I met Thomas in Mill Creek at a venue called The Jet back in October of 2010. He lives around there and hangs out there too much, but his main reason for being present at that show was his bandmate Jake runs the sound (extremely well, I might add).
Their band is called Just Like Vinyl and I suggest you treat your ears to a sample and check out a live show sometime. http://www.justlikevinyl.com/
They played Aaron and Ana's (Week 8) Wedding that we missed and the first dance was to "The Circulatory System" which is my favorite song from that album.
After my set, Thomas and Jake complimented me on my content (I made them laugh, which is pretty normal for me... getting complimented is not) and we chopped it up about music and touring, etc. It turns out Thomas was the former frontman for a band YOU might know called The Fall of Troy. The Fall of Troy toured with the Def Tones and did several stints on Warped Tour. The name rang a bell so I looked it up on Facebook when I got home and saw they had over 140,000 likes. To put that number in perspective, my music page, after 15 tours and seven studio recorded albums, has just over 2,000 total. So that was crazy.
I returned to the Jet a few more times, and Thomas and Jake were there. And we hung out more, and got to know each other better. And Erica and I started taking a vested interest in their band JLV and we started going to their shows. And the friendship blossomed from that point.
Thomas is a really sweet guy, and Erica especially appreciated (in the earlier stages of our friendship) that he made a point of including her in conversations and took an interest in her point of view. More often than not, with musician friends, the guys pair off and geek out and the lady friends are left in the dust. But Thomas (and Jake) never let the bro down get in the way of being a gentleman and acknowledging Erica. It was a major indicator they are good people.
I actually have interpreting Erica's responses to new musician friends down to a science now. After meeting Thomas, and talking to him about girl troubles and fashion, on the car ride home she said "I like Thomas." On several other separate events with other people involved, the car ride home would include her saying "Too much rap talk." This meant, whatever dude I was broing out with... wasn't that awesome. But Thomas is good.
So both Erica and I were stoked to hear from Thomas that he was getting engaged to his lifetime love Kaylie. Who I had only seen and never really met prior to the engagement, however, I very much superficially approved of her as his friend. Kaylie is extremely gorgeous. After meeting and getting to know Kaylie, we more so approved cause she is super friendly and down to earth. Kaylie is good.
I barely had time to prepare for this date, because of the rigorous work schedule leading up to it. And Thomas and Kaylie like spicy food, so they suggested gumbo. I had never made gumbo before, but I thought, no problem. I will go over to Rain Shadow Meats after I get off work and pick up a bunch of andouille sausage and figure out the rest at home. I got back around 5pm and then took a detailed look at the instructions and noticed a total cook time of 3 hours and 40 minutes. I hadn't planned on that, and now I had a bunch of sausage to improvise with.
So I fell back on my sandwich-maker roots and took a page out of former Homegrown chef Rob Milliron's book. The andouille sausage sandwich: a toasted bun, spread with french onion dip, filled up with sliced grilled andouille sausage and caramelized onions topped with a pinch of fresh arugula, and my added improvisation of jalapenos to spice things up. It wasn't quite gumbo, but it turned out pretty damn tasty. And we followed that up with a chocolate fudge cake.
The date was a party. We blasted my new EP (Bad Tattoos Volume One, coming out for FREE 4/18/12 online at http://themctype.bandcamp.com/) and JLV's new album (release TBD). And we made the mistake of rum, wine, rum, wine, rum... rap show.
The course of the party took us to our good friend Desmond's birthday show at Nectar in Fremont. Des is the creative genius known as Graves33, the man responsible for literally all my merch art (he designed the covers to both Amateur Hour and Scumbag Delirium, as well as the Junk Punter and Man Crush t-shirts). He is also an incredible rapper, producer (who works with Aaron from Week 8), DJ, father, friend, you name it. So Thomas and I definitely wanted to land at his b-day party.
Then Nectar went something like this...
Fireball.
Thomas and I yelling and screaming.
Fireball.
Thomas and I chasing each other around.
Fireball.
Fireball.
Looks like one too many.
Aaaaand Thomas and Kaylie were couple number three to utilize the anti-DUI guest bed. And yes, Thomas and I slept in separate beds after the Nectar show. The only justification for any of our actions that night will be explained simply by this: Thomas and Kaylie are freaking rockstars, man. And when Erica and I hang out with them, we party accordingly.
And there was a mystery puke. Which I will not explain.
Next week. Somebody will be here. But it's a mystery...
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