5/20 From my roots in L.A. to my home by the bay
Hollywood was looking so good and really, what an amazing weekend across the board. I love the kinda weekend where your travels occupy so many different activities…like a game show; full of excitement and debaucheristic gladiator like chaos.
I had a joint agenda journey entailing the STS9 two night run at The House of Blues in Hollywood as well as a fantastic family gathering in L.A. I had a nice 7 hour coastal drive to get the city Friday night and went straight to the venue to find the show had sold out both nights, which was very cool for the band. It was great to be back on the Sunset Strip again since last year and it was still ragin in all it’s neon lighted, hot steppin’ glory. Right as I arrived I started to chat up an employee who worked there while I waiting for my crew show up and apparenty we had a good conversation because he gave me an all access wristband. Seconds later I ran into the crew from SC (Ben, Breanna, Hannah, April and Jason) who all joined me backstage to start the party at the bar.
The HOB venue is by far on of the coolest venues in L.A. and no one should ever miss checking out the upstairs lounge with walls of tibetan tapistries and statues of dieties in little cove like kick it areas, meanwhile the ambient DJ spins and the socialites mingle amongst the most exquisite selection of wine. It’s quite a thing and unique to my norm but the main attraction is the show level downstairs and that’s where we focus on all the action. Shortly after, I also met up with Q Ma who flew in from Philly and Winter who flew in from Tennessee. Basically, we had all the workings for an awesome gathering of friends gathering in the name of fun.
As far as the shows, I think they were some of the best that i’ve ever seen of STS9. They were playing with so much raw umph and intricacy. You could feel them throwing a ton of driven energy out in every note and the audience was hugely eminating from it. It was a fuckin get down rage, a no holds barred blast from start to finish.
The first night afterparty was at a really cool house in old Hollywood and I just remember taking lots of silly pictures on other peoples cameras. I ran into Matty there and finally met Murphy and got to discuss music for a short duration without mentioning the epic show we just came from that he just made happen. So then after our parade back to the strip where half of the crew went back to the Hyatt, I decided to go to The Roosevelt Hotel for a nightcap and by 9am Cam and I were driving down Laurel Canyon rocking out to Tea Leaf Green while I was pointing out Jim Morrisons old house and the mansion where The Beatles first ate acid.
Once I came to my senses, I dropped Cam off and headed into the Valley to see my good and longest known friend Stina for lunch before hopping over to my Brothers house. I got to my brothers party, it was so wonderful to see everyone, it had been 6 months since i last saw my family and everyone was there to celebrate Carly’s first birthday. Right as I walked into the house, my Mom greets me and then asks me to take off my sunglasses. I said ” No Mom, you know what’s under there.” I couldn’t let her see my distasterous bloodshot retinal vessels in fine form. She laughed and gave me a hug as we proceeded out join the party. I was there for 7 hours and got to catch up with everyone and basically hang tough with the fam again. My family is the funnest montage and it rocks when we all get together.
I didn’t want to leave the party but knew I’d be back so I sobered up and geared up to head back into Hollywood for night two of STS9. Again, another sic night of sound and sweat and everyone there was there to get the fuck down. My kind of show, my kind of party. Afterwards we made our way to the after party at The Roxy to see Conspiritor (members of The Disco Biscuits) and Schpongle (DJ from England), a show that started at 2am and went to 6am. Right upon arrival we ran into an old Phish friend, Truman and that was rad so he joined our party as well. One hilarious thing to note was that as we were trying to catch a cab from our hotel to the show we couldn’t get a cab since there were too many of us so we started to walk the 2 mile trek but seconds later, an empty Los Angeles city bus pulled over and offered us all a free ride right to the venue. How random and awesome is that!
Now, while I was partaking in the adventure that was the southern California scene, there was a 5 night Phil run at the Warfield which I look forward to hearing all the details of this week.
And also my car just turned over to 100,000 miles yesterday. “I’ve got to keep on movin’”
By sparkle on May 21, 2008 | Reply
Pho baby, you were meant to blog. Keep it up. In fact, did you invent the concept? You must have been writing all this down in your head constantly before you could actually write, and I know you scribble strange notions at the most irrelevant times like during music with a cocktail balancing on one knee while the wind is blowing, so I suspect truly you have invent the modern notion of blogging well before it gained its technological capability in its present form. I believe the statute of limitations for proceeding with a copyright action for use of the term has long since elapsed, else I would have to look into filing a lawsuit on your behalf. Whew. Dodged that bullet right quick! Anyway, keep up the chatter my dear, you’re a natural. —Mgmnt’s Mngr