we then went to see black book. This movie is great. i highly recommend you watch it sometime.
later that night maj, xx and i were at local 138. there was some weird show on the tvs called "when good pets go bad", which seemed to focus primarily on elephants and giant cats misbehaving (loose definition of "pet"), but ultimately led xx and maj to mock me once again for my love of america's funniest home videos. i know it's a crap show, but nothing makes me laugh like watching people fall down. i explained this to them again and recounted a story about how i once fell and couldn't get up for 10 minutes because i was laughing so hard and then immediately burst into hysterics the next day when i recounted the story to a friend. (i was giggling even when i told xx and maj about it, three-odd years later.)
anyway, it seemed rather fitting that, on the way to the subway, i took a giant header on essex. i don't really know what happened except there was a cellar door involved and maj came over and found me lying, rather confused, on the sidewalk. as soon as i figured out what had happened, i started laughing. amazingly, i was relatively unscathed after the incident. if i'd been sober, i'm entirely sure it would have been a much worse scenario, but i only have scrapes on my palms (stigmata, just in time for easter), and one bruised knee.
so monday night west river and i managed to finagle our way into the Andrew Bird show at Union Hall. there are barely words to describe the mind-blowingness of this gig. first off, he was like three feet away from us. well, here are some pictures:
He's a funny cat, and his drummer is pretty sincerely multi-talented. he would be drumming w/one hand, looping himself with one foot, drumming with the other foot and playing keyboard with the other hand. it kinda reminded me of a musical tasmanian devil.
But old AB himself is pretty fun to watch, too. he played the first song with one shoe (red & black stripey socks, for anyone keeping track), and removed the second one shortly after finishing. the stocking feet helped with all the freaking buttons he had on the floor to loop himself and do other weird tricks. he would do the violin part first and then run back and put the violin/bow down and play the guitar for the rest of the song. he did a lot of running to and fro. and also there was a glockenspiel. fuck yeah, glockenspiel. you can see the sort of double-barreled phonograph behind him and in the picture without any people. he fed his violin through that and stepped on a peddle to make it whirl around, throwing the sound all over the place. i guess that's like a musical tasmanian devil, too. or a game of ping-pong with sound. anyway, you can see the setlist all for yourself. but i was most blown away by his whistling. it sounds ethereal on the recordings, but he can actually pull that shit off live. and it looks like he puts no effort at all into it. i don't know how he gets that vibrato kicking. and his voice is lovely, as well. excellent show, i say. he was on letterman last night, which if you missed, you should check the repeat date and dvr the shit out of it.
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