LIVE at Martini Lounge, VTE

Played a show last night at Martini Lounge in Vientiane, one of the few hip bars in town catering mostly to the expat set.

Two days before the show, the usb connection on the Xiosynth stopped working- the laptop could power the device but the driver would not see the synth. Luckily, the owner of the bar, Mark, a super cool guy from SF (of course,) introduced me to a DJ from Paris who also happened to live in the Bay Area for a time-Vincent aka Vee Kee. Vincent saved the day because he not only let me use his audio interface but also scratched 007 soundtrack samples while the French James Bond spoof OSS 117 played on the video screen in the background. The man can scratch!

The higlight of the evening- drunk, barely eighteen year old, Lao rappers on the mic and a beatboxer named Thierry from Marseilles who quite possibly puts me to shame seeing as how he has only been beatboxing for a year and already has serious skills.

If we move back here, I'll definitely have to colloborate with those guys. In the meantime, I'll post some pics soon.

BUS IT!

We left our heart in Luang Prabang and caught the VIP bus to Vientiane. The difference between the VIP and the regular aircon bus being the 1/2 sized restroom for Very Important P'ing. It's situated underneath in the luggage compartment and is just like the half floor in "Being John Malkovich" as the ceiling is maybe 3 and half feet high. The looks on other passenger's faces when they saw it for the first time were priceless.

The next day we had to do a visa run to thailand, so we hopped on a local bus and headed to the friendship bridge. The bus was packed, and as I was getting on, I felt fingers twiddle on my hip. I had taken out the bus fare (only about a dollar for the both of us) and stuck it in my pocket. Sure enough, when I went to pay it was gone. Good thing that's all the pickpocket got.

As we were returning from the Thai side of the bridge (which was really just a quick peak at the duty free shops) we were about to hop on the Bus back, but didn't have Thai Baht for the ticket. The ticket taking lady was adamant- baht only. Since we were already past the emigration point, we had no way of exchanging money or getting baht from an atm. She suggested with a wave of her hand that we go back past emigration and get some Baht. The emigration guy suggested with a wave of his hand that we go forward to Laos. We were stuck in no-man's land with no Baht for the bus. Luckily the driver of the bus took pity on us and for the price of only two extra tickets, acceppted dollars. Ahh the power of bribery...