Joseph from Noise Kontrol backstage at DadaX with Anji, moments before Lovespirals take the stage.

We’ve been working on our new live set the past week or two. It’s quite a bit different from our last tour! We did one show last year with The Flir, so we had worked up a few songs from Free and Easy and our cover of Floyd’s “Cymbaline.” Now we’ve added 2 of our brand new, unreleased, songs to the set. We’ve also been testing out an old LSD tune to play acoustic, rather than the version of “Ring” we did in 2002. It’s cool to have so many more tracks to choose from when we play! Now we can actually have a few extra tunes tucked away for encores, if we need them. The first time we went to Mexico, we only had one album out and no extra tunes for encores. I ended up doing an acapella Billie Holiday song at one gig, and an acapella LSD song at another. This time we’ll actually be prepared. Should be cool.

After finishing up the podcast yesterday, we started recording another new song. We had starting writing this one a few weeks (months?) ago, before the mixer blew… Anyway, it’s always so fun to be working on new music. We’re constantly evolving and finding new ways to express ourselves. Got to be one of the best feelings in the world!

Man, Robert Cray was SMOKIN’ HOT last night. He is like 100 times better in person than on record. Ryan and I were standing right in front of him, getting his monitor feed really loud in the mix so we could hear his guitar and vocals much louder than the keys and rhythm. Holy crap is that man talented. Not a stinker note in the whole set. Not only was his guitar totally fucking amazing, but his vocals were perfect, as well. He has such control, I was in awe. And such presence. I almost burst into tears after the first or second song, it was so beautiful. Wow.

Now the crowd was a whole other story… I really wanted to pop this one guy in the face, he was so fucking rude and annoying the entire set. He was some dufus named “Dave” who apparently is on vacation from Jersey and has spent the last few days at Disneyland. He told these women he was trying to pick up on next to me that he “was all Mickey’d out” hence, he mosied over to the House of Blues for a change of scenery. I know a lot more about his trip, since he kept talking the whole time, only stopping to yell “Woo!” during solos and “Thank YOU!” between songs. Finally, during the encore performance of “Time Takes Two” – which I’d been looking forward to all night – I said “Shut up!” and flipped Dave off to his face, but he was so stupid and drunk, he didn’t seem to notice. The chick he was talking to left, though, so that helped. But then some gross guy in a sparkly red Ruby’s Costume type shirt and a super gross lady in a cheap flame patterned polyester dress lurched over and started dry humping up against me. I pushed the guy’s back away from me, but he didn’t move, so I started elbowing him and kicking his foot, but that just seemed to excite him or something. I had to retreat backwards a foot and move to the other side of Ryan, but by then, my song was over…

Anyway, all the dufi in the world can’t take away the magical feeling songs like “Who’s Been Talking,” “Poor Johnny,” “That Ain’t Love,” “Twenty,” and (the unexpected) “12 Year Old Boy” gave me.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I watch American Idol. I started watching the second season sporadically and have become more consistent since. This is the first time I’ve watched all of the shows, and the reason is Taylor Hicks. Man, something about that guy is just really compelling! My first thought was, “Hmm… is this one of the crazy people?” But then he let loose with the soul thing and this Ray Charles/Joe Cocker move and Ryan said something like, “He’s an idiot savant!”

Today I looked him up on Google and see that he’s actually a professional musician, so he’s obviously got his thing together. I don’t know what that odd look in his eye is about, but I’m totally suckered in to watch every episode now, just to check out what this guy is up to. I found 3 free downloads of his music and enjoyed them quite a bit. The sound is very familiar and warm. “It’s a Soul Thing” was the real stand out.

I would hate to see him win the competition – or come in second – and be forced to do those crappy hack songs they finish out the show with, and then make a sell-out auto-tuned over-produced Top 40 record… But I’d love to see him stay in the competition long enough that we get to enjoy his performances most of the season and see how he does with the various genre challenges. Why a guy like this enters American Idol kind of perplexes me (I’d never dream of doing it!), but then again, if guys like this didn’t join, the show wouldn’t even be worth watching. Go Taylor Hicks – whiteboy soul man!

Oh, and on a side note, I’ve been trying to get the hang of playing harmonica recently and was pretty stoked to hear him playing it last night. I have a long way to go…