Amagansett, NY – “An Insider’s Look” – Stephen Talkhouse – May 13, 2000

Kyle has proven to be a great addition to our band and while we miss Brian, his goofiness, his plastic knife sandwich-making talents, and his mammoth drumming skills, we’re tighter as a band than ever. It’s no small feat to make an album with one drummer and then turn around and tour with another. I tried to celebrate Brian’s passing the torch by depicting both drummers (Brian & Kyle) in our CD artwork and promo materials. I thought I’d give you a little insider look:

On the cover (captured by my favorite photographer of all time, Mike Segal) you’ll see both Brian and Kyle sitting in the background. Brian is looking a bit melancholy to be leaving the band while Kyle is smiling to be getting the gig. The image was modified a little so that the pool balls now read “apt.” and “#6s” and we had to move Kenny a few inches to the right cause in the original photo he was WAY too close to my ass. There are two versions of the cover as the first pressing of the CD had the wrong song sequence and I hated both the font and how brown the overall color was. The subsequent pressings are the ones on the right which were brightened up, given a new font, and host the corrected song order. If you have the first pressing, you’re one of the few.

The other image we considered for the cover here has Delluchi playing the role of waiter over my left shoulder but Kyle was too much in the shadows. Our promo photo below features both drummers too. Here they’re sharing my blue guitar case, using it as a drum. It was snapped earlier on the same day as the cover. We were roaming around the CU campus looking for a place to shoot when Mike mentioned someone’s porch looked nice so I rocked up, rang the doorbell, and asked some hung-over college student if he minded if we posed on his porch. He didn’t mind and excused himself to go back to sleep.

So now, a little about our gig at our favorite spot to play; Stephen Talkhouse. When we arrived, the sky was filled with navygrayblueblack scribbles — clouds an impatient child might make in crayon in a coloring book. It started to rain. It rained navygrayblueblack flecks as though the nighttime were leaking out of itself and bleeding/blurring like fountain pen ink all over Amagansett’s sound.

We played to a packed house despite the weather.

Load out was quick as we had to dash between the van and the side door like sprinters, to avoid the inevitable shower we all took along the way.

The boys went to a party while I sat in a motel 8 room making business calls and finishing up work. The motel room was so small I had to walk over both beds to get to the bathroom. The Indie musician life is not a 9-5 job. It’s a 9:30-midnight job and it ain’t for the faint of heart or the light of sleep.