So, it was already almost too good to be true. I happened to be in Manhattan for the 50th birthday of one of my best friends. Gary could have been born any old day, but he happened to have been born on November 4, which placed me in the Big Apple the very same weekend my fav band Golem was playing at the Union Pool in Brooklyn (see previous post).

Are you kidding me? What are the odds?

If that wasn’t enough–and believe me, it was– I arrived to find that not one but TWO fab bands were playing that night and that the opening band featured…just wait…an accordion player.

Are you kidding me?

It gets better.

The opening band was good. Kick. Ass. Good. The Japanese Gypsy Rock band Kagero, founded and led by Kaz Fujimoto, (yeah–I had never heard of Japanese Gypsy rock either but it rocks) is now one of my favorites. Their bass player Rob (a super nice guy) gave me one of their CDs, which remains in high rotation during my work commute. Too bad my office is only 3.5 miles from my house.

I’d be hard pressed to say which songs are my favorites because I like them all–seriously. But I can’t get the words to My Daddy is a Thief out of my head and I also dig My Little Bonita and 2 +1 Is Almost 5. You can sample some songs from their website or you can watch some of their performance right now to see if you dig them as much as I do.

I was so distracted from such a great night of music, in fact, that I left the bar with a Japanese Gypsy groove in my head and hopped on the subway without my driver’s license AND my credit card. The bartender had it. I was running a tab. Oops. I remembered with a bolt at 7a.m. the next morning while staring at the ceiling of my room in the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott.

Of course the bar didn’t open until 5p.m. and my train back to Richmond left at 3. But props to Union Pool for keeping my cards safe and big props to my friend Gary who rode the subway BACK to Brooklyn from Manhattan the next day to retrieve them for me. I’ve got good friends.