Slothbear in the Big City

This week was a big one for the 'Bear.
We played Death by Audio as scheduled, which I thought may have been the best set, or one of the best sets we ever played. The sound levels were stellar, and I had a lot of fun kicking out the jams. The setlist was as follows:
White Christmas
Olio/Djam
Spacey
No Dialogue/Don't Taunt a Tiger
Slothbear superchums were in attendance, including Kabir of Anna Bradley, SBEAR roommate/affiliate FDB, Thom of Horribles/Crabagado, the Ray-Keefe boys and others of course, whose feelings I don't fear hurting for not mentioning, as literally no one but Conor Seidman reads this blog. We played with Picture Books, who were one of the nicest bands I've met in a while, coming out from Chicago. We also played with Boo and Boo Too, whose set I missed because I had to head back, for I had school early. Craig, Kabir, the Ray-Keefes and I were all on the L train when Justin said "You guys were more like Rush than ever before," and then continued to liken us to the Allman Brothers Band and "Television, I guess." I figure most of these comparisons came from Djam/MFKids, or whatever it will appear on the tracklist of Qids as, whereon I had a most fervent jam, and debuted some really amateur finger-tapping.
Craig and I had a rough commute to Stony Brook, where I crashed. We didn't arrive til close to 4 AM, but arrived to a pleasant surprise. Whilst checking the Bearsloth account, Craig spotted a reply from the dude Andy who books at Cake Shop. I had sent him the following email on Monday as a joke:

Hey I'm Josh of Slothbear. We're playing Death by Audio this coming Thursday with Boo and Boo Too and we saw that you were hosting a show of theirs on Friday. We were wondering if there'd be anyway we could get on that bill, so that when we're old and grey we can tell the grandkids, "Kids, I used to be something! I once played two consecutive shows with Boo and Boo Too!"

Help an old man's dreams come true.

Also, if you don't believe we're good, or can't tell from the killer tunes on the 'space, here are other people validating my opinion! we rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I then proceeded to copy and paste the excerpts from press we've gotten, as seen on our myspace. I followed this email with a link to a picture of a red panda playing with a ball and the following:

I can tell from having tried to play shows and not having gotten to play said shows, that bands aren't judged solely on the merit of their music.
I guess I'll learn how to play hard ball, here's some more incentive to let us play on the seventeenth (or really anytime would be cool)...

-Josh of Slothbear

much love

Believe it or not it worked, and after six hours of sleep and a couple hours of class Craig and I rode home in the chariot of Master Babylon J. Heed, loading up the gear and heading to NYC.

We played Cake Shop with Liam the Younger, Boo and Boo Too and Real Estate.
We were the first band, and I enjoyed every set of the night, despite contracting a fever at some point. Our friend Krissy drove 2 hours out in traffic to see us, and our main man Ross made it out again. The set was as follows:
White Christmas
Olio/Djam
Spacey
No Dialogue
Don't Taunt a Tiger
Killed by Cars
Fluoxetine

We were gonna play Little Qid, but didn't have the time. All the bands were really nice, Liam's frontman complimented by soloing, which was sweet, and the perhaps equally jammy Real Estate (though in a way more akin to traditional jam aesthetics, which I wouldn't say Slothbear really share much with on a sonic level) seemed to like us as well. I hope to get to play with all three bands again, and Slothbear is set to play with Liam the Younger again on May first, my Aunt Gina's birthday, and the date of the potential show with Titus Andronicus. Krissy, is a huge supporter of the 'Bear, and is behind the May first gig, and the SBU radio show we are playing this coming Friday. She also talked to Real Estate about a show in the early fall at SBU, which hopefully Slothbear will be able to play as well. Craig was really enthusiastic about our set at Cake Shop.

We have shows this coming Thursday at Kenny's Castaways and this coming Saturday at Kelly Fest and are on WUSB Friday.

-Josh