Prosperous-looking Dresdeners stood cheek-by-jowl in a city park, clinking glasses of Riesling and restlessly awaiting the appearance of local heroes Die Nierentische (translation: the kidney-shaped tables). Led by longtime friends of Mark’s, Die Nierentische recently played all over the Triangle, including a memorable set at Guglhupf when lead singer Martin climbed on the patio tables [...]

The magic kingdom of Bohemia never let up its aesthetic flood: literally every direction yielded a new vista that would send Imagineers running back to their drafting boards. A wall-to-wall carpet of tourists made streets hard to navigate without a battering ram. This preponderance of non-natives also gave the city an ersatz, vacationland feel.

People packed in to hear the show, including one chemically-saturated guitar player in a green hoodie who kept trying to grab my mic and scream about Kurt Cobain and Elliot Smith. He seemed poised to join their ranks, and soon. Then he settled down onto the floor at the base of my mic stand and proceeded to pour a side-salad sized pile of weed onto my setlist to start sorting out the seeds.

Things were going well, we’d turned our penny drizzle into a 50-cent and 1-euro shower, when the police rolled up. The driver rolled down his window, shaking his ruddy head and running a finger across his throat. “Get out,” he said with characteristic Dutch directness.

Hello friends, I have been remiss. But I’m back and bursting at the seams with great music for you. So, without further ado:

Floating Action: Floating Action
We played with Seth Kauffman and his band, Floating Action, recently, and it was a delight. They combine aspects of 50’s reggae, hawaiian music and loose Stonesy grooves, frosted with [...]

Whoever decided to call it (and the title track) “Surf’s Up” either is pretty far out of his mind or has a pretty dark sense of humor. Turns out, it’s both.

The problem with recording is always that the live energy and the ‘vibe’ that a live performance creates, gets squashed and sucked dry until you’re left with some barely recognizable artifact. It’s like translating something into Japanese and back into English: something gets lost.

Ann Arbor was a great place to lick our immigration wounds and get the rock back rolling. Johnny’s speakeasy (built in the 1870’s as a fruit cellar) was one of the most unique places we’ve ever played and the good vibes there washed away the recent memories of kevlar and ponytails and triplicate forms. Thanks [...]

When we arrived at the Canadian border for our Montreal and Toronto gigs, we had no idea that we were about to enter a different dimension. The ponytailed, Kevlar-clad Canadian immigration officer seemed nice enough as she took our documents and paperwork and started her online research, but two hours later, as she conferred with one colleague after another without ever looking our way, things weren’t looking so smooth.

On Friday, we played the gorgeous new Brooklyn venue, Bell House. Skippy, who runs it (and also runs union hall), always makes us feel at home, and Friday was no exception. We did an early show, together with my old friend chris moore (moore n sons - check em out!), and then there was a [...]