Darwin Deez

cole and greg chat up the daytrotter dudes

Yesterday was my second time at Daytrotter. In fact, the four preceding days (Bug Jar, Beachland Tavern, Schuba’s, 7th Street Entry) were also repeats of places I’d been in other bands. It’s interesting to watch the details reemerge. Beachland makes homecooked food and has a nice big green room in the basement with wifi. Bug Jar has a giant insect floating around on the ceiling fan above the bar. The outside of 7th Street is a black wall covered in stars featuring the names of all the bands that have played there. Will I see all of these places a third time, someday? Will we come back to Beachland next time and finally play the big room? These are the band future mysteries.

darwin at daytrotter

This network of locations is the circuit for little indie bands this decade, I realized. Then I amused myself to think that this same experience is occurring similarly on the higher rungs of the music world. It’s time to go on Letterman, here we are again at that theatre building, in that room. Time for the Grammies again, and yep, I remember these same after parties happening last year. Here we are in the Rolling Stone office again, in Radio City Music Hall again. There’s a good falafel place by here, I remember…

We enjoyed ourselves at Daytrotter letting loose, taking chances, conducting experiments. Darwin got into Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ last week (as evidenced by the first track of Wonky Beats), and so he instructed the whole band to Floyd everything out for the recording session. We played trippy Radar jams. We tried Bomb Song and Up in the Clouds too, but the results were so flimsy that we had to leave them on the cutting room floor. But I think our Suicide Song version was far out, man.

darwin and cole at daytrotter

After daytrotting, Darwin and I resurrected a type of joke-telling from the Creaky Boards days. It’s origins are in the odd, old-fashioned sense of humor of the creaky drummer, Mike. You come up with wordplay riddles based on names of states or countries, as follows:

Q: “What state were they in when the main course of Christmas dinner was ruined, but fortunately, someone came along and saved the day, and the people at the dinner made an exclamation?”

A: “New ham? Sure!” (New Hampshire)

Q: “What state were they in when the kindergarten teacher gave distinctly punk rock encouragement to her autistic student during art class, who, in turn, surprised her by jamming his finger up her bum?”

A: “Color rad…OH!” (Colorado)

Q: “What Western European country were they in when the poet and his girlfriend were strolling down the beach, and the girlfriend asked the poet, ‘What is it that you love about life?’ and the poet pointed to a house and said something, pointed to the girl and said something, and then pointed to a bird and said something?”

A: “Porch … you … gull.” (Portugal)

Q: “What state was Rich Boy in when something went wrong?”

A: “Mayne!” (Maine)

Q: “What state was Arnold Schwarzenegger in when he became frustrated with his lover, a yoga and meditation enthusiast?”

A: “Why Ohm-ing!??” (Wyoming)

Q: “In what Canadian providence was the woman when she was shagging the lead singer of the Specials and her husband called and asked her, “Where are you?”, and she decided to just fess up and tell him the truth?”

A: “On Terry… OH!” (Ontario)

The fun can last for hours.