Lightning Bug Situation

Well, I’d watched a lot of the Take Away Shows so I kind of knew what to expect—play your songs acoustically for somebody filming you, probably walking around the city or something. Peter and I had wanted to use an electronic loop hooked up to his "Suitcase of Mystery" so we needed an amp is the thing. Plus we wanted to use a piano for "Topher’s Last Song." So I emailed Nate and asked him if we could film at least partly at my house and he said that was fine. So when the day came for Nate to come over to my house and record us I figured, "Well, if he’s going to film us in my house then we might as well be filmed as we normally are when Peter and I are playing music together at our houses, i.e. in our bathrobes and pjs and such." So that’s what we did, it actually made me feel a lot more comfortable surprisingly, dressed as if I had just gotten out of bed. That pre-breakfast, groggy playing is always the best.

Then, since it was a Take Away Show, we all went out to record at various San Francisco locales: in a mall, on the street, at the pier. We thought it would be funny if we didn’t change out of our bed-time clothes when we went outside to film. Which was fun, and a little scary. I kept thinking people were going to think we were homeless and treat us bad. There’s a scene of me trying to figure out how to open this incredibly smelly outdoors free-standing public restroom—in my bathrobe (Fortunately it didn’t make it onto the Take Away shows—if it had, my chances at achieving rock star status would have been significantly diminished I think).

But it was a really nice and fun time. We were flattered Nate wanted to film us and we love the Take Away Shows. And Nate is such a super sweet guy, that day of filming was really fun.

Brian, from Lightning Bug Situation