Second verse V: All this energy calling me/Motor City Madness
A little late with the update, yes, but internet's hard to come by these days.
The day after our Cleveland show, we had a bit of time to kill and decided to hit up the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. The sound guy at the Beachland tipped us off that if you're a touring band and offer them a CD, they'll let you tour the museum for free. This tip turned out to be true, and immediately alleviated my suspicion that the musuem would be lame. So now we all know that when Aloud is eligible for induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2027, they'll already have a copy of Fan The Fury handy in... wherever it is they keep that shit.
A lot of the memorabilia they had there was overwhelming, particularly the Beatles section. They had John's Sgt. Pepper outfit sitting in a case that was amazing to look at, as well as the old collarless Beatles outfits from the earlier part of the 60s. It's strange growing up looking at pictures of these iconic things, and there you are, separated by a glass case, looking at what amounts to someone's clothes. Of particular interest to me were the handwritten lyrics to songs like Hey Jude, and the Clash's Clampdown (which had a ton of little extra notes and drawings scrawled in different colors). The bass Paul Simonon smashed for the cover of London Calling was there, as well as Joe Strummer's guitar. U2's "Lemon Uniforms" from the Zoo TV tour were there, with one of Edge's Strats from the 80s alongside the manequins. There was an entire wing dedicated to Les Paul and a few of his earlier guitars were there. Another section was dedicated to music from Ohio.
Yea, it's just a bunch of stuff, but it's a strange comfort to be around the possessions of your musical heroes; it brings them back down to earth in a strange way. I'm glad we went (and particularly for the mere cost of one Aloud CD). The smiles on our face were difficult to erase for a few hours.
Once we got into Detriot, it was a different feeling. It's difficult to pass judgement on a place after everyone's told you it's better on the weekends and you show up on a Monday, but Corktown (the area where we were playing) was a virtual ghost town. The shadow of Tiger Stadium, half of which is torn down and hasn't been in use for 9 years, loomed large over the area. It seems the loss of the stadium had a huge dent in the economy of the area.
The show itself didn't go too bad-- attendance wasn't terribly encouraging, and again, probably due to the diffculty of playing a show in Detroit on a Monday night (exemplified by the last band, INterior Project, not even bothering to show up). Still, we had some fun and hung out with the kids from Pewter Cub. The guys from Superdot, musically speaking, were not my cup of tea (hey, I'm not fond of ska, what do you want from me?), but to say they suck would do them a disservice: they're an incredibly tight band and their musicianship is something I can really appreciate (and they're really nice, to boot).
One thing I can say about INterior Project being AWOL is that it afforded us the opportunity to head back to Ann Arbor (where we're staying) to get some much needed sleep.
We took the long way back, driving through Detroit before catching the highway at the Deerborn city limits; it was a sad sight. Detroit's a major American city, and for its urban center to be so.. I dunno.. destitute is beyond me. It's the same visceral reaction I had to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, except this was surrounding me. I'd like to think that maybe we just headed into the wrong part of town on the wrong day of the week, but the graffitti Jen spotted on a house that said "HELP" in big, red letters is a little hard to shake. Even thinking about it now, it's depressing. This is in our own backyard, folks.
When we got back, we did what any good American does to forget the plight of others: watched TV (specifically, two episodes of Entourage... Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillon make that show awesome, as far as I'm concerend).
We had a day off today that we spent in Ann Arbor, which I will write about tomorrow (which is our second day off).
Right now, I'm off to bed and getting me some sleep.
Cheers,
Henry
The day after our Cleveland show, we had a bit of time to kill and decided to hit up the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. The sound guy at the Beachland tipped us off that if you're a touring band and offer them a CD, they'll let you tour the museum for free. This tip turned out to be true, and immediately alleviated my suspicion that the musuem would be lame. So now we all know that when Aloud is eligible for induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2027, they'll already have a copy of Fan The Fury handy in... wherever it is they keep that shit.
A lot of the memorabilia they had there was overwhelming, particularly the Beatles section. They had John's Sgt. Pepper outfit sitting in a case that was amazing to look at, as well as the old collarless Beatles outfits from the earlier part of the 60s. It's strange growing up looking at pictures of these iconic things, and there you are, separated by a glass case, looking at what amounts to someone's clothes. Of particular interest to me were the handwritten lyrics to songs like Hey Jude, and the Clash's Clampdown (which had a ton of little extra notes and drawings scrawled in different colors). The bass Paul Simonon smashed for the cover of London Calling was there, as well as Joe Strummer's guitar. U2's "Lemon Uniforms" from the Zoo TV tour were there, with one of Edge's Strats from the 80s alongside the manequins. There was an entire wing dedicated to Les Paul and a few of his earlier guitars were there. Another section was dedicated to music from Ohio.
Yea, it's just a bunch of stuff, but it's a strange comfort to be around the possessions of your musical heroes; it brings them back down to earth in a strange way. I'm glad we went (and particularly for the mere cost of one Aloud CD). The smiles on our face were difficult to erase for a few hours.
Once we got into Detriot, it was a different feeling. It's difficult to pass judgement on a place after everyone's told you it's better on the weekends and you show up on a Monday, but Corktown (the area where we were playing) was a virtual ghost town. The shadow of Tiger Stadium, half of which is torn down and hasn't been in use for 9 years, loomed large over the area. It seems the loss of the stadium had a huge dent in the economy of the area.
The show itself didn't go too bad-- attendance wasn't terribly encouraging, and again, probably due to the diffculty of playing a show in Detroit on a Monday night (exemplified by the last band, INterior Project, not even bothering to show up). Still, we had some fun and hung out with the kids from Pewter Cub. The guys from Superdot, musically speaking, were not my cup of tea (hey, I'm not fond of ska, what do you want from me?), but to say they suck would do them a disservice: they're an incredibly tight band and their musicianship is something I can really appreciate (and they're really nice, to boot).
One thing I can say about INterior Project being AWOL is that it afforded us the opportunity to head back to Ann Arbor (where we're staying) to get some much needed sleep.
We took the long way back, driving through Detroit before catching the highway at the Deerborn city limits; it was a sad sight. Detroit's a major American city, and for its urban center to be so.. I dunno.. destitute is beyond me. It's the same visceral reaction I had to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, except this was surrounding me. I'd like to think that maybe we just headed into the wrong part of town on the wrong day of the week, but the graffitti Jen spotted on a house that said "HELP" in big, red letters is a little hard to shake. Even thinking about it now, it's depressing. This is in our own backyard, folks.
When we got back, we did what any good American does to forget the plight of others: watched TV (specifically, two episodes of Entourage... Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillon make that show awesome, as far as I'm concerend).
We had a day off today that we spent in Ann Arbor, which I will write about tomorrow (which is our second day off).
Right now, I'm off to bed and getting me some sleep.
Cheers,
Henry
V
Driving back, to sleep
Google Maps is for suckers.
Where the fuck are we?
Driving back, to sleep
Google Maps is for suckers.
Where the fuck are we?
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