"Am I crazy, or am I blind
Someone told me I'm out of my mind"
-Someone Told Me (Jake Bugg)
(he's was only 17 when this video was released in 2011, so much talent)
I started my spring break on a #yolo #dgafbarcelona mentality. After browsing the internet during studio on Friday when I should have been doing work, I found out that Jake Bugg was doing a free record store tour in select stores in the US. First off, the fact that he was even in the US took my breath away, then, the fact that he would be doing a small gig in San Diego made me hyperventilate. All I could think about was..."Oh my gosh, he's gonna be in San Diego on Sunday, he's gonna be so close to me!" (In reality though he was 120 miles away from me).
I'm usually not a fan-girl type, in fact, I hate fan-girls screaming their heads off for celebrities, artists..etc. But in secret, I am the biggest fan-girl for Jake. It takes every single atom in my body to keep "cool" on the outside, while on the inside, those same atoms are bursting into ecstasy.
So I decided late at night on Saturday that I would drag my mom and brother down to San Diego to see him the next day. What I told them to make myself sound sane was that we would be going down to SD to check out UCSD for my brother, make an obligatory stop at Louis Kahn's Salk Institute for the inner architect in me, have an epic meal at this awesome place called Hash House A Go Go (how can you not resist a restaurant with a name like that), and do some outlet mall shopping in Carlsbad. But of course all those were in truth secondary to my number one priority to see Jake at M-Theory Records in Mission Hills.
What we did the next day:
1. Visit Salk Institute. I had been here approximately 15 years ago for my architect dad to gawk at the shear genius of Kahn's concrete-work & here I was 15 years later doing the same thing for myself.
2. Visit UCSD for my younger brother. This campus is the antithesis to USC. It's sleek, modern, and emulates many of the same forms found in the general massing and materiality of Salk Institute (which is conveniently across the street). It's so different from the brick and mortar typology that I see everyday on campus, yet I couldn't figure out which I liked better, until I found this crazy library perched in between a valley on the UCSD campus. It's relative aesthetics is questionable, but it is crazy designs like these (architect William Periera) that pushes the boundaries of what we think we can do & forces the design-realm on to think beyond the norm. It looks like a freaking space ship! 
3. In which I fail to parallel park, skip lunch, walk one mile alone, and wait 1.5 hours baking in the evil sun. Our final stop before I got to see/hear my dear, beloved Jake, was HASH house a go go. Now, I am dear-god awful at parallel parking and thus it took about 20-30 minutes for me to find street parking, and another 10 minutes to get the damn car to fit into the spot. The next series of actions sum up how crazy I am for Jake. The restaurant, Hash House, had a 30-40 minute wait, was rated 4.5 stars with 3000+ reviews on yelp, all saying that the sage fried chicken and waffles was to die for. It was 1:30pm when we put our names on the list to wait, Jake started at 3pm. We had passed M-theory music on our way to the restaurant, and the line had already been uncomfortably long to my liking. So here's what I did. I ditched lunch, didn't even wait a single minute for us to be seated, and prompted to walk a mile in sandals, in 85 degree weather, to wait in line (in 85 degree weather), to see my one and only. I did just that.
4. Yes, I had made it to the store after one too many, very uncomfortable encounters with drunk homeless men and then waited in line with the many other "buggers" who probably were not as crazy to see him as I was. By the time I got there, the line had gone down the block and was starting to wrap around the curb. I was already scared that I wouldn't make it through the store door, and that is just what had actually happened by the time it was 3pm. I was literally at the door when the TINY record store had reached it's max capacity. People were spilling out the door and being vertically challenged, I couldn't see Jake at all. I could hear him (which was actually good enough for me), but I didn't get a single glimpse of his body with my own two eyes. I did see him though through the lens of my phone, after unknowingly taking a video of him performing with my arm stretched as far out as possible trying to capture his musical geniousness. That video actually made everything OK. I was and still am very happy, no regrets, #yolo #dgafbarcelona was successful.
For those of you who care, here is his very short set list: Slumville Sunrise, Storm Passes Away, Me and You, Strange Creatures (this unreleased song is what I came all the way to SD for, so epic), Lightening Bolt.
The picture above was taken by the very nice lady in front of me, of course I needed at least one decent picture of him after driving for 2 hours to see him)
The picture above was taken by the very nice lady in front of me, of course I needed at least one decent picture of him after driving for 2 hours to see him)
(this is that video of him that I didn't know I actually captured, which is why it's so shakey but you can see tiny Jake in the black shirt at the very corner, the sound quality from my phone is surprisingly good too. way to go samsung galaxy)
(and yes he does sound THIS GOOD in person)
