8/6/08 – Abbey Lounge, Somerville, MA

This was our second show at the Abbey in Somerville, and incidentally, the first place I ever played with STREAK, almost a year ago. The Abbey is a cool club. It seems to be a very well frequented place, judging from the few times I’ve been there. It’s small, just a little dirty, but somewhere you can have your mom come to still, which is good, coz my mom and sister came. I was very glad to see the same sound guy as the last time we’d played there… Kevin, I think his name is. It seems like a lot of clubs have a revolving door with sound guys, so it’s nice to see the same person time after time.

The other thing I was very glad to see was that the beer selection had not changed. This place has awesome beer on tap. Most notably, Long Trail IPA, which was my drink of the night. They have a couple Sam Adams taps, Guinness, Magners Cider, Harpoon, and a few others I can’t think of now. Very nice. So, I don’t know if it was the extremely rocking set that Chris came up with, or the IPAs, but I thrashed my drum set pretty hard that night. It’s four nights later now, and my neck is still sore. It made for some good pictures, though… check em out at the STREAK MeinSpace.

Some good friends came out, including Tom who is my bestest oldest friend ever! My BOFE. Jim and Lauri, 2/3 of Lucretia’s Daggers, were there (see pic below), and Anderson Mar, who is the queen of the Boston music scene!

Anderson used to be the booking agent at the Skybar in Somerville. The club closed last July, because the owner did not want to pay for an updated sprinkler system, to the tune of around $40,000. He instead expanded the Chinese restaurant that he owned next door, which I guess circumvented the sprinkler laws. It’s really too bad… that was such a fun club to play. My other band, Uncle Big Time, played there so many times, and Anderson was the first person to give us a shot in the Boston area, at the Skybar. That is where I met Chris, too. I feel all warm and squishy inside. I hadn’t driven by there in a while. The last time I went by, the old blue neon Skybar sign was still up. Here’s a kinda crappy pic taken from the car of what it looks like now, which sorta bummed me out…

Chris dedicated the song Groovy Booty to my mom and my sister, which kinda creeped me out, since he calls that song the “makeout song.” That, and all the images on the TV screens of girls getting spanked during that song, put some fucked up images in my head that are kinda disturbing. By the way, Chris, my sister called you a “weenie” for dedicating that song to them. Haha.

I think we rocked that stage pretty hard, all in all. I love playing in Boston, and I can’t wait until the next time we can play the Abbey. The other bands rocked, too. Us Versus Them did a great job, especially for their first show ever. Lack Sabbath? was cool, even though they didn’t play Supernaut (despite me and some other guy shouting it when the singer asked for requests). Faith in Distortion rocked too, from what I remember… they were last, so my IPA buzz was pretty strong at that point.

Highlight of the evening: Chris putting one of these from our merch table directly on my left nipple. Yep.

Peace… Paul

Currently drinking: Southern Hemisphere Harvest (6.7% ABV), Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, CA