Twas the summer of 2010 and I, newly separated and returned to the Charm City, decided to book a show at my old stomping ground of CCAS. I was flush with cash for the first time in my life, the legacy of my grandfather who'd left me some money. And I decided that I wanted to throw a show the way I thought a show should be thrown, cost be damned. I'd heard a couple of tracks from this band from Michigan called Empire! Empire (I Was A Lonely Estate) who, despite the twee name, made the kind of music that made my heart swell. They were on tour with a quartet called Joie De Vivre from Illinois. If E!E! reminded me of Mineral, then JdV was more along the lines of Elliott, all slow dances and Midwestern charm.
I bought around $200 of barbeque from my favorite brisket joint, filled a cooler full of drinks, and pulled out another couple hundred dollars, because, for once in my life, I had the chance to offer bands I liked the hospitality I felt they deserved. They weren't going to have to schlep it down to Richmond worrying if the gas would hold out, or what they'd eat that night. My new girlfriend put together a dozen to-go boxes that both bands could easily pack up and carry with them. I asked some friends from Westminster to open; these kids from Annapolis, who'd show up late and play too long, begged to get on the bill as support, so I said, fuck it, and put them on. Truth be told, it was a really fun night. Had I not spent a fuckton of money on BBQ (an appreciated gesture, to be sure), I would have paid all four bands and the space AND made a few bucks for myself. As it stands, it was a good way to step back into the world I'd reluctantly left a few years back.
The three songs on this limited edition CD-R were originally released here, and would pop up on a pair of releases over the coming months. "Vicodin Lite" is on the B-side of the Count Your Lucky Stars
"Four Way Split" 7", alongside E!E!, Annabel, and the Reptilian. The title track and "Another Month, Another Season", along with a Pedro the Lion cover, showed up on a
split with Sleep Bellum Sonno, released by Keep It Together Records out of Wisconsin. Joie De Vivre would release a pair of full-lengths, a grip of splits, and show up on a variety of comps over the years. Their latest release looks to be a lathe cut 12", put out by the folks at Little Elephant in Toledo in 2016.
Here's to doing it right, if only once.
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