Yesterday around 4pm Mark aka Vandaveer walked into CD Central, my place of employment, and told me he was playing a show in a few short hours down at the Dame. Not a whole lot of notice, huh? Well it looks like my week of live shows turned into a week straight of live shows. With Vandaveer yesterday, Crystal Stilts/Women tonight and all of SXSW coming up, I'm going to be a tired guy come next Sunday. But, like dropping my SXSW packing to see Vandaveer yesterday, it's all worth it. MP3: Vandaveer - Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen) Oddly this has nothing to do with peace. Mark is signalling to the sound man (also named Mark) about how many songs he has time to play. Unfortunately I arrived about halfway into Vandaveer's short set. I think I was only there for about three songs, only two of which I can recall with any certainty. I know he closed with "Roman Candle," an old favorite of his that he's been kicking around for years. The other is one that has popped up for a while now, but will finally see release this summer on an album I believe he's calling Divide & Conquer. "Beverly Cleary's 115th Dream" is a sweet song that's lyrically bright and vocally wonderful. Both Mark and Rose get a chance to really stretch the old vocal cords on that one. Actually, after listening to more of Divide & Conquer I can remember that he also played "Resurrection Mary." Man, we got a lot of new material. It's clear that Mark's itching for the next release and I know he's not alone. Even though there was next to no publicity for that (last minute?) show yesterday, there were still a couple dozen people there early to watch him. It just reminds me more that we need to have a These United States/Scourge of the Sea/Vandaveer concert in Lexington -- it'd be awesome and only require about half a dozen people among all three bands!