The Physics of Meaning are out on the road all over America. Here's an account of what they're up to in the recurring The Physics of Meaning Tour Blog.To live and Diaper in LALike usual protocol, as we entered Los Angeles, my tourist glands swelled up. I don't know if I will ever get used to it. LA doesn't really exist to me, so being there is always really fun for me, because it's like being asleep. Everybody in LA is really weird and pretty and blah blah blah...any ways. My first moment in Los Angeles included a tray of homemade cookies shaped like many a penis and breast from Lexxxie and Z-RE. What other city rolls out the welcome wagon like that? In a flash, Dylan and I were in Echo Park (I'm still not 100% sure how we ended up there, too fast...I mean, we took the van, but it was like....we were just there..) in a huge, empty and darkened bar. Moments later, we were at In and Out Burger, with Zoe Erwin cracking the whip on our path. I had my first ever "animal style" fries. THEY DO THAT SHIT TO FRIES, TOO?!? Delicious. It was exactly how much I wanted, and that means about 3x more than I could eat comfortably. Then we were on some kind of white-knuckle thrill ride, weaving our way up the curviest death trap hills I have ever seen. Moments later, I was almost completely naked, in the halls of some cold building. That's when things get a little blurry. There was a golden diaper, Jesus's legs, a mirror covering my penis and reflecting Dylan's rage, I gave birth to a green ghost, delivered by Dr. Delicious in a wave of shimmery fabric. Wylie was wearing a tiger's head and throwing butterflies, a janitor kept showing up when I was only wearing my little soldiers and my rainboots. Dylan was dressed like the ringmaster of some kind of weird, gay middle-eastern circus from B.C. but was still wearing his glasses(?) and then I was wearing my poncho and a belt over my eyes (but my whole head was inside a veil already, so I couldn't really tell where I was, except that I was standing on a stool. There was an umbrella. A concrete deer(?). We were flying, but my clowsuit gave me a serious, serious rash on both arms.
So, those were our first couple of hours in Los Angeles.
After that, things smoothed out some. We played out first show in the LA area at a place called Temporary Spaces. Everytime we come to town, I get a quick reminder of how many awesome friends we have in LA. Especially James and Claudine, who always let us stay with them at their apartment. These are, quite literally, the nicest people on the planet. James brought very fancy video equipment to film out show. Good thing the only light on while we played was a bright blue Disco Ball. So, no footage. We got to play that show with one of our favorite bands, One Trick Pony. We finally have their long-awaited (by us) album, so we'd be listening to it all tour, preparing us for the most enjoyable opening-act set of this entire trip. Not that other bands we play with aren't fine, but man..that band. Awesome.
Saturday, we drove to the water, where Zoe was nice enough to invite us for some general R&R, a cookout, and a photoshoot. It was an afternoon of hotdogs, radiohead, walks on the pier, and me going completely apeshit and tearing her room apart, eating facepaint, climbing the walls and doing flips on her bed, while she worked the lights and shutter. By the end, my back (which is always mostly broken by long days in the van) was completely destroyed and we had some pretty good pictures. Worth the pain, for sure sure, I had a stomach full of hot dogs and pink and blue facepaint, and was sitting on the couch with the other dudes listening to this italian painter named Enzo tell us about this band from Italy called CSI:
"Theees song, eet mean...ah....'I don' geev a fack, because you NEVER KNOW.'"and "Theees, in eeetalian, mean 'What ees destin to fall...fall. What ees destin to happen...happen. In eeetalian, these thing..they sound the same. EEET TAKE A FAAAAAAAAACKING POET!!! EEET TAKE A FAAAAAAKING POET'"
Then we went to Long Beach, historical setting of Warren G's "Regulators" and hometown of Snoop D O double G. On the way in, I was pretty much heartbroken. No thugged out ghetto sleds. No OG's. Just a bunch of worn out looking white people. Boring. But across the street from the venue there was a Popeye's chicken, and despite us still not running into any signs of Death Row alumni, we did get served CHICKEN THROUGH BULLETPROOF GLASS. I really appreciated that experience, small as it was. I later told the audience about growing up in Rockwood and hearing Warren G's adventure and thinking about what a horrible, post-apocalyptic place the LBC must be, and thanking them for not "hemming us in" or trying to "steal our wealth" or "take our rolex" like in the song. They seemed to find the same humour that I did. Even in the chicken. Thanks, LBC!
Sunday, it was real sad to leave LA. A serious adventure that I have left plenty out of, I'm sure, just as I left a trail of hand and footprints all over a wall in Marina Del Rey. Whew. We headed North, into the hardest part of our touring circuit. The cold, the miserable, the epic drives....
Fresh off their grueling US tour back in February, The Physics of Meaning are right back on the road, heading down to Austin, Texas and back. The boys will be taking part in the annual celebratory music-beer-magazines-sun-clusterfuck that is SXSW. They've got some awesome shows lined up while they're down there, including the North Carolina showcase with our friends Megafaun, Annuals, Lonnie Walker, etc and the epic Hometapes Friend Island party with the likes of Megafaun, Slaraffenland, Slaraffenklang (which I assume is the totally rad Slaraffenland/Efterklang combined set madness) and more. Oh and did we mention at the latter there will be free pancakes from Organic Batter Blasters and free beer from Oregon's own Deschutes Brewery?! Upon returning the band will begin work on their follow-up to Snake Charmer and Destiny at the Stroke of Midnight. Here are the dates:
The Triangle's wonderful weekly newspaper, The Independent, is pretty amazing at covering local music. We're very lucky to have such a great resource. The paper recently published reviews of both Embarrassing Fruits' brand new Community / Exploitation and Butterflies' most recent Nothing's Personal in the last couple weeks. Take a look and make sure to catch Butterflies tonight at Local 506 with Wes Phillips and Embarrassing Fruits on Friday at Local 506 for their album release party.
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