I'm Free

Yesterday was the last day of me wearing the soft collar around my neck. I am so relieved to be done with it. To celebrate, 'Litl' and I went to Kelly's Bar for a few pints of Franziskaner and a shot of Jameson (or as 'Meg F' refers to it now, 'my medicine'). At midnight, the Shadow Lounge's owner also turned dirty thirty so more shots of Jameson were poured to celebrate his birthday. We were in good company as usual; 'Schell', 'Torque Smackey', 'Jack Wilson', 'Taracalypse', 'Pipecock' and many more joined us.

It's good to be back out in the social scene.

BTW, the Kokolo show I was helping promote last week was phenomenal. Attendance exceeded everyone's expectations and the band played an energetic, close to 2 hour set. I know we were violating fire code capacity at the venue because at one point the front door to the place could barely open because of the standing room only crowd pushed up against it. The place was sweaty, jammed and jumping. The band made money and I made money and everyone was happy.

There was a little scare though ... the band called me from the road before the show as they were driving in from NYC. They called at 6pm to tell me they were still at least 2 hours away from Pgh and that they were in stand still traffic on the turnpike due to a major accident. Doors to the show were listed to open at 10pm and the band still needed to get there, unpack, sound check, get dinner and relax before going on. It ended up being pretty tight ... the band arrived around 9pm. Sound check went well and then they were off to a friend's house who had prepared dinner for the band. It was 10pm, people were already arriving and the band was just off to have supper. I was supposed to have a DJ occupy the time until the band went on but there was some miscommunication with the club and they had lent their turntables to be used by another DJ in another room for the night. I had to play a CD while people got restless waiting for the band to go on. Finally the band got back to the club around 11:30pm and after a quick meet and greet with some friends in a back room (and a quick 'break a leg' shot of Jameson by all of us) they took the stage.