The marquee at the Ottawa Tavern
Silo Halo is a relatively new name in the local music scene, but we’ve seen Christopher Goett, Greg Svitil and Christin Durham in bands like Girl Loves Distortion, Edie Sedgwick, Victor Victoria and The Antiques. We like that their music can go from an experimental pop groove (think Sonic Youth with samplers) to a weighty gothic force. We also like that they’re taking a tour outside of the comfort zone of the East Coast. So, since we’d like to get to know them better and we haven’t done a tour diary since These United States five years ago (yippee!) we’ve tasked Silo Halo with sending us some words and photos from the road.
Christin Durham writes:
The first day of tour went off without a hitch, especially for me, as I slept most of the way from D.C. to Toledo, and when I wasn’t sleeping, I was watching the last two episodes of season one of Game of Thrones. HOLY HOT KHALEESI, BATMAN! The DVD includes a feature where one can read all about the various houses, their legacies, family members and other relevant persons; highly useful for dorks like myself with a never-ending thirst for historical fiction knowledge (who don’t have time to read the books). Greg drove and Chris navigated. There was a toll debacle because the rental company left an unsheathed E-Z Pass in our glove box, so it got scanned, and that had to all get sorted. They figured it out while I dorked out in the back. Good lads.
Speaking of awesome dork stuff, Chris’s friend Erika has a super sweet tattoo of the white tree of Gondor on her forearm. She and her fiancée are originally from Toledo, and they happened to be in town this weekend, which was lucky for us because they took us to this amazing Greek restaurant with gigantic portions for super cheap. Otherwise we would have been left to the devices of Mark P. for dinner which is probably not the best thing for vegetarians. After dinner, we all celebrated Cinco de Mayo by drinking some summer brews under a bridge. Greg and I were unsuccessful in making our way onto this big ship that was docked in the river nearby; probably good because a cop van drove by minutes after we abandoned the idea. They did not care that that seven adults were standing around a trunk full of beer. Yay, Midwest!
We were treated to lots of 90s music at the bar above the Greek restaurant. As we were walking up the stairs, I thought they were playing Neneh Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance,” but it was actually the breakdown from U2’s “Mysterious Ways,” which is clearly inferior to the former. Then came Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alice in Chains and Smashing Pumpkins, followed by a descent into the likes of Collective Soul. We all took turns imitating the infamous “yarl” (yeah). Sadly, the supermoon was obscured by giant clouds, but we gawked at it from the bar window regardless.
There was a great turnout for the gig. Among the attendees was Jeff Nelson, who we got to talk with for a while, which was pretty exciting for all of us. Erika was in Fast Piece of Furniture with him, so she introduced us. What a great, interesting guy. We took the stage pretty late but played a solid set despite being drunk (me) and tired (Chris and Greg). Fangs Out completely blew me away, even more so than I knew they would. It was so wonderful to see them. We did a few dates with them in our early incarnation, but I hadn’t seen them in a long time. Sam never ceases to amaze me with her ability to play unique, complicated drumbeats while singing beautifully. The Ottawa Tavern took really good care of us, and the owner Adam talked to Chris extensively about how much he loves Etxe and the music Chris and Jenn put out.
Toledo
