I gave a heartfelt introduction to Deerhunter after the hellish day that I had. My introduction mostly involved my good friend Josh McKay and the call I got from him as I came into Athens talking about the hellish day that HE just had. After realizing that he had the SWAT team come and forcibly get a woman and her retarded son out of his house which they had barricaded themselves inside of, I thought better of my bad day. But so much for that…..

Blah Blah Blah @ 40 Watt ’08, c Mike White

Deerhunter scattered on stage and played a handful of new jams and seemed to have a good time.

After the show I had 3 of the folks from Deerhunter come up and apologize for their performance that night, but I didn’t quite get why they were so apologetic. Sometimes I think they’re getting semi-neurotic about doing anything less than a great show. Oh well.

Deerhunter @ 40 Watt ’08, c Mike White

The festivities trailed over (as they always do) to the owner of the 40 Watt’s house, Barrie Buck, where I cashed my chips in relatively early. I was in desperate need of my facilities for the next night. Game day people were already clogging downtown and with Posehn coming? I wanted to be bright eyed and bushy tailed. Hit the hay in the "Henry & Sarah Commenorative Suite" (aka The Tangerine Dream") room after saying good night to my brother in law, Pete and the various GJAHM and girlfriends who were still burning it at both ends downstairs.

Deerhunter @ 40 Watt ’08, c Mike White

So many of you are probably wondering why it has taken two weeks to get a wrap up of the Chunklet 15th anniversary up on the website. Well, in a nutshell, things have been kinda nuts. In a bigger nutshell though, I had a house full of guests for a week, had 1100 (!!!??!!!) orders to fill and to top it off, we were broken into the day of the Deerhunter show and had 3 attempted break-ins the following week. So let’s just say that things have been "on edge," shall we?

So the first night had my buddy Pete (who was visiting from England) and I mosey up 316 to Athens. In light of the earlier burglary, Sarah decided to stay home with friends and the dogs. Pete and I had dinner with a gaggle of folks from Atlanta including the kids from Gentleman Jesse and his Men. As I scanned the Grit, I realized that there were enough of the Carbonas in the room to do an impromptu set at the beginning of the night. So seeing as how Pete was visiting and had never seen the Carbonas before, I threw the suggestion out to Jesse and 10 seconds later, it was locked in. Bonus!

The Carbonas @ The 40 Watt ’08, c Mike White

The Carbonas played sloppy but as fantastic as always. Short set. Possibly 6 songs. 12 minutes (I timed it!). Download their set here. (Thanks, Sloan.)

Gentleman Jesse and his Men were next and are sporting a new line up which means that there are 100% more shirts on the bass player while they’re on stage which is a-ok to me.  Download their set here.

Twin Tigers were great, but I spent most of their set talking to my wife out in front of the club comforting her and making sure that she was okay back in Atlanta. Burglaries do weird things to couples. Trust me on that. Here’s their set. (Thanks again, Sloan.)

Gentleman Jesse @ The 40 Watt ’08, c Mike White

Having Brent Weinbach perform was quite a thrill, to be honest. When Deerhunter and I were going through the list of potential comedians to perform with them, Brent was at the top of the list. And you know what? I think it was a perfect fit. His nonsensical and dry delivery went well. Like white wine with duck or some shit. He joins a very distinguished list of comedians (Patton, Cross, Zach, Behrendt, et al) who’ve done Chunklet anniversary shows. Thank you, Mike.

See all the photos here. Thanks, Mike.

Brent Weinbach @ The 40 Watt ’08, c Mike White

But here’s a really nice write up in the Village Voice.

c Ryan Russell

Rock Bible tour starts today. Here’s where I’m going this weekend:

October 25 / Chicago @ Quimby’s / 7PM
October 26 / Cincinnati @ Shake It Records / 3PM
October 27 / St. Louis @ Subterranean Books / 7PM

Big update coming very shortly. Been extremely busy, but I hate when people say that, so just think that I hate you instead.

With this band?!

Thanks to Andrew Male for this.

…..and fucks off (with the horse he rode in on)….

Can somebody explain why this 9th generation Spiders from Mars nonsense hasn’t been stopped? I mean, seriously….

Photos and reports are going to come shortly. Everything was amazing. A real tour de force. A fun time. God, I can’t begin to thank everybody enough. It was a blast.

All the house guests are now gone (not that they were a burden) and filling orders.

Oh, and I got burgled on Friday before I left for Athens. That sucks, huh?

Received this morning from Andrew Male at Mojo. He writes:

"If you think ‘So Cold In The D’ is catchy… Check this out! Not a parody!

Surely the standout track on the latest UK psych whimsy comp through the MOJO doors. A Feb. 1998 Leicester Mercury article describes Legay as "Tamla fans in make-up with songs like Vacuum Cleaner Mother and Steam Driven Banana who released a single on Fontana Records in the heady days of hippy. The band evolved into another called Gypsy, and last year Legay founder member Legay Rogers died of asbestosis just before Christmas."

…of COURSE they’re from Leicester writing about bananas!

Taken from ‘Treacle Toffee World – Further Adventures Into the Pop Psych Sounds From The Apple Era 1967-1969’ on the RPM Retrodisc label.

Find out more about Legay/Gypsy here.

Legay – Fantastic Story Of The Steam Driven Banana

So I was in Athens last night for the warm up Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise train wreck, er uh, show. At least the movie it was all supporting (Major Organ and the Adding Machine) was absolutely fantastic.

Ran into the manager of Ciné and he said he saw footage of The Plugz backing Bob Dylan on the Letterman show promoting Infidels in 1984. Bull-fucking-shit. But here it is. And here. And here.

Anybody know if they did a session with this line up or were The Plugz just hired hands?

So Teddy Rockstar came through with the Gainesville-house-party-band-turned-mall-punk-superstars Against Me! last week. On their way back from the "not Southern part of the South" (aka Florida) Teddy and company had a day off and we had a whirlyball rematch.

Sad to say, but the final score was 20 to 2. They put up a hell of a fight, but they’re no Mogwai.

And the Zach/Ted 7"s show up on Tuesday. Please be patient. 500 orders await! Oy!

That’s Ted’s middle finger in the foreground……