Stars of Track and Field at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard
September 29, 2006
Another full-on weekend. I didn’t even have time to do laundry or get groceries.
Friday night I met up with Bill and Robbyn at the Sunset for the monthly PDXplore show. Heroes and Villains and Stars of Track and Field played. I’ve been listening to SOTAF’s EP You Came Here for Sunset Last Year pretty extensively over the last 6 months or so and had very high expectations for the show, as their music is absolutely stunning. It’s pretty hard to classify, but it’s sort of a dark, moody, melodic, guitar-driven indie rock. I hear hints of Explosions in the Sky and Múm in their music, but they are still much different than either of those acts (more lyrical, anyway.) I was totally blown away! It just was so much more than I could have imagined. Their energy was so high and infectious. Robbyn and I were right up in front of the stage, so close the performers’ sweat could drip on us. After the show I booked it back to the merch table and was excited to discover they have a full-length CD out called Centuries Before Love and War so I picked it up for $10. I tore the wrapper off and took it up to the front where Robbyn convinced me to ask for their autographs. As they were cleaning up their equipment, I approached each of the three of them and asked for an autograph, and in each case they were really happy and appreciative and seemed a bit overwhelmed when I told them how incredible their performance was. I shook the drummer’s hand, which was a bit surreal as he is roughly the same height as me. Hee. Wonderful, wonderful show.
After that Bill, Robbyn and I walked around Ballard looking for a place to have dinner, and we settled on the Market Street Grill, which I’ve wanted to try since I moved here. The host turned out to be a guy from my building whom I met in the laundry room a few times, and our waiter was a really cheerful, pleasant man. The highlight of this meal was I finally got to try Grappa. It was terrible and tasted like rubbing alcohol. The waiter even let me try one from the low and and one from the high end. Yuck. :D Heh. Luckily, I hadn’t ordered a whole glass, so I wasn’t out $9-$18. Maybe the font on the menu should have given me a hint as to what I could expect…
Saturday (Will’s birthday) I met up with him and we headed over to his coworker’s house to watch Futurama. He’d never seen it, which is extremely difficult to believe, but in the end he seemed to like it so the event was a success. We all collapsed into couches in the basement and wrapped up in blankets, and of course it wasn’t long before I nodded off. Soooo comfy. :D Will’s coworker’s girlfriend made scones, which were delicious. After watching the whole of season 1, a bunch of us went out for Chinese food.
I rode the bus back to Ballard and met up with Christian and Miyuki. We hung out for awhile before we headed out to the Egyptian Theatre on Capitol Hill for a double header movie marathon. On the way Bill called and said he and Robbyn were free and they wanted to come along as well so we stopped at 7-11 to get some Red Bull so we could survive the midnight movie and then picked up B & R from their apartment. We watched The Science of Sleep and Evil Aliens. SOS was pretty good, interesting, but didn’t have the same depth that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did (same director.) It’s worth seeing, but wait for DVD. Evil Aliens was just campy as hell, super violent and gory, and full of nudity and gratuitous sex scenes. Not as sophisticated as Shaun of the Dead but still a laugh. I was still a bit wired when I got home at 2:30 AM, so I talked to Jules for awhile before heading to bed.
Sunday I got up a bit later and headed over to Omni to meet up with Will. We headed over to the Triple Door for a Billy Bragg show. It was my first KEXP VIP show (for donating $500 or more to the radio station) so it was pretty exciting. The show was incredible! (It will be up on the internet streaming pretty soon so I’ll link that as soon as I notice it, and that way YOU can see the same show I did!) Will seemed to enjoy it quite a bit as well, which made me happy.
We played D&D afterwards, which was fun. We had a few hours left once we’d finished so I went downstairs and tried the Gamecube version of Lego Star Wars II and noticed much faster loading times than the PS2 (which seems pretty typical in general.) We hopped over to the International District where Will and I bought some stuff at Uwajimaya and then met up with Tony at Fort St. George for some yummy curry. Max was feeling sick so he didn’t join us, but we still had a fantastic time chatting with Tony. We stayed a bit too long and surpassed our 2 hour limit on parking so Will had to pay a bit more (guh!) but we were having such a nice time we’d lost track of time.
My glasses broke on the way home (the screw fell out of one of the sides and got lost in my dark car) so I drove back without them. I guess it’s time to say screw it to those glasses since the broken side is all stripped anyway. I don’t know if I’ll get new ones or not yet. I guess it remains to be determined, as my eyesight really isn’t that bad and I wear glasses so seldom. If I get them it’d be nice if I did it while I still have insurance to cover it. I guess I’ll at least look into it. (Sorry for the awful puns.)
When I got back I was able to make some tea and then talk to Jules until I was sleepy. It was nice to finally get a chance to relax but it didn’t take long before my body was craving sleep.
So far the only plan I have for next weekend is Max/Will combo birthday party on Sunday, so hopefully I’ll be able to have some time off to relax. Looks like tonight I’ll be meeting up with the Ballard folks so I won’t be home. It is nice being surrounded by friends again, as that’s such an important thing for me. I’m very happy right now. (Laundry can wait!) :D
