Atlanta, Athens, Winston-Salem: Gaining Weight Fast

And here we have a random dog that I named Chile. Little Chile sat with me as I awaited the screening at the 11:11 teahouse. Chile was instant love. Chile did not care about my harsh words or evil doings. Chile just wanted to be near. The screening went well.

The next night BB had a show with Pete D (of Gringo Star) who played an awesome acoustic set. He was so kind ... instead of accepting money for his 7" he asked folks to donate to the touring band (us). Since he tours for a living he understands. Hurrah to kind musicians!! The more we tour, the more I realize things we could do differently or better for bands coming through too.

Batata Doce played after our set. They were, from what one of their fans said, tropicalia style. This music comes out of revolution. At the end the drummer played on glass jars filled with different levels of water. Sounded way better than my wood block.


The next night we were supposed to leave and go see Kim's band play in Athens, but Justin was kind enough to get us a last minute show at the Earl with Dylan Kight & the Nightbirds as well as the Preakness.


Here are my drums on the stage. We played out front and it went pretty well. Pictured here is Dylan Kight and the Nightbirds, and the Preakness, below.





Before the show we went to Athens to leaflet (rob) and check out the Grit, an established veg restaurant of deserved awesomeness. In addition to real food, we had two different kinds of fake food, namely, vegan cake - the Grasshopper (my favorite) which tasted sort of like the mint chocolate chip ice cream, but way better, and then the other cake, which had a name I'm forgetting (see, Jamie, Rob looks happy again). These were especially good after the show at the Earl, on our way to a house party that Patrick's new project was playing. Unfortunately we missed his band, Hawks, but got to visit with him and accidentally walk into a frat party.


The next day, we headed to Harmony, which has vegan chinese food. It was no Teapot (Seattle) but pretty damned good.





We found the Werehouse and screened my documentary there. I was kind of nervous because I haven't been doing this as long as the band. But load in sure is a lot easier. Go Triad and Relish were kind enough to write articles about it. There are links to these here.

I think that the Werehouse is my new favorite place. There was obviously a lot of work, love, and thought put into this place. They even roast their own coffee.


Here Rob is interviewing a member of the collective, Eric, for his soon to be streamed podcast, BB radio.


We will be playing in Greensboro tonight with Invisible and Ponchos from Peru. More on these amazing bands tomorrow....

Atlanta the Snowman

Here is our last bit of cake in Asheville. Today we're in Atlanta. It's snowing. Yesterday was spring-like and we walked all over up to the Virginia Heights neighborhood we accidentally found. We had some tea and coffee at the friendly Aurora coffeehouse, and took care of some tour business there. We left and walked back down to Trader Joe's where we were the number of customer that warranted a bell-ringing and prize. Rob went reluctantly to pick the velcro fish off of the wall to discover the prize that awaited us. Would it be vegan? You could cut the tension in the air with a dull knife. Somehow Rob's return to the register became slow motion...everything stopped. “Tru...ffle...browwwwwwn...ie miiiiiiix!” he managed. The cashier went to fetch the mix, the same mix which I'd seen earlier and thought, “I can make that from scratch, beotch! Who needs a mix?” But it was ours. Every vegan crumb.

Also picked up some pizza, burritos, chipotle hummous, tapanade, and bread product. We were hungry. Earlier in the day we had eaten at the newly established Calabash downtown. Nice, nice folks with delicious vegan food buffet-style. Three dishes for $6 – we had the mac & cheese, which had a nice bread crumb crust, and thick, creamy sauce on the large macaroni noodles, and the steamed vegetables, as well as the esco...somethingarather fish. It was like nothing I'd ever had and quite 2^nd tripable. We'll be back. For anyone in the Atlanta area, they are having a party in March to celebrate life and the hard work of the owner, the wife of the man who told us about it. Open to the public.

We also found this awesome coffeeshop in Cabbagetown that serves some vegan food and has a dog park attached to it (see picture). We so need this in Durham. Anyone?
Today was the search. Where will Rob leaflet? Where is the Kinko's so I can make handbills for the screening? Where to park? Where is Little 5 Points? Where is the Cosmos Vegan Shoppe, most importantly? We didn't find the Kinko's but stumbled upon the very street that Cosmos was on and took it. All of this searching made us hungry. Lucky us, we stumbled upon the Soul Vegetarian Restaurant by accident. I'd been wanting to try it. It was all decked out with Eternal Soy Kream and their exclusive kalebone seitan. And it was all vegan goodness. I had the gyros, and Rob had the basket that included a tempura mix of cauliflower, onion rings, kalebone, and mushrooms. The sauce for the salad preceding the meal had to be the best thing since Vlacho Nacho. After lunch I had the vanilla pistacio cream and Rob had some berry flavored concoction.

We continued down the road and found the wonderful Cosmos Vegan Shop. They have handmade handbags, wallets, shoes, and most importantly, Stonewall's Jerquee. We got a handful of those, and Rob bought a new Vegan shirt that they commissioned. Pictures to follow. You can buy yours here.

The nice folks at Cosmos were as much about this screening happening today, if not more, than anything else. Not only did they hook me up with Second Opinion radio, blog about the screening, and post the flyers, they printed out flyers for Rob and I to hand out around town when we inquired about a Kinko's. When we found out that there was no projector at the venue, they printed us directions to the nearest Office Max. Then, when we bought the projector and realized it didn't have the appropriate S-cable, I'll be damned if they didn't buy one and bring it down to the screening. Crap. These kind of folks make me feel like I can sure sing songs about liking people too. All this and a cool store to boot. Check them out when you're passing through Atlanta, vegan or no. They also have an assortment of snacks, like my favorite rice milk bars, candles, and journals.

Right now we're at the 11:11 teahouse awaiting the hour of the screening to arrive. It's a peaceful little place, with tea steeping sounds, soft music, green pastel-ish walls with vintage clothes hung on them, and low lights. It's more peaceful than I could ever be, and I envy the little teahouse that. I can't imagine hurting its little teacup ears with our songs tomorrow when we play, but we'll try not to shatter the teapots. From the look of the PA , however, it appears that there is more to this place than yerba matte.

We will be performing with Batata Doce and Pete D. We are looking forward to seeing the show and playing too, course.