Photo: After the party in London. Taken by Ben Roberts.

It's all over, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!

Sort of. Two concerts in the near-future you should know about:

Friday, November 30th, 2007- Portland, OR @ Backspace (115 NW 5th Street)
8pm, All-Ages, FREE! (with The Thermals)

Review in the Willamette Week | Photos by Jeff Mawer | Photo by Justin Kent

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007- New York, NY @ Knitting Factory (74 Leonard Street)
6pm, All-Ages (with Mt. Eerie, Islands, Tussle, Nick Krgovich, R Stevie Moore, Roger Ferguson, Christopher Francis, and Tomlab DJs) as part of the Worried Noodles release party!

Photos on Pitchfork | Photos on Brooklyn Vegan

It's all over, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!

Where do I even start? I played nearly two hundred shows in 17 countries in 2007. I played to 21 people in Hamburg, Germany and 1,500 people Detroit, Michagan. I flew on countless crappy airplanes, rode on both nice and not-so-nice trains, illegally drove cars, rode on multiple tour busses, both with wifi and without wifi. I made new friends that I'll keep for the rest of my life, and I was harassed by drunken English dudes for wearing pants too tight for their preference. Sometimes I was with a busload of friends, and other times I was more alone that I have maybe ever been. I renewed my relationship with Tetris, this time on an iPod.

I'm not sure if I'm a better, smarter, stronger, wiser, or more rugged human being. I'm just glad to be at home and have the space and time to be bored again. Right now this is endlessly satisfying for me. As far as this blog goes, I've almost completely forgotten how to document this shit. After China I started touring completely on my lonesome and I lost the spirit of documentation somewhere out of the window of the hired Peugeot, right past Fabrice, my nearly silent (but very friendly and supportive) driver for the French leg of the last European tour.

For documentation's sake I'll give a rundown of each part of this last tour starting right now:

France: I started off by visiting Flint at his residency at Cité de Internationale des Arts, which was so incredibly nice. I hadn't seen Flint in months and being with him in Paris was a treat. Being with friends out of context in non-English speaking countries. I played in Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nante, Lyon, Reims, and Nancy before coming back to Paris for an unintentional extra day off (I missed my flight to Norway) and I brought Flint this "present" that he has very appropriately been using as a blanket. The shows in France varied from completely awesome to very small and very awkward. I played on another boat. That was great. I didn't speak very much during the day.

Scandinavia: So, I missed my SAS flight from Paris to Oslo and I had to buy a completely new and unrelated ticket due to SAS's poor customer service. Note to self: avoid SAS, Virgin Blue, EasyJet, and Ryanair. These airlines aren't exactly "nice" or "helpful" or "worth the cheap tickets." Once I got to Oslo I got to hang out with the incredibly awesome Ingeborg who showed me around, introduced me to the best candy designs, and took me to her warm apartment to hang out, watch Pimp My Ride episodes from 2002 on Norwegian MTV, and eat Thai food. I almost didn't want to play a show after that. But I did, and it ruled:

A very nice trio named Echodeck offered to drive me from Oslo to Malmo to Gothenburg in their red Volvo, which is Swedish just like them! After this trip I decided that I have to get up to Trondheim, Bergen, and have an extended hang out in Norway. I imagine this would mean some extended touring in Scandinavia as well. 2008!

Berlin: This was my first extended hang out with Thomas, my favorite contestant of Ultimate Blogger Season 1. Just to give you a little insight, he fooled everyone into thinking that he was a Russian Italia Disco playboy named Lyova living in Thailand, when in fact he and his roommate had infiltrated our game and had been basically controlling the series from the get-go. Also, he's Polish/British. Also they lived in Taiwan, not Thailand. It was deeply impressive and so much fun to watch unfold. Anyway, I hung out with Thomas and his girlfriend Liz in Berlin, it was great. I met David Shrigley at the Worried Noodles party the Dirty Projectors and I played. I blushed because I like him so much. True story: I blush sort of a lot. I'm looking into this.

Dublin: I'd met Deerhunter before, but I'd never seen them play. We played together in Dublin the night that I found out Whiskers died, and I opened up the show by talking about being bummed about Whiskers and it was nice, sad, and pretty awkward. I felt like I could fall apart at any moment and I think that gave the show something extra. Deerhunter was awesome and we talked about playing together more in the future. Adam and Honey are going to be touring with Bradford's new shit, Atlas Sound, next year, too. White Rainbow eternal love forever respect wisdom warrior chamber.

UK: The UK is fucking dark! At this point, it had been about three and a half weeks since I'd seen Claire, and a month before that, and a month before that... We decided that enough was enough, so she flew to London to meet up with me and do the whole UK leg of the trip, then fly home before me so she could go to (and write about) a Science Fiction/Fantasy convention in Portland. I played mostly club nights. The only other experience I've had with club nights was in Australia, and those were equally out of control, as well as being not exactly the most familiar or comfortable setting for me. Not that I need golden pillows or even a backstage area; that's not the kind of uncomfortable I'm talking about. I'm from this very small Northwestern North American city where I started playing shows in living rooms, basements, speakeasies, treehouses, and crunked-out warehouses turned all ages "venues." Club nights, on the other hand, seem to be all about fashion, getting fucked up, and doing everything possible to avoid taking part in the actual show. There were totally extreme exceptions to this: the tight lyrically laden mosh pit at PUSH in London, for instance, or the kids smashed together and smiling on the elevated blocks at DURR, but yeah man, fuck club nights. I want to play in places with less hangups.

London: Thank you so much Matt, Cherise, and Alex for hosting us, rolling deep, and keeping us warm.

Berlin (again): The show at West Germany was the best show I've played in Berlin to date. West Germany is a small venue that used to be a dentists' office. It's pretty thrashed in resemblance to a squat or something, and I heard that it's run illegally, which makes it a little cooler. The morning after the show Claire left at 5am and I went to Yellow Sunshine and got their amazing vegan chicken burger. Oh man.

Lüneburg: Everyone was very drunk and there was so much confetti. I think I swallowed enough to create some sort of new paper-based illness. My computer still has some of it coming out of the disc drive. The DJs in Lüneburg were some of the best and most joy-filled people I've met in a while! They had a microphone and kept screaming LÜNEBURG, all night long. What if the Juice Team DJs had a microphone?

Hamburg: Was small and sweet.

It's all over, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!

It's all over, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!

Portland and Marfa: December, January, February, and possibly March and April will be devoted to making new YACHT musics, documents, performances, lifestyle items, and visual displays. As of right now I'm planning on making two new albums, but that could very easily change; it's only a plan for creating some sort of structure for the different kinds of songs I'm making. I don't want to talk about this too much. I just want to do it and surprise you. So forget that you even read this and just know that I'm never satisfied with what I'm doing, so I'll always keep trying to make even better stuffs.

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