Моя кошка и мои коты

Моя кошка зовут Луди. Она маленькая. Мои коты зовут Ифус и Донни. Ифус и Донни болшие. Они хорошие.

Моя гостиная

Моя любимая комната моя гостиная. Она светлая. Окнa большие. Стол старый и импортый. Кресло новое и неимпортое.

Моя семья

Моя семья музыканты. Моя бабушка не музыкантка. Мой брат и мой одец хорошые ударникы. я тоже ударника. Моя маты пианистка.

Русский Блог

Здравствуйте! Меня зовут Кэти Демески. Я студентка в Монтклар Штат Университете. Я живу в Халдоне.

All Tomorrow's Parties & the Bearsville Theater

This weekend, I was able to go as a guest to the first day of All Tomorrow's Parties in Monticello, New York. Of course, it just had to rain that day. When we got there, it was quite cold and nasty and we had to wander around for a bit and be directed to several different places in order to check in as guests. After we got settled, we walked into the venue (Kutsher's) which is a "resort." It was old, weird, smelly, labyrinthine and extremely creepy. It basically looked like the hotel in The Shining, but not as nice. In other words, it was a dump. Also, there was royal blue carpet on the wall in some places.

I was able to see a bit of the Drones', Suicide's, and Panda Bear's sets, but I only watched the Feelies' and Iron & Wine's performances in full. The Stardust Ballroom in Kutshers made the sound very rumble-y. This made the bass shake the room in such a way that you felt it, and it wasn't pleasant. That's why I only watched one song by Suicide and a few by Panda Bear. I put my lens cap down on a ledge during Suicide's set, and it vibrated off the ledge and I lost it: that's how bad the rumbling was. I must admit though, I don't actually like Suicide's music, but I figured I'd never get a chance to see them again and I kind of like the idea of them. So I went in fo their first song, and they made me laugh. Think about it: two old guys: one with Bozo the Clown hair wearing iridescent goggles and playing a heavily distorted synthesizer, and the other an even older man (I believe he's 70 or 71) yelling into a microphone. They actually made my brother angry. He kept saying, "That's not music!" But I think that's kind of the idea. I guess it was worth my lens cap to be able to say that I saw Suicide.

As for the Drones, they were ok. Panda Bear was good, but could have put on a more visually interesting show, but I guess seeing Black Moth Super Rainbow live has made me a bit jaded on this subject, because their shows are so visually stimulated, you kinda feel like you're high.

The Feelies (and, I assume, most of the bands that played earlier) were not allowed a soundcheck either. However, they sounded as good as possible in that place and played well (as always). They played the newly re-issued Crazy Rhythms in it's entirety and were able to get two encores in, probably because Crazy Rhythms is so short. I really wished that they had played the also newly re-issued The Good Earth, because I like it better, but it was easier for them to ply Crazy Rhythms because Bill didn't have to do as many guitar changes.

After the Feelies' set, my mom, brother, and I ate. The food was actually pretty good. We all had wraps and sesame noodles. Unfortunately, since the food was outside, it was quite uncomfortable to eat there.

We pretty much waited around until Iron and Wine came on. In between, we caught a half hour or so of Gimme Shelter, which I'd never seen before and has re-awakened my love for the Rolling Stones. We had to leave at 10:15, though, in order to make it to the performances we wanted to see.

My mom and brother went to see Eugene Mirman, played the landlord on Flight of the Conchords, and David Cross, who was on Arrested Development. They said Mirman was hilarious, and Cross was good, but not as good as Mirman. I'm glad my brother was able to enjoy something other than the Feelies, though. He was pretty angry at having to be at what amounted to a hipster convention. He kept saying how he hated being amongst the hipsters. For the record though, they kinda smelled. Like musty-unwashed-clothes-greasy-hair-cigarette-and-booze-ish.

Iron and Wine was amazing. I've never been so moved by live music, and I was so close. I could not stop smiling. Apparently, the dude who was there taking pictures for brooklynvegan.com noticed that. Hence, my picture wound up on the site in this entry. There was another guy there with a Hitler-Youth-ish haircut standing right in front of me taking pictures of me also, but I can't seem to find those online. Anyway, so I've loved Iron and Wine's music for years now, and it was just so beautiful, not to mention a relief from the very... harsh music that I had heard earlier. It was just Sam Beam with his acoustic guitar. Someone blew balloons with song suggestions on them too. Sam Beam talked to the audience a lot too. He got us all singing along to everything, and we even clapped the beat to an entire song without stopping. I've never seen that happen at a show. That set was sooooo worth staying at that creepy place a few extra hours for.

One last thought on that day, I'm VERY glad we didn't see the Jesus Lizard, it would've been exhausting and apparently they kept saying "Happy 9/11!" which I find to be... quite unpleasant.

The next day, we had a completely different experience. My mom, my brother, and I wandered around Woodstock for the day, which was really cool. We got to the Bearsville Theater in late afternoon. Let me tell you, this place is BEAUTIFUL. The interior is all hard wood and it smelled nice. There was a sizeable green room, with nice couches and a table, these crazy spiral staircases, and it was in the middle of this clearing with a fountain and stone benches. Albert Grossman's even buried there. Anyway, I pretty much hung out with my family and Cala, Glenn's daughter most of the time. We ate at this cute and nice Chinese restaurant called the Little Bear. Also, it was just so chill there. I wish all the places they played at were like the Bearsville Theater.

One highlight of the day was listening to Dave tell stories and stuff right before the show. He told us that where he works, he's supposed to greet customers, and sometimes he does it in a Cockney accent. He demonstrated and we were all laughing.

The show was also a lot better than the night before. They played their usual lineup, and had four encores. The crowd was good too, and there weren't really any skeevy people either.

Anyway, it was a great vacation. There should be a few more Feelies shows coming up in November too.

Pictures from ATP & Bearsville:

The Drones
The movie lineup for the day
The crowd for Suicide
The Feelies



I couldn't take a picture of Dave, cause he was blocked by an amp, but I got a picture of his and my dad's shadows.Iron and Wine
Where we ate dinner in Bearsville
Woodstock


Pretty lanterns at the Bearsville Theater

The stairs
Souncheck

The doorsAlbert Grossman's Grave

A Year After The Reunion

So the Feelies shows came and went and, again, they were amazing. On the first night, three of my friends came. One of them, Matt, was even at the sound check. The sound check itself ran a little late, but in the first hour or so, Glenn started playing "Billie Jean". Then Dave started singing in falsetto and playing his snare to the beat. It was absolutely hilarious and kind of made my day.



Anyway, so we ate at Maxwell's and my other friends, Dan and Liebold arrived. It was pretty packed that night, but we were able to get pretty good spots. As for the actual show, this year the Feelies started things out with some more mellow songs like "When Company Comes," and a cover of "Sunday Morning." New additions to the lineup included "Egyptian Reggae", "Moscow Nights", "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey," and "Invitation" (although, as mentioned in a previous entry, they added that song on New Year's Eve). There was even one new song, "Bluer Skies" on which Brenda's husband, Rich Barnes of Wild Carnation, even played keyboard on it while sitting on the little crate that is used as a step to get to the stage at Maxwell's.

Friday night I went to the sound check with my dad because my mom and my brother were going to take the train after my mom got out of work. Anyway, Dave again started singing Michael Jackson when Andy the sound man told him he could sing into his mic if he wanted. So he sang "Thriller" and I felt the need to text Matt and inform him about it. I just chilled at Maxwell's for most of the afternoon, reading Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. The show was pretty much the same as the day before, except I was standing next to a particularly obnoxious tall drunk man who got more and more drunk as the night progressed. Regardless it was fun.

On the Fourth of July, I took the train to Hoboken with my mom and brother and it was pretty damn crowded especially for the Hawthorne train station. My dad had asked me earlier in the week if I would help Bill's nephew, Ben, film for his Feelies concert movie. Ben and his friend (Nick, I think?) had attatched a camera holder-thing to a pole and I was instructed to put the end of the pole in my pocket and film from a little farther away than I had been standing, using the screen on the camera to keep track of the shot. Ben also had all of the Feelies go into the dressing room alone and he filmed each of them for five minutes, not asking them any questions or anything. When Bill came out he said, "I feel violated."

The show, again, was great, but my mom, brother, cousin, and I had to leave a little early to catch the 12:55 train back to Hawthorne.

The band actually had quite a bit of interaction with the audience during these three shows. These are come of my favorite cheers from the crowd and things that the band said: "Haledon fucking rocks!"
"Percussion god!" (at Dave)
"Let Stanley sing!" (the guy who said this actually asked me if my dad would be offended if he said that.)
Brenda: "Thank you." Someone in the crowd, "No, thank you!"
Glen: "Hey watch your mouth, my kids are here."
Brenda: "Did you guys see the fireworks?" Someone in the crowd, "No I'd rather be here!"

One thing I kind of regret is that I didn't take too many pictures of the band, but I was more focused on enjoying the shows. Unfortunately, most of the ones I did take I accidentally deleted. I did take some interesting artsy pictures though.


To close this entry, I'd like to say that you guys should checkout my friend Matt's blog because he has an entry about the Feelies shows. Also, if you do read his entry, it refers to Dave as Dave "From the Band" Weckerman. There is a reason behind this. You see, every time Dave calls mine or my cousin's house, he says "Hi, this is Dave from the band." So my brother, cousin and I call him Dave From the Band.

So yeah, see you guys at All Tomorrow's Parties!

Yes.

Again, it's been a while.
Anyway, I'm gonna skip all the stuff that I did when I was not updating and move onto an actual blog entry.
So I have a fairly new obsession: Andrew W.K. Why? Because he's so happy about everything and his music and the other things he does reflect that. My best friend, Tubbs, commented that he's like the Meatloaf of our generation. Which seems very true as far as his attitude goes.
If you need further evidence of why Andrew W.K. is amazing, this should do it:


Feelieswise, they're playing at the Whitney this Friday. It's an "acoustic" set, which means it will be as acoustic as the Feelies can get, which isn't that feasible considering the importance of percussion in the music. Then next week, it's July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at Maxwell's. Also, they will be playing in Chicago at Millenium Park. Aaannnnddd, although it's in September, the Feelies will be playing at All Tomorrow's Parties in Monticello, New York. I'm also super excited because I get to see Iron and Wine as well!