Baseball, Red Sox and Paul Revere

So, about six months ago I hopped on a plane and took a holiday in New York, which included a brief one night stay in Boston. I’ve had this long lingering obsession with Boston since my teens, which is mainly because it’s a hometown of Letters to Cleo (the first rock band I was really into) – so I used to love reading the Boston Globe and Boston Phoenix, idealising the city as a place of sunny sophistication and American cool. 

I was fiercely anticipating my trip to Boston in late October 2014, but it was also one of the most blissfully satisfactory travel experiences of my life. In my notebook I jotted “Boston, love it… it has a calm and quiet charm that is lacking in the dirty accelerated exaggeration of New York. The leaves are falling. There is the absence of New York City’s wall of sound and there is the sense of being pleasantly at ease.”

 Whilst being a major city, it has an idyllic New England charm and the people exude a warmth. Everything, about my single day strolling around in Boston was so utterly pleasing, plus I manage to be there during a visit from President Obama, as well as a historic home victory by the Red Sox. 

So, this came all came back to me a couple of weeks ago, with the commemorations and reflection over the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Bostonians were still in shock from the bombing in October, which I picked up on in an email I sent out to a few friends after my visit – detailing my experience of Baseball, Red Sox and Paul Revere:

Until I came to Boston I had never heard of Paul Revere. In brief, he was a prominent member of the community in Boston in the 18th century, who initially made his name as a silversmith, but is more widely known for his involvement in the Independence movement. Every child in America knows him from ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’, a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that provides a somewhat embellished account of his horse ride from Lexington to Concorde in order to warn American Revolutionaries about the arrival of British troops in Boston.

His fully restored house was the surprise highlight of my day trip to Boston. The house itself is fairly interesting, filled with décor from the period. It is not that polished and you don’t get the impression that it has a huge amount of funding…. but it has a hokey quality, which is really quite endearing.

What really makes this exhibition splendid are the resident guides, who are on both floors and are available to answer every single question imaginable question about Paul Revere. They are consummate storytellers; capable you delivering detailed tales of the past that carry significance and wit. You get a real sense that they are bubbling over with enthusiasm for Paul Revere, history and all things Boston.

The most interesting information I gleaned was not about the emergence of the Independence movement or the intricacies of colonial politics, but instead it was about what was happening on that night… 30th October 2013… on my only night in Boston.

A guide on the upstairs portion of the house got chatting to me about the legend of Paul Revere and what he has come to symbolise. She was a greyed-haired lady, who held the warmth and charm of a motherly primary school teacher. “Have you seen the statue of Paul Revere? Well if not, you’ll see him later on along your walk. You know, if there if ever a sports event or a TV show about Boston… they normally show the Paul Revere statute, so he has sort of come to symbolised Boston.”

Lots of protesting placards intended for Obama

She went on to explain that there was a tradition of dressing the Paul Revere statute, particularly during
sports events…  namely when the Red Sox (Boston’s fervently supported baseball team) plays. “So like tonight… the statute will be dressed in Red Sox shirt, actually it’s a really interesting day to be in Boston, we could win the World Series tonight! Actually today is a real headache for the police, since you would have seen the crowds down the road since Obama has come to town … this is causing all sorts of problems with the police blocking off the roads. But the President apparently promised the Mayor that he’ll leave town by 7pm, so everyone can get to the game on time.”

Bostonians love their baseball and the Red Sox are a rallying point for the town’s feelings and passions. “And you know after the Marathon bombing… God, I feel emotional just thinking about it still…  they put a ‘Be Strong’ shirt on the Paul Revere statute… it’s part of this campaign for, you know, for us to be strong after what happened.”

From speaking to her, I realised that the bombing really shook Bostonians hard, harder than I’d thought, coming from the perpetually bomb-threatened London. Boston has a really small downtown area, occasionally giving it the feeling of the suburban town…  and for a fairly safe place where everything is in walking distance, the bombing must have felt like their own personal 9/11.

The Red Sox have been part of the “recovery” that is the centre of the ‘Be Strong’ campaign. A ‘B Strong’ was etched into the grass in Fenway Park Stadium’s baseball field, so it could be clearly seen during TV aerial shots. The lady recounted with pride an infamous incident involving star hitting David Ortiz, saying “you might have heard about David Oritz… in the first game since the bombing in April, he grabbed the microphone and live on TV he said”… and in hushed shout she gleefully whispered “this is our fucking city!”

After telling her that I was staying in Berkeley Street near the Back Bay, she told me “Oh! Now I know I’m going sound like your mother, but you be careful since the crowds are going to coming down from the stadium. The police get really worried if the Red Sox win a game, because in Boston… we have all these students who love to get drunk… and to some people their idea of celebrating is to set a car on fire”. She told me about this absurd setting-car-on-fire-celebration with a worrisome sincerity that made me crack up with laughter.

So I made sure to watch the game somewhere close to my hostel later on that night. I took the decision go to the normally hip and happening Tremont Street, known for its cultured nightlife and trendy restaurants. However, it was really hard to a bar… and because of the game…  the street was dead quiet. As noted in the papers the next day, “the normally bustling Tremont Street corridor in the South End sat quiet Wednesday night”.

Eventually I was able to find a restaurant with a large bar area and screen. It was my first time watching a baseball game, though I’d gathered a vague understanding about the rules from years of absorbing American popular culture.  I was immediately struck by the immense amount of stats that litter the screen and the commentary. Fortunately someone at the bar was able to explain the key parts of the game to me and point on the star pitchers. A little fact that I found really interesting was that some of the Red Sox’s best pitchers are Japanese – in fact, the Osaka born Koji Uehara was the pitcher that dealt the winning strike-out that won them the World Series.

There was a tangible energy in the crowd whenever there was a run or a great pitch and the place became ecstatic when Boston won. Later that night there really was a jubilantly rowdy crowd marching from Fenway Park stadium after the Red Sox won. And as the lady from the Paul Revere house predicted, there was the usual celebratory car violence.

The Boston Globe reported the post-game incidents with about as much relish as the game itself, writing, “Nearly 1,000 people blocked traffic and a handful began climbing on cars. About two dozen revelers tried to flip a car parked in front of the Talbots stores as the police arrived to clear the crowd. Boston Police said another car was flipped near Charles Street… Some jumped into a flatbed trailer attached to the back of a Boston police pickup track, leaping up and down in unison as the trailer bounced”.

It was felt to as a triumphant day for Boston. I think there is an American traditional of overcoming tragedy through sport, like when the team from New Orleans won the Superbowl, marking a recovery of sorts from the damage wretched  by the Katrina Hurricane. Much like Paul Revere, a town’s sports team can be a depository of a community’s aspirations and ideals. Like Paul Revere’s ride, the Red Sox first victory on home soil since 1918 is to be recounted as a triumphant story of All-American resilience.

Poetry Demystified: A beginner’s journey

This blog has been rather neglected in the past few months, but that's not to say I haven't been writing. The following is a piece I've written for the revamped Roundhouse website, which is going live with a snazzy new look, as well as lots of new content, at the end of January. Watch this space, as there's more where this case from. 

Spoken word is cool. London has a vibrant performance scene and kids are now actually watching artists spout verse on YouTube … but what about actual written poetry? Last November the Roundhouse’s Last Word Festival celebrated the variety of spoken word but what about the stanzas that we pored over during our GCSE English classes? Could these ever be cool? Poetry was a chore when I was at school, though as I grew older it seemed like something that I was missing out on. So that’s why I became interested when I came across the Roundhouse’s ‘Poetry for Beginners’ class.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  At first I thought that it would be a class teaching us to write poetry. However, it was far simpler than that. Poet Inua Ellams led the class and he sought to demystify poetry for the uninitiated and for me at least… he succeeded. 

It didn’t feel like a class, instead it was more of a book club, so we all introduced ourselves and chatted about our thoughts on poetry. 

Inua started with his thoughts on the relevance of poetry and it’s distinction from spoken word, saying that “Spoken word is like a fight in a bar, it’s visceral and raw. At the end of it, you can easily see who has won. But poetry…. it’s more like a fight with a Kung Fu Grand Master. At times you’re not sure if it’s even a fight, at the end you don’t know who’s won and it can be months of pondering before you understand what really happened”. With that in mind Inua read William Carlos William’s ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ out loud:

Inua Ellams

So much depends,

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

besides the white

chickens.

Leaping into the class with this poem, Inua showed us that poems did not have to be an epic array of words, which required the analysis of multiple footnotes alluding to classical literature. Rather, it could be 8 lines or 16 words. 

What I found interesting is that after hearing it a lot of us felt that we had opinions about the verse and had the urge to share them, even if we hadn’t read much poetry before. We all brought forward an interesting range of ideas, delving into what we loved and loathed about the words.

Inua stressed that it is okay not to “get” certain poems or think that we had somehow failed if we didn’t get what the poet had to say. After going through a range of great poems (Litany by Billy Collins and Rosh Hashanah by Aharon Shabtai to name a couple), poetry doesn’t seem so distant anymore and I’m confident that I see it for what it is. It is not a lofty set of words to be deciphered; instead it can be absorbed, hated or loved like any other cultural work.

Why learn to drive?

Recently I spoke to someone at an office party.  The conversation somehow moved to roads, which gave me cause to reveal that I had never learnt how to drive. This caused this someone to erupt into a violent chuckle. He sincerely apologised as he tried to control his laughter, managing to force a cough in order to stabilise himself after the shock of meeting a grown man who is incapable of controlling a car. I thought I’d better learn.

The last time I was behind the wheel of a car was when I was 19. I had five lessons, where I more or less learnt how to move a car forward. I’ve put it on the backburner for the last few years. This backburner has been fuelled by a range of highly unoriginal excuses, such as it’s bad for the environment, having car is really expensive, I’ll never use a car, etc.

So why don’t I drive? In addition to being plain lazy, driving seems like something from an alien world.  The length of the time that I have spent not driving has made the idea of me being in the driver’s seat seem completely unfathomable, something that I just don’t do. I’ve also been in five car accidents, all of which occurred before I was 12, which I suspect may have embedded in me a deep rooted reluctance to drive.

My renewed enthusiasm for getting behind the wheel made me particularly interested in an episode of This American Life, called ‘How To’. In ‘Roadrunner’, Ira Glass teaches Sarah Vowell how to drive. (Skip to 06:40 to get straight to the Sarah Vowell piece)

This is a fantastic piece of radio, since it bounces two great institutions of American radio off each other.  Ira Glass, the eekingly inquisitive host of the show. Sarah Vowell, who has the ability to deliver bitingly sardonic observations, all the while in her peculiar voice, which makes her  sounds like a cross between a small child and what I’d imagine a teddy bear would sound like if it suddenly gained the ability to talk.

Ira Glass

It’s episodes like these where the idiosyncratic personalities of the show’s contributors make This American Life an engaging listen. The show can sometimes works like a sitcom as the entertainment is from observing how established characters react in a novel situation. If this was a Friend’s episode it would be called ‘The one when Ira tries to teach Sarah how to drive’.  Inevitable larks ensue as the anxious Ira tries to handle a fear-stricken and reluctant Sarah Vowell.

It reminds me of when I first learnt to drive in the congested roads of Tooting Broadway. After a few minutes of tuition I was put in charge of the car. I didn’t experience the much lauded joy of driving. Instead, I felt as if I had inappropriately been entrusted with a weapon, capable of wreaking havoc, inflicting damage and maiming members of the public. As Sarah Vowell explains in the episode, “Driving is my greatest fear. And it's not a totally irrational fear. There are things about driving that are in fact dangerous, like learning to pass another car without hitting it.”

Sarah Vowell also sprouts wonderful rants on the evils of the car, on how the “car class” builds a destructive society that lacks in adequate public transport and guzzles fossil fuels. Such incoherent and nonsensical diatribes would be familiar to anyone who has asked why I don’t drive. You see us non-drivers like to make the best of our situation whenever we can. We are not lazy; we are financials geniuses who have carefully calculated that buying a car, paying for petrol and scouring for parking is something that only fools would indulge in. Furthermore, we are not too incompetent to pass a test; instead we are pillars of morality, eco-warriors who are the only ones willing to righteously stand up to those evil oil conglomerates and announce “No”.

Sarah Vowell

Listening back to her panic-fuelled recording in the car, Sarah acknowledges the absurdity of her reasons, saying “I don't know who that humourless fanatic was. Though in my defence, I was grasping for any reason to get out of this driving mistake. Let me assure you that I care about fossil fuels precisely as much as everyone else in America…. which is to say not at all.”

When I restarted my driving lessons last Friday, it felt completely different from before. It felt more natural. I think my teenage anxieties had left me. Perhaps my adolescent apprehension has been replaced by the hot headed hubris of the young adult.

I suspect it feels easier because driving is something I’ve developed a genuine interest in. Sure, I’m learning partly because it’s something I feel I’m obligated to do as part of the general human-experience. However, I’m increasingly drawn in by all the possibilities that driving offers.

There’s bit towards the end of the This American Life piece were Sarah Vowell finally finds joy in driving while ordering a meal at a Drive-Thru Burger King, indulging in her childhood desire to access fast-food on the road. I think I’d love all those little things I’ve always coveted from being a mere passenger. I suspect that I’ll feel that I have fully arrived once I’ve had the ability to gain full control of the stereo, change the CD, turn up the volume and speed off into the distance.

Retail in Review: Free Comic Book Day

Orbital Comics

Free Comic Book Day felt much more fun than Record Store Day. You got the impression that it was a celebration of something genuinely cherished by shop staff and comic book fans.

I went to Orbital Comics, which is right next to Leicester Square Tube station. There was a fairly short line where two staff members were dispensing free comics. Everyone could take 3 comics and the staff took their time to ask me what comics I normally read so I’d get sometime I’d enjoy. I also grabbed another bunch of free comics from Forbidden Planet, which is this big comics/merchandise megastore that is based a short walk away from Orbital. I recorded a few interviews at Orbital and made an audio package for Roundhouse Radio:



There was quite a broad range of comics on offer. Most of these were compilations of previews to various series, some were first issues introductions and others were one off specials for the day. Fortunately a lot of these comics have now been made available online: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05/06/free-comics-if-you-missed-free-comic-book-day-damsels-grimm-killjoys-star-wars-aspen-aphrodite-xi-steam-engines-of-oz-molly-danger-and-more/

Grabbing the free comics

The Walking Dead comic (an on-going series about a group of survivors in a zombie apocalypse) was a particularly interesting. It appeared to be specially crafted for the fans of the series, giving snippets of insight into the back-story of the main characters and even had an allusion to the joy of comics. You can read it here: http://imgur.com/a/K57Ah

Fun loving costumed fans at Orbital Comics!

There was the usually comic crowd (adolescent men with skin-problems), but there were a fair amount of parents with their kids. In fact a lot of the comic books on offer were for kids, so the day had a lively family feel.

Free Comic Book Day came across as a celebration of the medium, as opposed to being a day to celebrate a system of commence. There’s certainly an air of glee in the air, since as opposed to being charged for something at an inflated price, the comics are given away. It felt like a day out in Orbital Comics, since there was a stall selling cakes, fans dressed up in costumes and staff who were really keen to have long talks about comics.

My horde of free comics!

The difference is that Record Store Day isn’t about promoting music (since virtually everyone loves music anyway) while Free Comic Book Day was an occasion for people to share something that they were truly enthusiastic about – which certainly made it a lot more fun and heartfelt.

Retail in Review: Record Store Day

Record Store Day was on the 20^th April, which followed two weeks later by Free Comic Book Day. I checked both of these days out. Both were nice. However, Comic Book Day felt less like a commercial affair, coming across as more genuine than the frantic scramble for records I experienced in late April.

Record Store Day champions the world’s independent record shops, battling against the likes of Soundcloud, Itunes, Amazon and the rest of the 21^st century. The day is normally accompanied by limited edition singles being released on the day and in-store performances.

I heard that my favourite surf-pop band, ‘Best Coast’, was releasing a limited edition 7 inch vinyl single. Since I was in town on the day I thought I’d swing by Sister Ray Records.

What I did like was Record Day was that it gave a festival feel to London’s Soho, since there was stage erected on Berwick Street, which had assortment of bands playing to entertain the crowds.

 What I did not like was the mega queue I faced when I got to Sister Ray Records. The queue was so people could get their hands on the all the limited edition singles. It’s apparently become a normal part of the day for people to begin queuing in the early hours of the morning.

We were passed a list of the records the shop still had while in line (which snaked on for another 10 minutes once through the doors), so we could request the record we were after the second we got to the counter. It made everything feel rather commoditised. It wasn’t a day when people had the record shop experience of listening to new records, browsing through unfamiliar albums and having pleasantly inane chats with staff. Instead it comes across as a day for record aficionados to revel in their niche tastes.

 It’s not really for kids or people with a passing interest in music, since the limited release 7 inch records are extremely expensive – I spent £7 on Best Coast’s ‘Fear of My Identity’ single. Incidentally, the single was fantastic and it did feel nice to get something that felt exclusive. 

However, it seemed to be something for record shops to make more money out of the kind of people that come to such shops anyway, something to make up for their dwindling sales throughout the year. What it didn’t do was bring across why people should buy something in a shop as opposed to getting it cheaper online. 

Review of the Knife at the Roundhouse

The mildly bonkers Swedish sibling duo known as the Knife performed last week at the Roundhouse. The show ended up becoming one of the most controversial gigs of the year, dividing critics and fans.

Me and my friend Mainga expected a standard concert (opening with a few tracks from the new album, some of their hits sprinkled in and with some fan favourites for the encore), though we got something very different. The audio clip is our immediate reaction after leaving the Roundhouse.

They opened with “A Cherry on Top”, a song from their new album. It was a misty dry-ice set with Olef and Karin (the Knife) plus about seven people dressed in druid cloaks (Sorkklubben). Looking back on it, the whole thing was very Spinal Tap. 

It took me a while to realise that the giant oversized toy-like looking instruments they played (a large paper mache harp and a 12 foot slide-guitar among others) weren't actually real. They were in fact props. 

After first track, they lost the druid cloaks to reveal simmering jumpsuits. They dropped the fake instruments, instead proceeding to dance and mime to a backing track. All pretence of a musical performance was dropped as various members of the dance troupe took turns in miming the songs. There were remarks that it was a “hipster Pan’s People” and “Riverdancing in sparkly jumpsuits”, which are descriptions that I can’t entirely disagree with. In many ways it stopped being a concert and instead became a stage musical that featured songs by the Knife. 

Two things made it worthwhile. First, the on stage visuals were mostly interesting and inventive – an amazing piece which stood out was a performance of ‘Got 2 Let U’, where a video of Karin in a fake beard mouthing to the song was projected the alongside a lip-synching male dancer (err… you sort of had to be there).

Secondly, it was a performance with a cheeky point. It was a deliberate challenge to what an audience would accept as a band performance. It questioned the connection between the visual performance and the music that was played. It gradually pushed the acceptability of what a band could get away with; first with the band not playing instruments, then by them not singing and then by everyone leaving the stage at one point to allow ‘Full of Fire’ to play in its near entirety accompanied only by a techno-rave light show. 

There was a delightful shock factor at the sheer audacity of essentially playing a CD for fans who expected a standard concert. Though, it made me wonder if it was substantially different from using a sequencer or DJ-set. It made the audience contemplate how they wanted to have the music reproduced. It is clear that no fans wanted to see the Knife because of Karin and Olef’s dance moves. Given that the majority of the performance was carried out by the Sorkklubben dancers, the night could have been substantively the same if Karin and Olef didn’t turn up.

It was food for thought… but in many ways that is not why I wanted to see The Knife (I was looking forward to busting a move to a bass-heavy rendition of We Share Our Mother’s Health, with Karin singing at a mic and Olef looking moody behind a sampler). I saw a previous live performance in youtube of 'Heartbeats' and something along these lines would have been more welcome.

The Knife's performance at the Roundhouse was more interesting than it was entertaining. I’ll certainly be pondering about this gig for a while to come… but frankly I was happiest at the end, when Karin sang a reworked ‘Silent Shout’ to a dazzling light show. Simple, live and melodic.

Eat Your Own Ears at the Roundhouse

One thing I can’t stand about waiting in line outside venues before gigs is all the folks shoving music promotion leaflets in my face. I have to repeatedly mutter my lack of interest to avoid stacks of paper listing bands I don’t care about accumulating in my back pocket.

The one exception to this is Eat Your Own Ears.

It’s not just that they consistently promote the bands I’m into. I know that any bands I see listed on their flyers are bound to be interesting and alternative, yet reasonably accessible. Being promoted by them is almost like a stamp of quality, making EYOE a discerning gatekeeper that shifts through the multitude of indie riff-raff slushing around these days.

Plus, unlike the usual drab promotion flyers handed out around London EYOE marks itself out with colourful graphics that catch the eye with their simple yet sleek designs.

They generally put shows on the in best small-sized venues in London, such as the Lexington and the Electrowerkz. However, in late March they ventured outside their usual comfort zone and put on an event at the Roundhouse. 

It was called ‘Handpicked’, with EYOE showcasing five up and coming bands. 

What made the gig interesting was the fact that these currently small-time acts got to a play in a setting that was more grandiose than they were used to. In addition to the music, there were inventive visuals projected onto the stage, making it a quite a spectacle.

I spoke with the bands playing on the night - Michael Lovett of NZCA/Lines, William Doyle (aka East India Youth), Thomas Saunders from Teleman and Tony Harewood from Paradise. I got their views on Eat Your Own Ears:

Paradise

Paradise was the opening act. Their music was rather wide ranging, starting off by playing a nihilistic dirge that sounded fantastic – though they also played songs that had a hazy feel, making them reminiscent of both My Bloody Valentine and the Animal Collective. They were a five piece band creating a sound that contained keyboards and pounding drums that were mixed in with screeching feedback. They sounded remarkably controlled, being able to create a powerful noise that didn't descend into a muddled mess.

I spoke with Tony Harewood from Paradise just after their performance that night. Keen ears will hear, in the background, a civil exchange of words with a member of the Roundhouse staff who was asking us to leave the area.

Paradise was followed by the second act, East India Youth, which is in fact a one man band consisting of William Doyle. He was probably the most experimental of the acts. He sang with a swoon that reminded me of Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. When his voice was combined with the layered pulsating chimes of the synths the result was really quite captivating.

East India Youth

Songs such as ‘Dripping Down’ have this splendid uplifting quality. While his last song was a bit too repetitive and self-indulgent for my liking, most of his more experimental pieces (such as a song which consisted entirely of an electronic voice reading out the names of English train stations) were genuinely intriguing, putting both the high quality sound system and large space of the Roundhouse to good use.

I spoke with East India Youth just before the gig. He talked about the Roundhouse and why he doesn't like to be called William Doyle.

The third act was Dark Bells. When Dark Bells were two songs into their set the friend I went with turned to me and said “I’m bored”. I was feeling the same way. They were a 3 piece which played gloomy music with a guitar sound that had a 80s indie metallic clang. However, they did seem to get better as they went on and it was more a matter of the sound not doing the band justice. I think that this is because it’s the singer’s sonorous voice that carries their songs, so once the volume of the vocals was brought to the fore of the mix the band were finally able to come into their own.

Dark Bells

Second to last were Teleman - who out of all the bands playing on the night were the ones that came across as those most likely to make it big. They actually sound almost retro, as in they sound like a lot of the self-consciously kooky bands that were around in the noughties. They remind me of Whitest Boy Alive, since their songs have an underlying groove whilst also having a sense of measured restraint.

Teleman

Songs like their new single ‘Cristina’ went down very well with the crowd and their fantastically poppy songs are clearly ready for a mainstream audience.

I spoke with Tom Saunders, the lead singer of Teleman, after the gig - chatting about sexy music and winning at the Roundhouse.

The headline act was NZCA Lines, a three-piece that is fronted by lead singer/keyboardist Michael Lovett. They have a soulful-electro sound, which packs swooning RnB vocals alongside by sparse percussive monotone synths. On stage they reminded me of the 80s pop style groove of Kindness, though cooler (and less-full-of-themselves).

NZCA/Lines

They finished the night with their song ‘Compass Points’, one of my favourite tracks at the moment, which pleasingly combines ghostly vocals with pulsating synth-beats.

Before going on stage Michael Lovett took some time out to tell me about futuristic sci-fi pop music and how to pronounce NZCA Lines.

Grabbing a photo of myself while waiting for NZCA/Lines

All in all an enjoyable night.

Plus, I got to speak with the bands backstage, making me feel like a proper music journalist for the first time! Very excited to get the backstage pass - though the backstage areas were not nearly as glamorous as I thought it would be. There was the noticeable absence of beautiful groupies. Instead there were tangerines peels and crisps packets strewn over messy dressing room tables... alas, the life of the modern rock star.