The trip was incredible, thanks for asking. When your day's most important question is "Should I go to the beach now, or stay in this giant bed a little longer?", it's a good holiday. This was the view from my lounge chair where I spent the week reading "On The Road With The Ramones", the book written by longtime Ramones tour manager Monte Melnick...a great read for any fan of the band. Saint Martin is known for it's amazing restaurants and extravagant cuisine, but I'm all about the cheap plate of local food. I literally had grouper for either lunch or dinner every day. Props to my peeps at Pineapple Pete on the Dutch side of the island for their delicious Presidente Beer-battered grouper & chips.Fresh off the plane home, I made my bid for the 2006 Nobel Good Deed Award...against my better judgment, I took my mom to a taping of MARTHA, the Martha Stewart TV show at Chelsea Studios on 26th Street. I hate TV show tapings, since they are usually incredibly uncomfortable, boring, unentertaining, and always feature an audience full of out-of-town knuckleheads and rubes looking to see "stars" for free. And even though these stars are right in front of their eyes, invariably they will watch the entire taping on one of the monitors instead. Dopes.
Anyway, Martha's show was actually a lot of fun. The load-in of audience members was not the usual cattle stampede, there was a pretty tasty table set up of biscotti (you know Martha's not gonna put a bowl of Cheez-It's out...) and six shades of Vitamin Water for us (of which we were encouraged to fill our bags with to take home), and since the show tapes in live time, it was all over in about 75 minutes. It's not every day a fella can say he learned how to saute cauliflower with Antonio Sabato, Jr...
Highlight of the event for me was before the show, when a reporter for Martha's radio show on Sirius interviewed my Mom for broadcast. She asked my Mom, "If you could ask Martha Stewart any question in the world, what would you ask?". My Mom replies with, "Oh my, I wouldn't dare. I wouldn't have the nerve." I'm sure that clip's gonna be sent around by Martha's staff like a viral video.Her studio is really beautiful. Last time I was in that building was for a So Graham Norton taping, and it was amazing to see the transformation. Above is a shot of Martha yapping about checking your fire extinguishers every time you turn your clocks back or forward. My show will be on Monday morning...I shouldn't be hard to find in the audience, as I was one of 3 dudes amongst about 200 older ladies. Is it wrong that I find Martha kinda hot?
Last night I saw Editors again at Webster Hall. It was another great show, and obviously they are getting better as they continue to tour. Definitely a band that sounds better in bigger venues than small clubs, and they played with quite a bit more confidence than when I saw them in London in December.
A nice bonus to the night was opening band The Big Sleep. An NYC trio with a huge psych-prog sound, they played a set of mostly instrumental and intricately percussive songs that kind of force a comparison to The Secret Machines, but influenced more by Black Sabbath and less by Pink Floyd. I guess that doesn't really sum them up properly, so listen for yourself:
The Big Sleep - "Murder" mp3
The Big Sleep - "Brown Beauty" mp3
The Big Sleep - "You Can't Touch The Untouchable" mp3
Rather than get all rock-critic about them, I should just say they were really, really good. I can't wait to see a full set by them. According to their website, their next gig is 12 April @ Northsix with Baltimore's Wilderness.
Become friends with The Big Sleep at MySpace.
And, oh yeah, I'm guest blogging at spinachdip nyc today.
No comments:
Post a Comment