Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

PM @ MarVell Event Center, Durham, NC

This was an interesting show and something we really haven’t been a part of before.  It was a benefit show for a local magazine and also part birthday party for the sound guy/show booker Justin.  A free show!  Before the bands started they played 5 short films about various subjects (I think there was one about the Black Panthers) and I only caught the last one, which was about how love is revolutionary and anti-capitalist and other crap like that.  Love wins over all!  Love is anarchy!  Whatever.  I thought the premise for the film was pretty lame and the supporting argument was really weak.  The filmmaker didn’t make a good case for their idea, I thought.  I did like the part where the chick got shot in her car, in the neck with blood gushing out everywhere, and she still managed to call her husband…but he sadly never picked up the phone because he was too busy working in his cubicle (with a frame picture of President Bush on the wall!) to hear the phone.  And she died, and it was SO SAD.  Actually, it was totally hilarious and I was laughing loudly.  I think the only one in the place laughing at that part.  Anyway, bad film.

The Durham Ukulele Orchestra opened the show and they were pretty good.  Lots of fun and they did good versions of a wide range of cover songs.  The audience was super quiet and completely paying attention to them (justifiably), but once they ended the conversation at the bar went up to 11 and it never decreased one bit while we were playing.  I’d guess that there were 10-15 people who were actually listening to us.  So, if you’re reading and you were listening to us…THANK YOU!  We appreciate people who actually pay attention rather than talk loudly at the bar.

Let’s see, the set was: Abused’s Song, The Storm, 10K, Surrounded By Trees & Lady Pilot.  As usual at the MarVell, the stage was super duper hot and I was dripping sweat everywhere by the time Surrounded rolled around.  The heat, whatever, you deal.  The loudness was a bit frustrating, esp. during The Storm where I couldn’t hear Jenn’s guitar too well and we got off rhythm.  Otherwise, while I was playing my thoughts on the “talkers” were just to not worry about it.  Just have fun and play well for the people who ARE listening.  I thought most of the songs went well.  Minor timing issues in Storm and a sloppy solo in 10K, but mostly they were solid.  Abused’s was solid, I liked that one.  Surrounded…holy crap, I screwed the pooch on that one.  I missed a ton of notes.  My problem with that one especially is that I don’t practice it standing up (yes, you’ve heard this before) and playing it standing up at a gig doesn’t work for me.  I have to rely on my eyes, rather than my hands, and the lights combining with the shadows on the strings messed me up a couple of times.  I just couldn’t see what I was doing.  The only fix for that is to just not look!  Even with all of my mess ups, I thought the rest of the song went well enough.  When we were on, it sounded good.

Lady Pilot was the closer and it got a bit more emotion and energy than it normally might because I was pissed off about my performance in Surrounded so I went with a general “balls out” attitude for it and that really worked.  I thought it sounded great.  I really loved my improv and then Jenn tore the damn roof off during her vocal bit.  She’s *never* sung it like that.  Absolutely awesome.

I thought she did great for the whole show.  Her guitar playing was solid and her vocals sounded great, with no assistance from lyrics on a music stand.  We still have a lot of tightening up to do, and a drummer is needed for us, but mostly it was a good show.  Frustrating at times, but for our part I thought it was fun.  A really important point for me - I think I’m over all of the “being nervous” crap.  I was a bit nervous about 20-30 minutes before we started, but once I got up there to set up the gear everything was gone and didn’t show up once during the show.  It appears to be over, thank goodness.  I was getting quite tired of it.

No shows currently lined up, so my focus is on writing new material and finding us a drummer.

NP: Frank Zappa - Easy Meat

Wow, it’s been a lot of work, but I finally finished the Protean Mean demo last night after band practice.  I’m happy with it.  It’s a lot better than the last recordings we did back in 2006.  If you’re keeping track, yes, 3 of the 4 songs are the same.  However, we’re a much tighter band now, more confident & more familiar with the material.  Plus, we have our friend Josh Stohl (bad ass) playing drums on the songs for us.  Why 3 of the same songs?  It’s a demo, and they’re our 3 best songs.  Don’t worry, we’ll record more as time goes on.

For now, go download the tracks (FREE!) over at the Protean Mean Curiosities area.

proteanmean.com

myspace.com/proteanmean

Protean Mean videos on youtube

Download our 2008 demo:

1. 10K
2. Surrounded By Trees
3. Abused’s Song
4. Lady Pilot

This blog will probably contain some spoilers for the movie, so if you don’t want to have it ruined, come back here after you see the movie.

Julie and I went to see X-Files: I Want to Believe last night.  Dumb title, but it worked in with the story.  I was skeptical about the movie as I used to be a big fan of the show, but I hated the last few seasons.  My quick story of how I got into the show: when the X-Files first came out I thought it looked pretty stupid, even though I have a fascination with aliens.  I remember my dad saying that he watched it and I thought that was pretty silly of him since to me it looked dumb.  In my first year of college (1994) my suitemates Lance & Ryan started to watch the show strictly to make fun of it, as they thought it was a dumb-looking show too.  After a few episodes of making fun, we grew to love the show and became rabid fans pretty quickly.  When I met Julie she was a fan of the show too so even after college we still watched it religiously.

We own the first X-Files movie (on VHS!) and at the time I thought it was a pretty good movie, but I was really disappointed how nothing really happened in the movie, it was just a continuation of the story and added more layers of mystery, but without resolving anything.  Of course the years following the movie was more of the same: more layers of mystery, no resolve or answers.  I’ve heard current viewers of Lost say the same thing.  My view is that the show, all of it, should have been rapped up with the first movie.  That should have been the climax.  Instead it was drug out for a few more years, BOTH main characters got replaced and I don’t think everything was really ever answered.  I’ll be honest, I gave up.  Once Mulder was gone, it was over.  I’d check in every once and a while, but I thought it became pretty bad.  Then Scully left and I was like, WTF!  You can not replace both characters and still have the TV show.

I first heard the rumors about this new movie a couple of months ago.  There really wasn’t much hype or promotion about it.  I really think it’s because the last few seasons left such a sour taste in the mouths of the fans that people were glad it was gone and didn’t really want to see it return.  Jenn & I discussed this the other day and she said that she’s been watching the last 2 seasons recently and according to her they’re pretty good.  Nowhere near as good as the classic stuff, but not as bad as we all thought when they were airing.  Maybe I’ll go back and watch them, sometime; maybe they need a reassessment.

It was Julie’s idea to see the new movie, but I also thought it might be interesting to see what they would do.  I have to say, it was really great to see Mulder and Scully together again.  It’s really like old friends who you haven’t seen in 7 or 8 years.  Where did they go?  What are they doing?  Well, Scully’s a doctor at some Catholic hospital and Mulder stays at home all day and seems to have gone a bit bonkers from constantly hiding out from the FBI.  It’s slowly revealed in the movie, but it turns out that Mulder & Scully are in a relationship and have been for some unknown amount of time.  Years, I guess.  OK, they’re a couple, and have been for a while, but they STILL call each other “Mulder” and “Scully”!  Whatever.  No “Fox” or “Dana”.  Even when in bed (yes, there’s a slight bed scene, though nothing happens other than talking) they call each other by their last names.  Still, once Mulder gets back into the life of being an FBI type guy, he becomes the old smart ass Mulder we all remember.  Scully, I guess, is an extension of how her character was heading throughout the TV series.  She started off very fact-based and scientific, and then moved to be more emotional to where now it seems she’s way more emotional than logical.  That was part of the original greatness of the series - you had Mulder who had crazy ideas about aliens and paranormal activity, while Scully was the grounded, scientific, logical one.  I appreciate the continuity from the series, but I prefer her the old way.

I do have to say, that Gillian Anderson still looks absolutely smoking.  She looks great with long hair.

Anyway, I was surprised, but ultimately happy that the movie was not centered around the “mythology” and the whole alien story.  Yeah, there was supernatural stuff, but it wasn’t about aliens.  Other than a few comments about Mulder’s sister and how he’s still looking for her, it had nothing to do with aliens.  You know, I liked the movie.  To me it seemed like one of the good two-parters that they had in the series.  I think it would compare with a good two-parter from the immediate post “Fight the Future” years.  Not amazing, but there was certainly a good amount of paranormal, belief vs. science, trippy stuff, some scary bits, some bits that definitely made you squirm.  I also like how they brought back the Russians as the “enemy” of the movie.  I don’t know why it is, but growing up in the 70’s and 80’s the Russians were always the enemy in movies and it’s still comfortable, I guess.

Overall, yeah, I liked the movie.  Some parts were kind of blah, but for the most part I liked it and it certainly kept the door open for more movies (my preference) or maybe TV episodes.  I think I’d prefer them to do 1 or 2 movies and completely wrap up the whole story.

Julie and I spent an extended weekend in Charlotte this past weekend. It was our first time to visit the city, which is kind of odd since it’s the biggest city in the state and only 2 hours away. The trip revolved around the Rush show that we were seeing on Sunday night, so we thought we’d make a weekend of it. As it turned out, Julie had a business presentation/meeting in Charlotte on Friday morning so we headed out Thursday after work. I worked remotely from our hotel room so it worked out nicely for both of us.

For proximity to Julie’s meeting we ended up staying in 2 different hotels, the Marriott City Center smack in the middle of downtown for the first two nights and a Sleep Inn out near the concert venue for the last two nights. It’s not really “fun” to move your stuff, but being that she was getting reimbursed for the first night at the Marriott, I’ll take it. After dropping off the luggage we wandered around downtown looking for a place to eat. There were still a few eateries open that late in the area, but nothing really piqued our interest so we ended up eating at the sports bar in the hotel. The food was good and I had some nice beer so I was happy.

As the hotel offered “free wireless”, we attempted our first of many tries at getting online after dinner, and even with a tech support call we were unsuccessful except for a quick 1-minute time period. Friday morning I was once again on the phone with tech support and we managed to get it working long enough for Julie to check her email before heading to the meeting. That left me to try to work from the hotel room. The stupid internet (wired, the wireless was hopeless) rarely worked. It would be on for a few minutes and then die. I called tech support a few more times during the day and the longest it ever worked for me was for about an hour before lunch. When lunchtime hit I decided I needed a break so I showered and went out in search of food. I ended up eating at a little place called the Dogwood Cafe located in the Latta Arcade. It’s amusing that there are so many “Latta” places around Charlotte, as this is one of the hundreds of names that Julie calls me.

I had a turkey sandwich with black beans, white rice and some iced tea. A nice lunch. I slowly worked my way back to the hotel, stopping at a TCBY and having some frogurt. Happy James! I arrived back at the hotel literally 5 seconds after Julie did. On her way back from the meeting she noticed a cool wine bar where we’d go for dinner. I tried again to get online, since we both had to work remotely for the rest of the day, and was again unsuccessful so we decided to go down to the hotel’s business center and work there. Wouldn’t you know it, the wireless worked perfectly down there. Stupid Marriott.

Once 5pm hit we walked around in search of something related to Happy Hour. I showed her the “Latta Arcade”, which she got a kick out of and we had drinks at Mimosa Grill (beer and wine, not mimosas as would be expected). We then headed a few blocks away to Press, the wine bar & restaurant that Julie spotted earlier. This place totally kicked ass! It’s almost like a wine store, except for once you buy the wine, you sit down at a table and drink the wine and eat food. It’s nice to just pick out a wine from HUGE selection on the walls and have a good dinner. I think we chose a Spanish wine, but I could be wrong. Regardless, it was excellent and it went perfectly with the gruyere fondue & the Antipasto with baby fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, olives, aged provolone, prosciutto, coppa, mortadella, & hard salami. Yeah, YUM. For dessert we had the chocolate fondue which was also excellent. The food & wine were excellent, the atmosphere was great and the staff was super friendly and knowledgeable. After the meal we got some more wine and beer to go so we’d have something for the night.

I brought my swimsuit, so I went swimming in the hotel pool while Julie watched me and read her book. It was really nice to swim around for a bit. I don’t think I’ve swam since Hawaii back in December so it was great to get back in the water. I’m not the best swimmer (anymore…I used to be a lifeguard so I had some ability back then), but being in water is still a completely natural state to me. I think I might feel more “at home” in a body of water than walking around on the ground. So yeah, I enjoyed it immensely. After the pool we headed outside on the balcony and just chilled out drinking our beers. We had a real good conversation about our childhoods - I always love learning more stuff about Julie and studying the way she works.

Saturday we got up early enough to hit Bojangles and check out on time before we went exploring. We checked out Dilworth (nice neighborhood with great old homes and Latta Park, which we walked around in), Elizabeth & Myers Park neighborhoods before heading to our lunch destination at Phat Burrito in the SouthEnd. Good (not amazing) and HUGE burritos. We were happy. We then headed all the way up north to our 2nd hotel, the Sleep Inn. It’s true that Sleep Inn wasn’t as “nice” as the Marriott, but I liked it better. The internet worked with ease, there were twice as many cable channels & we had a mini-fridge AND a microwave in there. In the Marriott there was a bottle of water on the table with a warning note saying that we’d be charged $4 if we drank it. Lame.

After check-in and luggage drop off we drove around UNC-Charlotte’s campus and that was pretty uneventful. It looked like a community college that was built in the 80’s. No personality whatsoever. Next we stopped by the grocery store and got some dinner which we ate back in the hotel room. We finished off the night by watching Jackass 2 & Weeds on TV before heading to bed.

Sunday we got some breakfast and walked for a while at the Reedy Creek Park & Nature Preserve. After showers we headed out to lunch at a brewery I found on the internet, Southend Brewery and Smokehouse. It was way down back in the SouthEnd near Phat Burrito. When we arrived where it was supposed to be…it wasn’t there. Julie called and they had closed. Sooooo, we headed all the way back up to the area where we were staying and went to a place Julie saw in the yellow pages called Bad Dog Burgers & Brew. Not a brewery, but they had a great beer selection. Cool place, good atmosphere and the food was awesome. I had a blackened burger with blue cheese & bacon and it was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had in my life. I do not kid about this. It was *SO* good.

After the food we took it easy and rested until the Rush concert, which was only a few miles away from the hotel. I’ll write more about it in the concert review for the show, but overall it was a great show. The first set featured some classics and some cool obscure tunes that made me really happy (Ghost of a Chance!). The 2nd set started off really weak as the band decided to play *5* songs in a row from their recent and boring/crappy/uninspired 2007 album, Snakes and Arrows. Thankfully the rest of the 2nd set was geared towards the classics so things picked back up pretty quickly. Even for the amount of boring newer material they played, it was still a really good show and I was happy with it. Julie had a good time too, even though she thought it was about half an hour too long. Yes, my wife enjoyed a Rush concert! She still liked the Adrian Belew show from last month a lot more, but I guess I’ll be OK with that.

Sunday we took our time driving home, stopping by a couple of wineries on the way back to Durham. We first hit the Childress winery, which had a great tasting room and beautiful grounds, but the wine wasn’t too hot. It showed me that even if you have a ton of money (the guy is a NASCAR team owner and champion and all that stupid crap) and can hire top-notch people, you’re not always going to get the best wine. You could tell that the place was geared toward presentation and not WINE. The 2nd winery, however, was tremendously better. RayLen had gorgeous grounds, an extremely nice staff and great wine. Surprise surprise, they actually make good red wine, the first good red wine that either Julie or I have tasted that came from the state of North Carolina.

So, a good trip. We were happy to get home and see the cats and relax (playing guitar for me) before having to start the workweek. That’s probably going to be our last big trip for the year so I’m glad that we crammed so much in and had a lot of fun.

NP: oh lots of music on shuffle - Keneally, Belew, Flat Mass, Bruce Dickinson, Phish, Zappa, Rush & currently on Megadeth’s Mary Jane.