Jeez, I'd almost drive all the way to Chicago just to see Getatchew Mekuria, never mind the Ex. Ethiopiques 14 is insanely good. The vibrato of his tenor sax playing is otherworldy.

If you haven't seen it, the DVD of Getatchew and The Ex is pretty wonderful. A nice mix of live footage and practice sessions. A couple live songs are clipped in unfortunate ways but it's great to see how the music emerged and was performed live - certainly builds anticipation for seeing them, as it will hopefully also mean seeing wonderful guests like Colin from Dog Faced Hermans who has been on bass duty for these shows.

I have to say, that CD of The Ex and Getatchew has gotta be one of the most poorly distributed things ever. It wasn't quite out the last time The Ex were in Chicago and I have never seen it for sale anywhere. The Ex are the last band I would download over spending money on them and supporting their music, but I finally just had to because it was so fucking hard to find that release. I'll buy it when I see it.

The DVD, on the other hand, costs about as much as the CD and is available through Amazon. Not usually my favorite outlet for this kind of thing but here it is:

http://www.amazon.com/Getatchew-Mekurya ... 121&sr=8-2

Noise & Light mentioned a meet-up before the show for coffee/lunch/brunch... anybody else interested?

sure. epic burger?

"Epic burger"?

Interesting, very interesting

I'll give it a try, but if that burger turns out to be not really "Epic", but just "Monumental" or "Significant", I'm gonna demand my money back.

Pre-show lunch could be nice.

Anyone going to see Gary Higgins this Monday? Same place. Same time. Such an odd situation. Will be very strange to hear that in the middle of the day in the most corporate "public" space in the city. Does the Dept. of Cultural Affairs know he's an ex-Con?