(photo via the decibel tolls)
a month ago i ended up at a hostel in north london. sunday was halloween, which was a wash up except for the purchase of a £40 slice… some guy named robert gave us the number. monday, we smoked spliffs and browsed the tate modern. we ran through the evening rush hour underground and crammed into crowded tube cars to stop ‘home’ before the show. there, we ate £4 chicken burger meals and mixed take away drinks of pineapple juice and gin. ariel pink’s haunted graffiti didn’t go on til 10 so we made the walk from kings cross to islington and chugged from our plastic bottles, a la freshman year of high school.
we saw the venue ahead and turned left to find a gaggle of forty fixed gears chained to the corner bike stands. finished our cigarettes while playing ‘count the fixies at ariel pink’, then headed into the garage. a robust woman at the bar carded all three of us and scowled when she read we were twenty. beers in hand, we pushed our way towards the front and settled for fifteen yards from the stage. we sipped and waited. smoke soon clouded the stage and blue lights cast down to reveal the men’s silhouettes. three songs in, pat turned to me and said, “is this real? …they’re too good.” hands flew up and voices screamed when the guitars of ’round and round’ started in. i lost my mind when that segway-ed into ‘life in la’ and actually stood still in disbelief as ‘for kate i wait’ echoed out just a couple songs later. whoever says lo fi doesn’t translate live hasn’t seen ariel pink’s haunted graffiti.
check out this ’09 vid where he bangs a bohg on stage & still kills the song (my favorite):
yeah....Develop 
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