Back in 2008, we teamed up with Viva
Radio
to follow the indie elite to and from Austin, TX. It might be a full
two years later, but we're thrilled to finally let everyone in on this.
Ted Schumaker:
I pulled into the special venue and turned on some wi-fi. Philadelphia apparently has free wi-fi. What a great feature. I'm not sure what part of town I was in at that point, but I really enjoyed seeing a different part than Old City. I was talking to Tim Traynor on the telephone and asking him if he had prepped my questions yet for Team Robespierre. I figured since he didn't have a job and I was sort of busy with my massage parlor that he could help prep some questions for me. Some of the questions he came up with included: “I'm Todd P. What do you say to me?” “What is your aesthetic philosophy?” “Some of your music contains shouting. Is there an advantage over shouting vs traditional singing?” Some of those questions were used. Some were not.
Nate Dorr:
It's worth noting that Danger Danger has the weirdest entry of any place we hit on the trip. Right inside the door you go up a flight of stairs, not in itself unusual. Alright, you think, the space is on the second floor, or maybe even on the third. But you are wrong! The stairs leave you on a landing inhabited pretty much entirely by a table over which you pass your $5 cover and get your hand stamped, after which you find yourself heading back down a second flight of stairs to the ground floor. Which is mostly taken up by gallery space and some giant cushion letters. Still no bands here, unless you count in-house electropunks Red Rocket (ed: now Rad Racket), but they're only sitting quietly beneath a row of hanging paintings. Back underneath the stairway you just came down, you find a third set of steps, leading you down into the dim, unfinished, and utility pipe garlanded basement. And that's where, like the clutching fingers of the People Under the Stairs, you get hit with the first wave of drone-punk guitar sheen coming through Ecstatic Sunshine's elaborate rig of electronics and effects pedals.
Ted Shumaker:
The rest of the night felt like I was back in Cincinnati Ohio at the Norwood Punk Church shows. I felt old. I began to cry. I'm kidding, I didn't cry. I had a nice conversation with one of the members from TR. The taller one, he was wearing a Vivian Girls t-shirt. He was pretty Cool. Glen and I ended up sleeping at a friend of Glen's in the Italian section of Philly.
Nate Dorr:
We wound up in a Walmart parking lot outside town. Apparently they encourage RVs to set up in their lots for free. Sounds like a recipe for the worst family vacation ever, but it came in pretty handy as far as avoiding vagrancy laws went.
