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: District of Columbiad (or the History of Wussy in our Nation's Capital)

When you’re a small band who doesn’t make their living touring, doesn’t fly to shows, have a driver who can drive over night, or in other words if you’re like the vast majority of bands who tour, then some cities or even regions will get short shrift.* For instance, look at the southern United States. (just don’t look too close at our women, guns, flags, cholesterol, and investment in public education) For us however, we have no radio station pushing us down there, no media center that we can hopefully get some press out of, and with it being so far away we can only play the region once every few years. It’s hard to build a following that way. Now look at the Pacific Northwest, which is even further away. KEXP has been playing us since the beginning, so by the time we got there, holy shit there’s people who know the music and want to see us. The more prosaic reality is where you can reach a city within a reasonable amount of time, play there a million times and hope word of mouth with the occasional media mention will result in a fan base. You just grind it out. Sometimes though a city just isn’t into you. (And then Samantha chides, “Carrie, how many times are you going to keep going there? Where’s your pride my fine young mare? It’s time to let the dream go, stand tall, stick your bosoms out, and only make the occasional booty call if the routing really makes sense.”) There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do OK in Pittsburgh. It’s just been like a series of weird first dates every time we play there. Is it them? Is it us? Washington D.C. has been like that too.

• Shrift is a pleasant word to say. So much so I think it should be used to describe something like the rippling movement a summer dress makes while a woman is walking. Instead it means the absolution or remission of sins by a priest. Which is good too. Not as good as mine but still good. The phrase short shrift was first written down unsurprisingly by Shakespeare, and originally was used when criminals were sent straight from sentencing to the gallows and thus only allowed to receive a quick shrift.

 The First Time

The first time we played D.C. was actually in Arlington, at a tiny place called the Galaxy Hut. This was in the Dawn era and I had fucked up. It was one of those years where Easter fell super early and to be honest I had no idea it moved around at all. I still had small children at the time and Easter was a big deal. Easter hunts, (we have a tradition going way back that whoever finds the egg with Mike written on it wins the Mike Hunt) family, rolls rising symbolically and then crossed with hot white frosting dripping down the sides. And here I had OK’d the band being away from town that weekend. But before all that we had a show to play Easter Eve.

The stage at the Galaxy Hut was a rectangle painted on the floor, no larger than a tract housing walk-in closet. The club could fit around 50 people and it was packed. Not for us, but the other band had someone from Dismemberment Plan in it and people were psyched to see that. We were arranged like a police line-up in our painted corner: Dawn, Chuck, Lisa then me. I still brought the keyboard then so it was tight. Not a bad show, but when we tried to book a show there later on they had decided not to pay some sort of license fee and bands could not play original music there, only covers. Don’t ask me.

Anyway, we were staying at a friend’s place in Arlington, us still at the sleeping on floors stage of things. The next morning was Easter, and wracked with guilt I decided I needed a pilgrimage of some sort to accomplish what I don’t know. Arlington Cemetery seemed promising but the only thing going on there was a sunrise service and fuck that. So the next obvious spiritual icon would have to be the National Cathedral. Those Episcopalians sure build a nice church. I took the Metro to DuPont Circle, which was as close as it got to the church. I came up out of the hole into a perfect robin’s egg blue spring morning, and also into a fancy-pants farmer’s market. Children in strollers being pushed by impossibly white-toothed parents in earth tones and soft jeans laughing and leaning into each other as they picked out the perfect bunch of organic arugula and artisanal cheese to numb the nascent disquiet that would eventually lead him to unplug the nanny-cam and her to drink at noon. It was lovely and made me feel better. I got a fresh chocolate croissant and an organic indigenous butt-cheek squeezed apple cider, watched the automatons cheerily pretending that the tech bubble wasn’t about to burst, and then began looking for the bus stop that would take me toot sweet to the Cathedral. I can’t remember what it’s called but the bus stop was on the road known as embassy row. I waited and waited becoming increasingly certain that the busses must not run even the minimal holiday schedule on Easter. I gave myself an hour before I’d start walking, an interval my increasingly crazed mind had designated as being the longest anyone would make someone wait at a bus stop on a non-blizzard non-rush hour day. (I hate waiting. I don’t do it well. Hell is amusement parks. Welcome to Sartre Flags Parks! Suicide inducing levels of waiting for a reward of nausea! All the while surrounded by the stickiest and loudest Americans with no exit in sight forever….) After leaving and then walking back to the bus stop several times in consternation, I said “Fuck it” and left in the direction of the Cathedral. Approximately 150 yards down the road the bus blew past me. I stomped my feet and swore voluminously with what I’d like to imagine was the deep drunken creativity of Dylan Thomas at closing time, and the outsized fist shaking anger of Stone Cold Steve Austin battling the Corporation. And then I just started walking. Every driveway was a different country’s embassy and a better geographical lesson would be harder to find this side of Carmen Sandiego’s outstretched thigh. Besides, if you’re going on a pilgrimage for spiritual redemption then lots of walking really should be involved.

Fairly exhausted and sweaty, the Cathedral was beautiful and of a scale and type that does not seem to be so common in the states. Services were long over and that was fine. The air was cool and peaceful and I was really looking for a more meditative environment anyway. I found a pew off to the side and just sat until the hurt lessened to the point where I could accept the choice I’d made (and would make) to play music for a handful of people instead of being with my kids.

Ponderous Ponderables

It’s been several years of this life now and my kids seem to be doing fine. Or to put another way, I’m guessing once again I’ve overstated the importance of my omnipresent presence in their lives. I’m not sure the smothering always hovering style of modern parenting is entirely necessary or beneficial. We were talking in the van about the benign neglect of parenting when we were kids. The people in this band grew up in areas ranging from rural to mild suburbia so our experiences are not universal. It was a childhood where you were expected to be outside all day, just not late for dinner. My Dad would go away for a week or two pretty regularly and it wasn’t looked at askance. It was a bike ramps built out of scraps of wood for jumping over small muddy creeks named Snake River, Estes rocket engines dipped in gasoline, bottle rocket wars, hitting your friends dad’s liquor cabinet, riding lawn mower/tractor/go-kart driving kind of childhood. I swear I’m not trying to paint an overly bucolic picture of the way things were. I’m an adult. I have no idea what it’s like to be a child now. I hope they’re having fun, making lots of (non-fatal) poor choices, figuring out which kids are actually assholes and why, absorbing mountains of useless pop culture trivia in which to identify members of their tribe decades from now. I just figure that having the weight of parental expectations constantly upon your shoulders must be exhausting and ultimately limiting. The overwhelming love you have for your kids, and the awesome interesting people they are can make us forget the fact that our job is to turn them loose on the world.

Second through Fourth Time

Anyway, back to our history in D.C. We played the next two times at a place called the Red and the Black.** It being the equipment carried up a long flight of stairs to a small room with a stage set into the wall and encased in seedy red velvet curtains, looking for all the world like a burlesque puppet theater, kind of place. The money for the sound guy came out of the door sales so both times we made approximately $25. The band opened up for the Heartless Bastards the next time in town but had to drive through hurricane Sandy to get there.

**Best song on the new Iron Maiden record? Perhaps. The ending does go on a bit.

Rick Steve’s Presents

Back to the present: The day after Easter (See? Who says growth is unpossible?) we drove into D.C. even though our show was the next day. Why play a show after a nine-hour drive if you don’t have to? You know what this means don’t ya? Museums!! First up was a new one for me: The Air and Space Museum Annex out by Dulles Airport. The first thing I see is the Langley Aerodrome A. I am endlessly fascinated by the Wright Brothers. Seemingly socially awkward, obsessively focused, willing to scrap an idea if it’s not working or work tirelessly to hone a concept that was hazy. The idea that genius can come from diligence, stubbornness, insane amounts of hard work, as well as the inspiration that such work creates is very inspiring to me. And their native weirdness is just icing on the cake. Screw you North Carolina. Flight could only truly gestate in the isolated oddness of southern Ohio. Anyway, Langley was also trying to create powered manned flight. The difference was that he had the imprimatur of the government and the scientific community. The aerodrome was his great failure and seeing it in person it seems impossible now to ever have imagined it was going to lift humanity from the surface of the earth. The shiny and sobering Enola Gay sits center stage and it’s pretty wonderful to get up close to the shuttle Discovery. The elevated walkways around the hangar are a feature I’d love to see added to the Dayton Air Force Museum, but on the downside MacDonald’s is the only place to eat. Gross.

Next to navigate a circuitous path via the public transportation system from out there down to the Mall. Lunch in the Museum of the American Indians because it’s the only place to get a decent vegetarian meal in that area. Then on to the National Gallery. I don’t need to describe this as pretty everyone has been there, but what a lovely collection of El Grecos, Vermeers and to say nothing of the Da Vinci. The main domed area, with the fountain, what the hell is that called? Dammit. Insert architectural word here. Well it was filled with Easter Lillies and smelled divine. Few things are quite as soul filling as a good church-like art museum. Then I walked past the Capital Building with all the cherry trees so in bloom their fragrance was on the air. My feet hurt but I walked the two miles to the club, seeing parts of D.C. where the poor people most definitely weren’t. Corridors of power indeed.

Fifth Time

 It’s been a few years and our new booking agent really wanted us to try again, so it was decided we would dip our toes in at a very small club called the Treehouse. Once again with the lovely load-in up a flight of stairs, and then onto a weird stage with no monitors that was basically two squares next to each other, but offset to the point where maybe only a quarter of the two pieces are touching. So if you’re looking at the stage, the right side, where the audience can get right up next it to has Chuck and Lisa. To the left and back the rest of the band. In front of the non-Chuck/Lisa is the rail to keep us from hurtling down the stairs. Anyway, it’s weird. The owners were super nice and it became apparent pretty quickly that people were really excited to see us. The audience just poured amazing enthusiasm and love out to us and it was lovely. Lisa sang with the Paranoid Style, one of the openers, and they are truly a band to keep an eye out for. So good.

So maybe this D.C. thing is going to work out after all.

The Rest of the Leg

Our next show was an art space in a transitional neighborhood in Queens where the stage was lit only by a few naked red and blue bulbs that managed to both blind us to our instruments and yet provide no useful illumination at all. Both Chuck and Joe fell off the stage at one point. The Indian restaurant next door was so delicious that the glacially slow service was rendered irrelevant. Next up was the Milkboy in Philadelphia with our dear Phili fans. That afternoon we recorded a set in the WPRB radio studio on the Princeton campus. John Soloman was a sweetheart and it was fun to be in station with rows of vinyl singles and shelves of lp’s. Next up was a show at an old friend and long-time supporter of the bands house. House shows have such a different vibe, but I think it went well. The highlight was engaging in a full on Nerf gun battle upstairs with his kids while Lisa was singing Majestic 12, and then coming back down into the basement to finish the set. Take that Led Zeppelin for backstage hi-jinks. We finished up in Boston at the small and sold out Midway. Thalia Zedek opened up for us and she completely lived up to her reputation. A lot of familiar and friendly faces in the audience and there was a certain sweet and emotional feeling this night.

Next up we’re going to England, Scotland, and Wales. Now there’s a reason to keep the blog going. We are besides ourselves with anticipation.