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Ivan Howard of the Rosebuds on selling out Bowery Ballroom, Micheal Showalter, seeing Bon Iver and stuff

DOWNLOAD: Bon Iver – For Emma (MP3)

The Rosebuds @ Bowery Ballroom

Merge posted Ivan’s 2007 Top 10 list yesterday. Here are some excerpts….

10.) Selling out the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on our US Tour in May. You have to understand that our first ever show as The Rosebuds in NY was at a place called the Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A, that held about 15 people all of whom were friends of the band we were playing with. Well, I should not say it was a real show because it really was an “Open Mic” night where everyone in the audience got in for free. The only catch was they had a two drink minimum!

2.) Watching Bon Iver‘s” first show ever at our Rosebuds‘ show at the House of Rock in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. We drove all night from Chicago to get to the afternoon show on time, and Justin (aka Bon Iver) who was our guitarist on tour kept telling us about how awesome his hometown was and about this place called The Joynt down from the venue where his parents met. Well what was awesome was the Bon Iver set. That was the first time any of us ever saw Justin play those songs. When he played “For Emma, For Ever Ago” and dedicated it to Kelly and me, it was all I could do to even watch the song it was so good. If I would have been more of a man I would have just balled my eyes out like I wanted to right there in front of everyone. But I kept it together that time.

The Rosebuds have some shows coming up. Bon Iver has some shows coming up. More below….

6.) Kelly went up to NYC this summer to check out a few standup comedy shows and saw Micheal Showalter‘s comedy CD taping show at Union Hall (which we love by the way) and told me about a sketch he did about a poem he wrote in his high school literary journal. Well I finally heard that story on the CD and it is hilarious! Up there with “the Gorch” from Jon Wurster. What does it have to do with music you ask? Not really sure, but it isn’t bothering me either way.

Kelly is also a comedian.