the more i do it the better it gets

okay. i really want to post about japan. today was such an awesome day. but first i have to get this australia recap out of the way. which isn't really doing justice to australia. cause up until landing on japanese soil it was rad. it is a fact of nature that you CAN NOT get a better cup of coffee anywhere in the world. every place is an undiscovered intelligentsia or gimmie! coffee. and the people i get to hang out with down there are rad and funny and they rarely say "heaps".

okay.... this is a little out of order cause i have already posted about sydney, which was after melbourne, but before brisbane and before sydney again. but i wanted to do this day or two in melbourne justice. but now i have waited too long and i am afraid i have not been taking my cod liver pills (i forget) which are supposed to help with my memory. also i am sure that since the 2 beer party has now crept up to 3 beets and a small sake has not helped matters.

anway... i got to melbourne, worked in the afternoon and then headed to the medina downtown by 7 pm. i was meeting my friends harley, lucas and ally at their hotel. they were in town with interpol. aslo, my friends. not to name drop. but those dudes are my roadie bros and that i get to run into them all over the world makes me realize how special this job is. really everybody. over the last year of running into these guys in nyc and tokyo and osaka and now melbin i have become friends with most of the crew and they always act psyched to see me. and that can be enough to turn a bad day around. so i headed over cause they were gonna have a bbq at their hotel by the pool. it was summer after all. well when they said bbq i thought they meant like some hot dogs or something. turns out they are all gourmet chefs and it was a super deluxe spread! not really done justice by this photo but you get the gist. the band came down as well and everyone was getting along and it was actually really fun.

then i walked home to my hotel. the next day i met LA friend and interpol keyboarder farmer dave for a little sightseeing action. we went to the nick cave exhibit at the melbourne city museum or something. it was so radically inspiring. all sorts of journals and photos and audio recordings of him telling stories about writing songs. he's lived on 5 continents and had a crazy life. i bought the book so i can better see how he works.

the show that night was great. i got to eat with lucas and hang out with the band a little before their gig. it was rad to see those dudes so together. not much drinking to speak of and they seemed like they were rolling with the rigors of an almost done world tour. the show was tight and looked and sounded great.

harley

you know a band like interpol has reached some sort of different plateau when they actually get a clap-a-long at their show.

especially when one of the clapping is wearing a Helmot australian tour 2007 t-shirt.

then i went out with daniel and dave to some fancy wine bar and talked about girls. surprisingly really fun. okay. that is such a gay glossed over version of what that post was gonna be. ugh. too bad the internet in australia is total bullsh.

anyway... then we played in melbourne. i posted about that already.

then we flew to sydney. and bss played what was probably the best i have ever seen them play. feist, who was in australia playing on the festival shows flew from perth, arriving just before showtime, to play with the band. it was so rad to see them with a girl for the whole show again. it's where they truly shine with the older broken songs, having a women on stage with them. and having feist and her powerful voice doesn't hurt.

there's feist. i didn't take too many photos of her playing. again, i am not comfortable taking photos of most people. and i was just really concious of how many photos must have been taken of her over the past year and i didn't feel like contributing to that.

then we flew to brisbane. this is where the partying truly started to go from two to three beers. this is also where i saw the koala mentioned below. but after the club gig some local kids took us out to a bar. turns out this bar is where a mutual friend of owleypatrol and mary was playing. i didn't know it until the next day when yoshi introduced himself to me as a big fan of this blog. i was flattered to say the least and taken aback at the realization that people actually read this. yikes. (i actually know (somewhat) how to punctuate but i just chose not too cause when it's 3 am and you want to get this crap pn the internet, it just doesn't matter).
so we went to this bar with some clap your hands say yeah people until we got kicked out cause one of us was wearign a baseball hat. probably cause it was a phillies hat.

here's some kids we partied with and one adult that couldn't make it home without kevin's help. and one dude we didn't party with but wished we had.

ugh... god there is still more...
the next day we saw the koala's and the kangaroos and the emus. some birds of prey. pretty radical and really deserving of much more than this whatever post. m. manson was there too. at some point in time when he was also a retarded school boy.

i can't finish this now. sorry. i have to go to bed. we hung with some straight up salarymen tonight at a sushi joint.

actually. i am not sorry at all. i am stoked.

Comments

[Cali]

Dude. You're boozing lifestyle is affecting your spelling and proof reading.

[cherry canoe]

I loved reading this post and it reminded me of the time that Interpol was playing the Showbox and I was the runner and I picked you and the band up at Sea-Tac and we went to Dick's and then the boring old Cha Cha and how it is always so great to see you, and it is all thanks to rock & roll.

I mean, seriously, I can name the last times I have seen you and they have all been when you are on tour -- Interpol, White Stripes, Dino -- and it is great. Have fun in Japan. And Cali is right.

[lars]

Ok. Now I'm really bumming. I was in Melbourne on said day off and had no idea that BSS or Interpol were in Melbourne as the Pollstar listing had BSS as playing in Richmond. Looks like I missed a good time.

[Dave Martin]

Speaking of birds of prey did I mention that there's been a falcon hanging out in our backyard for a little over a month now. We haven't seen it in action yet, just hanging out looking tough.