The whole evening was full of nice guys. Dan Coyle is a touring folk singer from New York and his manager asked us to play the first show of the evening, and he couldn’t be nicer. He told Nic all about touring Europe and his adventures about the world and I do think she got stars in her eyes. 11 months in Europe. I think I could do 11 months in Belgium alone. I met another Belgium-phile in the bartender at Miska’s (super nice as well!) and after we got some good craft beer, the set was all good. A couple people in the crowd asked for Office Romance, an old song of ours, and even though we hadn’t played it in what must be years, we totally pulled it off. It was kind of weird though because we set the stage up so the guitar player was in front and then the keyboard and the bass were a bit behind off to the sides, and that’s just one of those songs where I look at Nicolette a lot but I really couldn’t see her… What can I say: love.

We played three songs at The Late Live show and it was fun to play without any amplification (besides my little Nord, sad thing, no speaker) — I think we did quite well. All Yours, Miss You and Office Romance. Man, from not playing it in years, we went and played it twice in one night. It’s just a corny little song, but I do love the lyrics. Oh I do wish I was Cole Porter sometimes.

We should have some video of the evening soon. Talk to you then!

We should have rented a trolley or something… When will they allow those bike things where they have 20 seats and serve beer in the middle? We want one of those!

First show’s at 9, then another at midnight. All on Saturday. Going to be awesome!

Rock Falls opened the night & she’s just such a dynamo singer/performer (and just the nicest person in the world too). We couldn’t fit everything on the sliver, so we put the guitar amp down below and then everything else together up top. I couldn’t hear a lick of my Nord through the whole night, so I hope it came through okay. We decided to only mic the vocals and then let the amps work for themselves and I probably should have tossed my keyboard amp behind me: I just know myself and I saw it tumbling and I saw it making all hella kinds of racket, so I decided I’d just play it all by sight: that’s mainly how I play anyways, so it wasn’t too big of a deal (though, after we played Unbearable In Tights, some nice gentleman came up and said he couldn’t hear my keyboard at all, so maybe it wasn’t just me who couldn’t hear it… Whammies much?).

But we had a blast, honestly. It’s always good to play a new place, especially one as interesting and echo-y as that one; I love those type of acoustics. And everyone at the Smart was just so helpful. I wish I would have gotten their names so I could thank them properly.

I was all geeked about making business cards and getting ready to hand them out to anyone who stopped by to say hello but we were in such a rush to get Josh out of there to his midnight gig at the radio station that I didn’t get much of a chance to cat with anyone. Plus, whenever someone stops by to say hello or mention in passing that they liked the show, I usually just turn into this shy guy that can only mutter a ‘thanks’ – it just means a lot when someone says they like our stuff so it’s almost ruining that moment to try to pass out a business card. It seems so official or something: I don’t know.

My favorite moments of the night were how many times we all looked at each other and just cracked up, for whatever reason. We’ve been playing together so long that even when the setup is a little unusual, we just go with it and have a good time. We didn’t get to play Josh’s new song, but we did play Miss You (our new favorite opening song), All Yours (possibly the song we’ve played at every show – and still my favorite), You’re My Baby (which sounds so cool now since Josh switched it to electric), Bought & Sold (Nicolette’s favorite song to play right now), Fate (which I sillily called my panty-dropping song, though I’m sure I have the context entirely wrong! I just have no shame on stage…), Unbearable In Tights (I wish we had ten of these to play in one show), He Roams The World (which I had a nightmare about the other night where I completely forget the words), and Sally (our new closing song). It was a good compact set. It’s nice to play that many songs. Not too few, not too many. A couple jokes about the sink piece and we’re out.

We don’t play many covers. I don’t know why really. Maybe it’s the fact that we have two (no, three! (Josh is writing now!)) songwriters? Whatever the reason: we started learning a new one last night: Crying, by Mr. Roy Orbison. It’s so good!

It’s surprisingly short too. You forget how short it is. I think that contributes to its goodness (wow: I am seriously writing like Tarzan today). It leaves you wanting so much more. And he sings like a damn banshee on it. His warble really was the best ever.

So I’m seriously giving gobs of reasons why we shouldn’t cover this song. Some songs just shouldn’t be covered: that’s my feeling; songs that are never going to be better. Crying will never be better. Hey Jude will never be better. I Saw The Sign will never be… wait a minute, how’d that get in there? (is that even what’s it called?) But maybe playing them live is okay?

I guess I just don’t get why people record really good songs: you’re just going to make everyone want to go back and listen to the original. I don’t know how, but I really got into this string quartet version of OK Computer once (how do things like this happen?) and I’d get two songs in and switch it out for the good stuff. I mean: I guess it served its purpose, but what’s Radiohead without Thom’s voice? Violin Thom just wasn’t cutting it.

I don’t know how we’ll break up the vocal duties. I wanted Nic and I to split the verses and have Josh take the choruses (Josh, though he has a lovely voice, hasn’t sung yet for the band – we’re determined to change that!), but maybe we’ll all just sing our little hearts out the whole way through: it really is a damn joy to sing.

But I digress. It’s officially up! I (and Nic) have a bunch of writing to do when it comes to songs & lyrics & stories, but the gist of it is up. I tried to get every recording we have up here. Some are still in the works of being in the works so they’ll have to wait (Bought & Sold, sadly) but there are a lot on here that’ve never been heard before (Unbearable In Tights is so good!) so that’s pretty exciting. We even have all the older songs too: hopefully we’ll get around to recording real studio versions of them all someday, but until then, I’m just happy we can share all these songs.

Here’s the deets.