Syracuse Ska Forum

We just got back into Syracuse at 7am this morning. Most of the guys are heading off to class with not only no sleep last night, but very little sleep this past weekend. I'm going to sleep a few hours before doing anything else today.

It was an interesting weekend, to say the least. Basically, we have a lot of wacky stories to tell, about a whole bunch of new friends we made. And we got to see some great old friends too.

Friday night was our first CT Ska Productions show in Windsor, outside Hartford. You can see photos of that show elsewhere on this messageboard, along with the afterparty at Garty's house. It was awesome to see Vinny after so long and Joe from Douglas Leader Orchestra. We ended up hanging out mostly with members of Stealing From Peter, Tip The Van and the CT Ska crew.. Good people all and it was a blast to dance until the wee hours of morning to lots of good ska.

Saturday afternoon was the last minute show in Oakdale CT, outside Norwich. Major thanks to Mike for hooking us up. Early evening we met up with Gigi, formerly of Section 8, at Fordham in the Bronx, just before the storm hit. Then some of us wandered down to Times Square and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. By that time, the storm was full throttle. We were laughing at everyone complaining about all the snow. But the wind was brutal, blowing the snow horizontal and making it sting your face. Not pleasant.

We ended up crashing with a friend of Alisa in midtown Manhattan, in the area formerly known as Hell's Kitchen. Nice apartment. Roomy 3 bedroom with living and dining room and a bargain we're told at only $3400 per month. Thanks Kim! Sunday afternoon we wandered back to Fordham and worked for awhile at freeing the van and trailer. At least they were promptly plowing out the campus. We wandered down Fordham Road off campus to a White Castle. Rory and Derek said the sliders were nasty, but John and Mike ate like 10 each anyway. Then we wandered through the Little Italy section of the Bronx, which is actually a little more interesting and a little more seedy than the one in Syracuse. The guys marvelled at the great pizza at one "Italian" shop owned by a guy from Kosovo.

Finally we ended up at Rodrigues Coffeehouse on the Fordham campus. Imagine the Westcott with coffee, tea, lots of beatup sofas and a hardwood floor. Full basement with pool table. They sell you a big cup of coffee for $1 that you can refill endlessly (which made me immediately think of Steven Parker). Lizzi Grant went first and she has an amazing voice. Very angelic. Her lyrics reflect her major in philosophy. Plus, she's from Lake Placid NY, so she shared our laughter over the NYC panic from 2+ feet of snow. Then RazSum played and it was pretty wild. Gigi can still skank like nobodies business and we had everyone else going at it in no time. Almost everyone there had never seen a ska band before or had ever skanked, so RazSum gave a group skank lesson and we had a room full of enthusiastic first-time skankers, including Lizzi and many of our new friends from O'Hare Hall and a couple of priests. Wild, just wild.

Okay, I'm crazy tired, so I'm quitting now. But I'll get into more details later. But it was a fun weekend and we made a ton of new friends in CT and NYC that we'll definitely be re-visiting.