the eastern seaboard, continued

this will be a fragmentary blog, as events are still unfolding as we write; and we seem to have misplaced erik's camera--within which are stored many images crucial to our narrative. at some point, once we clean out the van and find the thing, we'll throw in another all-photo entry. but for now it's text only i'm afraid.
one last little bit about boston: on our last night in town dave and i decided to let aaron have matt and colleen to himself and joined erik at his old school friend erika's house out on a secret little spit of land north of town, surrounded on 3.5 sides by the atlantic ocean. there was delicious barbecued chicken, pork chops, expensive bourbon, conversations about the future of local print jounalism, and--most importantly--a deliciously bracing swim in the ocean the next morning. erika, don't ever move from that spot! you've got it too good.
yesterday we wormed our way through traffic into the belly of the beast (i.e., new york) where we had a gig at the TRASH BAR in williamsburgh, brooklyn's fabled hipster ground zero neighborhood. what we thought was a 9pm gig was actually moved to 8pm, and we scrambled to get ourselves ready in time. part of this scramble entailed driving down to (the much cooler) neighborhood of red hook where we were quickly taken in by the nurturing arms of one GARETH HUGHES, owner of the 'down under bakery' (i.e. DUB PIES)--a very chill cafe serving delicious and authentic meat pies for all the antipodean expats (translation: people from australia and new zeland) and their friends. wow, that was quite the run-on sentence. i'll be better with my grammar from here out--promise! gareth graciously opened up the kitchen for us and made us all feel human again by way of steak and mushroom pies, spinach-ricotta pies, chicken pot-pies, and the 'best coffee drink in new york' known as the 'flat-white'.
re-energized, we scooted back to williamsburg to our first big new york gig, YES! well...not really. it's ironic that the earliest show we play all tour long happens to be in the once city where people don't start going out until after 11pm. the irony was not lost on us as we were first on the bill, playing to a handful of loyal friends, and not many more. this lead me to develop three theories about rock and roll and williamsburgh brooklyn:
1) rock and roll is dead--before 10pm
2) this particular part of the brooklyn 'scene' seems to be a mostly paint-by-numbers affair, with everyone popular sporting the right rock and roll hairdo, the proper equipment, playing the requisite chords and striking the tried-and-true poses. it's funny that in this supposed hotbed of creativity and innovation, people are more attracted (than anywhere else we've seen so far) to the familiar and comfortable.
3) there is no collegiality among bands here. they don't listen and support each other's music like they do elsewhere--it just seems like they're there to compete.
or maybe i'm just bitter because a pint of stella cost me $6.
ok, there's a danger that we might never see any of new york except the inside of gareth's pie shop--it's so comfortable and welcoming. so it's time to cut the umbilical and go be a tourist before we play again tonight at the LIT LOUNGE in the east village.
more soon....