Mega Bernie

We had a show of course, but first to talk about the other stuff! Mostly Bernie-related. On Monday night I ended up watching Starry Eyes and it was really good. Wasn't intending to watch it (was gonna work on the site and be productive and shit) but Mary Beth was and I caught just a little towards the beginning and was hooked on it. Tuesday Memphis for Bernie had the first in our series of talks relating to Bernie's issues. This on was on racial justice. The talk was by someone related to the socialist party and it was really good. She drew a spiderweb as Jeff held the dry erase board. There were more substantive parts, but hey that's what I'll relate. The main focus was on these citizen review boards. There's an acronym that I can't remember. Anyway. Listened to that, ate barbecue nachos. Good stuff. Also, we got our Memphis for Bernie t-shirts in so I got one. The very next night was another event. This was our training and Zach from the national campaign up in Burlington was there (along with Corbin from the Tennessee level) and Sarah (they brought her along from Arkansas). Mostly this was about the numbers game we're on now and getting more people involved. We also did a thing where we broke off into groups by neighborhoods to get more boots-on-the-ground levels going on for smaller events and things etc. Well, after that I had to go straight over to Murphy's for The Family Ghost's show. I'll save that for its own post. Yesterday I was damn fucking tired. Was up late for the show and all that. I also had to take Horace to the vet in the morning for his teeth cleaning (all-day procedure where they put the cat to sleep). He wasn't fed since the night before so he was easy to get a hold of, but he put up a hell of a fight getting him into the carrier. But I managed. Picked him up from work on the way home. He had a LOT to say. I was just happy to be home. Also, slept in my car during my lunch break. Okay, so I get home and just pass the fuck out. Mary Beth woke me up to eat dinner. So I did that then it was right back to sleep. So I was caught up for sleep with a nice 12 hours for today! After work I went over to my parents' as my dad needed help getting his golf cart onto the trailer. It was fine, mostly he did the work with a cable/pully thing 'cuz it was too heavy for us to push up onto the trailer by ourselves. Though while trying just before, I slipped (it was raining) and banged my knee on the driveway. Still hurts. Bluh. Saw Lacey, she seems much better. They got that huge growth removed from her back. She also seems not so so fat now that Anthony isn't living with them anymore. Now I'm home. I should work on the site some more. I actually made some good progress on it earlier in the week (though not the past couple days from all the stuff going on). Haven't had much to do at work so I did some work on it, but felt like I shouldn't spend all my time at work on this outside thing. Anyway, I'm thinking next week the stuff that's blocking me will hopefully get taken care of and I can do more. Anyway. Til next time, in a few minutes.

The Family Ghost show #49: Murphy's 2015/10/21

I showed up after the gear had been loaded and all (was off at the Memphis for Bernie meeting) though Paul and Ryan weren't there anymore. Ryan went back home to lesson plan before we played and Paul was...I don't know. After a bit Nervous Curtains played. They were really good. Synthy, proggy. They put on a pretty good show. They had lights and some minor stage setting stuff. I got their t-shirt and their most recent cd: Con. Okay, so after them we set up! The amp we were using as a backup since my guitar amp died a ways back...seemed to die as we were setting up. Nice. This would be my bass amp. So I guess I don't have any amps right now. Alyssa was nice and grabbed an amp from the studio next door we were able to borrow. So with that out of the way, here's our setlist:

Fall Behind
A Series of False Starts
Visitant
The Provincial
Cameras
Lost Year

The old song was fun to resurrect in spite of our overplaying it in the past few years because I tried out a different arrangement. Since I wasn't gonna be there to help load and possibly set up, I figured I should make things easier on the other guys. Cut out the typical wall of synth approach and only brought one. So we arranged the set around this. I had this idea of playing the bass on the Prophet with the arpeggiator clicking out single notes. So that was cool. "Visitant" also was a little different. I kept the Prophet doing its drone and since I didn't have another synth I came up with something on guitar. Towards the end of "Cameras" I dropped a stick (we didn't have backups either for some reason) and almost immediately after that the bass drum mallet came off the pedal. So I finished the song with just one stick banging the rhythm on one of the toms. Overall a pretty good set. At times the sound was weird with the strange guitar amp, but that's to be expected, I guess. Paul, as he has been doing much of late, was really going to town with these overplayed runs on the bass (I don't think he was as drunk and fucked up as at other recent shows so they weren't sloppy and off-time on top of it). During an egregious one during "The Provincial" Jacques looked at me behind his back and gave an annoyed eye-roll and I just laughed. I guess that's about it show-talk-wise.