dirty truckers


What a weekend!

[flagallery gid=3 name=Gallery]

 

Wow!
I’m still recovering from this weekend! Check out just a few of the photos Mick Murray took both nights! There are a TON more, and a bunch from other photographers as well!

Our silent auction for studio time ended on Sunday at 8pm and the winners have all been notified.  In case you’re wondering who to get friendly with really quickly, it’s:

Four hours at Woolly Mammoth Studio with Dave Minehan

Mike Oliver, ‘Hoods fan extraordinaire, won the Woolly time.

A Day in Studio B at Q Division with Ed Valauskas
AND
Two songs mastered at Peerless with Jeff Lipton

Well planned bidding earned Ken Rothman and his band studio time, not only at Q Division but at Peerless as well!

A Day at Zippah with Brian Charles

Frank D’Urso(aka FrankD from the Noise Board) clicked away with Zippah time!

 

Thanks to all of the bands, the Davis Square Theatre and all of the folks who donated raffle and silent auction items!
Thanks to all of the fans who came out, and to new friends met both nights!

MS doesn’t rest, so neither do we.  The ride is 10/21 and next year’s shows are already being planned.

The Upper Crust by Amy Fairchild

 


About a month away…

It’s getting closer to show time!  I’m still getting raffle and silent auction items coming in (as well as questions and rejections, which are just part of the process I suppose), and I’ve just concluded a summer class.  I’m super tired, but there’s still a lot to do for the shows!

 

Posters are in- you should start to see them around town soon.  There’s a very limited number of the silk screened posters, so keep an eye out for them! If you like them and part of  you thinks that no one will notice one poster going missing around town… just email me instead. I’ll give you one if we have extra.  Seriously.

 

In a week, all folks who are interested can begin bidding on studio time online.  Here is all of the info for those items:

woolly mammoth sound logo

Four (4) hours of studio time with Dave Minehan

 

Zippah Studios Giveaway Flyer

A Day at Zippah with Brian Charles

 

Q Division logo

A day in Studio B with Ed Valauskas

 

peerless logo

Two (2) songs mastered at Peerless by Jeff Lipton

 

None of these are small places looking for exposure; You’re pretty much not going to get this sort of caliber of studio prize options without having to get picked for the Rumble.  Even better? You don’t have to endure getting knocked out of the running by having a bad set or vindictive judge. This is the first time I’m running the silent auction online, so I’m hoping that it works out even better than last year.

 

You’ll be hearing more from me, as well as the Night Ridah, very soon!  I’m really looking forward to two days in the Davis Square Theatre.

 


Moving day? 4

Moving day. No matter the reason, the actual act of moving can be both good and bad at once.

Sometimes, bad news can lead to a dramatic positive change. Bad news in this case had to do with internal situations at Church. I didn’t want to deal with the major changes they decided they need to go through with.  My unhappiness about that situation lead me to wonder aloud, “where else can I go at this point?”

Charlie Brown

I have a lot more hair, though.

That somewhere, it just so happened, was the Davis Square Theater (the artist formerly known as Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway).

Except… they didn’t have the same dates I had booked originally for this show. They did, however, have a Friday/Saturday reserved for a friend of mine two weeks later.

Here’s where it get interesting.  Did you know that BikeMS NYC pushed back the ride from September 30th to October 21?  I booked Crash Safely thinking it was going to be closer to the ride than it ended up being. The theater had also hosted another MS event last year and mentioned that they’d like to host Crash Safely sometime.

All of the bands were/are able to move to the new dates, two weeks later.

New ticket links are on the way, but the change in venue comes with a few pluses:

First of all, there are seats.  While this may not matter for most rock shows, seating can be a make-or-break thing for MSers.  Last time I was at Church, there weren’t many chairs left on the club side.

Secondly, the parking/Red Sox/general weirdness of the Fenway is now in the past.  Spend enough time in that area, and even the most hardcore Red Sox fan will become loudest voice of dissent against them.

Third, the 21+ thing. That goes hand in hand with the strangeness of the Fenway.  Last year, the shows were 18+.  This year, they would have been 21+ by default, as the city has decided the club is in a residential area and….I guess they blame 18 year olds for the mayhem generally caused by drunken Sox fans?

Moving to the theater means new ticket links as well.  Don’t worry if you’ve already bought tickets; those are still good.  The nice thing with the new ticket system is that you’ll be able to make a donation as well as buy the tickets (after all, the tickets are donations to the National MS Society). There are also a lot more options in terms of how you get your tickets (will call, print at home, on your smartphone or mailed to you).  I’m looking forward to seeing how many different ways the tickets will be ‘printed.’

 

While the details are still be (re)worked out, know this:

Crash Safely is being held on 9/28 and 9/29 at the Davis Square Theater in Somerville, MA.

The only thing that’s changed is the date and the venue.

S’alright?

Duc D'istortion

S'alight.


Rock’n’Roll Yard sale, part 2 1

QD yard saley

photo by Brendan Haley

We finally have a beautiful day on the weekend in Boston.  All that rain was getting a little trying; even my cats were depressed.  It turned out to be a perfect day for the second annual Q Division Yard Sale.  I was going to take photos while I was there but… I was talking to people.

And buying records.

And doing some more talking.

Here’s the thing.  Today was the first time almost 5 years that I could do something like this.  No, not singing John Cale’s “Ooh La La” in public (although now that I think about it, that may be the first time I did that solo).  To get to Q Division, I need walk just under a mile to get to the red line and then walk a few blocks to the studio.  Not that long ago, I would have been faced with a choice: take a bus to the train then try to catch a cab near Q Division, bus to the train then walk and hope I can make it, or don’t go at all because I can’t get down the stairs in my apartment.

More often than not, my ‘choice’ was always the last one.  I couldn’t move my body the way my brain wanted to move. It just wasn’t going to happen at all. That was far more depressing than seemingly unending rain.  The feeling that I couldn’t do something because I simply could not move was more than enough to make me want to crawl into a hole a whimper for a while.  That’s all I could do, anyway.

I think about that every so often, but it didn’t cross my mind at the yard sale until I started to think about how hot my foot was feeling in the midday sun.  I’m good at collecting sunburns, so I thought I was in the processes of earning my first for this year and then thought about the fact that I couldn’t go to this last year because I couldn’t move the way I can today.

banana t

It could've been worse, I guess. I didn't have to wear this on the train...

Anyway, on to the yard sale!

Lots of gear and instruments, but mainly (for me), records.  As I turned the corner and saw the yard sale, the first person I saw was none other than Brett Milano, old pal and rock fanatic extraordinaire. We were catching up and I mentioned I was trying to track a certain someone down for Crash Safely, but have been just missing him.  Just as I say that, who should appear, playing with a fuzz box?

Why, the person I was just saying I couldn’t get a hold of, wearing a leather jacket in 80 degree weather (for those non-Northeastern US folks reading: we pull out the shorts when the temp gets to about 65 degrees F ’round these parts).  I wandered over and we both went back to the comfy, shady area Brett had picked out for his yard sale table and we all got talking.

It turns out Day One of the shows is also Brett’s birthday.

I wanted to add one more act to that show to balance the bills and so that there would be some timing difference (long, boring and slightly political story). I wanted this person in particular (who played last year) to play the show.   It was a no-brainer- he answered emphatically he wanted to do it then started toying with a Joan Jett record Brett was selling.

Actually, a bunch of the Day One bands were at the yard sale- ran into Tom Baker (and most of the rest of the Truckers) and had a long, fun talk with him.

So, my hunt for vinyl actually ended in an addition to the shows!

I’m going to make an official statement soon (and when the Ridah’s back, we have to update the ticket links and all of that fun).

This means:

  • 10 bands total over 2 nights
  • The cost doesn’t change
  • I can finally get the posters made

 

 

In case you’re wondering, I did not, in fact, get a sunburn today.