Tweekends Away-Chicago Style

So I'm safely back from Chicago today and the snow is falling in Philly. A brief recap of this weekend, although you may want to jump to the pertanent sections on
Tullycraft
The Apples in Stereo
Saturday Looks Good To Me

I arrived in Chicago on Thursday afternoon and killed several hours at the Mercury Cafe. I had an awesome turkey and avocado sandwich and coffee while I played on the internet til Leigh got home from work.

Now, Leigh and I go WAY BACK to the early days of the damned Belle and Sebastian fan list Sinister. She had organized a picnic in 1998 for the folks on the list to socialize in DC, and that is the event I made my "Fuck Me I'm Twee" shirt for. I'm no longer on the Sinister list.

Friday afternoon I hung out with Leigh's roommate Dan and made rice crispy treats for Tullycraft. I'm on some kind of silly baking for bands kick, probably out of gratefulness that I don't have to promote the shows.


Aren't they fucking cool?


I think they liked them (this girl was awesome too).


The Apples in Stereo had this Drumhead for sale at the merch table with a pricetag of $40. Since it was signed by the Apples and Casper I really wanted it. I tried to buy it and it was not for sale.


The trick was, whoever wanted to buy the Drumhead got it for free. I had Tullycraft sign it too.

Notice the dirty drawing from Corianton in the middle? Thanks Cori. I love you too.

Casper and the Cookies sounded great, but I was stuck in the back of the room and had a lot of catching up to do with my old roommate Jessica.

For the Apples in Stereo Jessica and I headed up to the balcony hoping to have a better view. A better view is debatable, but we did have fun upstairs and there was room to dance.

"Don't forget to send Pavement their royalty check."

Saturday morning I got to partake in a wonderful Chicago tradition, Drunky Brunch at Joey's Brickhouse. I believe it is now $12 All You Can Eat and $1 drinks. This resulted in a dizzying array of Long Island Ice Teas in pretty colors being passed around the table, but not to me. I gave up drinking for Lent and somehow made it through this weekend sober.
The one thing I REALLY wish I had a photo of, but felt too dorky and all, was Bob Nanna from Braid showing up and talking to his friends at our table. Poor Jess has Braid lyrics tattooed on her arm that just minutes before she was showing the table, but the sleeves went down the minute he walked in the room.


Saturday Saturday night was time for Saturday Looks Good to me. Fred announced that their next album will come out this fall on K Records which makes me very happy. I wasn't sure how many people would come out in the snow but the place was packed. We thought the show was going to start at 8:30 so we got there early, too early, and killed time playing games at the table.


I had seen the "Northwest Experimental Version" of SLTGM last year, so I was completely unprepaired for the full on, bombastic, swinging, soulful full band PLUS Betty Marie Barnes on vocals. Given our shared history, I think we were both very happy to hear their cover of Belle and Sebastian's "Like Dylan in the Movies". The place was crowded and full of dancing afterwards, so we headed home.

Brunch again on Sunday morning and then on the plane back home.


Confidential to the couple in the front row at Saturday Looks Good To Me: The reason you couldn't figure out what Modest Mouse album that song was on was because it was The Pixies