the Flops hit the coast.

the Flops recently returned from a trip to the East Coast. I hesitate to call it a tour since it comprised merely three dates, one a private party for a friend's engagement, so that one almost doesn't count, but whatever name you want to give our travels, we had a a big dose of fun. Visitors to the Flops website will be aware that the other shows were at The Point near Philadelphia (Bryn Mawr, actually) and The Fez in Manhattan. The Point is a great music venue with easy chairs, big puffy ones, for listeners to sit on while appreciating performers in a polite way. A goodly number of true-blues came out to love us back (you know who you are).

We doled out heaping tablespoons of honey music and then set off for New York City in the dark night, passing all the glittery industry of New Jersey and then feeling sad as the familiar-now-strange skyline of The City came into view. Maybe you know the old song about New York, "The Bronx are up and The Battery's down...," practically speaking, until recently, by which I mean before September 11th, you could always tell where you were in New York by the Twin Towers. Now what's up, what's down...who can tell? It mirrors a larger feeling I've had inside me lately, but when you're there it's right in front of you...or not, as it happens. Enough.

We headed straight to Brooklyn to stay with Jake. He put us down gentle-like and in the morning it was pancakes and coffee before setting off for our night at The Fez. The Fez is pretty cool, but they're right on top of a subway line and the club is in the basement so every six minutes there'd be a rumble, then a roar fading back to rumble again. Inspired, in a spasm of creativity we wrote a new song about this phenomenon called "Devil Train," live on-stage. The fans went wild. We played our hearts out, in spite of having no set list (left it in the dressing room again...oops!) and thus missed several hits. The fans seemed to be aware that songs were missing, since they brought us back for several encores, but even so we forgot "Descender," one of our very most favorite ones to jam. Love was in the air two ways, though, and our oversights were forgiven.

If I tell you that Matt and I went out and had a cry after the show this time, I'd be lying. Instead, as a tip of the hat to the cool that New York represents we gave each other "high fives," a little leaping chest bump and then "five on the side," followed by a hearty handshake and a "job well done," (even feeling the cool of New York we admitted, by these last gestures, that we are from Minneapolis where cool is frowned upon).

I think that I should mention, despite the audience being limited to invited guests of the soon-to-be-married couple, that Jake played ALL NIGHT with Matt and I at the engagement party the following night. We'd have truly flopped if it weren't for the groovy tattoo that he beat out behind us. Especially notable were his Benny Benjamin-like contributions to "My Girl," "Sweet Caroline," and "Dock of the Bay." Big fun, but don't expect to hear any of these again anytime soon unless you hire Matt and I to play your wedding!

Naturally, we can't wait to get back.

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