Thursday, July 17, 2008

Revenge Sweet Revenge.....

Okay here's the story: When I was on my mission in Argentina my brother Nate saw 311 in a tiny club in SLC and got to meet them all and take pictures with them after the show, and like an idiot he sent me all the pictures of the whole thing. Man did that make me homesick like no other! Since we've been living in L.A. I've been trying to seek revenge little by little by going to lots of cool shows of our favorite artists and Melissa and I got to see one such artist a few weeks ago just a few miles up the 405 in beautiful Culver City at a very small music store called Boulevard Music. The one, the only.......Laurence Juber! That's right, THE JUBESTER! He is only THE greatest acoustic guitarist on the face of the planet. Seriously! Paul McCartney hand selected him to be his lead guitarist for his post Beatles band "Wings" and together they won a Grammy. He now tours the world playing festivals and small little local shows (lucky for us!) Needless to say, the show was awesome, Melissa is now (finally) a believer and we got to meet Laurence and chat with him a little during the intermission. What a nice guy. Melissa bought me his newest guitar tablature book and he signed it. Very cool. Now that you all have heard of him you should definitely check him out - his work is absolutely amazing and you won't be disappointed! http://www.laurencejuber.com/




This past Friday night I slammed the final nail into the proverbial revenge coffin. One of the guitarists of our favorite band since we discovered them in 2001 (The Strokes) has done a few solo records and played a show in a TINY club in L.A. called Spaceland which has a capacity of only 260! So I miraculously found some tickets online from a lady in New York, she expressed them out and a few friends and I were on our way to see Albert Hammond Jr. at Spaceland. When we got there we saw a HUGE line of about 300 people and we overheard some guy saying that they only sold 40 advance tickets and we had 4 of them! So we sold our extra to some lucky hipster at the very back of the line. We went and got a Slurpee before the show and then waltzed past the then closer to 500 people in line which was wrapping around 2 blocks and walked right in. It was awesome and we felt pretty exclusive at that moment! To make an already long story not so long, Albert was awesome, but the "revenge" part came in the form of 2 other members of The Strokes that suddenly showed up in the club and I went and talked to them and got a picture. Purely to rub in my brother's face of course. Just returning the favor.



This is Nick Valensi, the lead guitarist of The Strokes who are by far the greatest band of this decade. I actually play his custom/signature guitar so it was a real thrill to meet him.



Me with Fabrizio Moretti the drummer of The Strokes. The dude was so nice and talked to me for 10 minutes or so and told me that The Strokes will be getting back together in February to start the next album - for all of you who were wondering. :)


And of course, Albert himself up on stage performing the new material from "Como Te Llama?" It was an awesome show and incredible to see him in such an intimate venue w/so few people!






My brother and I each have one of those red pedals called the "Jekyll & Hyde" which Albert and Nick use. Do you think they've influenced us just a little?????????? Now I need to figure out why he uses 2 at the same time??? Hmmmmm...............



After the show the guy behind us said he saw the bass player Scott Shriner from Weezer in the club rockin out. This pic of Scott is actually from the July 2002 show in SLC Melissa and I were at.



Danny Masterson who played Hyde on "That 70's Show" was also at the Albert show on Friday night.


And last but definitely not least...............Melissa about died when I told her who I saw next. The valet guy almost had our car ready when all of a sudden this guy walks right past me and as I watch him it registers in my head who it is and before I can say anything all these girls behind me start yelling, "Hey that's Jim from The Office! That's Jim, that's Jim!!!" And it was. Jon Krasinski. Jim Halpert. Pretty cool. So sorry Melissa.





But I'm definitely not sorry to you Nate!!! Sweet, sweet revenge......


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, Fabrizio, He's HOT but hate the beard! That is so cool.

metromut said...

you are quite the hipster. it is good to see that all your wildest dreams are coming true. holy crap. this gives me hope that i may yet one day meet mr. bill clinton, my hero and the best president in the last 30 years at least. i appreciate the shout-out in the last post. give me a jingle anytime and i will fill up any narcotic that you want. now that you are hanging with rock stars, forward them my info as well and i will see what i can do. xoxoxoxoxo

Angie said...

I am with Melissa, Jim is definitely the best on your list of people you saw! You guys looked like you had a fun time in Utah. I wish we could have planned it so that we could have been there at the same time. Even though it is already hard to fit everything in on vacation, it would have been fun to see you guys!