Sounds Good

[ateolf]

A really weird night last night. I mean, it was mostly pretty great with a good fun show played with Nonconnah, but it ended with something of an adventure. So I'll start with the show. It was at Sounds Good (where the old Black Lodge was), I'd been to shows there but never played. It's a pretty cool space. Lot of thought and work went into the sound with wood and bafflers on the ceiling and walls and all over. There's a studio upstairs, but it feels like a studio down in the venue space too (some people say like a ski lodge). And the atmosphere's seemed pretty nice and chill. So the first band was a sludge metal band from Jonesboro. They weren't great but they were nice. At times some of their stuff hit on something pretty good. Wasn't super into the singer though. Next was Starfighter Yellow Superoverdrive. I'd heard recordings online and was pretty into them and have almost gone out to see them play a few times and missed it. Did not realize that Olivia (Vexadrem) was the drummer. She's a pretty great drummer too. Didn't realize they were also a two piece, and also didn't have any guitars. The other guy just plays pedals (and they have a couple reel-to-reel machines on stage). But good, expansive, jammy, noisy. Nonconnah was third. I thought we were pretty good. This is the first time the "full" lineup has played live together (now that Kelley has quit, whether temporarily or permanently). It was probably pretty good. I couldn't hear half of what I was doing. Some sounds I couldn't hear at all and some I could hear fine so it was kinda weird. And I'd keep turning up and maybe finally hear. Hopefully I didn't start to drown everything else out. Probably not. People mostly said the sound didn't sound messed up or whatever. It was fun. I got to give my new Doepfer case connectors a spin. They do make me feel more inclined to patch more between the cases. And it's nice to plug and go and not think about it. Last was Blood like Wine. I got a bad feeling when the guy got to the stage with a washboard, but they were good. It's mostly the lady singing and playing acoustic guitar, pretty folky but in a good way. The guy just played washboard (usually very off time-too). For their last few songs they got Zachary and Jack to come join them onstage. I ended up talking a good bit to Les, the guy who owns the place. He was really nice and seemed into the music and talked a good bit about experimental music and stuff back in the day (like when he was in college in 69). He gave a few of us a tour of the upstairs studio and it was pretty nice. Jack had told him about the festival and he seemed into it and is into having us or experimental music stuff come back to Sounds Good. Anyway, actually had a pretty long and interesting chat with him. So, now let the adventure begin. I load up and am heading home as it's pretty late (though not too bad for a show, only around midnight maybe slightly after). Start to head down the street and end up getting blocked by Zachary turning his car around (an 82 Porche that's necessarily seen better days). Get out and see his front wheel is at a weird angle pushed underneath the body. Looked like the axle was busted and the wheel was trying to come off. We tried to push but it wouldn't budge. So there's this car in the middle of the road, orthogonal. There was just enough room for cars to slow down and drive by and it was at such an odd hour on a small neighborhood street that it wasn't the worst situation. So they were going to call AAA to get it towed and I was going to drop Mary Beth and my gear off and come back to take them and their gear home. So I do and get back and we're waiting on the tow truck. After a while AAA gets back to them that they can't find any tow trucks and they should just call back in the morning. But, yeah, they've got a car in the middle of the street and it's kinda fine at this hour but it's eventually gonna get towed to the impound lot. But AAA can't do anything. They tried to call some towers but couldn't get any either. The guys working at Sounds Good were real helpful, everyone going out and trying to figure out this puzzle of how to get a damn stuck car out of the middle of the street. We tried to see if a bunch of us could lift it and push it backwards to the one side, but we couldn't get it lifted good enough. Les mentions he has a jack with wheels and if he got it we could get it under and off the bad wheel and maybe be able to push it. After a while he comes back with it. It was hard to find purchase underneath, there was not much solid points to get into. Finally he found a spot on the side and was able to get it jacked up. After a bit of consultation on direction and puzzle-solving, we had a configuration of someone manning the jack and someone else manning the steering wheel and four of the rest in back pushing. We got it parallel to the street and almost parked normally, Les had to give the final push by bumping it with his truck. It's a little far from the street, not quite a decent "parking" job, but from a distance it looks fine. It falls within the realm of someone parking badly. Way better than where it had been! So it was good enough to leave overnight. I drove them home to their house way out in the sticks and got home pretty late. But now it's a new day. Hoorah! Definitely could have gone worse.