"Dispense With Sentiment," acoustic, for sweet Denver

🏔️⛷️ Track #4 off of LOBES REDUCED

Tonight we play Denver after a prolonged absence (our last show was in 2014), down at Globe Hall BBQ & Dancing. And so here we are, at the top of the tour (in the sense of being at the highest point (in the sense of altitude)). Mile High City they call it, and boy, they aren’t joking: you can see all the way to New Jersey!

Just kidding, the view is no different from anwhere else — the curvature of the earth ensures that, along with the fact that the city sits not on a mesa with cliff-like walls 5,000 feet high, but rather on a vast bulge in the planet, roughly the shape of a puddle of oatmeal. Indeed, Kansas City, where we found ourselves just yesterday morning, is a piddling 900 feet above sea level. So what you do is you get in your van, then you drive up a 500 mile-long ramp called Kansas.

Or you fly. That’s what I (Chris) did. My brother and his family live in Kansas City, so I spent yesterday with them while The Two Keiths took care of the dirty work. Here are their comments on that job:

Keith C: “Keith Murray brought up a great point last night. The reason why it felt very long, the drive, is that there are precious few actual human structures.”

Keith M: “I’m a man who likes to test the limits of a gas gauge–” 

Keith once ran out of gas in the middle of Ohio due to his dislike of refueling before he absolutely must refuel, and Carne and I enjoy giving him the occasional [constant] gentle ribbing about it.

KM: “–and when the 1/8th of a tank gas light came on, I got worried. It was fine, in the end, but it gets to a man, all that isolation.”

How did they fill the time that accompanied all that space?

KC: “I made a Spotify playlist based on our impromtu survey of Lawrence, Kansas bands–”

KM: “–the kings being The Get Up Kids, though I think we should mention that clealry the best band from Lawrence, KS, is Mates of State, in terms of aging well.”

KC: “And my personal heroes being the Appleseed Cast.”

I said I’d never heard of Appleseed Cast; Carne recommended Low Level Owl Vols. 1 & 2 as a starting place.

KC: “At the end of our 8-hour drive, we rewarded ourselves with endless salad, soup, and breadsticks at the Olive Garden.”

How was that?

KM: “10/10, no notes; high value for money on sodium.”

KC: “6.5/10, though I enjoyed it thoroughly, the breadsticks taste like Auntie Anne’s Pretzels.”

What an adventure T2Ks had. Now we’re all back together here in Denver, a town whose “progressive growth and residents' pragmatic approach to environmental conservation and outdoor lifestyle could be echoed in the song's call to move past sentiment and face the future.” Which song, you ask? That would be Dispense With Sentiment, presented here in its hobbled state…

We’ll leave you with this photo of my brother’s dog, Billie. Billie is incredibly eager to please, gregarious as hell, yet has, tragically, come to believe that “smiling” is something people like to see, and so she often does it when she’s trying to win you over.

Hey, at least her teeth are nice and white.

Billie, you charmer.

No song tomorrow — it’s a drive day, so no specific city is available to honor with an acoustic track — but we do have a very fine piece of holiday merch we're looking foward to offering you. Maybe take the evening to free up some funds, sell off a few thousand penny stocks, so you’re ready to act when you see what we’ve cooked up.

🐶😬,

the assembled WAS