in the past faking brave has played at the following super nice places: radio rarefish @ radio centraal [Antwerpen106.7 fm], the doors palace (amsterdam), The Betsey Trotwood (london), pogo cafe (london), overtoom301 [studio 301] (amsterdam), nieuwe anita (amsterdam), allison boutique (boulder), the d-note (denver), hope and anchor (london), tommyhaus (berlin), rural route film festival (new york), uprising (toronto), the bagel (toronto), the toast (canberra), the frequency lab/ knot gallery (sydney), de bakkerij (castricum), de buurvrouw (amsterdam), Radio Patapoe (amsterdam 88.3fm), the cherry bar (san francisco), the bazaar cafe (san francisco), KXLU (LA 88.9fm / webcast www.kxlu.com), OCCII (amsterdam), overtoom301 [de Pepper](amsterdam), the millcreek tavern (philadelphia), the marvelous (philadelphia), galapagos art space (new york), amata comunity (atlanta), pakhuis afrika (amsterdam), the jamm (jerusalem), the end (amsterdam), and buffalo records (santa barbara). |
(1) Proper mexican food: chilaquiles, horchata,... YUMMY YUM YUM!thanks everyone for showing up. i am going to miss you all. i love you good. special thanks to allen for playing a last minute set for us; right pretty allen right pretty. it was a perfect day for brookie. if i didn't mention it i love you. amsterdam is beautiful and so are you. bye bye but not for always - i'll visit soon.
(2) fakingbrave's last preformance in Amsterdam SNIFF SNIFF!
(3) the dutch premiere of the cult classic "The Man Who Died But Whose Hair Never Did"
| 
| 
| 
|
| 
| 
| 
|
| 
| 
| 
|
|
its true, nylon has made me soft, but through the blood, pain and tuneless guitars,
the coffee, torte and smiling faces made this my favorite radio show to-date.
i shared the stage, "stage" in this case being a chair, with a fine young irish artist named
miss hilary. miss hilary likes rollerskates, paintings
and world peace. go check out her stuff, its right pretty.
one day soon there will be a podcast of the show (links to come).
until that day you can entertain yourself with these photos.
an extra special thanks to mr simple songs for the couch, shower, beer, antwerpian hippster club/bar tour, loaning me a guitar to bleed on, and of course for the show.
an extra special thanks to mr simple songs for the couch, shower, beer, antwerpian hippster club/bar tour, loaning me a guitar to bleed on, and of course for the show.
not only was this the first time i played in a coffee shop, it was the first time i spent more than a few minutes in a coffee shop. much of it was as expected: stoned toursits rambaling insanely at you in the bathroom, an odd mix of an audience who came for pot rather than music and so on. inspite of it all it was a super fun night. it was great playing with allen and jack. jack did backup guitar wonders on one of my songs. the kid to is in charge of the night, rik, played a really good set and robin gave me many beers. i was happy ... and very drunk.
|
the happy beginings of beautiful sounds: on the day in question, march 7th, fakingbrave began its transition to bandship. bianca played flute and xylophone and made me smile. thank you ms b. a super special thanks to all who came to see us - this was a wonderful night. please enjoy these photos. speaking of photos, the man in charge of the camera, frits, will be bringing his mechanical robot sound box to a fakingbrave show soon and it will be most delightful.
|
|
|
i'm happy to report that the smallest venue in london is a very wonderful venue in london... a nice small bar upstairs with a super double small dungeon of a venue downstairs. it was a great place to play a show, and surprisingly the sound was super good. to add to all this goodness was the other bands: josephine, which was really josephine plus 2, was folky but very much on the country side of folk: beautiful voice, good lyrics; super talented and friendly people. this town needs guns was... well remember when emo-core had just lost its core, when bands like chino horde, current, julia, and embassy, gave way a poppier sader sound from the midwest, and remember how much you liked it - how beautiful it was, emo before the onslaught terrible emo bands, emo before you were embarrased to tell people you liked emo, well that is this town needs guns. this town needs guns is beautiful and lovely and you should invite them to your local basement or living room for a show. it should also be mentioned that they are terribly friendly chaps. as for turnstone, these boys are jersy (the new one).
this show never happend. i got sick and spent the night sweating out a fever in some crappy hotel room. i was very sad. now i am not sick. now i am not sad. the pogo cafe seems like a great place, the menu looks crazy good, and people running it are super nice, so if you are ever in london and looking for vegitarian food love you should definitely go check out the pogo cafe.
special thanks to davy for helping me set it up and for not hating me when i canceled.
as far as i can tell the number one thing wrong with america is firework displays. each year cities throughout the u.s. spend millions of dollars on big fancy firework displays, when all they really need to do is let the residents of these respective cities go out into the streets and haphazzardly shoot fireworks at cars, buildings, and each other. its more fun, it saves tax payer dollars, and makes the kids feel like they are a part of something special. i had goodnight, but i missed everyone even more than i had expected. i love you guys, and hilah - i love you double, happy birthday.
POST-POST overheard at lunch: "...hardly anyone [b/c of fireworks] died this year" -- i might need to rethink my complaint against america.
i had a wonderful night and lots of people were very nice to me and said nice things and the evens were quite good and i had a video made on my little camera and planned on posting it but i erased it which is sad but thanks everyone and amsterdam just keeps getting better and goodnight and here are some photos
nieuwe anita is fast becoming one of brookie's favorite spots. last night featured me, a solo bassist, a spoken word type guy and a man playing a box of electrical fun. saddly, as pointed out several times from everyone at my table, my appreciation of the spoken word guy and electrical box man was hampered my exceedingly poor dutch skills. i spoke to them afterwards though and they were both really nice guys. the solo bassist was fringin (pardon my freedom hating speech) superb! the night was put on by the people who put out that daM! magazine. they do something like this every tuesday, and they put on rockin' loud shows other nights, so go check out nieuwe anita, go check out thatdaM! and do something nice for your neighbor.
special thanks to bas for letting me play, geertjan for introducing us and tomeu for coming out inspite of vafa hating him.
due to exploding and dying machines my thursday night boulder show became thursday night street preformance and a monday afternoon show. the confusion came with a free pitcher of mountain sun goodness and a free breakfast at the allison boutique, and this is not mentioning the cheap but delicious wine shoved down my throat by hayley's friends. i was happy. monday was double show day, as i also played an open mic in denver. it was my first ever open mic. it was fun hanging out and the food was super delicious and it was even fun playing, but i was subjected to many bad covers, some neo-con propaganda and painfully unplesant speedmetal duo. i think this may be end of brookie's open mic-ing.
the most fun i've ever had playing a show. thank you ed. thank you sean and anne. thank you southbank. thank you bank-to-wall which tore up my hand. thank you punk kids who gave me pizza. thank you ed's god folks. thank you shrink-wrapped coins. thank you lucid oak. thank you marc/bignote.
the nice people at tommy haus cooked me good food. thank you nice people, i like good food. it was a quiet night in berlin, probably only 20 or so people showed up, so i made a last minute decision to play unplugged on a stool at the bar rather than far away on the big scary stage. it was a good last minute decision. the kids from burn the 8-track were exceptionally nice, but they're canadian so its kinda expected. a super fun night all around.
two nights two shows. the second show was super fun ...though calling the second night a show is perhaps not quite right. i was playing in a theatre as people came in to watch a shorts program (the shorts were really good by the way). for about half the show people were still coming into the theatre and settling down. but by the second half of my set it started to seem like a normal show. i think it was best i ever played at a show. there were calls for a encore and brookie was very happy. sadly brookie did not play so well for show number one. people said they liked it but these people are just trying to destroy me with niceness...it won't help i will not faulter. happily vanessa hernandez played a song with me, which we rocked hard. also there was a kid from santa barbara in the audience, vaughn, and i called him up to play a song. he was very confused (having no idea who i was) but it was fun and the song he played was right pretty.
i'd like to give special thanks to sir alan weber for inviting me out to play.
uprising: this was an all day benifit for the uprising book store in toronto. lots of hardcore and punk with some folk and hip-hop thrown in for good measure. uprising is run by a bunch of really nice kids and if you are in toronto you should definitely stop in.
the bagel: some people like the chocolate. some people like the baseball or the rodeo and others, they just like their sunday morning prayer service. me, i'm a bit different, i'm a capo lovin man through and through. last night i payed for this love. as i sat on the grand stage which serves as the bagel's ominous backdrop i was a man a man alone, a man without; not much of a man at all really. my capo laid quietly miles away in my hotel room; disaster ensued. it is good however to get the worst show of your life out of the way as soon as possible and for this, oh complex and just god of forgotten capos, i thank you.
these words of praise and thanks are not empty and i have gathered together a small army to help me with my penance. to the mighty i offer up video and photographic evidence of redemption:
warning: the last 3 images link movies (ie - big files!)
the john francis imposters are wonderful, and i don't just say this because they are wonderfully nice. ilkka = super goodness. jack = super goodness. the buurvrouw made feel like a puppet dangling all high and happy, the bakkerij is a great club run by great people, and overtoom ... well the food was lovely. a special thanks to geertjan, who helped us book the show at the bakkerij, and to VLADIMIR who played that show with us.
uhhhh....chaos..insainty..strangness. i don't no if i can say much more. it was fun in a this is wierd sort of way. chaos.
(photos to be posted soon! ... or maybe not ...)
this whole trip was based around brian and lily's supercalifragilisticexpialidocius wedding. and it was supercali... which has been shortened to emphasize that california, inspite of all the horendious crap we all love to hate, is crazy wonderful and houses many people i love and i had a much happy trip. lots of skateboarding, lots of music, lots of friends. the shows were fun. flut rocked my ass hard. the john francis & impostors, though i knew i would like it, was 1/h times better than i had expected. all this being said, my favorite music moments took place in the hours before the marriage show in brian's basement (where we turned out a minimum of 5 mega hits) and on the muni (headed toward the marriage show).
brett, cory, ilkka, jack, brian, lily, jara - thank you thank you thank you.
the show started with several short films. the films ranged from funny as shit, to depressing, to disturbing. much to my surprise i liked them all. ooohhh...and it started with the video to devo's "its a beautiful world". devo is a beautiful world. for me...
i liked all the bands alot, and it was really nice that they were all so different. by the time the smyths came on i was super super tired. it would have been really fun to dance to the smiths all night (i guess they played for 1 1/2 hours) but i just couldn't make it. sadly i left long before the 1 1/2 hours was up. what i saw was great. the voice, the moves -- that man was morrissey. everyone should listen to we vs. death, instrumental goodness. as for me, i stood up!!! first show on my feet. i like chairs. lots of people talked to me after my set with variations on the theme "we like you and stuff". this made me happy, you are all very nice. and even better, i may have found a few people to play music with. yey! francesca hates my music, but thats kinda cute.
(click on image for tour gallery!)
|
|
|
12/18/04 atlanta @ amata comunity
12/27/04 new york @ galapagos art space 01/06/05 philadelphia @ the marvelous 01/07/05 philadelphia @ the millcreek tavern |
brookies break tour was beautiful and thank you thank you thank you for all who came. you guys are nice and perfect. probably, many of you who did not make it are nice and perfect too but i have no time to praise you here. the above photo (taken outside ms. victoria's apartment) is a link to to a tour photo gallery. atlanta was highlighted by friends and watching a stonned old hippy try to sell momma bent forks. a special thanks to ilkka for playing at galapagos. ilkka is my guitar hero. my galapagos set had a special guest appearance by dr. wecht. it was super fun and he wrote me my very own song which i think is entitled brookie phipps but i'm not sure. the song was lovely and prompted me to sing crazy bitch and everyone was happy. the show at the marvelous was silly and happy and harmony has nice friends and the marvelous gave me a bob and doug mckenzie record! the next night harmony played violin on a couple songs with me at the millcreek tavern, taking fakingbrave from zeros to heros in 2.1819 seconds. ash, travis, rich, ben, you kids are super nice. thanks for setting up my shows!
|
crazy wonderful night. everyone at the JAMM was super nice. the highlight was replacing the come november chorus with a come november alex. special thanks to mr. adam lee rosenfeld for: (1) setting up the show (2) making the first faking brave flyer ever (3) singing pretty songs (4) just being a good kid. to top it all off, at this nice little club in the middle of jerusalem was a kid (a different adam) who i went to high school with. yea.