Back in the Big Apple

Hello from our hotel in Somerset, New Jersey. We had a great time in New York City tonight, playing at the Bowery Electric Map Room, a funky and tiny (large walk in closet) venue near the East Village.

The day started with a beautiful drive down from Burlington (VT), retracing our scenic route along the shores of Lake George, across some flats with beautiful scenes of farms and mountain views on both sides (the Green Mountains on our left, the Adirondacks on our right).

We managed to get into the city without much trouble/traffic, and with plenty of time to walk around and relax a bit. I (Russ) walked and met a friend for coffee, while the guys chilled on a coffee shop patio on Bowery Street across from the venue. Our parking luck kicked in again, with the van parked directly in front of the venue’s front door.

The guys went and grabbed some pizza before the show (I opted to fast for a late-night scarfing) and then we loaded in. The room was literally the size of a large walk-in closet, with the stage about 12’x5′. We were virtually on top of eachother, but we tend to play really well in those situations, when we can hear everything really well and it’s all about the ‘energy bubble,’ not show production/lights/big sound. We really dial in our stage volume and focus on delivering a great sound and interaction. There was a good crowd of people there, both people who knew our music and plenty who were being introduced to it. We played a quick 50-minute set, and a longtime good friend of mine, Tanner Walle, played before us, while our other good friend’s band, Black River Quartet, played immediately after us. Made for a great family-style vibe in there. Oh, and there was a huge “Hello Charlie!” chorus during Turn My Egg at the end of our set. That was awesome.

After the show we loaded out and then started to walk to find some food. It was almost 3am, but it’s New York – there’s plenty going on and plenty of options for good food. I ran over and asked some kids hanging outside a bar where they’d recommend, and they suggested a Ukranian diner on 2nd Ave and 9th street called Veselka. We walked the few blocks to get there and MAN was it worth it. Holy Pierogies. That’s their specialty… we each ordered different types of pierogies, from summer sausage to potato to spinach and cheese… served with sides of caramelized onions, apple sauce, and sour cream. They were unreal. We then cruised to the glass case of desserts and picked up some peanut butter chocolate pie, and I picked up an arugala pastry for breakfast tomorrow morning. Mmmmm.

We drove about an hour to get to the hotel here. The original hotel we’d booked had a nice big suite with two bedrooms and a huge common area with pullout couch, but the hotel called us and said that they’d overbooked and would need to send us to a new place… so here we are, at the new place. It’s the Radisson Bridgewater in Somerset and it’s actually super nice. We got a couple of rooms, so Beers and Mario are in the other one, and Fred, Anton, and I are sharing this one as usual.

The news from the Boston Marathon is pretty unreal – no leads or suspects yet, an 8 year old boy among the dead, 100+ injured, and the photos are graphic and extremely sad. We had a couple of friends who were planning to come to our show tonight in NYC who texted us that they were at the finish line when all of that happened; they weren’t hurt, but they saw everything and helped victims, etc. and were too emotionally and physically spent to get out to the show tonight. Unbelievable. We’ll continue to track the news as much as we can online in the van while driving. We head to Charlottesville, Virginia tomorrow for a two-night stand at The Box, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s happening in Boston by the time we get there on Friday.