When did Eric start playing guitar for the Fleshtones?

This past Saturday night was the record release party for the new Fleshtones album, "Take A Good Look" at Manitoba's on Ave. B.  I was excited for a number of reasons.  For one, as anyone who knows me knows...I'm a HUGE Fleshtones fan.  So much so, my band the Subway Surfers recorded a track for the Fleshtones tribute record, Vindicated. 

In addition to having copies of their albums for sale at the show, the Fleshtones would also be selling copies of the tribute.  This would be my first (only?) chance to see people I don't personally know buying copies of the album I'm on.  The first person I saw getting a copy was beyond my wildest dreams.




Yeah, that's Peter Buck from REM.

My goal for the evening was to get a picture with Handsome Dick Manitoba, bar owner and punk rock legend, with us both holding  a copy of "Vindicated".  He's also on the tribute, singing "American Beat", backed by the Nomads.  I thought we had the best track on the record, but HDM blows us out of the water.   I digress.




That sounds like a pretty full night, right?  That wasn't even the half of it.

For the last few years the Fleshtones have been doing this bit for the song, "Push Up Man".  They pull members out of the audience to do push-ups.  During the song, Peter Zaremba grabbed me and pointed at the bar.  Not sure what to do, I ditched my leather jacket, climbed up on the bar, while patrons cleared their drinks and planted myself down and proceeded to do about 20-30 push ups on the bar.







I've been working out with a trainer lately, so I had much better endurance than I did even a few weeks ago.  That said, THANK GOD I got the tap when I did.  Peter (or was it Keith) told me to stand up on the bar and I was handed...Keith Streng's guitar. 



I got to play Keith's guitar, with the Fleshtones, ON the bar at Manitobas. 



A couple that I knew when I used to be a regular at Manitobas came in just as this was happened.  The husband turned to the wife and asked, "I know we haven't seen him in a while, but when did Eric start playing guitar for the Fleshtones?"

New Blog

Hey! I got a new Blog for Christmas:

Fotoz by Fuzzco

It's a PhotoBlog (Flog?) and I'll be posting my "Best of 2005" pics there over the next few weeks.

Can you dig it???

I Think I Hate This

Fatboy Slim remixed tha Go-Go's "Our Lips Are Sealed".
I don't hate that. I like a lot of Fatboy Slim stuff. His first album was pretty cool.

Oliver Gondry "remixed" the video to include modern girls riding along with the Go-Go's.
I don't hate that. The video itself is really interesting. Sort of like that Deep Space Nine episode where the crew is injected into the TOS epsiode "The Trouble with Tribbles".

It's a Nordstrom commercial.

Yeah, that's the part I hate. Generally, I don't mind when rock songs are used in commercials. Especially stuff that wasn't a huge hit back in the day. Those people have kids in college now. They could use a paycheck.

But, there is just something unseemly about this.

Pix Pix Pix

Just a reminder, I take lots of pictures of bands in and around New York City. You can check'em out here and here.

Reward

I've been going out of my way to be generally nicer lately. No more flipping off little, old ladies in White Castles and the like.

After the Magnetic Field Katrina benefit a few weeks back, I wasWASTED. I stumbled home and along the way I lost three CDs I got athe gig. One I bought from Bazooka Joe, one I won and the other wasthe Von Ghouls disc they recorded at The Skoof Sound Factory. I was bummed.

Saturday I was running around doing errands in Manhattan and while onthe subway a little old Asian lady came up to me to ask directions. I'm fairly certain it was because I was wearing a Superman t-shirt. Anyway, she didn't speak a word of English besides "Six" and washolding a piece of paper that said "South Ferry" on it. I took her from the N&R station over to the the 6 train and gave herwhat little I could in the way of instructions and sent her on herway.

Everything took longer than I expected and I was rushing home at 5:45to meet up with Larry and go BACK into the city for my birthdaydinner. I grabbed a cab from the PATH station back to my house.

Whenwe got to my door, the cabbie mentioned that I had been in his cab afew weeks earlier, very drunk (he did the glass tipping pantomime) and asked if I had a lost a CD. Turns out he had found all the CDs and kept them in his glovecompartment, and gave them back to me.

How cool is that?

Nicolas Cage: Douche of the Year

Oscar Winner Cage Becomes Father Again
Mon Oct 3, 1:41 PM ET

Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage is a new father.His wife, Alice Kim Cage, gave birth Monday to a boy, Kal-el CoppolaCage, in New York City, said Cage's Los Angeles-based publicist,Annett Wolf.

No other details were available.

"They are healthy and happy and it's quite lovely," Wolf said byphone from New York.

Cage is a nephew of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yeah, but the part they left out is that "Kal-El" is Superman's Kryptonian name. What a DOUCHE. Does he consider for one secondthat this kid is going to get the CRAP beat out of him when he get'sto school?

Puking Puppy

Angus was up from around 2:30 until almost 4 am puking last night. Thankfully, most of it on the floor and not on my carpets. Poor guy.

I was *this* close to kicking out in the backyard for the night after the second hurl, but it was too cold out. I did my best to clean up, but it still smelled pretty bad in the pad this morning.

I knew he was feeling better when he drank his entire bowl of water at 4am. His license banging against the metal bowl the entire time...