Our 2010 Tour of the U.S. (a Stoop Chat)

One of the all-time great tours was of course ours 🎸🚐🧳

A little over a month ago, just as afternoon succumbed to evening, Keith and I ambled over to the Greenpoint Beer & Ale House with the misty intention of recording a Stoop Chat, topic undecided. We knew that Greenpoint Beer’s signature offering — beer — would clarify the goal, or at least convince us that one mental mirage or another warranted pursuit. Seated in the mostly empty hall, close enough to a vintage pellet stove that coats became uncomfortable, we were nearing the bottoms of our first steins when, as planned, inspiration struck. But rather than from inside our slowly fermenting minds, it struck from behind us, as a knock on the window.

Aaron Pfenning, a.k.a. Rewards, was outside, and then he was inside, and with two fresh pilsners and a porter we started to converse. Matters of the day, housing, gourmet tea, film — we skipped across topics like kids crossing a stream, stepping onto whatever mossy rock put itself in front of us, and, as can happen if you don’t sight out a path from the bank, we found ourselves submerged in a cold, dark pool of memory.

In October of 2010, We Are Scientists and Rewards toured the United States in our van, El Lobo Argentino (the silver wolf, in reference to its hue and demeanor), a.k.a. “Soul Fuck” (a graffito once anonymously spray-painted onto its door). Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) joined for a week or so, and Emily Wroe (D.J. Tummysick) was there for longer than that. Our drummer at the time was Australian phenom Danny Lee Allen (his new project is The S-ft F-cus).

At some point in this recorded conversation, Aaron displayed a series of era-appropriate photos from his instagram account, like flash cards, and asked for our reactions. You’ll find those below, along with a few others I scraped off the inside of an old hard drive. (I didn’t bother putting Aaron’s pics in order — guessing which one we’re talking about won’t be too difficult — and he may have sent me a couple that didn't come up in the Chat. We try to keep a loose vibe here at S.D.I.R.!)

And now for the conversation. The standard Stoop Chat proviso applies: If you don’t like being sober around drunk people, you ought to pour yourself a beer.

Danny & Aaron show off Posi-Voodoo dolls given to them by frequent concert-goer and friend of the band Adrian.

People often assume Keith is too nice—not to mention practical—a guy to go in for gambling, but that impression is wrong: he loves gambling, especially dice games, and he will almost always win.

Marquee at L.A.’s legendary Troubadour music club.

Outside the Troubadour. Even Keith doesn’t own a white v-neck this good.

Aaron’s probably showing Keith and Danny a photo from a previous tour on his instagram.

Rewards and D.J. Tummysick.

On a one-day break in Ogden, Utah, we stayed at Chris’s ancestral home and invented a game called “The Onus of the Bonus Jonas,” the details of which have been lost to time. We know it involved a pool table, balls, and cups of beer.

…lots of cups of beer.

🍻,

Keith & Chris