Tonight in NYC

Hazel's band Big Knife are playing a free show tonight at Otto's Shrunken Head, East 14th St btwn A & B in Manhattan 8 PM. With their pals Eyesight Television, these kids are touring the US, drinking beer, kicking ass, taking names and delaying the inevitable.

Hometahn Blues

I have a fraught relationship with Pittsburgh. It's where I was born and spent the first sixteen years of my life. When people ask me where I come from, sometimes (when the Steelers are winning?) I come right out and say it. Other times, it's too complicated. I didn't get a driver's license until I'd moved away, so I barely know my way around. I didn't play music until several years after I left so I can't really call myself a Pittsburgh artist.

Except when I have a gig here goddammit. And then the whole town should celebrate me, right? I mean, Andy Warhol left when he was twenty one or so and they built him a whole museum!

But the promoter for our show in the `burgh this Tuesday, July 7, couldn't even be bothered to put us in their ad. They've got things going on in August, in September, in nice bold letters in their big half page ad in the weekly paper, but not us.

Years ago, there was a club called the Electric Banana here. Legend has it, the promoter kept a gun in his desk and if he thought your set was too short, he'd take it out and wave it around until you got back up on stage.

It makes me nostalgic for a time I never actually knew myself, when promoters cared so much. Now they book fifty shows a month in so many venues they can't keep track of who's playing where. If a couple shows do well, good. The rest of the acts will just have to get by some other way.

Who will know about the show? We had someone doing publicity but it's barely in the local listings. I've tried with the local radio and they've always been supportive but they must have other things going on. And today, in the local paper, they list us as playing on Sunday. I just double-checked and we are definitely playing at Club Cafe this Tuesday, July 7 at 7 PM.

If anyone reading this resides in what is actually a really lovely, interesting city with some of the friendliest folks in the USA, please spread the word. I don't want to be too depressed to not bother coming back.

The Early Bird Special

We're practicing being senior citizens on this tour. It isn't hard to get the hang of things, as in France we're surrounded by retirees.

In the US we're already off to a great start by joining Costco and AARP. Yes, Eric and I are now card-carrying members of the Retired People's association! You only have to be 50 and with the card you get 25% off car rentals. Costco takes care of that pesky "additional driver" fee that at $4 a day starts to add up after a couple of weeks.

It's great to pretend to be retired because the truth is neither of us will ever have the option of kicking back and enjoying the fruits of our labors - we're going to be working in some capacity until the day we die.

So this tour is good practice for that. We're in a rental car that would suit Tony and Carmella Soprano - it's roomy enough to hold all our gear but several hundred dollars cheaper than a minivan or SUV. And it is class with a capital K. Our next goal is to find outfits worthy of this behemoth.

If there are still any venture capitalists left out there, here's an idea: hipster retirement homes. The Woodstock generation are going to be needing assisted living sometime in the not too distant future and it's not hard to imagine CSNY being piped through the lobby and elevator speakers in one of these places. Lots of vegan options in the dining room and Blow Up and Medium Cool showing in the activities room at 9 PM.

The thing is, we're staying in a traditional one of these places this weekend. My dad and his wife live in a very nice apartment in a senior complex. For four days and nights, we'll be kicking back with bridge and canasta, dodging walkers and mobility scooters in the halls and making nice with the neighbors who are still lucid enough to converse.

And maybe, just maybe, we'll try out our future potential career as entertainers on the retirement home circuit ("Remember that Ramones concert back in nineteen hundred and seventy six? These young people today, they don't know what music is. People had talent, back then!") After all, we've got to check that the equipment's working okay. It'll probably be one of the rare times in America that no one tells Eric to turn his guitar down.

Those Days Are Gone

Amy and Hazel Rigby, Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, 1994. © Ted Barron

I went to a music class with my 2 year old goddaughter Daisy and her mom, our friend and ace designer Karen the other day. It was all little ones and their mothers with the ages from about two to four. The teacher was this brilliant woman Charlotte, who sat on a rug with everyone and kept pulling things out of a basket: crocodiles, sea creatures, stretchy fabric. I felt a little embarrassed because I got so caught up in the songs and clapping and stuff, I was worried I was being too enthusiastic.

It was fun, and it was sad, as I looked back at those days of two to four year olds from almost two decades. I guess it’s a little bit what it must feel like to be a grandparent? I’ll probably get a bumper sticker made up: Grandma In Training. (Note to Hazel: Not that I’m in any rush!)

I snuck glances at all the lovely mothers, willing them to enjoy themselves as much as possible and not spend their time worrying, like I know I often did. I wanted to tell them how this is the best time you’ll ever know (just like every time is the best time you’ll ever know) but I think they would have thought I was a mad woman.

So instead, I just clapped a little harder and sang even jollier, with Daisy and Karen.

Follower

"If all the other kids went and jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?" I remember my mother asking, when I wanted to get my ears pierced.

I've been resisting for months, smug in my insistence that I wouldn't/couldn't get involved in any more social networking tomfoolery. But yesterday, I caved. I don't know why - it just seemed like a good idea all of a sudden.

So now you can, how do you say, "follow me" on Twitter.

This Is England

Thanks to Mark Riley for having us on his show on Monday - what a devil! The gig at Manchester's Night and Day cafe was a little on the hot side (or maybe it's just good practice for the US) but the hooligans dancing at the front by show's end made it all worthwhile. The Buffalo Bar in London was great fun last night, but we've had to cancel tonight's show in Bristol.

Just...Desserts?

Just when I think I've made great strides in integrating and learning a new language, all that, there are those little moments that remind me - I'm an alien around here.

Yes, we're all flesh and blood etc but so are we also decades of cultural references, shared experience, goddamn TV shows.

This hit me again last night - we were sitting around having dinner with a group of friends, some French, some English, me the only American.

Someone had made a cake for dessert and brought along a can of whipped cream and the can was making its way around the table, with everyone taking a turn anointing their cake. Some people did very basic squirting, some hearts and flourishes, and as everyone expressed themselves with the can we were each scrutinized by the rest of the table and judged and applauded for our creative efforts.

"It's like a Soul Train line, only with desserts," I said, thinking back fondly to the parties of yore when eventually things would disintegrate to the point where two rows would form and anyone on the dance floor would have to strut their stuff for a few seconds.

"Quoi?" I realized no one at the table had any idea what I was talking about. Not that it mattered, but all of a sudden I was trying desperately to explain, in fractured French, about how once there was this TV show, and there was dancing, oh and this guy Don Cornelius, and they'd form these lines either side, and you'd have to dance down the middle, and...and...

By now most of the table had moved on to something else. Eric stayed with me supportively and Emmanuel seemed to catch on to the very slight joke I'd made way back what felt like two months before.

And I suddenly felt very tired.