the rhodeside grill. saturday. december 07, 2024. 11pm.

when we last left our heroes (us) we were leaving cincinnati at 1am en route to washigton dc via hell and back. i'm not really sure what to say about the all night drive (once again across pennsylvania) other than that it was hard and left us loopy as fuck at 6am totally lost in dc with travis driving around in circles swearing like a truck driver while i was hunched over the new merch box (which we named 47 merchy majoris) catching my one and a half hours of sleep. i had this dream that we took neckface (our van) to a car wash run by the bass player from piebald who would only let us drive him through if we wore lucille ball dresses and wigs and makeup. it was that kind of night. we arrived at our friend ariel's at about 9:30 am but instead of crashing, we just there like jittery lunatics (probably because of all of the caffeine...travis alone drank a liter of pepsi...) and babbled at her for like an hour cackling like hyenas. ariel was a saint and nodded politely the whole time then gave us the most wonderful homemade banana bread (it was either wonderful or the first meal that wasn't pizza or gas station food we'd had in days... but i'm going with wonderful) anyway, we finally petered out and slept for a few hours. we then spent some time in the incredible adams morgan district of dc (which we decided was what south street, no matter it's glorious history, only wishes it could be these days) we ate this breakfast-y lunch-ish meal at around 4pm at a restaurant called the diner where this super cute waitress walked right into the hostess stand and gumball machines sending everything flying. she was so embarrassed that she couldn't help but talk to us and give us free crayons to color with. left at about 7 and spent the next hour and a half being lost in dc again(what is it with the streets in that damn city? even the people who lived there were clueless when giving directions... ) anyway, this was the show that we booked while in ithaca just days before, and it was all made possible by my friend tammy who lives in dc. her beautiful band, sad bastard, was supposed to play at the rhodeside grill that night, but had to cancel at the last minute and they were able to help us facilitate getting added in their place. the rhodeside was as far from sudsy malone's as you can get in one day (and believe me we tried...) it was a, for lack of a better word, swank (as if there is a better word) wine bar that runs local shows in it's only slightly less swanky basement. our show was put on by james and greg who run a production company call cannonball productions. we played second in a bill which was headlined by the excellent singer songwriter, nefrit el-or and her band, (her bass player, matt, was a rad guy as well.) her music strikes a wonderful balance between beautiful and complicated and her voice alone makes it worth a listen. our set went well and was pretty well received. we met a great local artist named bud who was such a great guy that he came to see us the next night as well. we also enjoyed the free beer offered us except for robert who intentionally tried to slip himself the "mickey" monica gave him at our lakeview linksshow last november.the stepped up to the bar and said "I'd like red bulland jagermeister please" to which the bar tender replied "in the same cup?" classic. thanks to james and nefrit and the guy who played first whose name i can not remember for the life of me (sorry...we were low on sleep)