We trucked down to Tulsa through Missouri. I have to be honest; but Missouri wasn’t really the greatest state I’ve ever been to. Perhaps I missed something amidst the vast nothingness, but overall it was a pretty boring place. We arrived in Tulsa at the Sound Pony, and I have to admit; I’ve been looking forward to playing at this place ever since I noticed Mike booked the gig. For those of you who know; I’m a big fan of bikes, and especially road bikes. The Sound Pony is owned/run/managed by some serious bikers; and it appears to be a local hangout for the roadie scene in Tulsa. Obviously; this was my cup of tea. They had awesome vintage posters (and not the lame ones you see in cycling catalogs), of Merckx, Greg LeMond, Shimano, Campagnolo, World Championships, and plenty of others. I, of course, had to do the tour of the place, so to get a good idea, check out the video.
Since the show wasn’t starting until at least 9 and we got into town around 5:30, we had a few hours to kill. We wandered around Tulsa for a bit and downtown was like a post-apocalyptic horror movie. There was NO ONE around; it must be a 9-5 city because we barely even saw cars randomly parked… except near the Theatre where they were showing Annie… not surprising, but there were plenty of people headed to that show. Aside from that, we wandered around to find some grub and Pat took some great “footage”.
Back at the Pony I found out we got free beer all night long… finally; one venue that provides actual free drinks. (I don’t count The Pit in St. Charles, since I swear the whiskey I was drinking had NO alcohol in it). We were playing with The Silent Years again and through the course of our travel through the day; we happened to notice the other band on the bill was Neptune; which is a local Boston art-rock act. Once I noticed this; I was quite excited about the show; mostly because I haven’t heard Neptune in a long time and I was interested in hearing the Silent Years again since I had liked them the first time.
As you might read in Travis’ blog; it was hard to hear; they didn’t have any monitors to speak of, but I think we ended up playing pretty well all considering. The Silent Years and Neptune were both great; I was especially impressed with Neptune. They somehow seem to combine complete cacophony and randomness with coherent songs (at least in structure) with very little filler. Plus, they play homemade instruments; what is cooler than that! I ended up buying a Silent Years CD and would’ve done the same for Neptune, but the funds are low and I can catch them back in Boston. I chatted with Mark and Dan from Neptune for a bit about Jamaica Plain (where we all happen to live); and overall it was a good time. We ended up staying with a woman named Kate who was in the audience and she was (as we always seem to find) very cool. She happens to be an artist, and we chatted briefly in the morning about art and what Texas is like. So that’s where we’re headed to next.