Haven’t put up much of an update here in a while, so thought I’d check in. We went to Omaha and played for pretty much nobody except the other bands. Well except for Cat Island, who remained conspicuously absent right up until their set, so we decided to return the favor and get an early move on for home, we’d seen them before anyway. No worries, it happens, it’s the music game. I wanted to mention the other bands we played with, however, because they were quite good. Wighead‘s a quirky fun-loving piano outfit from Oklahoma, and Betsy Wells is a bunch of guys from Omaha working a real nice psychedelic-country thing, who are at Goose Island Wrigleyville in Chicago tonight and The Beauty Shop in Fairfield tomorrow.
We played a really cool semi-acoustic show at Mars Cafe with Finn Miles and a kid from The Atudes, and it went really well. Maybe we should do more of those.
Dan and Will (and Jasper from The Seed Of Something) went to Omaha again last weekend for the Mastodon/Baroness show. Then they and I saw Baroness again at The Mews on Monday night with Druids. Both shows kicked ass.
Last night we played the Mews with Mark Mallman, who was new to me but definitely not so to the other guys. He is quite the showman. Harper Lee Harvey opened, a local band headed up by a guy who was once in Squidboy, then later in The Miltons, a Des Moines band whose breakup resulted in the births of both North Of Grand and The Mittens. Their bar-punk sound was right in line with that group of bands — if you aren’t from around these parts, just picture what it might be like if Radio Birdman had been 30-something dudes with shaved heads and glasses from any major Midwest city along I-35 anytime since the late ’80s. It’s a solid tradition. Squidboy and NOG still do it best, though. Kiriko, another local band that I hadn’t seen before, had a cool psychedelic southern rock vibe about them and sounded real good. I got the idea that they’re maybe one Big Muff pedal away from being able to tour in support of Sleepy Sun. They’ll be playing the Mews again June 8 with Mini Mansions, a band that I guess involves a guy from Queens Of The Stone Age. Somewhat predictably, Superchief is also on that bill. So is Mumford’s, whom you would know as “a band headed up by that crazy trumpet player from Christopher the Conquered” (whose name is Nate), and Mason Cain.
As for us, we’ve got a few things worked up here in Des Moines, check the shows page. And we’re up for more, so feel free to get in touch.
