Spring Break '06 was definitely a memorable one. Certainly less so than bygone Spring Breaks, but, nonetheless, memorable. I snapped the above picture at the train crossing near Greenway Groceries out on Highway 14 while doing what I always do to cleanse my soul; driving around in the country listening to Drive-By Truckers.

Of Montreal of Athens in Athens

Friday, after class let out, I went home, and got ready to go see Of Montreal and Grand Buffet at Athens' World famous, 40 Watt Club. Having never been to the 40 Watt, or Athens, GA, for that matter, and taking one look at their roster of past shows, I was pretty excited.

Driving the cars were Emily G. and myself. Passengers included Richard, Cory, Adam, Rod V., Caroline, Rollie, and Chandler.

I had to talk Chandler into going, offering to pay for his ticket and gas, but it was worth it, for sure.

We actually had to pick up Rod from Newnan, Georgia which is competing in my final four of worst cities in America. (In case you were curious, the other finalists are Winter Park, Florida; Avon Park, Florida; and Ocala, Florida.) Unfortunately, I can draw many connections between the Newnan of today, and the Auburn of tomorrow. The subdivision where Rod was living looked a lot like Grove Hill, Moore's Mill, Hamilton Hills, et. al.; save the fact that there were four lanes. It was a nightmare.

After picking up Rod in Newnan, and sitting through a traffic jam in Gwinnett (actually, I should add Gwinnett to that list), we made good time to Athens.

Richard and Rod kicked off the arrival in Athens with a celebratory urination on the walls of Athens' city hall. After meeting us back on the street, we were all summoned by a police officer standing nearby. Apparently, they've had a bit of a problem with kids tipping over the port-a-potty at the near-by construction site. Richard and Rod promised him that they hadn't tipped over the port-a-potty, and he let us all go.



After standing outside in the cold for almost an hour and a half, the doors to the 40 Watt were opened, and we made our way inside.



In no time at all, Grand Buffet hit the stage. Though it lacked the grand scale of the Variety Playhouse show, they were every bit as entertaining.











Of Montreal came out after a pleasantly short set break.







I was sort of disappointed that Kevin did the wedding dress thing again. I guess he didn't realize that they had a big enough following to where people would see them twice in just over a month.

All of that aside, Of Montreal kicked ass once again. I thought it was a better show than the one in Atlanta, although that was probably because I was behind Chandler who was on the front row. Also, as you can tell, I got a lot more quality photographs due to my proximity.







































All-in-all a very good night. We went from Athens back to Newnan to drop off Rod. We got to his house, and said our final goodbyes. Rod moved to San Francisco a couple days later. He will be missed.

Twenty miles from the Alabama/Georgia line I got a call from Rollie, riding in Emily's car a couple miles ahead. He told me that there was a huge traffic jam and a flaming car on the road near the I-185/LaGrange exit. I told him that I-185 South went to Columbus, but that it would be well out of the way. Seeing that as the only possible option at that point, I pulled off on the same exit several minutes later. I got off at the first exit off of I-185 and followed a hunch that we could get back on I-85 further down, thereby bypassing the fire and resulting traffic jam. We drove down that long and lonely Troup County, Georgia highway for about fifteen minutes before I realized that if I kept going we were going to be lost. I did the logical thing, and turned around.

After coming back to where we'd started, I stopped at a gas station and asked for a map. Turns out, my hunch was right, I had simply gone in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, Emily, Rollie, and the rest were heading fifty miles out of their way toward Columbus. Taking some kind of sick comfort in that knowledge, I drove through God-Knows-Where, Georgia and got back on I-85.

We made it back into Auburn at around 4:30 AM, surprisingly only fifteen minutes before Emily's car.

Dr. Rock, Capt. Fantasy, and Friends





Sunday night (March 26), Emily, Richard, Matthew, and Adam came up to WEGL and helped out Chandler and me with our show. We ended up doing a three hour "double-shot zone". Click here to see the playlist from show #14 if you haven't already.

Ryder's Wall

Ryder built a wall to do spraypaintings on. Here are the shots:











Adam Under a Blacklight

Over Spring Break, we made a horrifying, but hilarious, discovery.



When put under a blacklight, Adam G. looks like Little Black Sambo.







I thought it was funny, and worthy of inclusion in this post.





These don't really fit anywhere, so I'll put them under this banner.

Magnolia Electric Co. & Destroyer

Friday, March 31, was the night of the Magnolia Electric Co., Destroyer, and Mates of State show at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points.

Miles was there.



I ended up dropping fifty dollars on three LP's, but, as always, it was worth it.



Unfortunately, this was the only clear picture of Destroyer that I got; apologies are due.

I did, however get plenty of Magnolia Electric Co. pictures.





















Grainy as it is, I was still pretty happy with that last one.

The only shitty thing about the show was the crowd. You see, Magnolia Electric Co. is, pretty much, a no nonsense, straight forward rock 'n' roll band in the most classic sense of the word; on the other hand, Mates of State are, as Matthew put it, "a married couple screaming over keyboards". These two scenes didn't mesh very well.

While I was watching Magnolia Electric Co., who was fucking amazing, by the way, I noticed that all around me were these little fucking 16 and 17 year-old, shit ass, mySpace, hipster fuck kids SITTING DOWN.



While the concert was going on. These disrespectful little fuckers were sitting down on the floor with their backs to the stage for the most part; lots of them, too. To make matters worse, many of them were text messaging; an activity that I despise with every inch of my being. Those that weren't "texting" were just talking very loudly, and ignoring the rock 'n' roll greatness happening behind them. That got me good and pissed off for the rest of the night, and I had no qualms about leaving before Mates of State got going.


...and that's what I did on my spring vacation.