Meet the In-Laws

Last night I dragged Frito and Sassy with me up to Cambridge to go check out Joey DeGraw's show. (He's also a musician and was playing at a local bar, so it was only right that I went. After all, I've got to support the endeavors of my future brother-in-law. Okay, fine - and sometimes Mr. Gavin pops up at these things, so I had to go even though I believe he is still currently in New Orleans recording. But you never know where he may be, so I had to go just in case.) Anyway, so Frito and I met Sassy up there, and blessedly we didn't get lost going through Boston. I swear Frito and I are each other's Boston lucky charms, because we both always find ourselves in the Financial District somehow, no matter where we are going in the city. Ah, but not when we're together! We've defeated the curse!! Whee!

Anyway, so we settled in downstairs at the bar and prepared to hear the 2 opening bands. The first one was actually just a guy with an acoustic guitar (who was joined by another guitarist for a few songs) and he...I don't even know. First of all, he looked exactly like a younger version of Dave Gruber Allen. It was like he was bringing Allen's dueling troubador character from Gilmore Girls to life. Secondly, he talked like Tim Calhoun from SNL. Picture that voice doing the pre-song banter. Wait, first add in the actual pre-song banter of "I'm going to bring the room up for the next one. It's a song about death," and "Sorry I'm a boring folk singer. My music can be helpful for all of you insomniacs out there - just buy my CD and you'll sleep well tonight." Now - is it just me or is the worst possible marketing ploy that someone can come up with telling people that his CD will put you to sleep? He's not at a sleep clinic selling CDs full of white noise or rainforest sounds - he's trying to spread his music and songs that he wrote that MEAN something to him. WTF? Although, to be fair - his songs were almost putting us to sleep. Seriously, Sassy had to actually distract herself by READING THE BACK OF THE CONDIMENT BOTTLES to keep from falling asleep. Even that almost didn't work, as she didn't even notice me taking this picture of her doing it:

When I talked to Frito today, he gave a pretty accurate description of this guy: "He sucked the life out of that entire room." His songs were endless and by the end I was eyeing the napkins trying to determine how many more I would need to fashion a proper noose. It was THAT bad.

Thankfully, he couldn't sing forever (at least not yet - he'll have to save that for his eternal gig entertaining those in burning fires of Hell) and the second band came on. That band? Fantastic. I haven't seen a band that good in...I don't even know how long. They were amazing. Also? Cute boys in the band! As you can tell, this lifted our spirits immensely:

Seriously, I can't say enough about this band. The singer told me that last night's show was the first time that they had all played out together as a group, which boggles my mind. They sound better than most signed bands who've been playing together for years. (You can grab a listen here.) Towards the end of their set, I felt a new energy in the air just as Frito nudged my arm. I looked up to see Joey coming in with his equipment and realized that the new energy I was experiencing was due to there being a DeGraw in the room. I just turned to Sassy and Frito and kept whispering it, "Look, a DeGraw! There's my future brother-in-law!"

Obviously, I was right about Gavin not being there or else this entire entry would just be pictures of our Vegas wedding from today, but we still had a fun night (save for the soul-sucking troubadour - although it was fun to make fun of him for the first 10 minutes or so). Plus, I got to be in the presence of a DeGraw, which was fascinating for me to watch because he has a lot of the same mannerisms as Gavin and uses some of the same vocal inflections when he sings. But then he's also very different. It was all very interesting. Oh, and I did get to talk to one of the cute boys from the second band during Joey's set who was a biochemist by day, but went to Berklee College of Music with Gavin the year he was there and told me that he's super-nice and laid-back, but has a rather unhealthy obsession with Marvin Gaye. Awesome. Let's get it on, indeed.

Next time can we do it without the troubador?

Comments

[Sassy]

Well, I guess it's up to me to tell the world about the buttcrack. Because seriously? The world deserves to know.

[Paul]

Gavin DeGraw was at Berklee? When? Was I there? Did he spoon with me?