wedding weekend wrapup

i suppose i should get around to blogging about last weekend, since it's now almost wednesday.

we had a private wedding ceremony and reception early friday evening at the propylaeum, a beautiful victorian house on the old northside. we kept the ceremony short and sweet—almost too short—so we could move on to the fun stuff: the reception, and later the doormouse show.

the catered dinner was delicious—better than your typical catering, and surprisingly inexpensive considering we had prime rib. (though it wasn't perfect; we asked for a mushroom risotto that was to be the main entrée for our vegetarian guests, and we got a basic pilaf with some mushrooms in it.) the servings of prime rib were massive; mine almost completely filled my plate, covering most of my side dishes until i could eat some of it out of the way.

entertainment at the reception was provided by my old friends in il troubadore, and after a while i lost track of how many people told me they thought the music was great. they really rocked the house, playing some traditional numbers as well as odd covers like "sunglasses at night" and even a rendition of daler menhdi's "tunak tunak tun":


2008-10-17: Il Troubadore playing "Tunak Tunak Tun" from dj empirical on Vimeo.

eventually it was time for the reception to end and head over to therapy for the show. dj empirical went first, spinning a nice mix of electro, dubstep, and other interesting electronic stuff. it was a good start to the event.

i played next. my set went pretty well, with few mistakes. i had busted my ass for weeks preparing new material, so i would have some new stuff for people who were already familiar with the mash smarter not harder material. the crowd, which was smaller than i would've liked but still bigger than average for such shows in indianapolis, seemed pretty into it.

after my set came dr. butcher m.d., who rocked the house as usual. booking him was a no-brainer, since he's indy's best (perhaps only?) breakcore artist and makes some damn fine tracks. so i was glad to expose him to some of the doormouse audience... and it looks like he may get another gig based on his performance.

next came the headliner—doormouse, a midweset legend in the scene. he began his set by hiding under a sheet, then casting it off to reveal that he was wearing a new kids on the block ringer t-shirt. (ironic and self-deprecating humor are hallmarks of the midwestern style pioneered by doormouse and his two labels, addict and distort.)

doormouse's set was massive. he played tons of old material, classic hard-as-nails doormouse stuff—the stuff we used to have to drive 5–6 hours to hear him play in a barn in rural wisconsin back in the day. all the while, he interspersed his songs with wisecracks and other zany antics like plucking out his armpit hair (or pretending to) and eating it. we lost a bunch of money putting on this show (not to mention the actual wedding and reception), but it was all worth it for the doormouse set alone.

last up was sir.vixx. he had the most difficult slot of the night: 2 a.m., after the headliner. that would be a lot of pressure no matter who the headliner was, let alone playing after one of your biggest inspirations. but sir.vixx pulled it off, playing a high-energy set that even brought him out into the audience to do jumping jacks.

with that, the show was over. we said our goodbyes, packed up our cars, and headed back to our room at the mariott courtyard, which we had rented to give ourselves a couple days of mini-vacation. the room was quite nice, with a large tv and a whirlpool tub in the room. (the whirlpool tub option was a major factor in why we selected the courtyard. when we used it, we learned a valuable lesson: adding bubble bath to a whirlpool tub causes a veritable eruption of bubbles, similar to a baking soda volcano.)

saturday we mostly relaxed, eating a satisfactory-but-not-great breakfast at the hotel, getting some ribs from dick's for dinner, and watching tv in the room. (luckily for us, napoleon dynamite was on comedy central.)

sunday morning, we decided to try breakfast at a different (nicer) hotel, and walked over to one south in the hyatt regency. this was the best breakfast i'd eaten in some time. the buffet wasn't particularly large by midwest buffet standards, but everything on it was high quality—the waffles were the best i've had in years, if not ever. that afternoon, we drove up to springfield, illinois, to spend some time with the in-laws, where we watched part of the colts game but were spared from having to watch the whole thing. on the drive back, i narrowly avoided running over a deer on i-74 in rural illinois, which surely would have been a foul way to end our wedding weekend.

all in all, it was a fantastic time. thanks to everyone who came out to the reception and/or the show, who sent gifts, or who sent their congratulations and well wishes. we'll probably upload some photos of the reception soon. dj empirical has some photos of the show here. turningmostly has some video of the show here. and there's a short video of dr. butcher m.d.'s set here. if anyone else has photos or video of either event, send them my way! ¶