Tour 2016 - DC & Baltimore (Days 26-27)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: Herr’s Old Bay Cheese Curls: We tried these a few years ago and they were horrible. Two great tastes that didn’t go together. We didn’t finish the bag and then when I left the remainders in my work lunchroom it took a full four months before they were gone. At our Baltimore show an audience member brought a small bag for the blog. Obviously the time had come to face the doodle of our darkest dreams. So with trepidation tempered by experience we dove in. And they were pretty good. Either we’ve changed or they’ve dialed in the cheese to Old Bay ratio. I lean towards the latter.

Texture: Excellent of course. It’s Herr’s.

Flavor: Well hell. Do you put cheddar cheese on your crab cake? Because that’s what we’re talking about here. Try them. There’s no other way to know.

 Green Rooms and Restrooms: The Black Cat

Idiocy from the Van: We’ve run out of material so I’m going to excerpt some of the non-offensive parts of “The Sound of Wussy.”

Ahem:

“Whiskers on kittens and toenails on babies,
Big bloomin’ onions and raccoons with rabies,
Thick panty liners and Always with wings,
These are a few of my favorite things.”

 To be continued…

 There’s a concept indulgently referred* to as rock time. When I was doing live sound in my twenties there was also a thing called reggae time, because reggae bands would show up for soundcheck two hours late, if at all. These were bands made up of Cincinnati locals so a cultural inclination founded by an upbringing in Jamaica is not indicative. These were the same folks who during the aforementioned late soundcheck would ask for more vocals in the monitor with their native Westside Cincinnati accent, but when the show started were suddenly seized with an insistent Caribbean patois. I know it’s all show business but this irritated me to no end. The first time I remember hearing about this concept was with Indian time. The idea was that American Indians were always late to European appointments because they were used to operating in sync with more natural rhythms. Of course this was used as another example of their inferiority by some, and proof that the modern world was crushing our spirits by others. Rock time is definitely and probably deservingly disparaging. Those lay-a-bouts can not only not get a real job but can’t even manage the simple courtesy of punctuality. When I was a green lad in my twenties I was on time. I think I was at least. But after years of sitting around waiting in front of a locked studio, on the loading dock in front a rehearsal space, outside a club, etc. I started showing up later and later. And I still wasn’t late. Unfortunately it now means I’m late for everything that is not band related. I do feel bad about it but I think it’s important to not feel bad about it. Wussy is late all the time. It used to cause me ulcer levels of stress but now I’ve gotten better at letting it go. It’s not like fussing about it had an appreciable impact. It’s like yelling at the tides. Or more accurately yelling at the monkeys to finish writing Hamlet more quickly. In the end it just irritates the monkeys and you’re more likely to end up with Titus Andronicus.

In the case of us getting to Washington D.C. it really wasn’t our fault. Getting from Providence to D.C. should take 6.5 hours, but with NYC and D.C. to get through though you have to anticipate adding at least another hour for traffic. Then of course you always have to take into account the band math. This is fuzzy but I’ve pretty much figured out that for every four hours of travel required an hour of band stops will sneak in there. We’re supposed to load-in at 7:00 so leaving at 10:00 am we should be fine. At least fine in the context of rock time.** But like fascism and Birkenstocks reflect humanities darkest natures and thus can never be fully eradicated, I-95 will find a way to remind you that evil lives. Somewhere around Baltimore the entire highway was shut down. A spanner in the works they said. So we were re-routed and began slouching slowly towards Washington. In my biased opinion D.C. traffic is the worst in the country. I have so many bad experiences to draw upon. On our first tour we had to drive overnight from Chapel Hill to Brooklyn and hit D.C. during the morning rush. I had taken the first shift but it was Chuck who had to deal with hours of traffic after being up all night. And then I remember being in a rental car with two babies trying to get through D.C. after a plane ride, and it taking so long actual pieces of our souls began sloughing off like spiritual sootikins.

By the time we arrived at the Black Cat we had missed soundcheck and got loaded in just before the opening band started. Oh and it was so hot. The locals said it wasn’t so bad but they’re wrong. I asked where the bathroom was and was pointed up the back stairs to a mental and physical monstrosity I will call Big Pink. It was as hot as solitary confinement on Devil’s Island and painted a lurid, unnatural pink that made me feel as if I was somehow inside a bottle of Pepto Bismol that itself was inside a convection oven.

Everyone was super friendly though, we got to order food off the menu, and they stocked lots of water, beer, and soda. If you go back to the beginning of this tour’s blog (April) you’ll see I wrote a history of our experience trying to find success in D.C., which might give this some context. Up until now our desire to play the Black Cat was as probable as Duckie dribbling off Andie’s Bobbie Brooks, but in what has been a lovely trend of late we were surprised with an audience that was almost a sell-out, with people standing on chairs to see, and lined up to the back. It was so unexpected and lovely it shook us out of our heat and travel induced stupor. I’ve never sweated so much, but to know we have an audience in D.C. is so delightful we couldn’t stop talking about it the next day. There was a family in the front row who I’m guessing came so their daughter, probably around 12 years old, could see us. She had a hat pulled down over her eyes but kept them locked on Lisa as she sang along with every word. It’s incredibly gratifying to see how Lisa is inspiring young women. I’m not a young woman any more so I don’t know what she means to them, but I will say to be someone passionately pursuing their art and expressing themselves so uncompromisingly has got to be a wonderful legacy beyond some great songs and good to average performances.

There was a newlywed couple who had first kissed and then first danced at their wedding to “Little Paper Birds.” We publicly mocked them and then averted our eyes as we played the song. I think I saw a darting tongue in my peripheral vision but wish them the best nonetheless.

After the show we drove to the location of our house show. This was to be our fourth time playing at Club 603 as they call it when their house transforms into a performance space. They’ve become our dear friends and their home a respite. We got there, drank a tequila, and went to bed. I slept in my usual room and that’s all I did for a long time. I slept in until hunger forced me out of bed. I ate a bagel, and went back to bed. Slept some more, didn’t quite get out of bed and fell asleep for a third time. After 12 hours of sleep and lunch I spent the rest of the day writing. It was a good day.

The way it works is that there are about 50 tickets available online and if you get one you sit or stand in the living room or foyer while we play our full rock set. They rent a sound system and hire a sound guy, and the room honestly sounds really good and warm. We mixed up the set a bit, abused each other verbally, and had a wonderful time. If you can see a musician you love in this space do so. It’s the pinnacle of house shows.

Tomorrow will be our last official show on the Forever Sounds Tour in a town we’ve never played: Richmond, VA. 

*It’s madness!

**See last paragraph

Tour 2016 - Boston (Day 25)

Wussy at Midway Cafe - Photo by Louis Torrieri / Independent Street

Green Rooms and Restrooms

Idiocy From the Van

“I wish they all could be California nails.”

 We were camped out in the Providence area for the duration, so I did what I do and took the train into Boston while the band loafed about in their typical dull torpor.* I went to college in Boston and lived there for several years afterwards. My FFW’s** family lives there so for 15 years I regularly visited the town, even after moving to Cincinnati. I love Boston but I’ve spent enough time there that I don’t need to see or do anything specific to feel like it’s been a good trip. I went early because I wanted to go to my alma mater, Berklee College of Music, and do some research in their library for the concerts I’m putting on at my day job.

The reason I bring it up is that I had another weird passage of time experience. My logic as a youngster when I tried to figure out where to go to college was this: I want to be a musician, specifically in rock bands, however my parents say I have to go to college, (I know, right?) so what if I go to school to learn how to become a recording engineer? Then I’ll still be making music. Pure freaking genius. At the time there were only two places to get a degree in that sort of engineering and the other was in Florida, so Boston it was. Come the fall after high school my Dad drove me to Boston with all my Springsteen and The Who posters, a boxful of cassettes***, one Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and a bottle of Drakkar Noir. Also, and not incidentally, I was terrified. I will never forget the feeling of my Dad driving away and leaving me on the sidewalk outside Berklee. I was gutted. Before that though we went to lunch and I remember saying to him that everyone looked so much older and sure of themselves. I remember him looking around and then very gently saying, “That’s just the way you’re feeling right now. They’re no different from you – believe me.” So as I went to three different buildings to get a new alumni pass (the school has exploded in size) I saw all these kids there for the 5-week summer program and I felt an almost physical sensation of a circle closing. They looked so young, unsure, and excited to just be there. I did the math and my Dad had to be pretty much the same age I am now when he dropped me off my first day of college. I’m not even sure how to process that. It’s a weird funny thing the journey to humanizing ones parents.

After a lovely afternoon I started walking towards the Middle East, our venue for the night, which is in Cambridge. I walked over the Mass Ave. Bridge****, delighted to see the Smoots are still marked all the way across. Past MIT and saddened to see the NECCO factory now seems to be a storage unit facility. The Middle East is a legendary club and I’ve wanted to play it forever. The Rat is closed, as is T.T. the Bears, the Paradise is still too big for us, so as far as clubs I’ve heard about for decades the Middle East was my great hope. And I loved it.

We were playing the upstairs room, which is the smaller of the two they operate, but still our biggest effort in Boston. Thalia Zedek was opening for us again, but with a different band this time called E. And they were amazing; playing a more brutal, intense form of rock than her Thalia Zedek Band set I heard at the Midway. I don’t know which I like better because they both feature really well written, wonderfully played songs by two compelling groups. Even with her storied history, Thalia is at the top of her game. Go see her and give her money.

And the room was packed. Like all the way to the back with people standing on chairs to see packed. I’m not bragging, I’m trying to express what this means to us. Once again I had a stupid grin on my face the whole night. The sound was great, as it usually is in these venues that have been in business for decades, and the audience danced and sang along. It would be hard to ask for more.

Tomorrow is D.C. 

*Holy shit. The dull torpor phrase just jumped into my head and I knew it was from somewhere. So I looked it up ready to congratulate myself for effortlessly quoting James Joyce or Douglas Adams, but no, it’s from the 10,000 Maniacs. I feel dirty somehow, even though I actually own two of their records.

** Former Future Wife

*** And one brand new tape to tape boombox with which to play them.

**** Officially named the Harvard Bridge. Who knew? Kind of a slap in the MIT’s (Migraines, Insanity, and Twats) face considering  the old Crimson Stain is a couple of miles up the road and is now basically the Disney World of the Ivy League.

Tour 2016 - Providence (Day 24)

Green Rooms and Restrooms: Providence

Idiocy from the Van: That’s why I sing the blue.

This would be our first time playing Providence, though not for a lack of trying. When Lisa and I were doing the booking we tried repeatedly to get a show there but (insert sports metaphor for failure) every time. I have history in Providence and haven’t been back for a long, long time. Around 25 years ago I spent a lot of time around the area of RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) and Brown University courting my future former wife. I also played the first shows of my life as a solo singer-songwriter type fella in Providence. It’s an amazing thing to be so bad at something but get up in front of people and do it anyway. I love that about the arts. You can try and become awesome in private but eventually you have to test out your art’s worth in public. It’s not even about whether people like it or not because in general they lie, but something happens if you can lay down your ego a bit, where suddenly it’s obvious what your weak spots are and what your next steps should be. It’s a fascinating process. At least for someone like me who has always had to take the slow ladder to competence.

We went to Thayer Street near Brown University, had lunch at the Meeting Street Café, and everywhere I was surrounded by a weird, deep, intimate unfamiliarity. It felt a little like going to a high school reunion with people you haven’t seen in 20 years, where the echoes of a life you used to live are hidden within the softened shadows of their faces. Chuck asked me if it was a sad feeling and I said that it was for the most part. But not sad for the broken marriage oddly, because I still have a living relationship with her that has evolved, as we have raised our children, to the point of benign amicability. I think it was just a mild grain of sand in the oyster shell of sadness from jumping back to the age of 21 without proper decompression. That age of working a first job, little sleep and intense friendships, but mostly of being free to be drunk, silly, ignorant, and stupid. * In the end though, I have little tolerance for nostalgia in myself. To me nostalgia is a symptom that it’s time get doing something. Of course I’m only 48 and that could change as the world becomes more inexplicable. I’ll let you know.

We were to play the Columbus Theater located in East Providence, an area I thankfully didn’t know and one with a growing hipster population.** The theater was built in the 1920’s and was obviously once rather grand. It was reopened by a young gentleman we shall call Tom. Because his name is Tom. When you walk in straight ahead of you is a gorgeous big theater with balcony seating, a pit for the orchestras, and miracle of all miracles, a working Wurlitzer organ from the silent film era. The organ has special buttons for sound effects like trains and nice doorknockers. We were of course in the small theater up the stairs on the second floor. A little more dilapidated but still quite cool. This place has everything. Down another hallway they have converted a bunch of former dance and acting studios into a recording studio. Old wooden floors, a nice organic feel with lovely natural light, lots of instruments laying around, and sweaty, shirtless engineer named Bruce, who was quite frankly a tall drink of lemonade on a hot sticky day.

Before soundcheck John and I were admiring the projection booth in the small theater and our soundman asked if we would be interested in seeing the original projection booth from the 1920’s? Good Lord yes, thank you very much. To access it you open an unmarked door and have to enter a skinny closet with iron rungs leading up and out of it. It felt rather super hero-esque I must say. If I worked there I would hang several changes of clothes up there just so I could emerge changed and fabulous as often as possible. At the top of the ladder you flip yourself around and pop out into whatever you call an attic in a theater. Then walk across a catwalk, take a left and duck into a small room that looks frozen in time. Cigarettes still in ashtrays, tools and penciled notes laying on the workbench as if still waiting to be acted upon, signatures of the projectionists written or scratched into the ceiling going back to 1926. I felt like I was in Cinema Paradiso looking out a secret window and seeing the theater below. I truly love this building.

And then on to the show. Playing electrified music in a theater is a challenge. They’re designed for the human voice and the acoustics can get weird with loud sounds. Also, people sit in chairs that rise in front of you so you feel like you’re on an operating table in some old-timey surgical classroom. Regardless, the soundman, a sweet and funny guy named Bruce as well, did a great job and the small crowd was happy to finally have us in their town. Oh, and go see the Tall Teenagers. They put on a great rock show.

Tomorrow is Boston

*They’re different things. Especially when you’re young.

** Hipsters show up and poop out gentrification. Is it sanitary? I don’t know, but I sure do love all the brewpubs that seem to sprout up in their leavings.

Tour 2016 - NYC (Days 22-23)

Wussy at Bowery Ballroom - Photo by Chris Bentley

Green Rooms and Restrooms: The Bowery Ballroom

 Idiocy from the Van: Cooch Potato

Lisa has become a master of Priceline and she pulled off the equivalent of snatching the Hope diamond out of a sow’s ass. We got to the city in time to check into our hotel, which was a sweet boutique place on the Lower East Side with all kinds of art good art everywhere and the rooms quirky and unique from each other.

The lobby was on the 14th floor (probably the 13th – stupid superstitious witch burning butt munches) and had a 270 degree view of the city, a rooftop bar slimily occupied by young bro-fessionals, and a sweet outside pool way up the air. The next day Lisa and John hung out in the pool with two delightful fellows already enjoying flowing wine at 1:00 in the afternoon, one of whom leapt into the pool in his Calvin Klein undies. They enjoyed slapping John on the ass, making fun of the people in the pool at the hotel across the street because their pool was only on the seventh floor, (“Bitch who are you? Who even are you? Look at them down there”) and telling Lisa that, “she is hilarious” when referring to John. It sounded awesome and I’m a bit jealous I missed it.

We were all excited to play the Bowery Ballroom because of its reputation. And in this singular case, our hopes didn’t even come close to the experience. It’s a beautiful space with a wrap-around balcony, great old windows, and a completely modern and clean stage. There was a dedicated sound person, monitor engineer, and lighting tech waiting for us. As Chuck put it later we never had to ask for anything. Everyone was just really good at their jobs. To give an example of their dedication, there was a moment during the show where my curly cable had wended its way between two full cups of beer. I don’t know what they were doing there. I don’t touch the stuff. Anyway, reinforcing a lesson you’d think I’d have learned a long time ago, i.e. attempting any moves made famous by Pete Townshend will end poorly, I jumped with the intent of both my feet leaving the ground. In a perplexing, unexpected, and frankly impossible to predict sequence of events my cable knocked over approximately 32 ounces of liquid. The monitor engineer sprung from his cave of engineering situated at least 10 feet above and beside the stage. He slid down the ladder like Mr. December in the firefighter’s calendar of beefcake and stanched the remarkably deep pool of liquid flowing towards all kinds of electricity. Heroic to say the least. And beyond that, the venue provided all kinds of hummus and delicious food in the green room. Just because I guess. It’s not like we’re at the requiring hummus to go onstage level of success. We’re more at the I hope what the audience throws doesn’t hurt too much level of success.

The Paranoid Style only hinted at what they’re capable of in Albany and took advantage of the big stage and sound of the Bowery to utterly destroy the place. There is nothing better than a band throwing down the gauntlet before you play. It’s not a competition at all; it’s just pure motivation. If you’re ok with getting blown off the stage then give up or join the Filk circuit.* Onstage I got to work with the monitor engineer in a way I never had** and it was revelatory how well I could not only hear specific drums and the bass, but in a way that made it possible to play more cohesively with everyone else. We were so worried that enough people wouldn’t show up so as to not get invited back to the club, but thanks be to the AMIDYC*** an audience filled up the place nicely. And I don’t know what it is about NYC crowds, because one would expect with the classic gruff no-nonsense reputation of the locals that they would stand there with arms folded and scowl, but they are arguably our most enthusiastic audiences anywhere. And it’s like that every time. So to sum up: gorgeous, super professional ballroom experience, artisanal hummus, a lovely generous audience, one of the best nights all around we’ve been lucky enough to have as a band.

And then boom – day off in the city. A teacher friend just happened to be in town so we met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had drinks on the rooftop garden, looked around and generally acted all swish and sophisticated. John and Lisa swam. Chuck left the hotel, decided it wasn’t to his liking, and went to Starbucks. Joe, from what I can gather, spent the day shooting craps in an alley off of Delancey trying once again to erase a 90 year old debt to the Sicilian mob his grandfather racked up one wild weekend in 1936 while attending a National Cash Register sales conference.

Even with a sweet deal, Manhattan is a damn expensive place to be, so we decamped to Providence that evening to begin our brief New England foray.

*It’s a real thing.

** I hope he calls. Do you think he’ll call?

*** All Mighty Invisible Deity of Your Choice – Pronounced: Ahmadick

Tour 2016 - Cleveland/Albany (Days 20-21)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: Herr’s Nacho Cheese Flavor – These were waiting for us in the green room in Albany and they were magnificent. Herr’s is an east coast company, or at least their product is available mostly there. They make some of the best potato chip flavors anywhere. They’re the only company that we could send to the Crisp Olympics if we wanted to have a chance against England.

Texture: Smaller and less dense than a Cheeto but not rough.

Flavor: Super salty and cheesy.

 Idiocy from the Van: Dil-don’t

It’s been a rough couple of days in the brain department so I’m going to combine Cleveland and Albany into one post. I fear I’m not going to catch up at any rate, but I think it’s important to run out the clock with a modicum of decorum.

A wonderful thing happened overnight outside our hotel in Columbus. A classic car show sprang up and out. Since everyone in the band is a middle-aged man except one this was custom made to delight us. It was mostly American muscle cars with a few oddities thrown in. I saw a Model T covered in wicker, these tiny BMW Isetta’s that were just insane, more Mustangs and Corvettes than you could shake a withered stick at, and a hundred men with towels in their hands buffing their chrome like a 15-year old. It was a wonderful start to the day. Since Cleveland is only a two-hour drive we went for lunch at Katzinger’s Deli, which is I think the best eats in Columbus, before we took off. It’s right off the highway – go there.

The Beachland Tavern/Ballroom is another place we’ve played since the beginning and shares a similar problem as Columbus in that our fans are loyal, long-suffering, and supportive, but haven’t really grown beyond their core unit. Mark and Cindy, the owners, treat us like family and have known Chuck and John since the ‘90’s. Most of the clothes I wear come from This Way Out, the vintage store in the basement, and the owner of that knows us all by name. The sound is great and the shows there always have a little extra something to them. The green room is whatever part of the basement isn’t the vintage store, and this time it was filled with Bluegrass players (playing the Ballroom portion of the Beachland, whereas we were in the Tavern) who did things like unbuttoning their shirts all the way, kicking off their sandals and picking scales on their wooden instruments. I don’t know, Bluegrass seems to have solidified into an inert form of music. In order for it to be Bluegrass it has to follow certain codified rules or it is not Bluegrass. But then how is it different than those old men polishing their classic cars? It’s not like they’re slowly transforming the car into something else. Which is fine of course. If it makes you happy and it’s not hurting anyone? Cool, go get down with your mild self. If you’re interested, listen to the Columbia Classic Country two-disc set of early Bob Monroe. You can hear him and his band inventing Bluegrass right there in chronological fashion. And it’s thrilling. It’s a living thing* and full of energy and possibility. Now take James Brown when he’s creating Funk. All those same descriptors apply, but Funk exploded in lots of different directions. There are some musical hallmarks needed for it to be Funk, but for the most part the main requirement is that your booty has been affected in some sort of physically insistent rhythmic fashion. I’m not saying Funk is better than Bluegrass, but just that it has retained the openness to tinkering or wholesale reinvention that is to me the sign of a living art form.**

Anyway, the show was again a silly, sweaty, and sloppy affair. Good people those northern Ohioans. Then off to another city that doesn’t always get the best press, but is one of our favorite stops every time. The Low Beat in Albany is similar in size and feel to the Tavern in Cleveland. Their green room is also in the basement but is more a comfortable cubby-hole*** tucked in near the bottom of some old wooden stairs. When we got down there waiting for us were three different bags of cheese doodles and a ‘fridge full of good beer. There’s something about this place. The people who run it, and the audience are just so sweet. They take care of us like we’re family. Here’s an example. The first time we played there I wanted to buy a black Low Beat shirt but that color was reserved for staff. When we came back, a year or more later, the guy I had talked to excitedly says, “I’ve got something for you!” He comes out with a black shirt in the right size and tells me that there had been an extra one someone hadn’t claimed or something like that, so he hid it in the bar until we came back. I love that shirt.

We were happy to see that Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric, (“Whole Wide World”) who are married, were in the audience. Lisa opened up for them a few years back and we had a delightful time talking rock with them. I’m a big fan of Amy’s, in particular her “Diary of a Mod Housewife” album. It’s a brilliant record that’s not just a great breakup album but an adult view of the dissolution of a marriage, having kids, being in a band, and a shared, complicated history with someone combined with the first inklings of your heart coming back to life. Here’s a small sampling of some lyrics:

“Everyone’s cheering while you’re taking those vows,

They’re hard of hearing when you’re asking them how,

What to do now…”

“We’re stronger than the fairy tails, diaper pails

Lack of heat, urge to cheat

Shattered hopes, tired jokes

Doctors bills, urge to kill

And when we have another argument

You wonder where your feelings for me went” 

After the show I was talking with Amy and she said they’re about to re-release that record on vinyl, and while looking through things from back then she found a letter from her child asking when she was going to be done touring. Chuck was talking to Eric as well and he paid us one of the nicest compliments a band could ask for. He said that everyone in the band plays unconventionally but that it all comes together to become a bigger thing. He said it’s like a train wreck that sounds brilliant. Or something like that. I’m paraphrasing like a madman here.

Speaking of Eric and Amy, while we were playing, a couple next to them were behaving in a way that caused me some consternation. They were standing right behind the first row of people in the very crowded area right near the stage. One of them was wearing a Grateful Dead shirt, which may explain everything, but they kept breaking into couples dancing consisting primarily of holding their partners  hands and spinning the other. From my vantage point I could see the irritation of those surrounding the couple as they smilingly and repeatedly spun into them. Now if it’s someone trying to mosh, or some other aggressive behavior not really appropriate at our shows it’s easy. You tell them to knock it off and move on. But was I really going to go all John Lithgow and ban dancing at a rock show? On the other hand there was plenty of room for ballroom moves in the back. These are the thoughts running around my head. Regardless Wreckless Eric took the matter in his own hands with a straight up palm to the dude’s forehead after he had run into Amy three times. The dancing king looked at me like, “Did you see that?!” I gave him the universal, “You must chill"**** hand gesture and with a look of aggrieved outrage he grabbed his tan cloth jacket and they stormed out. Obviously I don’t advocate violence but neither is obliviousness an entitlement either.

It was the first of two shows with our friends the amazing Paranoid Style and between us all and the warm folks of the Low Beat, we had a lovely evening.

*It’s a terrible thing to lose.

** Remember, this is just my opinion about an entirely subjective subject. Relax. Breathe.

*** Did you know that Cubby O'Brien played drums with Spike Jones Orchestra and Carol Burnett's? It's true. When he moved on they said he left a cubby-hole that could not be filled.

****I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that. 20

Tour 2016 - Interim & Columbus (Day 19)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: Doodles will now be on a catch as catch can basis. For this leg I am going to launch Green Rooms and Rest Rooms. If one of the reasons for this blog is to show a little of what it’s like to be on the road then showing pictures of the green rooms when they exist or particularly entertaining restroom walls seems appropriate. I always want to know what’s behind a closed door so I’m guessing that’s a common inclination. I think this image from Seattle sums up this concept nicely.

Idiocy from the Van: Then Opie got into Goth and called himself Mopie.

I have to assume that when someone in their twenties gets home from a tour they take a nap and then go out and begin fornicating and consuming grain alcohol again. In your thirties I’m picturing something like sleeping in and taking it easy for a few days. Maybe a home cooked meal with summer squash and basil picked from the garden. Throw together a nice wine spritzer, regale the neighbors with tales of hijinks while sitting on patio furniture, and all is well. In your late forties and fifties it’s like you’re never ever going to feel rested again. Every time you sit down you fall asleep like grandpa after vigorous denture-free relations with grandma. After our return home for a week and a half break, we, in various incarnations, showed Olie around Cincinnati and then John and Lisa drove him to New York for his flight home. I spent time with the kids, tried to get adult stuff done, and celebrated our country's birthday while watching it  going through some fairly horrific growing pains. Everyone did what they could to make a little money,* a new batch of t-shirts came in and needed to be rolled, and then it was time to go again.

As the departure drew nearer my tiredness morphed neatly into a burgeoning anxiety/depression. I’ve got a theory that anxiety is just fast depression. Here is my single source observation: I’ve only begun drinking coffee in the last few years. A couple of times when I was depressed I thought that coffee might help, being a stimulant and all, but all that happened was the sluggish, leaden feeling of my personal version of depression began to speed up in my gut until it became my old boon companion anxiety. Anyway, this blog is not meant to be personal therapy, so whether this depression was situational, or just part of that internal cycle that is part of existence, is not relevant. The reason I bring it up is because it’s an interesting thing to do this job when it takes effort to even carry on a conversation. Because of course the job of a live performer is to forge a connection with the audience. That said, unless you work from home, everyone’s job entails making connections and trying to get shit done with people who are not your family. Some days it feels damn near heroic to go to work, do your job, and keep it together. Onstage it might feel like you’re moving through syrup, but the upside is that everyone there is pulling for you. They want what you have to offer and in exchange give back applause, smiles, energy, and sometimes money. There’s a list that made the rounds a while back on the internet called Thor’s Guide to Touring or Whatever. It’s spot on and profanely hilarious. Here are two bits of his wisdom that sum it up nicely I think, with a third thrown in about fast food.

• Touring makes everyone bi-polar. Ride the waves as best you can and remember, moods pass. So don’t make any snap decisions or declarations when you are drunk or insane.

• Fast food is Poison.

• Don’t evaluate your whole life while you’re sitting in a janitor closet waiting to go on. You think you’re above having shitty days at work? Shut up & do your goddamn job.

Yep.

I think we’ve played Columbus more times than any city other than Cincinnati and with far less to show for it. Granted, a lot of the shows were back when we were consistently horrible, but we hit a ceiling for attendance five years ago and have not been able to break through it. We were playing yet another different venue, this time called the Double Happiness, and the crowd felt a little bigger so who knows. The evening started out worryingly when there were no bartenders and no one taking money at the door. But by the time I got back from my walk to The Book Loft of German Village, an excellent bookstore packed into 32 small rooms, (where I bought a book on the Lewis and Clark Expedition) the club was up and functioning and the Kyle Sowashes were playing their set. We’ve known Kyle forever and I think all of us have slept at his house after a show at least once. Affection doesn’t blind me to the fact that they’re a really good band. Even though it had only been a week and a half since our last show we spent the first half of the set fucking up Royal Gelatin as my sister used to say. I missed the entrance to “Dropping Houses,” Joe started a wrong song, John had to restart “Lightning,” Chuck forgot the words to “Hello, I’m a Ghost.” Lisa assured us she screwed up but I didn’t hear it. If we didn’t shit every day we’d forget how to wipe. Eventually we got our sea legs and hopefully put on a good show. Throughout the show there was an audience member who sat onstage with us leaning against one of the two monitors we had. An odd thing to do really. After the show they whipped up a quick ink and paper sketch and asked to exchange it for one our CDs. Without thinking Chuck handed them a CD that someone had given us out West and said it was one of our best. Afterwards in the van we debated on whether that was a dick move or not. Is a two-minute sketch we didn’t ask for equivalent to a CD? Maybe. They did get something out of the deal though. Oh the hell with it. We can’t be nice all the time.

Tomorrow is Cleveland.

*At our jobs. Good lord people.

Tour 2016 - Louisville (Day 18)

Obviously this will have to be written a couple of weeks after the Louisville show. It’s nigh on impossible to write when I’m home. I finished Chicago after I got back but the thread gets broken. It’s two different worlds and they combine uneasily if at all. We woke up in our fancy Chicago hotel and by the time we got into the van everyone was disgruntled.* Chicago to Louisville is an unremarkable drive. At least if you’re from around here, although I suspect it would be to anyone except the recently sighted and perhaps merchant marines rescued after being lost at sea since 1942. We were to play Headliners. We knew going in that the venue was too big for our current draw, but it was the best fit we could find. We were late of course, so having missed soundcheck just pulled the van up close to the door and sat in the humid river valley heat, at a table and lawn chairs set up on the asphalt in a cordoned off area of the parking lot.

Fortunately the line-up was amazing. The first band, Frederick the Younger, a group of youngsters with some really nice songs and an incredibly promising singer. After them our old friends the Fervor played. We go back almost to the beginning with these folks. They were the first band we toured with and I love them as people and as musicians. They’ve been laying low so it was a pleasure to hear them again. By the time they were done my wife had shown up after a spontaneous decision to make the two-hour drive down to Louisville. To have her next to me was like the silence that comes when a background sound you no longer notice goes away. There comes a peace that is surprising chiefly because you didn’t realize you had lost it. We still had a show to play and our bone-deep exhaustion lent a surreal air to everything. We thought the crowd that turned up was awesome, even with the promoter saying he wished there had been more people. I hate it when they say that. In England it sounds like an apology, but in the States it sounds like an accusation. Everyone, excepting perhaps the organizers of Woodstock and Altamont, always wishes there were more people at a show. It’s like going up to a bride and saying you wished her vows had not referenced clanging gongs. Pointless.

The show was fun and I think we played well. I felt like Herman Munster with enormous boots on, clunkily trying to force my body to move when all it wanted to do was sit quietly in an Adirondack chair with a cool breeze shifting the humidity away to coalesce around the willfully ignorant and unkind. I would sit still until vines and honeysuckle would grow up over me. Wildlife would return and I could feel as if I was a part of things and not apart from them after all. And then I'd come to and not know what verse of "Pizza King" we were playing.

I accidentally booked a hotel for the night in Lexington and thus was surprised when it was not waiting for me in Louisville. We just wanted to go to sleep but a few 2:30 am calls to Priceline corporate headquarters was just the fart in a rose garden this long day deserved.

And then we were home and this leg of the tour was over. We would have a week and a half to avoid each other and try to rest before we headed east.

Next show is Columbus. 

*Gruntled means pleased, satisfied, contented.

Tour 2016 - Chicago (Day 17)

Wussy in Chicago - Photo by Patrick Monaghan

"We’ve been told Chicago is a town you have to earn, and whether that’s really true for all, it certainly has been for us."

Ranking Cheese Doodle: Grippos Cheese Nibs – I’ve been saving these until the end of the tour because they’re my favorite and I wanted to experience the depth and breadth of what this country has to offer before I threw them in the mix. Grippos is a regional Cincinnati company most famous for their Barbeque Potato Chips (crisps) which are arguably the best as well. You’ll be undoubtedly disinterested to know that they are easily the best!
Texture: Not rough, but not as dense as a Cheeto. They actually have some give when you bite into them.

Flavor: Plenty of orange cheese powder that tastes like what you get on cheese popcorn. Not overly cheddar-y but not tasting of fakeness either.

Idiocy from the Van:“Summer Sausage signed my yearbook!”

We had to get some sleep. The recent drives had been all day affairs with shows at the end of most of them, and we were exhausted. Not leaving KC until noon meant probably not getting a soundcheck in Chicago, but you have to weigh the cost benefits. Thus, somewhat grimly, we got on our way. The drive looked increasingly like home; bigger trees, fields of corn, enormous white windmills, etc. The only notable thing was we were approaching Chicago in a way we hadn’t before and traffic wasn’t too bad. I personally became almost suicidally bored writing that sentence so I apologize for any of you having to read it.

This picture was the highlight of the drive. I spotted it near the dumpsters at a Starbucks. I’ve entitled it, “Ernest Hemmingway’s Baby Shoes – Fuck You.”

It’s taken a long time to get anywhere in Chicago for us. We’ve been told Chicago is a town you have to earn, and whether that’s really true for all, it certainly has been for us. We started to notice things were changing when we sold out the Red Line Tap, a small room in the very northernmost part of the city. They were lovely to us up there but it felt like it was time to try a bigger venue.

The Empty Bottle is a legendary club* and we were excited to play there but of course anxious as to whether enough people would show up. From the moment we arrived you could tell these were people who knew how to do their job. Everything was anticipated, pertinent information given before we asked, everyone just on it and super professional. The first band were called Calliope and nailed the Black Angels vibe. It’s not Chuck’s thing but you have to respect a lead singer willing to rock the denim shirt unbuttoned to his navel. The second band were North By North and they were really good too. The bands we’ve played with this tour have been consistently top notch, which asshole I may be, is umm… great.

Instead of a pre-show tipple most, no actually all of us, went next door to get coffee. I was mentally feeling fine and dandy like sour candy, but physically felt filled with lead. By the time the second band finished though, the club was packed. It was such a relief. The joy, energy, and enthusiasm the crowd gave to us was like a wave, and the whole show felt triumphant. It’s a funny thing when the feedback loop between the crowd and the band grows with each song. It can’t be forced but it’s magic when it happens.

We played a three song encore (I think) and the audience kept clapping for more. It was surreal. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a reaction like that. We were completely spent though and just sat in the green room feeling like assholes. After leaving the stage with “Ceremony” still ringing, it was like what could we possibly do that wouldn’t be a let down? So we sat in our little room quietly begging the sound guy to turn on the house music so we could go from feeling guilty to processing this amazing experience.

We got to our hotel at about 3:00 am and were greeted by this devil doll.

The rooms were super cool and we had a view of the Sears Tower, which would’ve been amazing if I had been awake for more than 30 minutes of our stay there.

Tomorrow is Louisville - the last show of this leg of the tour.

*Go to the chicagoreader.com and search for An Oral History of the Empty Bottle. It’ll give you some idea.

Tour 2016 - Kansas City (Day 16)

“I don’t care if they use a BB gun and it takes two hours, it’ll still be better than a drum circle..”

Ranking Cheese Doodle:

Moon Cheese – Cheddar – An audience member brought a bag of these to our Denver show. You can find them at Starbucks but they are not puffed cheese doodles. No, they are nuggets of dehydrated cheese. That’s it.
Texture: They’re pretty crunchy and a little greasy so all good there. It’s the flavor that’s troubling.
Flavor: There is the taste of cheese rolling around, albeit that nub of the cheese that escaped the plastic wrap and was exposed to the air. No, it’s another hard to pin down flavor that defines the experience. I described it as earthy or musty, but Chuck used the word barnyard. He described it as tasting like the 4H barn, sort of a dirty straw flavor.

Idiocy from the Van: “Do the drapes match the curtains?” and/or “Does the couch match the davenport?”

Today was guaranteed to be a long day. The upside to staying at a hotel 40 minutes west of downtown Denver was we got to have a taste* of the Rockies as we followed a whitewater stream down to beginning of the end of things worth looking at out the window. People who travel this way mostly complain about Kansas, but eastern Colorado can break your spirit before you even get there. There are moments when you get an unbroken vista of golden grasses spreading out to the horizon, and you find yourself humming “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” with the strangers around you, chest proudly raised, face facing the sun, wind rippling the hair in your ears. But mostly it’s a grind. To make things more awful Chuck and Lisa had succumbed to the stomach bug or road gut, whatever it was, and were hating life.

Since there is no way to make the drive interesting I will relay a few stories that were told to me later or didn’t fit at the time.

"A baguette is a small piece of bread."  - Panera employee to Olie 

In Portland the sound guy was named Count something or other. Honestly, as soon as you hear the word Count being used as a name your brain freezes as you try to process if he really just said that was his name. When he introduced himself to Lisa he said, “Hi! I’m your sound guy Count.” Lisa heard, “Hi! I’m your sound guy. Count!” She responded, “1, 2, 3, 4.”

At another time Lisa and John were being talked at by a man who insisted on telling them his life story. The gist was that he had recently informed his wife that he thought he might want a divorce. Apparently she responded something along the lines of, “Yeah, that sounds good.” He had gone from being sad and concerned to being pissed that she apparently wanted one too. John and Lisa said the guy had been talking to them unbroken for at least five minutes by this time. Lisa, attempting to be kind said, “Well maybe this means someday you can be friends again,” He looked right at her and said, “To be honest I have no interest in anything you have to say.” John and Lisa just broke out laughing, turned and walked away.

In Boise, as I was trying to coax the crowd a little closer by comparing them to wild raccoons, the conversation eventually led to someone in the audience yelling that there was going to be a drum circle at someone’s farm after the show and that we could come. Chuck responded, “I’d rather someone shoot me in the head than go to one of those.” He looked thoughtful for a second and followed up with, “I don’t care if they use a BB gun and it takes two hours, it’ll still be better than a drum circle.” The audience member later assured us he had been joking. Chuck did not.

Tales from selling merch:

“What’s your smallest size?”
“Well..small is our smallest size.”

Anonymous quote: “I used to play poker with a schizophrenic in the psych ward. He… they cheated so bad.”

And then when we got to Kansas City a weird thing happened. I was in a good mood. I have no idea where it came from but it was a good night for it. There was an Ethiopian place across the street and some lentil samosas and plantains revived me. The venue, Davey’s Uptown Rambler’s Club, was exactly the kind of place where I would hang out if I lived here. It was run by a cheerful old guy and equally cheerful not so old woman. He ran the bar by himself and she did everything else. I wondered later if it was because I was subconsciously happy to be back in the Midwest, or if the building was just a peaceful place.

Also contributing to the goodness was getting a chance to play with our old friends Schwervon. They are a duo, Nan on drums and Matt on guitar. They are the kind of nice that doesn’t make you want to punch them in the face for exposing your own failings, but rather the kind that makes you want to be nice too. Their songs are smart, interesting, and thoroughly enjoyable. The first act of the night was a trio called the Cave Girls and their music again made me happy. I watched their whole set, which is rare because I’m usually too squirrely before playing (or after playing) (or ever) to sit still. I was trying to figure out how to describe their music and was leaning towards ‘70’s American punk with that 1950’s influence that was present then, but Chuck said it was more like the 1960’s Girls in the Garage compilation. It was a lovely show. We’ve a ways to go before we pack the house in KC but it felt like a good start.

Tomorrow is Chicago.

*damp wool and pemmican

Tour 2016 - Denver (Day 15)

"John slept in the van and the other six of us crammed in one room old school style. That’s the thing about nostalgia – it only exists if you never actually go back to the good old days.."

Ranking Cheese Doodle:

Flavor Mill Buffalo Blue Cheese Flavored Cheese Curls – Excellent with a caveat - You might remember Flavor Mill, the suspected off-brand of some mysterious major corporate doodle manufacturer. The caveat is that when you open the bag it smells like someone barfed. I like them though. They make me pleasantly uneasy. Like climbing the rope in gym class.

Texture: Perfect.

Flavor: Lots of finger sticking orange powder that tastes of a distant echo of a memory of blue cheese.

 Idiocy from the Van: I bet Stevie Nicks leaves a snail trail of glitter. (Uttered by Lisa so don’t get all in a huff.)

It’s a 12-13 hour drive from Boise. Oh, did you know that it’s pronounced Boysee not Boyzee? I didn’t. I feel they should change it. Think about it. Which would you rather watch: Boyce in the Hood or Boyz in the Hood? Duh. Anyway, another oddity with our time in Boise was that we ended up paying more for one room than we had for multiple rooms the whole tour. Turns out there was a soccer tournament in town and there were next to no rooms. John slept in the van and the other six of us crammed in one room old school style. That’s the thing about nostalgia – it only exists of you never actually go back to the good old days.

We had hoped to stay at Moab and see some arches, but once again the practicalities of ensuring a timely arrival at the show meant we decided to take the fastest route. We set the goal of Rawlins, Wyoming as our destination because that meant we’d have a little under four hours to get to Denver the next day. Lisa had done a little research on Rawlins and discovered the story of Big Nose George.

George “Big Nose” Parrott was a wild west outlaw - robbing trains, killing lawmen, having a gang that is pursued by posses, etc. He made the classic blunder whereupon you get drunk and brag loudly about having killed people. Thus, and inevitably he was captured. He used a pocket knife and a sandstone to file down his shackles in an escape attempt from the Rawlins Penitentiary. With his keen wits and steely eyes he quickly formed a plan that involved bashing his jailer on the head with the shackles and then getting caught by the jailers wife. The townspeople, incensed by his lawlessness formed a lawless mob and broke into the jail.

Having sprung "Big Beak" Parrott they promptly strung him from the nearest pole. Now this where the story gets interesting. The local medical professional wanted to examine his brain for clues to his criminal mind, so they cut off the top of his skull and gave the lid to a 15-year old medical assistant who would eventually use it as an ash tray. They then removed several swatches of his skin (including a nipple he wrote salaciously) and sent them to a tannery in Denver to be turned into a medical bag and a pair of shoes. The medical examiner then wore the shoes to his inauguration when he was elected governor of Wyoming. The rest of Parrott’s body was stuck in a whiskey barrel, filled with salt and buried in the back yard.

One of the frustrations with this tour is that with no days off and the enormous distances between shows there has been almost no time for exploration. Obviously it was worth waking up early to look about Rawlins. It was about a mile walk into town, passing a virtual (actual?) time-line of shuttered motels from decades past. The Carbon County Museum with the skin shoes wasn’t open until 10 so I walked to the Frontier Prison figuring it would be a reconstructed log cabin with some bars for windows. Oh no, it was way better than that. It was the actual Wyoming State Penitentiary that had been in use until the early 1980’s. Ignore the nightmare that is our current racism for profit correctional approach and just enjoy with me the time when incarceration was fun and fraught with adventure! I didn’t have time for the tour but went through the museum. The first part of the museum was dedicated to the innumerable escape attempts. One of the inmates created such a sophisticated skeleton key it could open almost half the cells. There were shelves full of all the shanks that had been confiscated. Perversely there were hanks of hanging ropes displayed with the photos of the terminal end behind them. It was fascinating.

Then on to the Carbon County Museum. It was a more sophisticated affair with activities for children, carpet under foot, frontier doilies in recreated rooms with mannequins knitting in rocking chairs. But even with all the attempts to educate and inform they know why people are there. The kindly, prototypical elderly lady volunteer welcomed me and then asked pointedly, “Is there something specific you’re here to see?” “The shoes.” “They’re right over there – don’t take any pictures dear.” The shoes were tiny and just weird. What the hell were they thinking? Also displayed was his earless death mask, his proud nose only somewhat diminished in death. I pretended to look at everything else, occasionally emitting a murmured “fascinating” or “well swap my spit and cook me for dinner – I did not know that.” Then I left and walked back to the hotel.

I was looking forward to seeing the big, pointy, green and snowy Rockies but our route seemed to skirt them and we entered Denver with a whimper. We were playing in the bar end of a much bigger venue called the Summit. The sound man, who spoke with the soft rounded tones of a death-bed priest packed into the body of a pre-steroidal Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson made us sound great to the crowd, although the sound on stage was like having an ice pick jabbed into my ear. I should’ve communicated more and we probably could have made it better, but I was starting to feel poorly and we Midwesterners really do find it unseemly to make a fuss. We all had dinner at a Spanish tapas restaurant which was quite a lot of fun and then I tried walking around downtown Denver. I was feeling achy and my stomach was bad, so I gave up and slept in the van until show time.

The total number of people who had come to see us our last two visits to Denver could fit in R. Kelly’s closet, so we were delighted by an actual audience this time around. I wasn’t able to muster much audience interaction or jumping around, but we played pretty well. The audience was super sweet and there were even a few folks who had been at both of our previous shows.

Through a small Priceline miscalculation we were staying 40 minutes in the wrong direction at an Indian casino. If it’s not supposed to be called an Indian casino then I apologize. I think the Cleveland Indians should change their logo so I figure I’m coming out at least even in the cultural sensitivity department. Olie was quite excited to see a casino in action and feeling poorly or not, I was delighted to accompany him.

The experience started off promisingly as accompanying us in the elevator was a goblet of wine carrying gambler with a dead eye that pointed northwest. We dropped our bags off in the room but as soon as we approached the action, a security professional approached us and asked for Olie’s ID. When he saw it was British he said “Follow me” with a depth of seriousness usually reserved for U.N. subcommittees on the illegal trade of Faberge’ eggs. We followed him to his security podium and watched as he ran the ID through what I dearly hope was Interpol. He then actually held the ID up to Olie’s face before allowing us to enter. We walked the outer ring of the casino, organized like the playing pieces in Trivial Pursuit with a wigwam motif floating above it. The top level was filled almost exclusively with those video monitors that pass for slot machines. After a bit Olie waved his hand expansively and said, “Is it all the same shit?” “Pretty much.” He shook his head and we continued down to the lower level.

I don’t have the personality for gambling. I’m not sure I can even imagine the concept of disposable income. Additionally, I really don’t need my worldview that we’re all fucked reinforced by a machine programmed to ensure I will lose. I did once go to an Atlantic City casino long enough ago that they still had mechanical slot machines with the arm you pulled and the feeling of physical mechanisms clattering around. It was kind of fun, and the sound of the coins hitting the metal tray oddly satisfying. Down on the bottom floor we found the café and decided on an expensive late night snack. While waiting for his food Olie was approached by two skeevy, well drunk dudes who had a crumpled piece of paper with a secret code on it. They said, with an urgent lack of personal space, that if we took that code up to the counter it would automatically get us amazing deals. I really didn’t like them and suspect they have pestilence on their pee pees.

Then when I went to get some water I overheard a man with one leg having an argument with his bipedal friend that went something like this: “You’re gonna lose.” “Just let me try.” You’re gonna lose.” “C’mon man, just let me try.” “You’re gonna to lose.” “No, no, no, you don’t know that. Please. I want to try.” “You’re going to lose.” I never heard who won, the wheedling loser or the implacable pragmatist. At about this point Olie looked around and said, “It’s kind of sad isn’t it?” We walked around a few minutes more, Ollie said, “Fuck it” and we went to get some sleep.

Tomorrow is Kansas City.

Tour 2016 - Wenatchee to Boise (Days 13-14)

"It was Sunday, Father’s Day, heading away from big cities – what could go wrong? .."

Ranking Cheese Doodle:

Jalapeno Poppers Puffed Corn Snack – Good if you like this sort of thing. I have to admit I’m beginning to regret this whole doodle census. As I open another bag it’s with a rather grim sense of duty. Like sex with your second cousin, which seemed so great when you were sixteen, but now 30 years later just seems desultory. Anyway, this doodle is fine, mostly about the burn, which made my stomach hurt.

Texture: Actually pretty good. Dense but not stale.

Flavor: Who cares? After the first one your mouth is on fire.

Idiocy from the Van: "Why thank you Marriott, for your complimentary pork cylinders soaked in brine."

I’m tired of being two days behind. Today is the day I will triumphantly half-ass two days of the tour so I can fulfill my imaginary deadlines. (didn't happen) We woke up late and lazy and rolled out at the last minute possible to maintain the illusion of being on time to the house show. It was Sunday, Father’s Day, heading away from big cities – what could go wrong? Accidents, shut-down highway, the usual. We had planned to stop at the Twin Peaks waterfall but now we were an hour behind schedule so we just had to make a beeline for Wenatchee. Oh, and driving north through Washington State is beautiful, so green, with babbling (say babbling five times*) brooks and cascading cataracts just willy-nilly all over the place.

This would be our third time playing Wenatchee and the second at Scott and Jenny’s house. The only reason we come up here is because of these dear people. And it’s a treat. Wenatchee is founded near the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers. It’s in a valley and surrounded by rolling, yellow grassy hills. Usually I go for a walk in the hills as it’s a lovely meditative place.

Tonight we just had time to set-up, eat dinner, watch the Cavs win the NBA Finals, and then play. Scott has a low stage in one end of the living room and had hired in a sound system and guy to run it. The stage was small but still bigger than say Manchester. Chris Brokaw changed his set to emphasize his more singer-songwriter side and it was a lovely, moving set. We’ve gotten a lot better at modulating our set to smaller rooms. We added some other songs like, “Little Paper Birds, and Gene, I Dream,” which we don’t play too often. And being able to hear everything so clearly while playing quietly led to some different versions of our songs that hopefully made the evening seem unique to the 40-50 people there. Unfortunately the dark clouds of intestinal distress that had been stacking up on the horizon all evening threatened to open up. It was a long night. At one point when laying horizontally really wasn’t working, I wrapped myself in a blanket and slept in a wicker chair on the patio.

We had to get on the road early if we wanted to make Boise on time so we bid adieu to the world’s greatest pug, Kildy– the World’s Greatest Pug!

I don’t know if it’s because I was in rather course fettle, but the drive to Boise was not the most interesting. Washington and Idaho are renowned for their natural beauty but this route studiously avoided all of it. By taking this route you are saying that you love and accept the entirety of Washington and Idaho even on days when they’re feeling bloated and wearing Old Navy extra large sweatshirts. Of course I’m being silly. There were some stunning vistas and canyons** along the Columbia River at the start and some cool Close Encounters rock formations at the end. It was just the middle bit.

We’d been hearing that Boise was a cool city for several days and damned if it wasn’t. It’s a pretty small town and it was a Monday night, but there were people out and about. Right next to the club was a vinyl records, Archie McPhee, rock t-shirt, café kind of place. The club, called the Neurobar, was badass. 1950’s round-edged triangular tables, red lit long bar, a huge flickering crown on stage, and all the cool kids smoking cigarettes at tables out front. We had dinner at a place called Even Stevens and walked around a little. If I were to live in the southwestern corner of Idaho and craved an urban setting Boise would be top on my list.

I asked the sound guy, who was a nervous sort but awesome at his job, about the scene and he said it was OK but he was worried about it. He said all the people in the veteran bands had hit the stage of life where they moved out to the suburbs, had kids, and only played one or two shows a year. Not too long ago there had been a thriving DIY all-ages scene but the city had pretty much shut it down. Put all together and there was no one or nowhere to help bring the young bands along and teach them how act. He said it’s always obvious when a local band was on the bill because they were so slow getting on and off stage and unable to adjust for the size of the room or tenor of the bill. He said he had come from Minneapolis where you had to have your shit together. It sounds a little like sour grapes on paper, but the sense I got was that he really wanted Boise bands to do well and not seem provincial.

We were playing with a lovely, quirky pop band from Baltimore called Outer Spaces, and it was our last show with Chris Brokaw. In case you didn’t look up Chris when I suggested it earlier,*** he is a quietly brilliant musician. He’s as likely to be the drummer as he is the guitar player in a band, and is a wonderful songwriter and singer as well. He was the first person to cover one of our songs and it meant the world to us. He was delightful company in our packed van and possessing of a deep reservoir of hilarious stories from a life lived on the road.

And one of the big changes on this tour has been taking bigger charge of the line-ups and working with bands we love. Not only is it awesome to hear American Werewolf Academy, Chris, Schwervon, and the Fervor on this leg but it feels like we’re able to give the audience a whole evening that we know will be enjoyable. On a nightly basis people sweetly say to us how dismayed they are that there aren’t lots more people at the show and that we should be huge. It is a very kind inclination, but things really are building nicely for us in many ways. One of them is this ability to travel with these awesome bands. The other is a nice uptick in the quality of the venues, stages, sound engineers etc. We’ve had consistent good sound and played some very cool venues, and that makes a big difference. We’re doing all right I think.

This being our first time in Boise, a Monday night, and perhaps a disinclination to see old people play unfashionable music, we had our smallest crowd since Tulsa. As is often the case with nights like these, it was a little more interactive and sillier than some shows. Of course playing to a packed house is ideal, but I love these shows for two reasons. Typically with a small town and a small crowd the people who come to see you are fervent fans who are thrilled that you came to their town. It’s impossible to not feel proud when you hear what your music means to people. And that leads me to the next reason. The song that typically gets the best response night after night is “Teenage Wasteland.” And the thought that we could potentially be that voice for someone feeling isolated and alone in their own personal hinterland, the chance that we could do for someone what rocknroll did for us at different times of our lives, provide a sense of possibility, identity, catharsis, community, acceptance feels important. You don’t need to know if that happens on a given night because we’ve all had our conversion experiences. We know it’s real thing.

So thank you Boise. It was lovely.

Tomorrow is a drive day.

*Yes you are.

** Or were they gorges? When does a gorge become a canyon?

***Honestly, I don’t know why I even bother.

Tour 2016 - Seattle (Day 12)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: Kroger Puffed Cheese Curls – Almost identical to the H-E-B store brand. I suspect collusion.

Texture: Excellent - Borderline tear your mouth up.

Flavor: Pretty damn good. These are an excellent value. Like a Robert Parker rated Beaujolais of 89 on sale for $12.99

Idiocy from the Van: Have you read the bio “Tom Jones’ Testicles by Emersom Bigguns?

We had a wonderful evening in Portland, a friend of Joe’s got us two very nice rooms at a hotel on the river, and we were going to play live on KEXP at 11:00 this very day. All was exceedingly well except that we were only going to be able to get four and a half hours sleep before we needed to leave for Seattle. Everyone was fine with it, no one was complaining. The honor of playing for the mighty KEXP trumps everything. Still, even with a little bit of, “This is going to hurt,” going on, everyone was in good spirits.

John somehow managed to duct tape a bag to Olie’s hand, tomatoes were thrown from a balcony at John down on the veranda as he was smoking. Considering the exhaustion, the incredibly tight confines, what with six or seven people all touching cotton covered shoulders in the van for days on end, it’s amazing how much silliness and gasping for air laughing happens on a daily basis. Everybody has their days of crankiness, gloominess, or loonimess, but I think we’re getting better at knowing how to deal with it without necessarily infecting the whole van or causing a ruckus. Mostly it involves going for walks and just getting away from each other. I mean we’re not home yet. There could still be epic meltdowns, and/or blowouts, but I also think that having Olie along has been a major factor. He’s an expert at lightening the mood.

This is the third time for the full band to be playing KEXP and the first time in their new studio. Our last session was even picked as one of the best public radio performances of whatever year that was. I also contend that almost every fan of the band can trace their knowledge of us back to either Robert Christgau or KEXP. Today would not ascend to those hallowed heights. Today inspiration would be on the loading dock waving a cigarette about airily whilst talking about Sam Peckinpah, while our old friend Sturdy Competence was running around the studio kissing us all squarely on the lips. We didn’t play badly I don’t think. It just took longer than we had to shake off the stunned baby seal** quality our tiredness infected us with. The new building and studio housing KEXP is beautiful. There’s a café’ attached with excellent coffee, they are right in the thick of a bunch of artistic organizations, and they have a 30 year lease. The only thing I miss is the little performance space. We were practically playing on top of each other, and we as a band always play better when we feel like everything is all mixed together into one sound. It’s the best. And it goes without saying that the folks at KEXP are the best as well. They are so sweet and so good at their jobs.

No tourism for us today. We went straight to the house our friend graciously lets us take over whenever we’re in Seattle, ate some Washington cherries, started laundry, and slunk off to our corners to take naps.

We were playing the El Corazon, which used to be the Off-Ramp back in the old days. Last time we played the small, connected room they now call the Funhouse. The space is rectangular with the stage along one of the long sides so it’s not particularly deep but the audience can spread out. The last time I was here I was overwhelmed with the ghosts in the place. Nirvana and most every Seattle band played there at some point. I remember thinking about all the costs associated with being in a band and living out your dreams. The addictions, deaths, broken marriages, poverty, and hearing loss all associated with this way of making art begs the question: What the hell am I doing out here? I can’t point to anything that doesn’t sound selfish. My family doesn’t get anything out of it, no money, vacations, monkey butlers, nothing. Just an absentee dad and husband. However, this time the ghosts were away. Maybe they’re like Santa Claus and dissipate into mean shades unless someone believes in rocknroll. Tonight though, it just felt like a regular club and we had a show to play.

We had dinner at a wonderful hole in the wall Thai noodle place called In the Bowl. The food was so freaking delicious. Oh, and even though it’s all vegetarian, no one seemed to mind. Afterwards everyone went back to the club and I went for a walk into the Capital Hill District. Broadway, the main street through the district, seems to be mostly a bar/restaurant entertainment area so there was a certain percentage of party people there. All told it was a nice, fairly affluent part of town. I came across a park with a super cool fountain that was like water cascading down a mountain and flowing down a cement riverbed until it got to a pond. I saw people playing bicycle polo, which looked difficult and smug. As I walked down the hill and over the Denny Bridge I was struck once again by how a highway and some elevation can create such disparate environments. Under the bridge there is a size-able group of homeless people and/or runaways, (they seemed young) lots of evidence of drug use, a shelter for at risk youth, and a general air of grittiness.

I had a nice talk with an old school chum of Lisa’s who now lives in the area, about something I sensed in regards to the homeless population. I said that it seemed as if people in Seattle, Portland, and even San Francisco had a more tolerant view of the homeless population compared to the Midwest. She agreed almost before I finished my sentence, “Oh yeah, in the Midwest they’re less than human – something to be hidden or gotten rid of, but out here it’s like they are people who have different needs or maybe even made a lifestyle choice.” She talked about how Seattle is going to start emulating the San Francisco model where they take empty housing and convert it into places where the homeless can store their stuff when they have job interviews or the like. She talked about the circuit of teenaged runaways that go from Tacoma to Seattle and Portland, riding the commuter trains. Seattle has even gone so far as to create places where people with campers and tents can stay for the night as long as they follow the rules. And I wonder - what accounts for the difference in attitude? From hostile in part of the country to tolerant in another, what has to happen for a culture to have basic respect for all humans? What kind of empathy has to be taught for people’s first instinct to be that maybe the people they meet are actually doing the best they can? Make a list in your head as to why someone is living on the street. Mental illness, abuse, addiction, lack of education, and yes, somewhere down there you might have to include the line, “Because it’s so fucking awesome!” Different strokes and all. Don’t get me wrong though; I don’t enjoy people asking me for money. I get nervous when erratic people approach me. I’m no saint. I do think however, a fair marker of a society is how they treat their most vulnerable. And there will always be vulnerable among us.

It was a lovely night in the El Corazon. The Purrs, a venerable rock band together now for something like 16 years, played awesome melodic rock. Chris Brokaw of course owned it, and I think we played pretty good too. Seattle is always our biggest night on a Western tour. It’s a big room and there were a couple a hundred people in there. Playing the old Off-Ramp, packing the place, feeling the love, eating cupcakes and having a top shelf tequila with the bar staff afterwards, generally enjoying the fantasy of this life for approximately 22 hours.

We went back to our loaned house and I happily listened to Otis Redding records on a beautiful turntable well into the night.

Tomorrow is Wennatchee.

*We’re a strict no artificial fibers kind of band.

**I’m actually working on a children’s book called “Baby Seal Goes To Baseball Camp.” It will be a cautionary tale about making sure one’s dreams have some basis in reality.

Tour 2016 - SF to Portland (Days 10-11)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: Smallwood’s Harvest Spicy Cheese Nuggets – Excellent for a spicy varietal. People have begun to bring me doodles. This is an excellent development. These are more like a bag of curds in puff form but legit.

Texture: Kind of chewy, like stale Pirate’s Booty.

Flavor: Spicy and salty. The best of the spicy ones.

Idiocy from the Van: Chile Kim Carne (courtesy of Chris Brokaw)

I’m way behind with the blog now. It’s been a couple of days of curvy roads and very little sleep. The morning after our very late check-in at the fancy hotel with the kitty litter smelling lobby, I walked across a field to the old looking “round barn” for which the hotel was named. It wasn’t actually round but some sort of –agon. (I didn’t count the sides.) I came upon a plaque that told me the barn had been built by a Japanese Samurai who then became a prominent viticulturist in the Napa Valley. I gave the band this info in the van but no one gave a shit. It’s like they’re dead inside.

We wanted to take the 101 because part of the fun of this tour is showing Olie the country. It’s such a gorgeous drive, but by doing so it meant another very long day in the van. We needed to get near Eugene in order to make getting to Portland reasonable. I tried to write but by dint of following the geographical contours of our beloved continent I couldn’t keep the keyboard under my fingers, and it was a semi-car sick kind of drive anyway. We stopped at a Safeway, loaded up on groceries, (our attempt to eat fresh and healthy bowed but not yet broken) and made the Avenue of the Giants by mid-afternoon. I’ve said it before but it holds true for me, an hour in the Redwoods is equivalent to a year of Sundays at church. The light filtering through branches so high they don’t even begin where most trees end gives a glow to the preternatural hush. I found a fallen Redwood circled by six of the really old trees. I laid down and stared up and felt like I was surrounded by sentinels watching over and mourning their loss. This being nature and not the ‘Shire or some shit, the death of the tree I was laying on probably created enough light so that the trees surrounding it could finally thrive. Like that dick in “The Giving Tree.” Olie was blown away by the forest. It was lovely to see his reaction and to feel like we’d given him a little gift.

We stopped at Eureka because that’s what we do; we stop. “He who travels fastest travels alone” being practically pornographic in its illicit feelings of unobtainable fantasy. On the other hand, expediency with seven people in one automotive is the equivalent of having your mother walk in on you holding a Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit issue (the one with Elle McPherson) after having just moved home because you flunked out of college. (sad trombone sound) I walked down to the waterfront and found a classic rock cover band on break and the local rock dj giving away prizes to the winner who could correctly answer questions like, “9% of homeowners don’t do this… (the dishes?) No. I won’t dish out any prizes for that answer ha ha. “ (clean the bathroom?) Close enough! So do you clean the bathroom? No? It’s pretty bad when the toilet flushes itself ha ha. I’ve got one more question. Hmmm… let’s pick a good one. Ok, 9% of drivers wish they could do this. (run over your unfunny ass, then back the car over your broken body while blasting “More Than a Feeling” on the radio?) Ooh ouch!! ha ha (Not wear a seatbelt?) You missed that one whole cloth ha ha. (run over your parents before they conceived your bloviated friendless existence?) You must know my ex-wife ha ha. (pee through the eye of a needle into a Capri Sun bag without spilling a drop?) Oh urine trouble for that one ha ha. No the answer is drive naked drive naked. And now back to some great rocknroll.”*

We stopped and communed with the ocean around sunset, and as the sky tipped into blackness the drive took on an air of low-grade terror. Hairpin turns and steep clines (of both the in and de variety) in pitch-blackness sucks. We waited in a short line blinded by emergency vehicle’s flashing lights as they dealt with a car off the road and on its side. We rolled into a hotel of which I have no memory around 2:30 in the morning.

We had an early soundcheck in Portland but with only a two-hour drive and a late check out procured we tried to get some sleep. At 8:30 a.m. a housekeeper came into the room and in the immortal words of Shakespeare said, “Housekeeping.” How is this still a thing? With all the information technology available, networks that stagger the imagination, the only way to ascertain whether a hotel room has been vacated is to make like a Jehovah’s Witness and** knock? I’m not impugning the cleaning staff. That’s a hard job and it’s my understanding they have some serious time constraints put on them. Plus, bad things happen. I know, and I’m sorry. I tried to clean-up. No, I feel the hospitality industry as a whole is under-motivated to improve this one glaring antithesis to the word hospitality. You have one job. Provide a safe and clean place to sleep. Then in an insouciantly perverse twist you design a system that takes away the very thing the customer paid for. It’s like buying a hamburger and then having someone walk around and removing the meat from the bun halfway through the meal. But wait! You say there is a magic card you can place on the door that will guarantee you a peaceful uninterrupted sleep? Sure, but what if you forget, or it falls off, or you walk down the hallway removing all the do not disturb signs from every door in a futile act of rebellion against the impotence you feel in an increasingly cold and isolated world?

We were playing the Star Theater, which had played once before. It’s a beautiful place to play and everyone was very nice there. The last time we played we sat with our equipment on the patio for several hours waiting for a comedy*** show to end. Then we set up in front of the headlining band on the approximately 8 inches of stage lip left us. This time we had the whole stage and it was as luxuriant as softened butter.

After soundcheck Chuck and I went out to do some banking and he remarked that everyone seemed high. And acknowledging this could be a preconceived notion, the rather large indigent population had a different air about them. It was a softer sadness that made me think heroin was still very much a part of the region. Of course there were a lot of teens on the streets with duffel bags and dogs, but more about that later.

I walked all over the downtown and it seemed like a regular, relatively affluent business building fancy storefront kind of place. The hipsters must enclave elsewhere. I spent hours in Powell’s Books, my second favorite bookstore, (The Strand still gets the nod) and bought several books by/about Alexander Von Humboldt, who I’ve decided to become obsessed with.

The show was a blast. Count, the sound engineer, had the stage sound dialed in, and the audience demanded an extra encore.

*Those were all real questions and mostly real answers. Guess which!!

**Look up 141 Things Jehovah's Witness followers cannot do.

*** In the broadest sense of that word.

Tour 2016 - San Francisco (Day 9)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: No Doodles. I had really hung my hopes on artisanal doodles from the hub of the farm to doodle to table movement. The Spanish have long perfected the culinary science of puffing food with their vangaurdia movement, but as in so many things, we lag behind.

Idiocy from the Van: Well I’m off to birth King Kong’s finger.

We had no trouble getting out of L.A. and proceeded north, reading all the handmade signs put forth in battle for the hearts, minds and urinary tracts of the people in the Californian Water Wars. I never visited California before the drought so I can’t compare. For the most part, if it’s green it’s irrigated. I have to not give in to the thought, but I have the same reaction whenever I travel. Seeing the massive drain on natural resources all us people create, seeing our negative impact on the world around us, I get panicky. Not so much an Indian standing on a heap big garbage heap shedding a tear, but more an Edvard Munch keening cry, like a mosquito whining in your ear while trying to memorize the second verse of It’s the End of the World As We know It, “There’s no way this is sustainable! What are we doing! We’re going to die!” The fact that Long John Silvers exists is enough to make one question all of man’s great works, but when I see a special on wild caught Cod or something, do the math* of how many shops they have in this country alone, it’s staggering. On this day we drove by a massive cow yard place. The smell of course was like Satan’s belch on taco Tuesday, the innumerable animals standing only in mud and shit, mind-boggling. And this is nothing in size compared to some I’ve seen in the Midwest. I have no suggestions. I’m not knowledgeable in realities of feeding billions of people. I just worry.

The last time we came west I had an entire day to spend at my leisure in San Francisco and I fell head over heals in love. Thus, I make no claim to objectivity. We pulled up to the Elbo Room in the Mission District, the same place we played last time, around 6:30. This is a great club, lounge-y and perfectly seedy downstairs and an old school, almost elegant performance space upstairs. Golden dragons on either side of the stage should paint the appropriate picture.

While waiting for soundcheck I started walking with eagerness of the England version of myself, got the best cup of coffee this tour so far, and marveled at the incredible murals and awesome mix of people. After check I had an amazing vegan Mexican meal at Gracias Madres. Unfortunately I was beginning to feel the effects of a bout of road stomach coming on. I was eating by myself at the bar and they had us packed in pretty much shoulder to shoulder. As what I hoped was air pressure in my lower half began to bubble like aging refried beans on medium heat, I desperately wished that I wasn’t pinned in by two comely lasses. It may an antiquated notion but I would much rather offer an olfactory amuse bouche to a man’s dinner than a woman’s. Still, we all managed to escape unmolested after a frankly heroic and dexterous clenching of specific unmentionable muscles. And then I walked up Mission Street, which was a little less hipster/boutique driven and more head shop gritty than Valencia. There were certainly more encampments of what I’m sensing is a significant indigent population.

After sitting bent double on the floor in the green room for an hour hoping I wouldn’t need a bucket, we went onstage to a pretty packed house. The lights were set-up so that we couldn’t see many faces, but everyone seemed to have a good time. The sound onstage was perfect and such that I could hear and respond to everyone else. It makes all the difference in the world and Olie remarked afterwards that it was the best we had played yet. Two of the best musicians in Cincinnati, and absolutely wonderful friends for decades, Melissa and Dana surprised us by showing up at the gig. It was a wonderful evening.

We had decided, or rather had the decision thrust upon us, that it was far too expensive to stay near the city. We found a good deal on Priceline for a hotel in Santa Rosa. As usual we paid the extra money to ensure there were two beds in each room. We arrive at 2:30 a.m. and damned if the hotel chose to ignore what they said was a non-binding request. The over-night front desk woman couldn’t have been more helpful but the hotel was sold out. It took a good 40 minutes to get sorted out, with us paying them more money for their room of last resort, which had a pull out couch. At 3:30 in the fucking morning we all finally collapsed into bed.

Tomorrow is yet another drive day. 

*I don’t really do the math. Math is hard.

Tour Diary - Los Angeles (Day 8)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: No Doodles. So what am I to do? Try a random snack from the Hispanic section that’s what. Specifically Tiritas con Chile. Imagine a strawberry licorice rope covered in paprika, citric acid, and cayenne in decreasing order of flavor. Chuck was the first to try and started making a nyuh nyuh sounds like a stooge and then spit it out. I went next and it wasn’t that bad. Much like the stages of grief it started out bitter, moved to sour, then to hot, and finished up sickly sweet. You regret having eaten it and vow never to do so again. I haven’t translated but I think the bag might describe them as divorce sticks.

Idiocy from the Van: To the tune of “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”

“Let’s go lay some pipe, Squat, grunt, and then we wipe.”

This will likely be an ongoing piece of work.

With six hours left to drive until we reached L.A. my gibbet was starting to flibber. Three days solid in the van with no real breaks was starting to wear through the thin veneer that separates us from the illusion of fitting in to a non teeth-gritting, skin-twitching, spittle-spraying, rage-filled society and not. The unvarying terrain didn’t help by settling into an unbroken desert indistinguishable from Mars if one were to put on actual rose-colored glasses.

We arrived at the Silver Lake Lounge slightly early. We had played here before and knew the drill. I’d direct you to the Yelp reviews if you want to get a fuller sense of the experience. The sound guy was nice, the monitors underpowered, the stage set up so that Joe was in a cave in the back of the stage, separated from us more than just emotionally this time. There was no green room so we did a lot of standing around the parking lot waiting for the broth to ripen to the point where soundcheck could happen. Then some pretty good Indian food, and then some more standing around the parking lot. The last time here I had desperately hiked the stretch of Sunset the club is on, looking for Los Angeles, but only found a heterogeneous* mix of shops and restaurants. No matter, by the time we got back from dinner our pal Chris Brokaw had started. Chris has been in a shit-ton of cool bands as well as plying the solo trade for years. We have been playing shows with Chris going back to our first tour. It had been awhile though and we were thrilled to see him. And here’s where it gets exciting. He’s traveling with us for the next five shows as well. In case you’re doing the math and have use of only one hand for some reason, that brings the grand total of people in the van to seven. If we could just somehow cram Pauley Shore in here we would be funnier than the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.**

When we had pulled up there had already been people waiting. We had a crowd bigger than we’d had in Tulsa just for our soundcheck. Some nights take on an energy of their own. The place was packed by the time we took the stage. We’re playing a good portion of the new record this time out, but whenever we played the older songs they sang along so loud they drowned out Lisa on my side of the stage. For a town that does not have a reputation for being warm and fuzzy it was a very sweet and giving crowd we were blessed with this night.

Another bit of sweetness added to the evening was that our dear friend Brooklyn Steve was in attendance. We met him at one of our early shows in NYC where he regaled us with stories of going to see punk shows in the ‘70’s, like the Clash at the Palladium, and a delightful evening shouting out “Peanuts” over and over again at that first Police show. They kept shouting it even after the band played the song until Sting was properly annoyed. Steve would come to every show and we were always delighted to catch up. And when he moved to California a few years back we missed him and his spirit at our shows. I tend to say it ad nauseum but the human need for community and connection is so profound it comes in right after food, shelter, and safety in the heirarchy of needs. Being in a band for a long time these little adopted families occasionally come into existence. This is ultimately what I get from playing music live. Sometimes the connection is just the five of us, but the best nights are when we and the audience become our own little world of misfits. Rocknroll at its best can encapsulate joy, frustration, anger, sex, and solidarity better than any art form. Well, for me at least.

On the way to the hotel we gave Olie a driving tour of Hollywood and Vine, the Chinese Theater, all the landmarks we could manage after a long day. His observation, “It looks a little dodgy” as we drove up Hollywood seemed apt.

Tomorrow is San Francisco.

*The pretension alert went off. Sorry.

**Again my apologies. A colostomy is funnier than the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

Tour 2016 - The Desert (Days 6-7)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: Hill Country Fare Cheese Puffs: Middling

Bought at the same H-E-B store as the Store Brand Intense Cheese Flavored ones, but seemed like the doodle created for their poor cheese flavored snack customers. You know the bag: more clear plastic, duller colors, primitive graphics. I didn’t much like them but everyone else thought they were fine. Obviously this exercise has refined my palette far beyond their plebian tastes.

Texture: Excellent - Well it was.

Flavor: Tasted chemically to me. Much like an over-oaked chardonnay there were strong notes of butter. Rancid oily movie theater butter.

Idiocy from the Van: “Oooh, I adagio’d in my pants a little.”

This is going to be a short, perhaps even cursory posting because we will have spent these two days driving. The entire journey we’re taking is from Austin to Los Angeles. We will still have approximately six hours to drive on day eight just to get into town. In the past we have taken Highway 10 straight across the desert. It’s the quickest route but brutal in its unvarying scenery and desert heat. This time we decided to head northwest out of Austin, eventually hooking up with I-40. I don’t know the difference duration between the two routes, but this way was far more pleasant on the eyes and in availability of services. There was no permanent, border-style roadblock with machine gun armed guards and dogs. We just drove. There weren’t any real highlights, except perhaps for craft hour when we created lifelike sculptures out of red Baby Bell cheese wax. Our goal was Albequerque and it took us 13 hours to get there. The terrain was far more green than the 10 and mostly what we decided to call rolling prairie.

The next day we had a choice. Either another 13 hour day and make it to the outskirts of L.A., or break it up by stopping around Phoenix. We chose the latter, and out of the corner of our eyes, the way one sees a nebula through a telescope, we checked to see if we could afford the amazing, awesomely refurbished 1950’s era hotel, the Valley Ho. We stayed there last tour when John treated the band to a little luxury. It was only $50 more than others around the area, probably because it was a Monday night, and even though frugality is our new watchword (our previous watchword was regret) (Our safety word* by the way is, as it always has been, “Oh for the love of God just stop it. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?”) we went for it. The second days drive was gorgeous. Lots of high desert rock formations, a stop by the petrified forest, a lovely lush area in northern Arizona where the cactuses (cacti is also correct but rather pretentious don’t you think?) were in bloom.**

I’m not going to go into rhapsodic detail about the Valley Ho because I did all that in the last tour blog,*** but we had a blast. We had fancy drinks, swam in the round saltwater pool under the moonlight, John beat Olie in a foot race across the pool, we joined hands and practiced our synchronized water dancing, the couple attempting to have a romantic interlude, tenderly drifting up to each other and kissing, finally gave up and went to the hot tub.**** After actually hearing people talking earnestly about their golf game at the bar, I went and laid on a lounge, presumably of the chaise variety, by a blue lit fountain and stared at the stars. What a lovely evening.

Tomorrow is L.A.

*Phrase really

** Indulge me please. At this point I was originally just going to write “I’ll see you when the cactus blooms again.” because “When the Roses Bloom Again” kept going through my head. I wanted to listen to the Johnny Cash version, which is devastating, and I came across a song called “When the Bloom Is On the Sage” by the Sons of the Pioneers. I love the Pioneers. I think “Cool Water” is one of the great American songs of all time. Anyway, in the details part on YouTube it says that the song was recorded right up the street from where I’m writing this on Vine Street and Hollywood. That tickled me to no end.

*** It’s all archived on the web site I think.

**** Where they contracted Chlamydia. Or at least that’s what he told her. I never really trusted him.

Tour Diary - Austin (Day 5)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: H-E-B Intense Cheese Flavored Puffs* - Excellent   H-E-B is chain of supermarkets and these were their store brand. And finally a good damn doodle.

Texture: Good – Rougher than a Cheeto, but not enough to abuse your delicate mouth-branes.

Flavor: More salt than cheese but we destroyed this bag. I had to pour bottled water over my fingers to get the orange off. You know what I'm saying'?

Idiocy from the Van: Square Bob Sponge Cake and his best friend Pee-C-Pee-Oh

The drive from Dallas to Austin is fairly short but we dicked around enough to make it seem as endless as a normal day. We went straight to Torchy’s, which is a small chain but is so good. Migas and fried avocado tacos with a side of street corn for me thank you very much.

We went to the club but they weren’t going to be ready for us until 9:00. As Olie was quite keen to see a bit of Austin we went downtown. It was just so hot and parking was its usual nightmare, but when we finally cowboy walked our way to 6th street we heard an Athena level skull splitting racket and whiffed the sharp smell of exhaust. We turned the corner and just like that, a biker rally for Olie! Can’t get more American than that. 6th street was lined on both sides with every kind of chopped crotch hog you could imagine.

The street was blocked off and there were two rows of orange cones down the middle of the street allowing the bikers to promenade in small groups in front of their two-wheeled peers. Mostly this involved revving their engines to create the maximum noise and smell. It was neat to get to see all those people and all those bikes, and I love the sense of community exhibited, but it wore thin pretty quickly for a non-aficionado like myself. So we went inside a fancy hotel and had wee chocolate cakes and éclairs.

Then back up to the Spider Ballroom. The Spider is divided into two sides, the ballroom, which is a standard rectangle with a stage, and the café, which is a series of mostly open to the air spaces with a hodge-podge of weird junk scattered around. I liked it.

My delicate and shame-filled northern sensibilities began to understand the desire to wear as little clothing as possible in this heat. As usual there were hours to kill. It’s too boring to just hang in the club, and you can’t just sit and drink outside with all the sweltering people because of the slippery slope to shitty shows and alcoholism. So I cajoled Olie into walking to the Buffalo Exchange vintage clothing store and Antone’s Record store. Both were fine, I didn’t spend any money, and an hour had passed quite nicely. I took a left out of Antone’s and walked up the sidewalk in order to find a quiet place to call my already-trothed. With my head down I came to the end of the building and found myself surrounded by approximately 100 naked people on bicycles. I froze, turned around like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, and walked back the way I came as if that was what I had intended all along. Almost immediately the group left the staging area and whooping and hollering rode en masse right passed me on the street. There were as many wangs as tangs, as many guts as gunts, and a relatively wide age range, although they were oddly almost completely homogenous in skin color. Not that it matters a whit, but I have no problem with anything promoting body acceptance; although I was concerned about the bicycle seats. I find them uncomfortable enough to start with without them actually touching my prostate. And how did we get to the point in western culture where something as functional and beautiful as the human breast has become so sexualized that a mother can’t breast feed or young women have to learn how to ignore ogling before they’re out of high school? I’m as guilty of it as the next, but it really is time to cut that shit out.

Residual Kid opened up the show back at the ballroom. They were a trio of youngsters playing pop-punk and they have a good-sized following of their own. I can easily envision them blowing by us in their solid gold bus while we spin our wheels in the ditches of apathy. AWA played even better than the night before. As for us, it was lovely to see such a nice crowd, seeing as we played to five people our last visit to Austin. It was fun. We played a few songs we hadn’t played in awhile, and said goodbye to the small group who had followed us from Tulsa to Dallas and then Austin.

We had had sweaty goodbye with AWA and that was that.

Tomorrow is a drive day.

*Spanish lesson for the day. Botana de Maiz = Cheese Flavored Snack. At least according to the bag. My rudimentary Spanish would indicate that it says snack of corn though. So maybe Hispanic customers are drawn to corn and gringos want cheese?

Tour 2016 - Dallas (Day 4)

Ranking Cheese Doodle: There were none.

So here’s a recipe for making your own! I expect pictures and reviews in the comments section.

http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/crunchy-cheese-puffs

Idiocy From the Van: Monocle Lewinsky

Our hotel in Tulsa was directly across the road from ORU. No, not The Winnie the Pooh Center for Zen Iconography but Oral Roberts University. For those lucky enough to be ignorant of the Oral’s legacy he was one of the original televangelist preachers, who came up with a version of Christianity whereupon gifts of money to God resulted in tangible blessing from heaven. He was a poor, itinerant Pentacostal preacher, charismatic enough to draw 10,000 people to his tent meetings for faith healings. Eventually, by hiring advertising companies and pioneering direct mail solicitations he became incredibly wealthy. In a bid for respect he founded the Orally Roberted University in the 1960’s. Oral’s son Robert, a twat, spent the University’s money and ran it into the ground by the 1990’s. Then that douche who owns Hobby Lobby gave the University over 50 million dollars and it was restored to its former glory. There’s nothing I can add to the topic of evangelists that a hundred earnest 1980’s songs hasn’t said better. Charlatans preying on the weak. Jesus.

So the reason for that backstory is the architecture of the Uni. It’s awesome. It was designed primarily by Frank Wallace and was in the Futurist style. Admittedly it all looks like the Disney/Epcot view of what the future would be like, but it’s a bright, shiny, golden, angular view nonetheless. The Prayer Tower, modeled off the Seattle Space Needle, is a flying space crown of thorns, with a heavenly tractor beam projecting down to earth in order to lift us up into heaven’s gently probing arms. At least that’s what it looks like to me. The main cathedral is at is heart just an auditorium, but the atrium was really cool with vaulting white triangles and sweeping staircases. Maybe because it’s summer and school is out, but I was virtually alone on campus. Just me and the gardeners piping the tears of fleeced senior citizens onto the Forget-Me-Nots and Jack-in-the Pulpits. I could’ve rolled around naked on the pulpit/stage and no one would’ve said boo.*

I don’t remember much from the drive to Dallas except maybe one of the biggest differences between England and here: the never-ending sprawl that surrounds our cities. Mile after indistinguishable mile of dollar stores in cracked cement strip malls. It’s depressing as hell and creates a longing in me for nature to reassert itself and place our vanities in their proper place. I was also ambivalent about returning to Dallas. Our last show there was one of our worst. The smell of sewage outside the club strong enough to make a Welshman blink, horrible sound, disinterested audience, and we got into a fight onstage. This time we were playing in the Deep Elum area. We were in contact with Olie, who had landed in Dallas earlier that morning and he was reporting that the area around the club was one of the coolest places he’d ever been. We were putting that down to the over-heated excitement at being in a new country because Dallas is, you know, fine. It’s Dallas. We found him at the club and had a huggy, happy reunion; his natural, diffident, British reserve temporarily broken down in a rush of unfamiliar moist emotions. Much like I assume how people reacted to Churchill’s victory speech. “In all our long history we have never seen a day as this!” Or so I assume.

Deep Elum was pretty cool with lots of really good restaurants and bars. It was obvious it would be a better night than our previous Dallas effort. I liked it better during the day before it became a bro-centric entertainment district. Everyone went to the Pecan Lodge for apparently amazing barbecue and I went to Il Cane Rosso and had one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. Truly.

3 Links is a great rock club, the sound guy was top notch and I loved it there. We had around six hours between soundcheck and playing. Dinner killed some time but there really wasn’t much else to do.** It was hot as the back of Andre the Giant’s balls slung in a singlet on the sun. Fortunately the opener Joe Gorgeous was very good, and the American Werewolf Academy were inspiring. I contend they might be one of the best rock bands working these days. There’s a timeless quality to their songs and they don’t really require any hyphenated descriptors, although they do remind me a bit of an american You Am I.

We played to a good-sized crowd of people largely unfamiliar with our music. It’s a good thing I think. We’re trying to build a following and all. Did it work? I guess we’ll find out when we come back.

Tomorrow is Austin. 

*They’re not booing they’re saying put your damn clothes back on you pudgy bald freek.

** I did go into this vintage toy store and played a game I had never heard of: Baby Pac Man. It’s a combo pinball machine and video game and it was ridiculously difficult. When playing the video game there were no things to eat in order to turn the tables on the ghosts but you could escape down two pathways in the bottom whereupon you would disappear and a pinball would pop out. But there was nothing to bounce the ball off of and the paddle gap was wide.