more talk/less pictures, but an update nontheless

05/09 - 05/10

Getting out of New York is one of the hardest things in the world to do. Not necessarily out of a love for the city, but because traffic is always terrible. We sat bumper-to-bumper for about as long as a drive from New York to Philadelphia should take.

Philadelphia is and will always be one of my favorite cities in the world. I spent quite a bit of time there the year after I graduated high school, so merely passing all of the places where I wanted to go hang out was a big tease and reminder that I need to make a leisure trip to Philadelphia. I didn't get pretzels, I didn't eat at Gianna's, and most importantly I didn't see any of my best Philly friends. That needs to change next-go-round.

The only show I had ever been to at the First Unitarian Church was Panda Bear during the summer of 2007. That was inside the actual pew and altar sanctuary area. Most shows are held downstairs, as was Toro Y Moi and Caribou's night. The sound and live experience wasn't nearly as fantastic/dramatic as my 3-year-old memories in the downstairs room, but all of the workers were extremely nice and helpful. And we got to drink beers in the pews upstairs (which feels pretty cool).


After the show, Aimee Argote (of Des Ark fame/fellow Carolinian) was kind enough to put us up in her lovely Fishtown home. Her roommate was out of town, so we got to crash in his room. We were told he played with the band Mayhem (a gold Mayhem record hung from the wall), so we were extra careful not to mess anything up and join that band's body count.


We drove to D.C. the next afternoon. Todd, as always, proved to be a most excellent host. The Rock and Roll hotel was a strange venue. I can't say much about the show - the merch table is in a separate bar upstairs where a house DJ blared terrible mashups. The speakers were within a few feet of my ear, so a headache developed quickly. NPR streamed the whole show, so I was able to listen to is later.

Staying at Todd's house is pretty epic. I was able to suppress the dork within and managed not to ask a million questions (I only asked a couple thousand). And he has the coolest dog ever.

Anyways, this post is dragging and lacking photographs. I have about another month to write about and the actual tour ends tomorrow. Maybe it will happen? We'll see.

Love,

Jordan