well, we didn't win the talent show thing monday night. but that doesn't mean we didn't play a great show. we all felt really good about the night. larry had crazy tim the tool man taylor cuts and burns on both hands yet still pulled off a great show. scott actually spoke into the mic and that sent me into a vintage style banter fest. we'd really, really, really like to thank the people that came to see us. you guys were freaking loud during the applause-meter part of the contest. so thanks a million! someone told me that just because we didn't win doesn't make us losers. then they started cracking up.

i went to see a free wilco show last night. it was freaking hot and freaking good. de novo dahl kicked things off as an acoustic duo. i love the acoustic duo but i gotta admit it sucks that they get roped into playing as the duo so often. i thought i was being original when i asked them to open for us as the duo back in march. now it sounds like it's a common occurrence. luckily the rest of the band is all really cool and they show up to cheer on their front men. anyway, they are a good "band" so i'd encourage people to go to their shows or at least check out their website.

after de novo dahl was preston school of industry. for those of you that don't know, psoi is the new band fronted by pavement's scott kannberg, a.k.a "spiral stairs". i never had the chance to see pavement so i felt like i was fulfilling a dream in some ways. from the first note i totally recognized the noodley guitar solos. the band played with the same nonchalant attitude that i loved so much about pavement. plus they screwed up a couple times so that was great to see and just what i'd expect from a guy that used to be in pavement. he even played an old pavement song that i didn't know. some song called 'now it's time' i think. i gave spiral stairs the rock fist and he just smiled back at me kinda confused.

wilco took forever to come out on stage. i counted the roadie tuning up over twenty guitars. that seemed a bit ridiculous to me. they finally hit the stage as a song from willy wonka was playing. that was pretty cool. for those of you keeping score, jeff tweedy wore a jean jacket the enitre show. totally buttoned up and everything. they played just about every song from yankee hotel foxtrot so the overall mood was kind of "snoozer" as jeff put it. all of the new songs sounded pretty cool and the quiet/loud dynamics were extra emphasized in a good way. they played several songs from being there and summerteeth but they didn't play any songs from A.M. we got to hear the california stars song and a new experimental "skronk" song featuring ALL of PSOI on percussion. they closed the set with a punk cover that i wasn't familiar with. maybe the buzzcocks?

okay here's the part you've been waiting for. let me just say that i love ken coomer. he's one of my favorite drummers in a world and a foxymorons fan to boot. that said, i'm glad tweedy kicked him out of the band. i totally understand. this glen guy is a amazing on drums. he was playing a zillion things at once. he'd be playing a beat then somehow pick up a mallet and start playing vibes, chimes, xylophone, wood blocks, and strange electro percussion. it was just really cool. he made the concert and the songs much more interesting for me. verde brian and i were loving looking at each other in disbelief when he'd do a new trick. the leroy guy on keys looked just like my dad so that was kinda strange to see. my dad and jeff tweedy rocking out together. wild. all in all i liked the new band. it did seem kinda empty sometimes though. but i understand the "let it breathe" mentality. i was also impressed by jeff tweedy's lead guitar skills. he was jamming out on some songs. oh yea, the bass player was good as usual.

so i guess that's my report. tonight i'm headed down to the river to see jetpack play with their favorite band sister hazel. he he ha ha.

oops, i didn't realize larry had already posted. sorry larry. i know we'll never have to worry about this problem with scott.

last night was pretty fun. plenty of people came out so that was nice. we'd like to thank those of you that came to hear the music and show some support. scott was even talking about giving people kisses on the mouth next time to show his appreciation. for some reason i was extra talkative on stage so i'd like to apologize to anyone that feel asleep during one of my lectures. i'll try to control that better next time.

here's the setlist. sunshine, fifteen again, i say luxury you say liners (silly feable weiner cover while larry worked on his pedals), restless, over bored, dreaming (i invited people to slow dance) woman (dedicated to all the ladies), allison's starting to happen (impromptu lemonheads cover by david), waiting for the sun, breaking out.

we're playing some 'battle of the bands' kinda thing in two weeks so i guess we'll be planning our winning strategy next week. maybe taking the uniforms to a new level? who knows.

the washington dc trip was a blast. due to the relative short notice of the gig and the holiday weekend, we were unable to rent our usual minivan-type vehicle. larry tried and tried to find one but had no luck. we ended up renting a chevy blazer. yea, a blazer. very NOT rock-n-roll. somehow we managed to get all of our gear stuffed in there. we left nashville on friday night and drove to some small town in virginia. crashed at a days inn for four hours. i won the usual game of quarters to see who gets the bed!

on saturday morning we skipped the stale and pathetic continental breakfast in favor of mcdonald's extra value meals. yum. tunes for the trip included ben kweller, alanis, feable weiner, remy zero, phantom planet, wilco, everman, andreas johnson, and a bunch of other junk that i can't remember. we arrived at founding lux liner chad's house around noon. chad is living just outside of dc this summer doing a law internship. he's studying to be a lawyer. it was great to see him and melissa. they took us to a burger/ice cream joint called friendly's. the unemployed law student paid for my sandwich. i'd just been in the $500,000 house that he was staying in so i happily let him do it. after lunch the liners drove on to the concert stage and the edgingtons went home for a while.

it was really exciting to work our way down constitution avenue. i felt like i was in a movie seeing all of those historic landmarks. we were so close to the white house but we never saw george jogging or anything. the stage was on the steps of one of the smithsonian museums. so we were surrounded by buildings. kinda cool. as soon as we got there we unloaded and did our soundcheck. next thing i knew it was 4:00 and they said to be ready a few minutes before 5:00. so we kinda walked around for a while, dropped the kids off at the pool, then changed into our matching drabs. i was shocked to see people actually standing at the front of the stage before our set. i'm used to people standing as far away as possible. we didn't even know these people.

some cheesy dj introduced us and we fired into sunshine. everything sounded good to me on stage. i could see chad and melissa out in the crowd so that was nice. the set list was: sunshine, fifteen again, it's you, restless, woman, over bored, waiting for the sun, and breaking out. the people up front seemed to be into it. i managed to do some stupid banter that got some screams from the back of the crowd too. it was kinda strange to be playing with the sun shining all over us but it was still very rocking. we ended up meeting a bunch of people and found out that some people were actually there just to see us. that was cool. we signed a few autographs and somehow chad ended up signing autographs too. classic chad. he had to pull out his drivers license to prove that was him in the sound as ever liner notes.

we ended up skipping all the other bands and going sightseeing. melissa bought us all metro passes so we took the subway closer to the monuments and stuff. i'd never been on a subway before. i felt like... i was in a movie. we saw the great mall, capitol, washington monument, reflection pool, lincoln memorial, korean memorial, vietnam memorial, and some other stuff from a distance. did loads of walking and complaining. my uncle-in-law's name is on the vietnam memorial but he's alive. i snapped a picture of that for andie. we finally made our way back to the concert area and ate at fuddruckers. more burgers and shakes. after that we told the edgingtons goodbye and headed for the hotel. larry won the game of quarters that night and got an entire suite to himself. scott and i watched andrew wk on saturday night live. wow.

sunday was a long day of driving. started out at a burger king where scott order way too much food and larry and i ate cini-minis. the crazy thing about the burger king was that no one spoke english. all of the employees and patrons were speaking spanish. we found that funny since we were about 5 minutes from the nation's capitol. now that i'm thinking about it, somehow larry got out of driving on this trip and i never had to sit in the back seat. cool for us. got back to nashville around 5 and scott and i dropped off the blazer. we'd grown to love it.

sorry this is so long. just wanted to share. thanks to madbooking, the edgingtons, and the chevy blazer. here's the concert video if you'd like to see our show. you just need the real video player.

we had a good time at the exit/in with feable weiner. this week we're getting ready for our dc show where we'll be seeing former lux liner chad edgington. he's doing a summer law internship there. saturday we had a band photo session at my house. we even had two photographers at this one. hope to share some images soon. thanks to amy and wes.