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SXSW 2015 Tour: Tacos and Bibimbap and Also Some Music
After a hearty breakfast, we buckle down for a long drive. Google Maps says eight hours, and it will end up being more like ten. This is...
Ethan Bassford
Mar 23, 201517 min read
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SXSW 2015 Tour: The Rare Luxury Of Drinking Rye Outdoors
As soon as we reach New Orleans, I feel a wave of calm wash over me. The sun is just beginning to set, and the air is pleasantly balmy....
Ethan Bassford
Mar 19, 20155 min read
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SXSW 2015 Tour: Some Hecklers Just Want To Hang
Our first stop in Atlanta is the Sevananda Natural Foods Market in Little Five Points. We found this place our first time through the...
Ethan Bassford
Mar 19, 20155 min read
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SXSW 2015 Tour: Foamhenge, Where The Demons Dwell
Natural Bridge, Virginia, is home to a genuinely bizarre and cool roadside attraction: Foamhenge. Foamhenge is the work of sculptor Mark...
Ethan Bassford
Mar 17, 20157 min read
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SXSW 2015 Tour: Waist-Deep in Luggage
Packing the van is a little different on each tour. No matter how much you think you have it down to a science, something always changes:...
Ethan Bassford
Mar 16, 20158 min read
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A weekend ritual: A&A Bake and Doubles
It’s hard to get me out of the house before sundown on a Saturday. I generally try to sleep as late as possible and remain in bed until...
Ethan Bassford
Feb 14, 20156 min read
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Fall Tour: An Obscene Amount of Garlic
The crowd at the Big Red Barn at Cornell is better than the usual college crowd. The room is nice and full, and people are dancing and...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 29, 201412 min read
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Fall Tour: Carlos hears Son of Salami in Burlington and Bursts Into Tears
Our show in Boston is at a house. House shows in Boston must be handled carefully because the cops put considerable and occasionally...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 26, 201410 min read
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Fall Tour: In which I eat several bagels and am crowned Pony Princess
Our show in Montreal is at Casa del Popolo, part of the POP Montreal festival. I cannot resist purchasing these “wine-flavored” gummies...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 24, 201413 min read
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Fall Tour: Lodging with the Elks
Our show in Pittsburgh is at the Smiling Moose. The streets are wide enough for roughly one and a half cars, so loading is a dodgy...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 23, 201414 min read
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Fall Tour: In which I discover a previously-unknown talent for shadow puppets
Our Kalamazoo show is at Satellite Records, a thoroughly awesome record store on what appears to be the main drag. I take the opportunity...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 18, 20148 min read
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Fall Tour: Bill and Ted are kind of chumps if you really think about it
In Atlanta, we stay in a large house consisting of many apartments connected by a tarpaper roof. Our hosts have a large collection of...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 14, 201412 min read
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Tour Diary: Hootie & The Blowfish Boulevard is a place that exists and I went there
Our trip from Raleigh to Columbia is mercifully rainy, bringing the temperature down to a very nearly tolerable level. Our show is at a...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 8, 20144 min read
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Fall Tour: Meat Edition
Leaving for tour requires a series of carefully-choreographed preparations. Preparing to leave home for nearly a month is already pretty...
Ethan Bassford
Sep 7, 201412 min read
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Luthier? I hardly know her! Part 3
The best way to deal with the fingerboard while preserving the inlays turned out to be the hardest: hand-scraping with a little...
Ethan Bassford
Aug 4, 20146 min read
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I Take Back Everything Bad I Ever Said About Midtown: B&D Halal Restaurant
My doctor’s office is walkable from work, and on the way back from my last routine checkup I took a slightly different route than last...
Ethan Bassford
Jul 31, 20144 min read
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Sublime to the Ridiculous
In deference to the fact that very few people who read this care about the finer points of musical instrument construction, I’m going to...
Ethan Bassford
Jul 21, 201416 min read
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Luthier? I hardly know her! Part 2
As soon as I started this project, the simple task of attaching my fancy new tuners to the headstock proved beyond me. I was frustrated:...
Ethan Bassford
Jul 17, 20144 min read
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Luthier? I hardly know her! Part 1
Okay, so the blog has been inactive for a bit, but let’s be real: the people who read this are probably also the people I’ve seen in the...
Ethan Bassford
Jun 21, 20147 min read
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No, All Humans
I don’t want this blog to become the sort of space where I have to weigh in on every single development of the 24-hour news cycle. But...
Ethan Bassford
May 28, 20148 min read
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