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To out-and-out steal a hackneyed phrase from millions of wannabes who repeatedly use it, “Timing is everything”. If we had gone earlier like we’d initially planned we would have been sitting general admission amongst legions of baked hippies still hanging onto to any semblance of old karmic notions that no longer exist. Instead we were courtside. So close you could see the steam rise off the head of a sweaty Dave Matthews. What is this Gremmie talking about?

It began on Friday night in the ‘Bokie; Hoboken, NJ to the layperson. Plums cooked me a delicious dinner at her place and we planned to hit the town; first stopping at her friend’s house-party, then to the bar where her sister Sue was tending. After gathering a motley crew of Hobokenites we traipsed what seemed like 100 leagues to what turned out to be a Lafayette reunion party (the purported house party). Replete with games of Beruit and a tapped keg - it felt like college all over again, except now I’m 25 and the excitement of that scene is waning. Either way - it was nice to see some of Plums’ friends again and shoot the shit. Jillian has a great group of friends. Plus, they had these homemade rice krispie treats that were f-ing killer.

Later that night, our group staggered out and onto McMahon’s Brownstone, a quaint townie bar on the outskirts of the ‘Bokie. We stayed for an hour or two, shot some pool (poor plums scratched the 8-ball), played some darts (with only one dart), and downed some free-bies. On the pool table towards the end of our affair, Plums’ boisterous roommate Laura found a pair of General Admission tickets to the same Dave Matthews show we were to attend the following day. After playing the “Who do these belong to?” game, she pilfered them. We headed home and to bed. It was about 3:30am.

I love Mike Doughty. Not in the creepy stalker sort of way, but as the better altruistic admiration archetype. I had seen Mike twice last week at Maxwell’s in Hoboken and had planned to see him again at the Dave Matthew’s Band Island Getaway on Randall’s Island. He was supposed to go on at 2pm. I didn’t get to Randall’s Island till 7pm - we just missed him. You see, Jillian and I came back to the city to catch the ferry but stopped off at my place when we realized we wouldn’t make the 11:30am ferry time. We slept from noon until around 6pm. Turns out it was the best thing that could have happened to us.

We left my place at 7pm, found the ferry dock at 34th, picked up tickets, and boarded. The ferry was chock full of snotty suburbanites going to get high and see Dave Matthews play “Crash”. The sort of lamers who grow up to be nothing particularly evil, but nothing particularly good either. The inconsequential. A small group of early 30-somethings gathered port side and I overheard the words “VIP section”. I dashed over and brokered a deal. You see, this couple - Alex and Louise, had 4 VIP tickets in section 201 (see below) and they were trying to sell the 2 they weren’t using. The folks they were speaking with really only needed one General Admission ticket to go with the three they already had. I stepped in, sold them my General Admission ticket and snapped up the 2 VIP tickets for a net cost of $100. Originally, VIP tickets cost $250 EACH. As you can see below, our seats went from the lawn area to where I circled in the VIP section. Had Jill and I not been lazy, we would never have met Alex and Louise, and we would never have been able to see Carter smile. We would have been, as Dane Cook puts it in Monopoly terms, “Standing on Baltic with shit.”

The VIP section doled out free drinks to any card carrying member. They also had special restrooms. I felt like an aristocrat, if only for a few hours. I hadn’t seen Dave since the infamous MSG show in ‘98 where I was dead center in row E, some 5 yards from the stage; the same show with a 20 minute long Lie In Our Graves and 15 minute rendition of Jimi Thing. The setlist on Saturday included several tracks from their latest, Stand Up, which in this Gremmie’s opinion, matches if not surpasses their other greatest, Before These Crowded Streets. Highlights included Louisiana Bayou with Robert Randolph on lap guitar, Steady As We Go, and Dreamgirl, a song that sounds stellar when played live.

This weekend I learned that lazy is sometimes the only way to roll.

What a week it’s been. 2 Mike Doughty shows inclusive of my small rock hero recognizing me. I have a new girlfriend, plums who is SO wonderful that she actually found me these. Dave Matthews Band Island Getaway tomorrow. White water rafting in a few weeks. Our Lady Peace in late August. Tomato Weekend. Utah is coming home. Goof is coming to the city. I’m going to Albany with plums in late August to get fitted for a suit for the wedding. Got a date for the wedding now too.

Maxwell’s appears to be just another ordinary pub in Hoboken, NJ. Located on Washington St., it doesn’t strike the average passer-by as any different or more remarkable than the other 100 pubs lining Hoboken’s prime drag. You don’t know till you enter that there’s a backroom made for rocking.

Hopping on the PATH train to Hoboken, or as Mike felt obliged to call it, “the ‘Bokey”, I arrived at a late 9:30pm due to a hectic day at work and band practice that ran a few minutes too late. I picked up Jillian, or as I like to call her “plums”, on 4th street and we rushed off to Maxwell’s.

In the sweltering New Jersey heat, we traipsed our way towards 11th Street. We arrived at Maxwell’s at 9:45pm. I saw Handsome Dan near the bar before the show began and offered to buy him a beer. He politely declined with a “thanks but no thanks”. The band went onstage at 10pm.

Highlights of show included a remix of the Doughty cult favorite “Firetruck” which was done tongue-in-cheek, an improv session where Mike used Dan’s sampler to bust out some beats with an astonishingly good Pete McNeal, an electrifying cover of “The Gambler”, the quasi-rare hip-swayer, “Down on the River by the Sugar Plant”, a sandal-less “Hippie Fuck” Mike Doughty, and a subtly powerful rendition of Haughty Melodic’s closer “Your Misfortune” with which Mike coincidentally closed the show.

To borrow a hackneyed phrase, tonight the band was on fire. Pete McNeal’s performance on drums was spectacular. As the keeper of the beat he managed to play off his bandmates’ nuances like he’d been playing with them for a decade. Scrappy was tight and hipster on the upright bass. Handsome Dan layed down some mellifluous keyboards. And Mike, who’s been playing Maxwell’s for years, looked both at home in his surroundings and fit as the consumate leader.

After the show, Mike played everyman and patiently signed items for people while listening to a half-million stories. Waiting in line, I heard everything from the stalker-esque “I’ve been following you since 1995.” to the more appropriate, “Sign my titties please.” Much to my surprise, Mike remembered me from backstage at Irving Plaza in February. I handed him my card (I work for an Investment Bank) and told him to call me if he needed sound advice. He also thanked me for putting up gremmie.doughty, further telling me that he liked the site; a kind remark. On the way out I saw Handsome Dan again and asked if he was up for a beer now that the show had ended. He acquiesced. Naturally, he ordered a Brooklyn Lager.

For more Pics of the show click HERE

Mike Doughty just released a Rockity EP called “The Gambler EP”. Why gremmies? Because there’s a studio cover of Kenny Rogers’ infamous song “The Gambler“. You know, “You got know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…”. Mike has been playing this song at nearly every show on his new “Medium Rock” tour.

Available only on iTunes, this EP includes said studio cover and live versions of Soul Coughing’s “Janine” and “St. Louise is Listening”, Magnetic Fields’ “Strange Powers”, Neutral Milk Hotel’s “The King of Carrot Flowers”, and Mike’s own “Busting Up a Starbux”. Click on the image below for a live version of Mike performing “The Gambler”.

There’s nothing worse than a Gremmie Out of Control.

In the up-tempo Soul Coughing tune, “The Idiot Kings” (whose original title was Luv Gangsters) there’s a lyric which literally defines my street-walking demeanor. When I say literally, I literally mean literally. How many people misuse that word anyway? Comedian David Cross once pointed out that when you wrongly appertain the word literally to a situation, you literally use it incorrectly. How ironic. Anyway, the line goes “I’ve seen a half a zillion girls and haven’t spoken to a single one of them.” While many of my contemporaries would argue that chatting up girls is hardly a languor for me, I would argue that it is because of another lyric from a different song and band. The track “Love” by the Smashing Pumpkin’s closing line reads, “Love, it’s who you know.” In a sense, you only ever really get involved with people inside your circle of acquaintances.

Those I’ve loved have always been at most 2 degrees separated from said circle. Everyone from SadJ, to the Sure Thing, to Elsie were no more than once removed from other people I knew directly. I don’t like Billy Corgan much, but he’s right - love IS who you know. The small microcosm of me. Not just me though, anyone; the singular enviroment where love is barely able to extend beyond your arms’ length. Trapped. What about those half a zillion girls?

I saw one today on the subway. The same one I see once every few weeks while going to or coming back from work. 5′ 7″ blue eyed devil, built like a light truck. It doesn’t so much matter the girl as it does the principle. She’s Exhibit A. Would I ever strike up a conversation with a random person on the subway? Possibly. The rash enviroment of hard-grinding gunmetal and subway etiquette that dictates keeping to yourself would make the effort an arduous one, but I’d do it; inspired by Utah and his ‘quests’. Assuming I was successful in my charming and I managed to steal her away for an arbitrary cup of coffee at Starbux, the odds of connecting with blue eyed devil on anything other than simple platitudes are the poster child for anorexia - slim. Why? Because the initial abberations that corrode incipient greetings are impenetrable save only for bizzarre timing; the small windows of opportunity that arises amidst - in this case - blue eyed devil’s life. For example, maybe today was the day she decided that her Euro-trash, striped shirt wearing ex-boyfriend, with greased-up hair was finally in her past and she was ready to move on. On that day, I have a shot. But not me per say, anyone. Otherwise I don’t have a sheep’s chance in hell. As this applies to just about everyone, it’s safe to say that men and women are at the behest of love inbreeding.

Love inbreeding? Yeah I coined that phrase, what? In the Gremmie Dictionary (gDic), which can be purchased at Amazon.com, love breeding is defined as “the maintaining of like pathos through the development of relationships strictly within a defined circle of acquaintances”. For those of you who didn’t attend the prestigious Albany State University, this means that you’re keeping the collective wills of you and your friends, all in the family. Still don’t get it? Go here.

Love inbreeding isn’t as much a problem as it is a shy lynchpin. Any gremmie reading this will undoubtedly correlate the thousands of times they’ve noticed an unknown member of the opposite sex while wondering just what it would be like to get to know that person better, or in the more crass instances, just fuck them. The brief primal attachment every gremmie fosters in these scenarios amounts to tiny bits of frustration on top of tiny bits of frustration. While ephemeral in nature, these bits of frustration hamper progress in sidestepping love inbreeding in an effort to subjugate it entirely. Once accustomed to ‘just looking’, most gremmies become comfortable in imagining what that an unknown girl or guy could be like instead of actually finding out. As a lynchpin this could lead to all sorts of problems ranging from projection to ‘greener-grass’ syndrome.

Sadly, there are no solutions to love inbreeding, there are only exceptions. Afterall love is who you know; those half a zillion girls are going to have to wait.