At Home He's a Tourist

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So Dina and I took the D train down to OJ Central to rehearse...So I switched out some of the songs, sped up the tempo, told Matt he had to play electric guitar on every song, and told Dina to start to work out some drum parts, which she did admirably on a chair. It sounded great. I wish it was our gig, then I could just be lazy for awhile. So we ran through the songs again and it was great. You should really come see our show at BTP because it is going to be awesome. Speaking of awesome, after rehearsal we went over to see Nan and the One Night Stands at Cakeshop. So a couple of months ago I saw Nan the One Night Stands at Sidewalk and of course it was awesome. Nan is talented beyond belief. You could really call her talent or an entertainer and it would be accurate. Nan solo used to be all about guitar and songs but she has really taken it up a notch. She'll still pick up a guitar for a song or two but the rest of the show is Las Vegas. She even does a great song about Elvis. Live beats, recorded beats, Mark on old school bass, Sam on staccato funk runs, a cast of many, Susan, Yoko, Angela, Julie, singing, dancing, and jamming. We were in the back, it was crowded, so I did my Cakeshop bum rush trick. I move as close to the stage diagonally to the left and position myself at the bar as close as possible to the stage. For cover and refreshment I order a drink at the bar. Next I cut diagonally away from the bar to the right to get as close as possible. When I'm near the stage I wave Dina up and she stands in front of me and we are really close to the stage. I love seeing shows with Dina, she is so cool and she always makes me feel cool too. So Nan and the One Night Stands is terrific, she's got a whole dance troop out in front, not just dancing, but doing choreographed steps in real show business style. It is so great. Everyone is in costume and the act is very complex but it moves as one so you don't notice the complexity for awhile because it is so entertaining but after awhile you realized all the steps are choreographed, all the costumes are coordinated to really emphasize the great songs, musicianship, and enthusiasm that goes into such an enjoyable energized show. I've seen a lot of shows at Cakeshop, I love that venue. Andy runs? owns? the Cakeshop and he also runs? owns? Bruar Falls out in Brooklyn. I've been to a lot of great shows at Cakeshop. Prewar has played there a bunch of times. Cakeshop is a relatively recent venue so when I think back over the Prewar shows there I really realize how unproductive, uncreative, and how boring we can be live. I can think of performing a good song or two live at Cakeshop, but for the most part ours shows there have been a complete disaster, and not in a train wreck interesting kind of way but an incredibly boring watching paint dry kind of way. Cakeshop is an awesome place though - coffee, cake, and laptops upstairs, alcohol, cake and rock n' roll downstairs. There are a couple of crates of records up front, which is great, there are always a good mix of new indie records and they always have 12 inches by indie artists but not their usual imprints but really obscure labels I've never heard of, usually with boutique style packaging or handwritten edition numbers. I've gotten a lot of records there. Once David Kirshenbaum put on a Boog City Night of people covering Nevermind, and I bought a cassette with a bunch of 12 inch remixes from Screamadelica, so it's an interesting place for people who agree the Nevermind/Screamadelica dynamic is the defining one of the 90's. Cakeshop is known as a twee friendly venue. I have a Cakeshop Records 7 inch with Cause Co-motion. It's great C-86/twee fast, fuzzy, and anglo. It was called Shambling in England when JMC invented it. Shambling has had a huge impact on many different music scenes, and although apparently didn't carry much cred at the time, you can see how influential it is now. K sound, Scotland sound, Antifolk sound, twee sound, and garage sound are so informed now by the shambling sound. I guess that's why the Reid's dressed like V.U., I don't know if they planned it that way but they are the V.U. of the shambling sound. I read in Spin Record Guide that JMC's shambling audience shambled off to acid house. How cool would it be if some of the current shambling bands shambled off to acid house.