Matador Records | Helium's Brush with the 60s

When we pulled up to the Iron Horse Tavern in North Hampton we noticed a strange and amazing coincidence: we were playing the same evening as the great Arlo Guthrie. None of us could mask our excitement. He was playing at 8:30 and we were on at 10:30. We harassed the manager of the club until we got a good table to watch his show and it was worth it. He started out with a half-hour version of "Alice's Restaurant," which was so great. His son Abe joined him for the set. Abe looked like a younger, neo-hippy (as opposed to a hippy) version of Arlo. Anyhow, we were all amazed at Arlo's head of hair: long, flowing, curly and white. Sort of like a big puffy cloud. We sang along and raised our glasses to toast the older generation. When the set was over, we succeeded in getting the information out of Abe that he was in a funk band called Phlea Circus or something like that. We think that if Abe succeeds in writing really dull songs about headlights that maybe pretty soon he'll be on MTV. Mary convinced Kendall to give Abe a copy of The Magic City and Ash took this nice picture of Kendall, Arlo, Mary and tour manager Alan Boyd (cropped out; sorry, Alan). Brushes with famous people who need a brush!