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It's been an eventful little bit of time. First and foremost in my mind is the trip to North Carolina to see Goblin and Zombi! Great great great great great. Where do I begin? I guess I'll back up before the trip. Thursday night I submitted my letter of resignation. So I guess my last year of teaching (which I guess I haven't talked about here but has been stewing for a while) is official. Crazy weird mix of emotions about it all. Anyway, I guess I'll move on to the trip-related stuff. We packed up and headed out after work on Friday. We had gotten the oil changed in Mary Beth's car earlier in the week and we swung by the place 'cuz the guy said he wanted to check it in a couple of days. It took like three seconds and was fine and so we were off! We picked Jacques up and went on. The drive to North Carolina wasn't too eventful. Usual road trip fun. Sometime late we stopped off somewhere along the road in NC to sleep and we continued to Carrboro/Chapel Hill in the morning. We made pretty good time. We were there in the early afternoon. The first place we went really was this record store called All Day Records. They had great stuff, but it was pretty much just vinyl so we didn't stay too long. We had chicken biscuit sandwiches at this place called Time Out. Really delicious. Then a little down the road we went to another record store: CD Alley. This place was AWESOME! So much good stuff. I'll list the stuff I got: Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou: Éthiopiques 21: Ethiopia Song, Ghana Soundz Volume 2, Fela Kuti: Monkey Banana/Excuse O, Popol Vuh: Brüder des Schattens - Söhne des Lichts, Afreaka!: Demon Fuzz, Oneohtrix Point Never: Returnal, Keith Fullerton Whitman: Playthroughs, Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Volume 2: New Begininnings 1970-1980, Jorge Antunes: Savage Songs, Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica, Hood: Compilations 1995-2002, William Onyeabor: Who Is William Onyeabor?, and The Dead C: Secret Earth. Quite a few of those were things I'd been specifically looking for! The place was so awesome so it was kind of sad when it started raining hard while we were there (luckily after we'd done most of our shopping) and it started flooding in the back. The flood of water eventually made its way to cover the entire floor of the store. The girl working there was fighting it off with a wet vac, but the water seemed to be winning. Then we had to carry our haul in the rain to our inconvenient parking spot. We checked in at our motel after that. Seemed pretty crowded with sports fans. I guess a game and stuff. Traffic was a little crazy and the roads were weird. But we then made it back to Carrboro to eat at a place called Elmo's Diner. Food was good. Okay, now to The Cat's Cradle!
We were there pretty early. Just a little before the doors opened. We got a little space right up front. So we waited what seemed much less long than it probably was. Zombi was first and they were fucking great. Probably the best of the times I've seen them. The drummer didn't have any synths like he did before (the ol' Sequential Six-Track and Moog Source). Not sure why, but he still fucking brought that shit on the drums. Then was Goblin! They were really good. It's kinda sad we didn't get to see Simonetti, but they still ruled. And watching the keyboardists play, I think it was Guarini who played all of the awesomest synth parts anyway, at least he did at the show (truth be told, I never even knew Goblin had two keyboardists before all this). We were standing right in front of Pignatelli which was pretty awesome because I never paid attention to what an incredible bass player he is. His playing kinda made the night. Well, Marangolo's drumming kicked ass too, that was the downside of where were were we were standing though, couldn't really see him very well behind Pignatelli. Morante is definitely rock star-minded. He was dressed up in this poofy shirt he's probably had since the 70s, he was the only one really dressed up. He did a few moves when he wasn't playing too, like holding up his pick to the audience and fake-conducting. He also had lots of guitar pins on his vest. He said stuff a lot about rock'n'roll and I THINK he said "goodnight" after every song (not perfectly clear with his accent, maybe it was somewhat lost in his translation). It was pretty cute given his age and all, but I could see him being a bit of a dick. The first part of the set was apparently mostly stuff from Roller, not as soundtracky. But then the end was devoted to their famous soundtrack stuff. They did a couple from Dawn of the Dead, Tenebre, Suspiria, and Deep Red. While the theme from Suspiria is my favorite song they played, their best performances were on the Dawn of the Dead stuff. They did the main theme and "Zombi" and they both kicked ass. They did an encore of one more song (another from Dawn of the Dead, the rockin' one that's pretty cheesy, but I enjoyed it live). Obviously, the two bands were a perfect pairing. Objectively, I liked Zombi the best of the two, but Goblin was definitely more special and a real experience. I hit the merch afterwards. Picked up Goblin: Roller on cd. I got a tour t-shirt (they had another one that was awesome, but only small left). Also a poster and patch. Got some Zombi merch too: Steve Moore: Primitive Neural Pathways / Vaalbara and a poster.
After the show we ate some awesome damn burritos at Cosmic Cantina. The frat brahs were out all over that part of town. After crashing we plopped in Trader Joe's and Bruegger's Bagels. The drive back was just fine. The weather was real nice at first. We made good time all those hours. We had dinner at ¡Chiwawa! though I was starting to go out of it at this point. Anyway, now it's Monday and back to the working week. The last one of the semester. I'm giving my exam right now. So it was pretty laid back. Ms. Bush did help me out huge in making copies for me when I realized part of my geometry exam was missing. Now I need to get some of this stuff out of the way so I can be done!
We were there pretty early. Just a little before the doors opened. We got a little space right up front. So we waited what seemed much less long than it probably was. Zombi was first and they were fucking great. Probably the best of the times I've seen them. The drummer didn't have any synths like he did before (the ol' Sequential Six-Track and Moog Source). Not sure why, but he still fucking brought that shit on the drums. Then was Goblin! They were really good. It's kinda sad we didn't get to see Simonetti, but they still ruled. And watching the keyboardists play, I think it was Guarini who played all of the awesomest synth parts anyway, at least he did at the show (truth be told, I never even knew Goblin had two keyboardists before all this). We were standing right in front of Pignatelli which was pretty awesome because I never paid attention to what an incredible bass player he is. His playing kinda made the night. Well, Marangolo's drumming kicked ass too, that was the downside of where were were we were standing though, couldn't really see him very well behind Pignatelli. Morante is definitely rock star-minded. He was dressed up in this poofy shirt he's probably had since the 70s, he was the only one really dressed up. He did a few moves when he wasn't playing too, like holding up his pick to the audience and fake-conducting. He also had lots of guitar pins on his vest. He said stuff a lot about rock'n'roll and I THINK he said "goodnight" after every song (not perfectly clear with his accent, maybe it was somewhat lost in his translation). It was pretty cute given his age and all, but I could see him being a bit of a dick. The first part of the set was apparently mostly stuff from Roller, not as soundtracky. But then the end was devoted to their famous soundtrack stuff. They did a couple from Dawn of the Dead, Tenebre, Suspiria, and Deep Red. While the theme from Suspiria is my favorite song they played, their best performances were on the Dawn of the Dead stuff. They did the main theme and "Zombi" and they both kicked ass. They did an encore of one more song (another from Dawn of the Dead, the rockin' one that's pretty cheesy, but I enjoyed it live). Obviously, the two bands were a perfect pairing. Objectively, I liked Zombi the best of the two, but Goblin was definitely more special and a real experience. I hit the merch afterwards. Picked up Goblin: Roller on cd. I got a tour t-shirt (they had another one that was awesome, but only small left). Also a poster and patch. Got some Zombi merch too: Steve Moore: Primitive Neural Pathways / Vaalbara and a poster.
After the show we ate some awesome damn burritos at Cosmic Cantina. The frat brahs were out all over that part of town. After crashing we plopped in Trader Joe's and Bruegger's Bagels. The drive back was just fine. The weather was real nice at first. We made good time all those hours. We had dinner at ¡Chiwawa! though I was starting to go out of it at this point. Anyway, now it's Monday and back to the working week. The last one of the semester. I'm giving my exam right now. So it was pretty laid back. Ms. Bush did help me out huge in making copies for me when I realized part of my geometry exam was missing. Now I need to get some of this stuff out of the way so I can be done!
