Speeding Motorcycle of my heart

Hey FOLKS! I've been saving up blog posts in my mind and this is the first one I need to get out there:

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I ventured down to Austin for a weekend vacation. Friday night we went to the Alamo theater and watched Be Kind Rewind which was accompanied by some nice locally sweded classic shown before hand. I loved the movie, better than any other Gondry movie for sure. I've gotten flack from friends for choosing this over Eternal Sunshine..but watching BKR gave me this warm feeling of watching an instant cult classic that spoke straight to everyone whose ever tried to make something epic with a video camera (scroll down to watch my infamous high school attempt) where as watching Eternal Sunshine gave me the feeling of being tricked into watching a high concept chick flick.

Anyway, the next day we hung out with the Andersons, ate crepes from an airstream, bought a french dunny and a pete fowler monster, went to doggy island (an island where dogs run free), ate an an amazing burger and then went to see SPEEDING MOTORCYCLE which is the main reason for this post.

We didn't really know what to expect when we bought tickets for this thing cause its kind of hard to describe to some one. We just knew that it involved Daniel Johnston songs and that my friend Joe Mathlete played one of the leads. Boy, were we in for a treat. What it essentially boils down to is a full blow rock opera similar to the stage production of Tommy using Johnston songs to form a LOOSE narrative; and while my complaint about most rock operas is that there is way too much fluff, the story is too hard to follow (see uh...our last album), and the singing is so theatrical and distracting...it was totally wonderful and appropriate in this case.

This is mainly because, A) as they explain in the hand bill, Daniel didn't write any of his songs with the intentions of telling a long story but many end up telling the same tale of unrequited love with a girl who marries the director of a funeral home. and B) Johnston songs make perfect covers as proven time and time again by (insert a dozen of your favorite artists.)
So yes, some of the songs were a big theatrical and over dramatic, but so is the world that Johnston has created in his head. It pretty much just comes down to great songs performed by talented people.

Another HUGE plus was that Kathy McCarthy had just recently joined the cast. If you aren't up on your Johnston trivia she's the one who recorded the first album of Johnston covers introducing a large number of people to his song writing. After the show the cast played more songs on a stage outside where she played my favorite song of his. What a treat! If you live in Austin you should go see this before its over. A little bird told me they have cheap tickets on Wednesdays too!

Sunday afternoon we drove back got some czech stop and watched a very predictable Oscar ceremony (at least Juno didn't win!)
A great weekend I will remember always.

Did I ever tell you guys I got a new guitar?

Karl

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