A Story Everyone Should Know About My Friend Dave Chaves (And Also Stevie Ray Vaughan, Who Is Not My Friend)

Most of you know I acquired a press pass for Austin City Limits Festival last year and with it came certain perks of which I was not too proud to use. There was access to a small press area where I ran into Alex Turner (midget) and scored free snacks, VIP Dell Lounge access, where my friends and I had free everything (beer, water, food) and sidestage access, but there were also a shitton of events I was getting invited to outside the festival, because my name had appeared on some sort of ubiquitous solicitous list.

One of them was a kickoff party put on by the record label BMI. BMI sponsors an ACL stage for up and coming artists and the person in contact with me was incredibly nice and allowed my two friends Dave Shaw and Dave Chaves to come along. Since it was before the festival started, therefore not conflicting with anything, we decided to RSVP Yes.

We get to the restaurant where it's being held (this really classy barbecue restaurant called Lambert's), head upstairs and try not to stick out like sore thumbs, sampling the delicious finger foods, and such.

At events like this there's always the same sort of feeling out process with the food and drink. Is it free? Is the bar open? When in doubt, don't be tentative and just go for it, which we did wholeheartedly. Turns out everything was free and we sidled up to the corner of the bar, where it turns out singer songwriter Kara Granger was drinking wine.

I begin throwing back Gin & Tonics with Dave Shaw and Dave Chaves starts his normal process of draining whatever locale he's in of their stock of Southern Comfort. We're listening to the musicians perform, getting crunk, eating damn good BBQ and all is well. Dave Shaw starts the Mojito ordering trend, which makes every bartender manning an open bar cringe and that catches on like wildfire.

Finally things are settling down, and we're about to see a presentation. BMI presents the co-writers and bandmates of Stevie Ray Vaughan plaques in honor of the 1,000,000th radio play of SRV's song "Crossfire". People are giving speeches, people are breaking down and crying. It's very touching (possibly because everyone's drunk). Then the titular Dave Chaves leans over to me and says:

"Who is Stevie Ray Vaughan?"

I looked down at his plate of free food, his 3/4 full alcoholic beverage and promptly told him to shut the fuck up. Good times.

Opening Day At Fenway Photo Blog

Headed to Fenway yesterday to p'blog Opening Day shenanigans. It was pretty awesome, great atmosphere, especially with ticketless fans chilling around the outside of Game On! to watch the ceremony on their outdoor TV's. Great weather, etc. Took about 200. Check em.

Goodbye:
Hello:



About damn time! See you at Game 4

Vote We Need Girlfriends!

Just had a communique with We Need Girlfriends creator Angel Acevedo (fancy way of saying my homie just Gmail chatted me) who made me aware of something all WNG fans can help out with.

Head over to this site and vote for We Need Girlfriends in the Media Industry Poll (it's in green).

All the guys at WNG thank you for your support, assuming you vote. If not, they collectively tell you to fuck yourself (actually that's my improv).

If CBS Were Smart...

They'd partner with NASA and get Gus Johnson a supersonic jet and just fly him to all close games in the NCAA tourney.

Last night good ole' Gus was flipping his shit during Michigan State's (relatively) comfortable win.

Could you imagine if he was calling the UCLA/A&M game?

Kevin Love would be wiping off scraps of Gus Johnson's brain matter from his forehead with the way that one ended.

It would've been like this times a billion:

We Need Girlfriends gets Rolling StOWNed

Click on the pic for a full size.

Our Recycling Bin Blew Away Over The Weekend

This is either a point blank allegory regarding Mother Nature and her feelings on the benefits recycling actually have OR it just fucking sucks.

I'm leaning towards the latter.

Finally Something Interesting Happens At Work... All The While I'm In REM Sleep: Will Leitch On Morning News

This always happens...

Either there's a food laden holiday extravaganza on my day off or some awesome guest comes in to the studio during the nether-hours of the day we call 'The Morning Show'.

Today, Will Leitch, editor of Deadspin and author of God Save The Fan spoke with my virtual bandmate Gene Lavanchy in studio.

Of course this interview occurred at 6:45 a.m.

6:45 a.m. has always been outlandishly early for me. Now that I work until midnight on most nights, 6:45 a.m. has become damn near imaginary. So, I did what any normal person would do; Left a copy of God Save The Fan at work for Mr. Leitch to sign (complete with snazzy Arrested Development post-it note, thanking Will for his general awesomeness) and then watched the interview online several hours later.

Now you can do the same (minus the Arrested Development post-it notes)

Check Out The Video Here

What's The Point Of Even Seeing Vampire Weekend If You're Not Going To Blog About It?

Katelyn and I continued our uber-hetty Valentine's Day week concert series last Saturday. Amazingly, I got a Saturday off of work and we trekked out to the Museum Of Fine Arts to see Vampire Weekend, the buzziest buzz band in the history of buzz.

I had never seen a concert at the MFA before and it had been described to me as, "Like seeing a concert in a college lecture hall." I suppose that is pretty accurate but Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig described it even better saying, "This is like that Fugees video in the movie theater."

Agreed.

We got there early enough to nab 7th row seats (first 4 rows were reserved), and we were actually sitting in front of the opening act's (Sam Rosen) grandparents and family. Though the Sam Buck Rosen band didn't do it for me (great guitar work, little emphasis on melodies), Sam Rosen himself seemed like a good, hilarious dude.

Vampire Weekend took the stage around 9 to the delight of a lecture hall full of hipsters (at least 7 Urban Outfitters must've been robbed due to under staffing that evening.) They were much better musically than I expected. The guitar and drums were particularly awesome. On CD (and on Letterman) they seem kinda simple and sterile, but in a real live music venue they were energetic and rhythmic.

They played every song on their current album (including 'Boston' from the leak) and one new song.

Koenig was hilarious and very good with the crowd, even explaining the confusion about their 'Masschusetts Song Trilogy' (Boston, Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, Walcott) and how everyone thinks they're from Massachusetts.

They're not, but they love our state and fair port city all the same.

Here are some YouTube snippets I took of Oxford Comma and Walcott.

All The News That's Fit To Say Holy Fucking Shit To Print

So, holy fucking shit. Angel, Brian and Steve were in the NY Times today in a profile about them and We Need Girlfriends.

Big shout out to Tino for spotting this first this AM!

Read it!!!

Thoughts On A Super Bowl

Fuck, the Pats sucked tonight and the G-men played out of their minds. Belichick had some questionable decisions aside from his attire (eschewing the FG, not challenge the fumble recovered by Pierre Woods,)

What's worse are the Jets fans coming out of the woodwork talking shit.

Enjoy the 3rd pick in the draft, douchenozzles.

Fuck. Guess I'll have to send my Pat-Fection tshirt to Africa.

Details Of My Awesomeness Have Been Greatly Exaggerated Are Completely Spot On

An awesome shout out must go out to my homie Dan who, despite being a card carrying Philadelphia Flyers fan, was awesome enough to nab me an autographed Vampire Weekend CD in New York City last night. They personalized it to me to avoid it being eBay-ed (despite their poison-Ivy League educations, the suckers have never heard of jeffBay [ka-ching]) and it'll be in my mailbox in some time. I'm stoked.

So stoked, in fact, that I will now pass along this description of the event from Dan's experience at the in-store trendathon.

I actually stood next to this über-nerdy music dork (like myself) and his girlfriend in line for an hour or two. They went to Fordham so we chatted about college and music downloads and vinyl and Vampire Weekend and stuff like that.

Sad thing is, Vampire Weekend has seemed to spawn this entirely different hipster creation... it's more of a mix between a Stanford-esque preppy kid (sweater/cardigan tied around shoulders, pink Brooks Brothers shirt, skin-tight jeans, and docksiders) and the 'Death Cab for Cutie'-Lovin' Williamsburg-spawned scum. and all of them were pretty young... but the band really put on a fun show and their music rules so i was able to ignore their emo aids for the most part.

Wow, sounds like Katelyn and I need to hit up a combination of the most expensive thrift store we can find, Urban Outfitters and the Polo Outlet before February 9ths show at the Museum Of Fine Arts (sounds like I should also get a monocle to round things out.) The good news is that I'm pretty sure I can find all those stores in the Natick Collection now.

Holy Shit: The Video Exists!

More than a year ago I brought you this post, transcribing my favorite Conan moment ever. Today, with thanks to Katelyn, the video has resurfaced on Sports Guy's blog.

Hallelujah.

The good stuff happens at the 4:00 minute mark.

Visual Proof That I'd Look Out Of Place In A Band


Video: Click Here