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Can't believe it's already now been more than a week since 2/17/07. I miss you guys!

Thankfully, the Stardog is not always right on. At least with the knees.

In all the recent excitement over that band and its potential shows and record releases and such, I just looked at Nels' Web site and saw that he's doing a whole week in NYC! I hadn't seen that posted anywhere around these parts, so I figured I'd give it a plug... Here's the schedule: MAR 26 | JAZZ STANDARD | NYC The Jeff Gauthier Goatette (Gauthier/Alex Cline/David Witham, Joel Hamilton, NC) MAR 27 | JAZZ STANDARD | NYC Scott Amendola Band (Amendola, Jenny Scheinman, John Shifflett, NC) MAR 28 | TBA | NYC Myra Melford MAR 29 | JAZZ STANDARD | NYC NC & Friends play the music of Andrew

Yes, definitely! I've never been to Germany, so I'm hoping for some summer dates there. Actually, I'm really hoping to do the whole "low countries" tour--Holland and Belgium as well. Maybe I can even get someone called Gwen to come along.

I'm totally hoping for some, Dunja! I would so be there...

I was gonna go with, "Who is that scarved man?"

I think that was mostly a Jeff and Dave vocal affair, which I will edit my setlist to note. Things were beginning to get out of hand, in a great way, by that point. But it started to get hard to keep track of who was doing exactly what...

I make it a rule not to self-incriminate--ha! No, seriously Judes, I can only keep tabs on what's going on setlist-wise for so long. By the time we started in, I think it was the after, after, after-party and I had put the notebook away. But since you brought it up (and for the approximately five people who care) after Mr. Rivas' finished, the setlist went on: -Corduroy Cutoff Girl (w/Dr. Judy, Paul, Brianne and others on vocals and Dave Mirabella on guitar) -Sandusky (solo guitar version by Dave Mirabella) Am I missing anything else in the post-, post-, post-party shenanigans? And Sa

While I'm posting setlists, let me just add that we once again had the pleasure of hearing some of the fabulous musical exploits of our friends Dave Mirabella and Martin Rivas. Aside from their contributions to Jeff's performance as noted above, they also each played a set for us and I would feel remiss without listing those setlists as well... Dave Mirabella's opening set was, he said, mostly new, original material, so I'm pretty much taking everything off of the setlist he used: -Far Away -Real Life -Before You Go -Hoover -Sky Falls -Burned Again -Ruby-Colored Halo -Guardrail -No Guarantee

Sorry for the delay in getting this up here... Jeff played on everything, so I'm pretty much only noting when he was joined by others. In the later stages of the show, on songs that he didn't write, others shared in the vocal duties, so that was kind of tough to note. I tried my best. Anyway, without further ado, here were the songs (in order, of course) played last night at the Hotel S 'n' S: -Blasting Fonda -If That's Alright -"The Happy Song" -Walk Where He Walked -In a Future Age -(Was I) In Your Dreams -New Madrid -Strangers [Kinks] (w/Dave Mirabella on guitar) -I'm Always in Love

OK, OK...I just got back to New York. I'll get the thing up ASAP!

Did Daniel knee me?

Happiest of birthdays, m'dear! Hope you're keeping warm and toasty with a nice bottle of some earthy red vino...

hope you're having the best birthday yet, k! i'm sure you're having a great time in the tropics, despite kris' blunt characterization of them... i'll hoist a nice ale in your honor tonight...

I do have a good picture of Ms. Y to share, but right went I went to post it, my computer went totally crazy. (I'm on my roommate's computer now.) I'll post the photo as soon as I figure out what's wrong with my machine. Hopefully it's nothing too serious...

Oh, I've got a good one. I'll post it when I get home.

For anyone who cares (Stoffel, this means you), Scott McCaughey did another solid opening set in Birmingham. As in New Orleans, he played mostly keyboards and was accompanied by drummer Joe Adragna (of the band The Junior League). Although tonight was just their second time performing together, to their credit, Scott and Joe changed up the set a fair bit. Tonight, one of the nuggets we got was The Old Plantation off the Down With Wilco record. And the Hank Williams cover was also a nice surprise. I can't remember if Scott mentioned Joe telling him that Hank Williams died in Birmingham (which

As Jeff himself noted, tonight's show was a completely opposite experience from the previous night in New Orleans. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but I will say I probably had more fun at the New Orleans show. Despite the loudness at the House of Blues, there was just much more of a feeling of sharing something with a bunch of people as opposed to tonight when it was a big, darkened theater and I just felt very removed from Jeff and even most of the people around me. I don't know if that makes any sense--probably not--but that's kind of the way I felt. Certainly tonight's

Yeah, and judging from the crowd response to different songs, it seemed at least to me like there were a lot of "newer" fans who wanted to hear the "hits." Although there was some hooting and hollering for Uncle Tupelo stuff, the energy level was probably best when he did some of the singalongs off of YHF and AGIB--Jesus, HMD, Theologians, etc. What I'm trying to say is that it probably wasn't the best overall venue to play some quiet songs that only a few people knew...

Somewhat the opposite, actually. Jeff decided to try the unplugged approach early on seemingly to see how the talkers would react to an unamplified number. They piped down for a little while, but when it started to get louder again, Jeff's only recourse was to play, as he put it, "songs where I shout." He showed us his cheat sheet with those aforementioned songs and another cheat sheet with like 80 percent of the songs blacked out because, as Jeff explained, they were just too quiet for this type of venue and crowd. My personal favorite jackass of the night was the guy toward the front who k

Tonight was the first show on this tour that I've gotten to see with Scott McCaughey opening, and since I haven't really seen a lot written about Scott's opening sets, I figured I'd at least post what he played tonight. It was a treat to hear some songs off the Down With Wilco record, especially Daggers Drawn. And it was totally awesome to hear his version of So Much Wine. Apparently Scott's been playing with different local people each night, so his sets have been changing at least a little bit from night to night. At tonight's show, he had Joe Adragna (of a New Orleans band called The Juni

Here was tonight's setlist: Spiders (Kidsmoke) Remember The Mountain Bed IATTBYH Airline to Heaven The Ruling Class New Madrid Radio King Someone Else's Song (w/o p.a. system) Theologians California Stars Hesitating Beauty Heavy Metal Drummer The Late Greats ELT Jesus, etc. -------------------------------- A Shot in the Arm I'm The Man Who Loves You -------------------------------- Passenger Side Gun Pecan Pie Dreamer In My Dreams (w/o pa) Acuff-Rose (w/o pa)

Something tells me that you might have some company.

Here's the picture of the inside of Liberty Hall that I snapped with my cell-phone camera. I literally stuck my phone just inside the door and snapped, so this really is the whole venue. Here's one of my other favorite cell-phone pictures from the weekend. It's Marfa's one real stoplight (they also had a blinking yellow, but I'm not counting that one): And just so Kris' mind is fully at peace, I did make it back to NYC in plenty of time for my 3-6 p.m. class yesterday! I'm on the weekend travel plan for the time being, but the Marfa show was--thank goodness--on a Sunday!

In my haste, I omitted The Ruling Class in the above setlist [edit: I added it in my original post, but obviously someone correct me if I'm wrong]. I'm pretty sure it came after Blasting Fonda, but it's 4:45 a.m., I'm sitting in the Midland airport and I'm not 100 percent certain. Hopefully someone else can confirm... It was definitely played, though.