April 5, 2004

why I smile

Friends: I am happy right now. I've gotten four hours of sleep at best, I'm seeing the world through a foot of mucus from the cold that descended upon me as soon as I got on the plane to New York, my head is pounding, and I cancelled three social appointments yesterday (and had to turn down a post-practice dinner with my fabulous 801 bandmates so that I could finish a hefty piece for the Voice and prepare my tax materials for our accountant, who we're seeing in a couple of hours, both of which nonetheless took me until around 4 in the morning to say "this is as done as it's going to get."

(And band practice itself was ridiculous--the rest of the band sounded great for not having played in five months, but I'd left my good bass in Portland, attempted to fix my ancient Taiwanese Kay bass so that the action on it wouldn't be roughly two inches, and ended up separating the neck from the body. I called the practice space and said "hey, we're supposed to play at three, but my bass just died--" "Oh my God I'm so sorry! I can cancel your appointment, don't worry about the deposit or anything." "No, no, I think we still want to practice anyway--" "Wow, that's so cool, y'know..." "...Oh. No, the bass player didn't die. The bass is broken. The bass player is sick, but he's hanging in there." So, after trying and failing to find someone who could lend me a bass for the day, and not wanting to spend another $45 renting one for three hours, I ended up just hunt-and-pecking the bass parts on the keyboard in the practice room. For, you know, that Doors effect.)

But I am happy. And you know why? Because God Is My Co-Pilot, a.k.a. Douglas's Favorite Band Ever, played last night for the first time in four years. It was a fundraiser for ABC No Rio, and apparently the reunion just kinda ended up being scheduled--a one-off, although they might do a Scandinavian tour a little later in the year, I understand. This was, of course, a slightly new lineup: Sharon & Craig, and Christine Bard, and then Matt Bua and some guy named Jason I didn't know. They sounded great. A few new songs, a few late-period live standards ("Leave You Alone," "Hutzulka," "Smooth & Clean"), a few things pulled out of the deep deep catalogue--a very short song called "Uncircumcised Twin" (maybe a Plastic Idols cover?), which I think they'd only ever played once before about ten years ago; "I Tanz Jo Net"; freaking "Moonshake," my favorite unreleased GodCo song (actually a medley of two Margaret Fiedler songs). And they ended with "Two Meats." And Sharon made fun of me from the stage every chance she got. Only a few people in the audience I recognized from the old days--notably GodCo's old fan club president Nancy, who is now Danny, and his friend Joe, plus Chris from Fly Ashtray. I will be floating from this one for a while yet.

Posted by Douglas at April 5, 2004 6:24 AM
Comments

I never saw 'em, because I am lame, but the Ajax single & the Hattifatteners (hope I got the name right, there) stuff always tickled the hell outta me & I meant to investigate further. How many albums are still in print/around?

Posted by: J0hn Darnielle on April 10, 2004 3:27 AM
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