OK. Tour report resumed.

Brief hiatus. Tamiflu prescribed. Starting to feel better.

What else happened in New York?

Well, we were exceedingly well looked after and cared for by Aviram, who (despite having more important things to do like make art and prepare for the exceptionally busy few months that the Silk Flowers LP will bring) showed us some old sights and new tricks and hooked us up with people we haven't seen in ages.

Shout outs now to Brendan and Andrea, John and Amanda, Peter, Matthew, and much love to Ethan and Heather, and all the New Yorkers and only-in-New-York-for-a-day-ers that took time out in their days to hang and, usually, eat food (we're that predictable). Avi has left me slightly damaged though by taking me for coffee in a particular place, knowing damn well I will never be able to get coffee that good in London and I will spend the whole time frustrated about this, argh!
We went to the Captured Tracks/Woodsist all dayer, where we bumped into buddies from home Nick and Miranda and we wondered just how the hell you could get permission to hold a show under a subway line, in a semi-residential area, for two days. I particularly enjoyed waving to the drivers when they went past.
The show was fun, especially meeting up with Matthew Mondanile and Shawn Reed again and seeing Samuel Herring locked behind a fence (above, still not sure why this was the case but had me laughing for ages). Enjoyed seeing Real Estate (above, top) and Ganglians and Kurt Vile (above, bottom), felt ambivalent about sitting on pebbles, wondered out loud about the current lo fi garage revival and its origins. Felt particularly inadequate for not having a comedy tattoo (you know the type, way more prevalent in NY than here, though they're coming our way) so Chris did the honours with a sharpie, so for most of our holiday I had a giant Marshmallow Man on my forearm. GREAT.

Missed the 4th July fireworks because the powers that be have moved them to the other side of the river (with attendant controversy: http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2009/05/nycs_4th_of_jul.html) but did almost get hit on the head by someone throwing fireworks off a building and then saw a man in a t-shirt that said "Fuck England". Amazing. Sadly, did not get a shot of this beauty. But, in response, we hate you too.On the 5th July we got to see John Maus play another show (at Monster Island Basement, to get that full Groundhog Day effect) which was less rammed than Friday, so altogether more pleasant. We also stacked up on ridiculously sized US cans of beer (why so big? the beer just gets warm!) so it was a bit more of a relaxed affair.

More use was made of the trapeze.
John (above, by the way) was awesome, again and I enjoyed his performance more this evening because the event on Friday was slightly overwhelming and I wasn't able to really take everything in. It was the first time I'd had a drink in ages, so I'm sorry to anyone whose ears I chewed off all evening (that is metaphorically speaking, not in a Tyson way!). Here are some more photos of John:
It was great to get a few days off from shows (yeah, honest, it isn't our whole lives), and we spent quality time in galleries, eating dumplings, drinking bubble tea, buying books (I'm sorry, I knew I said I wouldn't but I AM POWERLESS) and records and generally hanging out. New York is like a comfortable t-shirt, it is familiar and enough like home to adjust to quickly and easily. I can still laugh now thinking about John Wiese telling me he was going to die in the MOMA bookstore, and about the film called SSSSS that Avi found in his horror movie anthology book (we devised a complicated skit in which you had to pretend to be the plugger/PR company handling the movie and you were ringing people up about it:
"Hi my name is Ms Titley and I'm ringing to tell you about a great new film we're working on called SSSSS,"
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch the end of that, the film's called what?,"
"SSSSS,"
"I think we may have a bad line," ad infinitum.)

Also there was no experience more bizarre than being in one of the really expensive bars at JFK while waiting to our flight to LA and watching the Jackson funeral on the TV. So wrong, but so right.

There are more photos at the flickr link on the right. Thanks again to everyone who made it all happen, for all the amazing recommendations and for everything!