance by Jesse Boardman Kauppila where we listened to copper plates he engraved while listening to the American Folk Anthology, and a guy talking about how he was famous on the internet for throwing up on television. here’s a little of marlo’s set:

then it was on down to LA for another show at the Echo Curio. i forgot to bring the camera so i didn’t get a vid, but this was a good night with great performances by UV Astronaut, Cephalopods, El Diablos Blancos, Boar, and Swim Ignorant Fire. by the end of the night my ears were slightly broken (i blame Cephalopods, who meant to do an ambient set but got pretty noisy) but i felt better for the experience. we were given a recording of the performance but as of today haven’t checked it out. maybe i’ll post it later.

before we were killed in the stupid ass fashion people drive in LA when it rains we headed out to Phoenix to play the Trunk Space with Magillicuddy and Balloons is Fun. Magillicuddy were weird young performance noisers who i thought were going to set the merch table on fire with their pyrotechnics. Balloons is Fun are an indie pop group that’s kind of a throwback to cutesy 60’s stuff. a fun show, but i gotta say Phoenix is a strange place.

i recorded the Phoenix show on an ipod. marlo doesn’t like it because she couldn’t hear what she was doing but here’s some mp3s…

marlo eggplant live @ the trunk space, phoenix 1-20-10 part one

marlo eggplant live @ the trunk space, phoenix 1-20-10 part two

marlo eggplant live @ the trunk space, phoenix 1-20-10 part three

marlo eggplant live @ the trunk space, phoenix 1-20-10 part four

that night we decided to get a headstart on the long drive east, the next show being in Richmond, VA on this coming monday night. we made it a ways north before the snow started falling. heavily. so we plugged along at 30 being thankful for the rumble strip to tell us where the road was and after a few hours managed to get to Flagstaff where we got a room for the night. in the morning it had snowed another foot but we managed to get on down the interstate before they closed it behind us.

driving through New Mexico we heard this song three times in ten minutes while skipping through the stations:

sean kingston – replay

i’m not saying it’s a good song or anything, but it did help us stay awake until marlo got the idea to start a soul revue with joshua james.

other highlights from the drive include stumbling on kdhx out of st. louis, missouri, and more specifically, the Midnite Rockers show hosted by Ital-K. it was a dub/reggae show and the host was great. he kept turning the music down to sing along and shout things like “STL, can you feel this?!”
i’m trying to get the station to send me a podcast so i can sample him.

anyway, that’s about it so far. tomorrow we’re going down to Richmond, VA, to play with Leah Peah, Velee, and Gross Ghost, then back for a Baltimore show, then Brooklyn…i’ll keep you updated.

i’m working on editing a recording i made on an ipod of the Phoenix show, maybe i’ll upload it tomorrow…