hectic + party mode + locked out + etc.

after having some wind down time at home last night we headed into town to get the show sussed. it was in a little outdoor tent thingo near the centre of the city and it was packed which made it fun to get through to set up our stuff. the band before us (here we go magic) were uh-mazing. really solid. drummer was super tight and had a rock solid groove. one of those bands you watch and don't want to play after. after they'd finished we set up: for the un-initiated, our setups tend to take 25-35 minutes most times to get everything right. we figured it's better to have everything sussed and play a better show than inevitably sucking due to how many gears there are in the tme machine. too much can go wrong.

anyway, we got set up and played the show. it went pretty good. jack's bass cut out at the end of blood which was kinda funny, we all just played on and extended the ending. i put everything i had into the closing moments of the song and was stumbling around for a while afterward. we loaded out (surprisingly stress free given the venue/situation) and stood around out the front meeting people we've been speaking to forever but haven't met yet. i finally met gary (he runs TAO, our management company), jordan (he's the TAO web guy), don (helps manage us at TAO), will (works for chess club who put out the EP as a 10" in the UK), james (susses radio for us in the UK) and trey (our booking agent at billions agency). i'm sure i met a few other people but they're all i can remember, it was a bit to take in all at once.

trey is super cool. we talked music and such for a while. turns out he used to play for pedro the lion and starflyer 59 and a band that used to be on tooth and nail. he came up through that whole scene. blew my mind! super sweet guy. from there we headed to a place called stubbs where some band was playing that we caught the end of. spoon were playing in the other room and apparently broke up on stage that night. might just be a vicious rumour though. morgan and i tried to get in but we got denied. whooooopzzz. i talked to gary for a while about film and that was a most excellent talk. we discussed scorsese, fincher, nolan...the man knew his films. we both had "lean back and raise voice out of sheer excitement and passion about discussed subect" moments about different films we each brought up. it was killer. talked to trey again for a while and a few others. morgan/carly/lauren were there too which ruled.

we decided we were hungry so we went from there to try and find somewhere to eat. the girls knew about some apparently killer place which took us about a half hour to find even though we were right near it the whole time. WHEEEEEEE. waited there for a while. lance/colin/etc. all showed up hoping to have a sweet big meal with our crew but we decided to bail cause we had to wait ages and it was approaching 3am. we headed back to the house we're staying at to find it locked. we called the girls and sussed where they were staying, turns out it was this MASSIVE (and i mean massive) house which seemed to be occupied by mad austin longhorn fans (they're a college football team from austin). it was really something. we kept walking through it and it just kept going! they had a massive hall/room with TWO TABLE TENNIS TABLES. TWO. who has one let alone two? gosh. we sat around for a bit and then slept.

AWAKE at 8:45am, woohoo. headed into town and found some mexican to eat for breakfast. nothing like eggs scrambled with red onion, tomato, beans and other deliciousness. i got pretty pumped about it. we picked ro up and headed to the tequila mockingbird studios where we did the KCRW session (suss it at http://www.kcrw.com/media-player/mediaPlayer2.html?type=audio&id=mb100318the_middle_east if you feel so inclined...mix ain't great though). after that we went to the next show to load in our gear. this rad band who's name i forget was playing even though i asked the drummer like 4 times. sorry guy. up next after them was a band called the low anthem from rhode island...i don't think i've seen a band that good in a long time. check them out, stat. it was like tom waits' backing band got bob dylan for a singer. the set opened pretty quiet with double bass, clarinet, pump organ and a notable instance of the singer whistling into two mobiles phones calling each other on speakerphone creating an amazing swampy insect sound...so good. the set finished with the band-esque loud gospel type singing dirty blues country excellent.

as you can tell, i was impressed.

the day was running late so we had to cut our set short after setting up. we ended up playing 4 songs finishing with western which is our loudest one. it got REALLY loud. probably the most rock n roll the middle east have ever been and ever will get. it was rad, definitely stoked on the show. after that we hung out for a bit then loaded out and packed the van while the main guys did an interview for NME. they later said it was the vest interview they've ever done. the interviewer was real sweet. keen to see if it gets printed. back home we go (where i am now) to chill for a bit before we head in to have dinner where we tried to have dinner at 3am this morning.

i think this is my longest entry yet!

speak soon.