Tag: Abilene

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Treehugger

Turkey vulture cleaning up dead ground hog
Turkey vulture cleaning up dead ground hog

We smelled the dead groundhog before we saw it laying upside down in the creek covered in flies and we stayed away from it yesterday by crossing the creek at different point. Today we figured it would be all cleaned up, nature is pretty efficient that way, but instead we found turkey vultures in the trees surrounding what was left of the carcass.

I was wearing my Treehugger shirt and when we got up to the park and someone said, “Oh I see you’re a treehugger” and I wanted to say “Whatever gave you that idea?” but I said, “Someone gave me this shirt.” He said, “I’m a treehugger too.”

We caught Bobby Henrie & The Goners’s at Abilene over the weekend and I was thinking how good they sounded, a three piece with all the essentials in just the right place. Bobby sang two George Jones songs, we danced and we headed home and then we heard the next band, a thirteen piece with Eastman students called “Bitchin’ Kitchen” killed. But they couldn’t have been as good as The Goners.

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Getting Started

Peggi skiing while on a frigid day while sporting her Refrigerator hat
Peggi skiing while on a frigid day while sporting her Refrigerator hat

We took any extra long ski through the fresh snow and up to the lake. It was cold, like ten degrees or something, so we went Muslim style in our Refrigerator hats. We barely got back in time to make it to painting class and we hadn’t eaten so we stopped at Palermo’s deli on Culver. They have $6 meals and we split one with roasted potatoes and a carrot/raison dish, an unbelievable deal. We sat the great big butcher block table and split a chocolate eclair for dessert.

After class we headed over to Abilene to drop off a few posters for the September 18th Margaret Explosion gig. We had a drink to celebrate Peggi’s birthday and chatted with Richie the bartender. For some reason he knows a lot of the same people we do but we hadn’t really connected until recently. Rochester works that way. He told us about the time he emptied the trash out and locked himself out of the bar. I think we had already heard that story but this one was better. He got someone from the gay bathhouse next door to help him out and by chance there was a guy sitting at the bar with us last night who was from out of town but staying in one of the seventy some rooms they have at the bath house with holes in the wall and all. He went out back to smoke between each drink and then started hitting on the two girls at the end of the bar. He told them where he staying and bought them each a drink. We were only good for one drink but could have talked to Richie a lot longer. We were just getting started.

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Live Up

Margaret Explosion Abilene 11.25.09 CD release Party for "Live Dive"
Margaret Explosion Abilene 11.25.09 CD release Party for “Live Dive”

It was a trip to come home to this photo from Kathy Palokoff’s iPhone and this email from Frank Paolo.

“So there I was all day telling myself positive sentences about seeing your launch tonight.  I actually got it together, showered/shaved, found some ‘not too dirty clothes’ (they passed the sniff test), and got on the bus at 6:15.  I confidently (pretending) walked down the street where Daisy Dukes is and NO ABELIENE – no one ever heard of it. Not in Moes, the Little – nobody in the whole East End. I slouched and stumbled back to my digs disappointed I couldn’t be there and give you a cheer.  BUT I tried – I REALLY tried.  One of these days I will again try to get good at life.
paolo.”

Funny that Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad (about three names too many) had a cd release party tonight for “Live Up” while we had ours for “Live Dive”. Maybe we can trade cds. I like that band. Thanks to all you that climbed the stairs at Abilene tonight. Thanks to the honorary Margo members, Jack Schaeffer and Phil Marshall for sitting in. Thanks to Bob Martin for the movies.

In the chill out room, after the show, the iTunes shuffle dj stacked Television (with Richard Hell still in the band), MX-80’s “Follow That Car”, Nod’s “I Get Around” and Wire’s “I Am The Fly”. Wow.

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Tear Me Up

We woke up to a few orders for Margaret Explosion cds and they were all from Rochester. It took us a bit to realize that the sales were a result of the rebroadcast of  the Margaret Explosion segment of WXXI’s “On Stage”. We were downtown out on the deck at Abilene listening to Bobby Henrie & The Goners so we missed the show. Martin Edic said it was on the tv inside the bar but we were busy watching the best band in the city. Besides, I was making a movie.

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We’re Goin’ To The Liquor Store

Chinchillas performing at Abilene in Rochester, NY last night
Chinchillas performing at Abilene in Rochester, NY last night

We played two sets at RoCo last night and spent most of the first set trying figure out what worked best in that lively gallery space. I Sparse worked best and provided at least some definition so we went with that. Director, Bleu Cease, invited us back to play the Members Show Opening so we must have found the sweet spot.

We packed the equipment and headed over to Abilene to catch the last of The Chinchillas set. They sounded great and the place was packed. Club owner, Danny, told us Toots from the Maytals was in there playing pool a few nights ago. The Chinchillas gig was a cd release party but they ran out of cds. You can see the empty plastic bag at their feet in the blowup of this photo. You’ll also notice the lighting rig in the foreground that gave the band that special glow. One of the two outdoor spots was working. Pete, on the left, churns out some great songs and they make this whole thing look effortless. They played some songs from the early eighties (some of these guys were in the Presstones) and finished with a song I’m still singing. “We’re Goin’ To The Liquor Store”.

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Slow Time Of Year

Eastman 10 at Abilene on Inauguration Night
Eastman 10 at Abilene on Inauguration Night

There were only four people in Peggi’s yoga class last night. Maybe it was the weather or maybe it had something to do with Jeffery, the yoga teacher, going on a cruise for a few weeks. There were seven people in my painting class but that’s everyone who signed up for the winter session. It’s the slow time of year and that’s the way we like it.

We dropped my father off after class and Peggi and I went downtown to Danny’s Ball at Abilene. The Eastman 10, who were arrested for playing in the streets on election night, did a rousing version of “God Bless America” and the packed house went nuts. We had our long sleeve Obama t-shirts on.

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Reality Skankin

Ron Stackman djing at Abilene with John Nugent on sax at Abilene in Rochester, New YorkAbilene2011
Ron Stackman djing at Abilene with John Nugent on sax at Abilene in Rochester, New YorkAbilene2011

We headed over to Abilene last night for Ron Stackman’s old school reggae night. The place was rockin’ and skankin’. Ronnie had a few guys toasting over his beats and John Kralles adding some tasty guitar on top of that.

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Hip Hop Security

Security for NV in downtown Rochester NY
Security for NV in downtown Rochester NY

How does Abilene get to have bands outside every night of the week in downtown Rochester? I’m not complaining, I’m just wondering. When New Math rehearsed in the Cox building on Saint Paul, we would get complaints from people all over downtown. Maybe it was our music. Anyway I’m happy to listen to bands out back at Abilene’s and I can only guess that there is just nobody around in this part of town to complain.

Nobody that is, except the NV clubgoers and the over the top securtity team from the hip hop club around the corner. These guys look like the Guardia Civil in Franco’s day. White chunky skinheads with pirate style hats, radios and handcuffs hanging off their belts. There were about fifteen of them out in front of Abilene the other night. I didn’t know whether to feel safe or be afraid.

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Demystifying Art

Danny Deutsch behind a Reagan mask
Danny Deutsch behind a Reagan mask

Remember when Ronald Reagan was a joke and not the revered right wing populist that he is today? Remember Danny Deutsch behind the Reagan mask behind the bar at “Schatzee’s?” Danny bought the old gay men’s club, “Tara’s”, renamed it “Abilene’s” and opened last night. The place was packed with old friends.

Every bar in town seems to go with the locally brewed, Custom Brew Craft or Rohrbach’s. Both are world class and we are lucky to have them. Danny had something from Rohrbach’s on tap and we had a couple pints. You could talk over the music but still hear it and my ears weren’t ringing this morning. I loved the paint by number landscapes on the walls. They looked like embroidery or tapestries.

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