Arrington Tour Day 1 (and change)

Holy shit, Olympia is beautiful! So much green!!

Got dropped off by Zach at JFK airport and was in total awe of the JetBlue terminal. It awesome! Had food and boarded my plane which was practically empty, making my 5 and a half hour flight feel like I was hanging out on someone's couch with Direct TV and a tiny television. I land at PDX at 10:30pm PST which is 1:30am in my head. Upon walking out of the plane I felt like I had landed in the nice part of Demolition Man. Everyone was very nice, everything was very clean and it was sort of creepy.

I get picked up by Arrington in the back of a CDR colored 1997 Ford Escort with Nehemiah in the front seat. This is going to be my crew for the next few weeks. It's really tight in the back seat because this is before my moving expertise will arrange all the gear (and no real thought had been given to it just yet).

We start driving straight to Olympia (about an hour and a half) and the highway in the dark reminds me of Miami. We get pulled over by a cop because the tape Arrington has over his broken tail lights has faded from Light Pink to Clear. While scanning the car a bit the officer (who had a funny Canadian Accent as I recall) asked if I was wearing my seat belt while shinning his flashlight at me, then he proclaimed "whoops" and asked for my ID. Kudos to Arrington for trying to tell the officer I'm from Florida and I don't know any better. That didn't stop the cop from issuing me a $100 ticket for not wearing my seat belt in the backseat. Apparently, that is a Washington State law. We laugh it off and keep on trucking. Somehow I wasn't really upset at all by this. Half of it was being hella tired (I'm not really saying hella, don't worry) and half was not wanting to let something small ruin my day/night. We arrive at Arrington's house and I crash on the couch with a Little Mermaid sleeping bag.

The next morning Arrington and I drive over to pick up the cymbal and hi hat stand I will be using for the tour and it's in his friend's house... who lives in a fucking log cabin... I was tripped the fuck out! Then we drive down to the K Records building so Arrington can print out some insurance stuff for his car and I get a general tour of the warehouse, office and the Dub Narcotic Recording Studio. We listen to some lave cuts of Malaikat he had made recently and they sound like direct broadcasts of indonesian pop music from hell. I really liked it.

Nehemiah wakes up and we set up in the garage to start rehearsing. The drum kit I'm using sound amazing. It's an old Pearl that belongs to Germaine, the drummer of Old Time Relijun and the person who's playing the other half of the Malaikat Tour. However, the bass drum has no legs and a cinderblock and 2 milk crates of books are no match for my right foot apparently.

Rehearsal goes extremely well. It felt more like playing through songs we already knew. I am locking in well with Nehemiah and I feel relieved that the whole vibe is really welcoming and fun. We get some food at a Co Op up the street and listen to demos of newer songs while we eat. There's one mathy song (7/8!) and I ask if we can play it (by ask I mean as soon as I got down stairs I played the drum beat). We play through 2 newer songs and I start playing a drum beat I've been working on. Arrington and Nehemiah start playing along and it looks like we've written a short new song as an intro to the set. I am really happy about this. If there's time we're going to cut a lave of it at Dub Narcotic today.

We get done rehearsing and I couldn't be happier! Now we head to out to try to install and CD player in Arrington's car. It turns out that since there is not dashboard unit at all they can't install the player. Nehemiah mentions he can figure it out and we buy a CD player and drive over to the K Records building to use their tools. Nehemiah installs the player with just electrical tape, wire strippers and a lot of patience. He's already earned himself first dibs on a bed if we encounter one on tour, in my book anyway.

I met Calvin Johnson while Lake was rehearsing at the studio.

We head back and there's a show going on at Arrington's house (I think the venue is called Sweden). There were 2 Olympia bands and Power Animal from Philly. I sit outside for quite a while Progging out with Nehemiah and Mitchell, a roomate, walks into to the conversation when Fred Frith is mentioned. He asks if we know each other and we both agree and are content with the fact that, no, we're just sizing each other up. Spouting obscure Kraut rock band names and mentioning facts about Yes and King Crimson. We're drinking Alaskan Beer and it's delicious. I am handed a Veggie Burger by Mitchell and I now could not be happier (good food, good company, good beer and Geeking Out!). Someone over hears the words New York and yells "Man, FUCK NEW YORK, that place sucks" we laugh and i ask why and how old he was when he was there. Obviously he was there before he was 21 and probably with his family in Times Square. When I say I live there he asks what it's like with glowing eyes and says "I bet it's awesome" I laugh and concur.

We go down to the basement to watch Power Animal, who were great actually! They know the Armchairs and mention that The Ox is the spot to play in philly now. I buy a T Shirt from them (one more clean article of clothes!) and we talk Randy Newman and Lady Gaga vs Britney Spears for a bit.

Happy, slightly drunk and very tired I go to sleep with the Little Mermaid Sleeping Bag and awake now at 9am to decide to have tour blog I can use to Prog Out later, hence the name.

Arrington de Dionyso's Malaikat dan Singa

http://www.myspace.com/arringtondedionyso

Power Animal

http://www.myspace.com/poweranimalpa