End of Milwaukee!

Okay, so finally... after Comet everyone was basically in a food coma, so I ended up walking over to Cactus Club by myself to see the show... I wanted to get there on time because I was gonna get to see a bunch of my buds from Nashville. That's really one of the best things about this "music" thing... you can run into people you know in weird places all over the country, cuz every one's on tour all the time.
So I hoofed it over to Cactus (and was proud of myself for figuring out the way) to hang with my sweet bros from Pujol and Turbo Fruits, two awesome bands from Nashville that are on tour together. It was great to just see some friendly faces! Also, it was Sean's (guitarist of Pujol) 20th birthday!


The show was good. Irma Vep played, they're my friend Aaron's band and they are currently a two piece playing really poppy garagey songs. They have only played two shows and are soon to have a second guitarist/mini-Casio player and I think their songs will really benefit from that.




The next band was The Spectras, a fairly new super group of ladies from other awesome bands including Plexi 3 and The Cave Weddings. They were awesome, really rocking and catchy songs and very charismatic stage presence.




And then Pujol and Turbo Fruits played and they both sounded great. A ton of people bought Pujol merch and I was happy. Sean played his special birthday guitar solo.






The next day I just headed out to Minneapolis, and Minnesota has been cool so far... I'll tell you about that later, now I gotta go out and do shit.

Bacon not Fakin' in Wisconsin

Yesterday was kind of all about food... and after yesterday I don't want to see anything that's not a fresh vegetable for a few days.
The day started when Claire and I went to Honey Pie for brunch. I got a mimosa and Claire got a bloody mary. In New York, mimosas are mostly served in a single serving champagne flute... the one I got at Honey Pie was in a pint glass, also had ice in it, and I've never had ice in a mimosa before. Claire's bloody Mary was intense... on top of the normal veggies, it also had a brussels sprout, a piece of cheese, and a piece of hard sausage in it... crazy.


We also met a cute family of Marquette fans, and their young daughter was adorable.

The food was great. I got a fancy corned beef hash and Claire got a "Honey Pie Benedict" which featured biscuits and homemade sausage instead of an English muffin and canadian bacon. It was really great.


After brunch, Claire and I made a quick stop at an Aveda salon to take care of some bizniz and met the nicest stylist ever.

Then I headed home to do some writing and watch the NASCAR race... it was the penultimate race of the season so very very very exciting. My boyz at Joe Gibbs Racing were up front for most of the race... and even though Kyle Busch is my guy, I really want Denny Hamlin to beat out Jimmie Johnson for the Sprint Cup this year, so I've been rooting for him hard... in the end, gas mileage bullshit ended up setting them back, tragic. Also, FUCK CARL EDWARDS.
After the race I headed over to Frank's Power Plant to meet up with Claire and some of her friends. This is where I encountered the BaconMosa... a big mimosa in a pint glass with ice and a slice of bacon sticking out. I kind of reluctantly tried one, but it was not bad.

At that bar I talked to one of Claire's friends, a big burly dude everyone calls Plumber, and told him that I noticed that there's a gym on almost every block in Milwaukee... he told me that in the winter people never do anything at all, so a lot of people just go to the gym. He snowboards. I could not live somewhere so cold.

After that Claire took me to Comet, a restaurant our friend Aaron works at that was once on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. One of their gimmicks is that on Sundays they give you a free basket of bacon if you order a beer. Yes a BASKET OF BACON. It was awesome, but the human body was not intended to eat that much bacon. I also got the meatloaf, which is one of the specialties there. It came with awesome mustard greens. Claire's friend Becky and her roommate Geoff came with us. Aaron tried to give us all free desert, but there was no way I was gonna eat some pie after that meal, or really, there was no way I was going to eat anything ever again.



There was a show later that night that was awesome, that I'll have to write about in a bit....

Rad Bad Madison

Spent most of yesterday around the house... the weather was really cold and rainy in Milwaukee so I just caught up on my Gossip Girl and 90210 and watched the awesome video for Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold" like 10,000 times... I know I'm a little late to the party, but I can't even tell you how obsessed with Katy Perry I am right now.
But we had big plans for the night... we were headed to Chopper Fest 3 in Madison. Claire and I drove to pick up two of her friends, Addie and Jordan, and then we rode to Madison, where we picked up Missy, a friend and TermBroad, who was in town from Oakland to see her family. Girrrrlz night.


The show was at this bar called Mickey's Tavern in Madison, and it was very cool looking. The front room is pretty tiny, but if you walk around the corner you enter this weird room that looks like the lounge in a mansion from the 60s, really cool.


The show was good, kind of intense, 6 bands played in the tiny front room. A couple of them, The Off-Days, The Hussy and Chris Perennial, had played at the show I went to on Friday, but they were all good again. I also got to see The Midwest Beat, who I recently booked a show for at Bruar Falls in Brooklyn. They're a really stellar band, jingle jangle and twang and just great rockpop, really fantastic. Here are some pictures of some people drinking beer and some bands playing music:







Other noteworthy things of the night: There was a cop just hanging out at the show, just chilling. Also, I had a Spotted Cow, a local beer that you can't get out of Wisconsin. I really liked it, it was light and kind of sweet.

Milwaukee Walkie Talkie

By the time we drove into Milwaukee it was about 7, it was dark and the skyline was pretty. Claire took me first to The Cactus Club where her friend was bartending. We got some beers and a shot.

Claire and I bought a bottle of champers and went to her house to drop off my stuff. I met her two adorable cats Rocker and Lola.

After that we went over to Todd Trikknee's house to chill and drink some beers with Gus, who I met at Silent Barn when he played there with Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones a couple of years ago.

Next stop was Frank's Power Plant for the showwww... everyone there kept saying the show was weird but I didn't really think so. I met a lot of cool people, including Kevin Mistreater (who I had e-mailed with a lot but never met) and saw some bands... The Hussy, Pure Country Gold, The Off-Days... and drank too many beers.









I also was given some of Chuck Norris's energy drink Liquid Ice, which, as the bartender pointed out to me, can also just be called "water."
Claire's friend Davey (pictured above with the 'stache) took us over to his house to chill on his roof... I couldn't go up onto the roof because I have a strict policy of never going onto roofs that are only accessible via ladder.... it gives me a panic attack and is very embarrassing. So I just chilled with Davey's adorable pit bull Frenchie.

This morning I slept in, blogged a little, and then got a real treat... Claire and I went to eat papusas with Kevin Mistreater and his wife and two adorable kids. That baby was so into me.





Tonight we're driving to Madison for a mini-fest!