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ffoodd:
An Donut (by Blumie the Koala)
AN donut? Really?
Yes, AN donut. Not a typo. This is a Japanese donut with red bean filling, and that's what it's called. (I'm the photographer. I ate this, and it was delicious.)
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling - Arrival
Two of my Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library bandmates, Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein himself, have another musical project (well, several actually, but I'm just going to tell you about one of them right now!) Their band Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is thematically tied to The Prisoner, a 60s cult classic spy-fi TV show from the UK. For the past two years, they've been working on an ambitious video project - a shot-by-shot recreation of the opening sequence of The Prisoner. It is finally complete, and I must say, it's pretty ridiculously awesome. Check out the video embedded here, and then head over to donotforsake.com/arrival for more goodies, including production stills and a version of the video with the original The Prisoner sequence playing simultaneously in the corner for your side-by-side comparison pleasure!
Sorry for the long absence! I've been going to a lot of shows - and playing in a lot of shows as well - but life has gotten in the way of posting photos and such on here. I recently began writing about the arts (and food!) for CBS Boston, though, so feel free to keep an eye on the arts section on Mondays and the food section on Wednesdays to check out my posts there. My first arts post, linked here, is a profile of the Boston Typewriter Orchestra, which is exactly what it sounds like :)
Short snippets from the road
A full recap with plenty of photos will be posted when we get home, but for now, here are some discussion topics and happenings from our first day on the road on the Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library/Golden Bloom/Neutral Uke Hotel tour. This update is coming to you from a hotel room in lovely Drums, Pennsylvania.
vagazzling (or is it vajazzling?)
cats flushing toilets
Stadium Buddies™
baby monkey riding backwards on a pig
animals with two penises:
sharks
rays
koalas (two-pronged. And lots of them have chlamydia.)
“Are you alert enough to drive? No texting…or sexting.” -Shawn’s mom
On tour!
The van leaves in a couple hours! My band, The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library, is going on a week-long tour with Golden Bloom and Neutral Uke Hotel. We kicked it off with a sold-out show at Brighton Music Hall last night (as well as an epic cross-town rush to play a couple songs at Club Passim for their Iguana Fund Night, which was also sold out, I think!)
Tonight we're at the Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn.
The rest: The Grog Shop in Cleveland, Schubas in Chicago, Gabe's in Iowa City, a Daytrotter.com session in Rock Island, IL, a Laundromatinee.com session in Indianapolis, Garfield Artworks in Pittsburgh, and World Cafe Live in Philadelphia.
So excited. This is my first time touring!
If you'd like to see us, you can find more details on the Facebook event page, including ticket links where advanced tickets are available. I've heard that the Brooklyn and Chicago shows are already very close to selling out.
Ridiculous amounts of photos and video will be posted when I return!
Comments enabled!
Just added Disqus commenting. Now we can chat :) Feel free to leave love or hate mail (or something in between) on any of my posts!
Bury Me Standing at Lizard Lounge (Cambridge, MA) on 4/7/11
Also on the bill: Brian Carpenter & The Confessions (view post)
View the full album here.
Brian Carpenter & The Confessions at Lizard Lounge (Cambridge, MA) on 4/7/11
Also on the bill: Bury Me Standing (view post)
View the full album here.
Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band at Boston Underground Film Festival opening night party at T.T. the Bear's (Cambridge, MA) on 3/24/11
Also on the bill: Trabants (view post)
View the full album here.
Trabants at Boston Underground Film Festival opening night party at T.T. the Bear's (Cambridge, MA) on 3/24/11
Also on the bill: Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band (view post)
View the full album here.
Out of the Woodwork: an acoustic night at Milky Way (Jamaica Plain, MA) on 3/2/11
Performances by Aviv Rubinstien (Pray for Polanski), Michael J. Epstein (Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library, Space Balloons, and more), Nick Murphy (The Acre), Jeff Vachon (Big East), Justin Emile (Big East), Nicholas Hashem (The Boots), and friends
View the full album here.
On Saturday, February 26th, 2011, The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library played our CD release show to a sold-out crowd at the 600 (I think)-person capacity Middle East Downstairs (Cambridge, MA). I haven't played for a crowd that size since the days of high school theater and district music festivals. Strangely, this wasn't scary at all - just exciting!
Ryan Schmidt started off the night, we followed, then Endway played, and McAlister Drive finished, with some help from the Simmons Sirens.
When I joined MJEML waaaay back in...June, I definitely didn't foresee a show of this magnitude happening so quickly (or at all, really). It wasn't immediately clear that Michael's vision would work out; we all came from very different musical backgrounds and I do remember leaving the first few rehearsals thinking, "Well, that was fun, but how's this going to come together?"
Michael wasted no time in booking our first gig, and the pressure was on. We pulled through and kept moving forward. Being a part of this band has been full of wonderful surprises and opportunities, and I'm hoping things will continue along this path. But even if this is the peak of it all in terms of audience size/response and interest from people other than our mothers, it has been wonderful pretending to be a rock star for the last eight months! I'm so proud of the work we put into the recording, and to release it at such a great show was thrilling beyond expectations.
My boyfriend, Joel, shot this photo of me at the show, and I edited it. The full set of photos from the show is on Facebook and Flickr, whichever you prefer. (Hint: If you're looking to download high res versions of anything, choose Flickr.)
Here's the set list from the CD release show, in case you're curious. We decided not to play our Nick Cave cover, The Weeping Song, a disappointing but probably-for-the-best decision. You can hear our recorded version here.
Civil Engineering
4th Grade Book Report Blues
Oh Emily
Stranger
Small Crack
Every Time I Visit You, It Rains
Holy Ghost
Amylee
Lymph Nodes
If you'd like to see us play, our next show is at Brighton Music Hall on April 20 with Neutral Uke Hotel (a ukulele-based tribute to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) and Golden Bloom. It's the kick-off to a week-long tour for all three bands, which leads me to another bit of news that I'm going to sneak in here even though this was meant to be a recap of the CD release show...
Golden Bloom is one of five finalists in a contest to have an upcoming tour "greened" by Reverb. If Golden Bloom wins, we'll all get to tour in an environmentally friendly van, which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. The contest is unfortunately voter-driven, so I'm going to awkwardly beg you just this once to vote for Golden Bloom here and help us make our (MJEML/Golden Bloom/Neutral Uke Hotel) tour "green."
Somerville Symphony Orkestar at Precinct (Somerville, MA) - 2/25/11
Also on the bill: The Real Makers, The Highway (photos), Pistol Shrimp
The Highway at Precinct (Somerville, MA) on 2/25/11
Also on the bill: The Real Makers, Pistol Shrimp, Somerville Symphony Orkestar (photos)
I've posted this photo before, but since it was posted by fuckyeahphotography, I wanted to reblog their post so I could thank everyone who has liked/reblogged it! :) For my other posts about Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, click here.
This is not an unbiased review by any means - DNFMOMD is made up of the fabulous Mike and Sophia, who are also my band-mates in The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library - but you should definitely check them out. The band is themed on The Prisoner, a 60s spy show with a cult following, and every song refers to an episode. I'm consistently impressed by Sophia's ability to sing, play drums, and look fantastic all at the same time, throwing in neat little flourishes and drumstick twirls while maintaining a rocking beat and screaming gutturally. Mike provides a darkly intense bass line, along with some back-up vocals in at least one song. Even though we all join together and play "baroque pop" indie folksy music every week, when I see them up on stage in DNFMOMD, I'm a little bit terrified. And I love it.
fuckyeahphotography:
Sophia of Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (Great Scott, Allston, MA - February 2011)
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You can also find me on Flickr and Twitter.
MJEML live on the radio tonight...
The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library will be performing a full set live on Tufts University's 91.5 WMFO tonight (Wednesday 2/23)! We'll be going on air around 10pm as part of the On the Town with Mikey Dee segment. If you're not near a radio, you can tune in online on the WMFO website. This is going to be my first radio experience! I'm excited!
Several of the MJEML librarians were on the radio back in September 2010 prior to our debut show, but I was at work at the time and sadly couldn't join in the fun. You can check out mp3s from that segment here.
We're profiled in the Dig!
Photo by Kelly Davidson! (That's me on the right in the red glasses.) Check out Kelly's website (I'm a big fan of the Rock Parents collection!) and follow her on Tumblr!
Here's an excerpt from the article that explains the origin of our band name:
For a while, all Michael J. Epstein knew was that his life was one deserving commemoration.
It struck him one day as he wandered the halls of the Ronald Reagan memorial building in Washington, D.C., Epstein, a staunch conservative and lifelong admirer of the Gipper (okay, not really) paused for a drink from the Ronald Reagan memorial water fountain. He threw a tissue into the Ronald Reagan memorial wastebasket. He washed his hands using the Ronald Reagan memorial soap dispenser. Suddenly, it was all so clear.
“I thought, ‘Someday I will have a project that I will call the Michael J. Epstein Memorial Something,” he says.
Last year, Epstein decided that he would be denied his memorial no longer, despite the notable handicap of not being dead yet.
