From The Heartland To The Metropolis

I know I've been a bit lax about giving this thing any real updates lately. I'll blame end-of-tour malaise. The reality is that travels through the heartland of America don't tend to be nearly as interesting as jaunts through places like Moscow, Japan or the French Riviera. The last weeks of touring were spent doing mostly pointless gigs to less than packed houses in sad little sub-markets. Word is it was based on "radio promotion", meaning that the radio station in Kansas City will add your song into rotation if you play their shitty town and let them promote it and let one of their douchebag DJs introduce you on stage. The problem, as I see it, with the Strokes trying to break into middle America is that the vast majority of the kids in these places get their taste in music imposed on them by MTV, and for reasons I'm still not entirely aware of (there may have been drunken punching of executives involved) MTV has never gotten behind them in the states. MTV most everywhere else in the world (and yes, it's EVERYWHERE) gets behind the Strokes and they are big-to-huge in those places. Besides, it's obvious that the youth of America by and large have atrocious taste in music (see Fallout Boy or Good Charlotte) so maybe not being huge in Muncie, IN isn't such a bad thing.

We did have the pleasure of doing a show at the lovely Hampton Beach Club Casino Ballroom in NH. I grew up near here and this was the place we would come in high school to both to go to the beach but also to cruise around the boardwalk in Camaros and drink cans of Bud in the dunes. It's a typical cheesy east-coast boardwalk type spot. Video games, airbrush t-shirts and fried dough abound. Matt drove up from NYC and picked me up at my mom's the day of the show. We drove in through Salisbury Beach which is the town just south of Hampton and is where I spent the summer after I graduated high school. I lived at my friend's beach house and worked at the Dream Machine arcade. It was quite a flashback to be there.

Matt on arrival in Salisbury Beach...


Hasn't changed a lick...


Mmmm....


Oh yeah, and there's a beach...


So now we're done. Well, almost. We have one last corporate event to play in NYC in a couple days then we're really done. I'll fly home the next day and there'll be no more busses or hotels or shitty dark clubs with sticky floors. I have no idea what the fuck I'm going to do with myself. For now I'm killing time in NYC, seeing movies, catching up with friends and eating good food. The Eagles of Death Metal are in town tomorrow night opening for Joan Jett. It'll be the first time I've ventured out for some rock since I got here. Good times will ensue.

Midtown 5:30am...