09/27/2006 Arizona State University - Phoenix, AZ
Other bands: none
I've probably said it before. Arizona is hot. Even in late September.
We rolled into the quad area in the middle of the lunch hour. I could feel the sun attacking my forehead skin like a blowdryer on plastic wrap. It was almost dizzying and I tried not to move much at first on account of wearing too many clothes.
We found a small half-built stage in front of what looked like an administration building, facing a student center commons area. A medium-sized rock inched its way down my esophagus and nestled in my stomach when I realized we'd be selling ourselves to a roaming organism of text-occupied nineteen-year-olds in the middle of their workday. We'd be a thirty-second novelty at best. Cannon fodder for restless and uncreative hecklers at worst.
The stage was fortunately tented when all was said and done. We had a single contact from the university, a girl who we rarely saw. She either worked for the school radio station or the programming board. The stagehands were anonymous and unspoken. We set up right alongside the credit card hawkers and poster sellers.
So we swallowed hard and cranked the amps and squinted the sun out of our eyes. I was becoming much more the hardened entertainer, saying all the introductory lines and pleases and thank yous, sometimes in earnest, sometimes without a shred of sincerity depending on how I gauged the crowd. Stage manners were to be employed no matter what the cost.
An older man came up to the side of the stage and did an old man dance to our set. One part Ian Curtis, one part Freedom Rock. And when one person comes up close amid a sparse horseshoe of onlookers like this man did, it's hard to not think you're being made fun of. So I jumped on his back from the stage.
I rode him around the front like a horse until he dropped me on the concrete. Turns out he just enjoyed the music.
No hard feelings.
Monday, September 21, 2009
September 25, 2006 "Brats in Battalions"
9/25/2006 University of Southern California - Fullerton, CA
Other bands: none
It did me well to think about waking up on a daily basis in a Mission Viejo house like this one, shuffling out to that private veranda with a French press in one hand and a laptop in the other. Clothing optional.
I never had too much of a problem with my Indiana backyard, other than the typical ennui one usually associates with one's hometown. I had a half-built fence on mine. Plus an overgrown garden. A fire pit with a few empty beer bottles scattered around it. A decaying plastic tugboat full of play sand. A fence separating my yard from my neighbor's yard and trampoline. I watched it fill up with snow in the winter, get tunneled by moles in the summer. A state of mind.
My backyard was an old comfortable shoe. Home in solitude, an ever-so-slight embarrassment in the presence of company. It's where I could sit in a plastic chair in front of a fire, drinking beer in the middle of the night to try to take the edge off the burning "whats next" questions that ate away my days off the road.
Everyone is beautiful in California and every backyard is too. Even the derelict alleys and HIV-infected denizens of skid row have cinematic charm. You've seen it all before. Probably paid $8.50 to sit in a darkened theater to do so. Johnny's neighborhood was the E.T. neighborhood, was the Mulholland Drive neighborhood, was the L.A. Story neighborhood, was the Shopgirl neighborhood.
Backyards. A state of mind. But I digress.
The label had set up a bunch of collegiate shows moving forward that offered no pay, not much stage time, yet the golden opportunity to hawk our merchandise to roving herds of students during their lunch hours. It became obvious that we were playing the role of street busker, only without a collections hat or sandwich board and with much louder instruments.
Three or four guys from Immortal made the drive to see us perform, which was something. It used to surprise me how often LA people, most of whom we'd see once or twice a year, would shirk coming to shows on the basis of the length of the drive. Maybe I just got used to driving an hour to Indianapolis or two hours to Cincinnati to see anything halfway good.
We performed in the heat of midday, the sun blistering my forehead. Hundreds of students hiked across the quad from one building to the next, usually pausing for thirty seconds to watch us, nod (or roll eyes), then walk on. We were still high off the Chain Reaction show and burnt through the set on fire until I jumped off the stage and ran and jumped in a fountain 50 yards away, twisting my ankle.
The Immortals were humbled and awed. Thankfully so. I never felt like we awed anyone at Fearless, ever. Not with our live show, anyway.
We talked strategy for a bit while I dried out and hobbled to a grassy knoll where we sat and ate label-funded burritos. The free-meal routine was just that by now. Routine. Eat what you can get for free. Nod and say your "mm-hmms" at the right place while they recite a bunch of metrics and drop a bunch of names to get everyone excited. Then get in the van and slowly realize you'll be lucky if just 20% of what gets said gets done.
We shot some video with Isaac and Jason, mostly of me harassing students and faculty with my accordion. We did manage to sell a surprising amount of CDs, giving both us and the label hope that this next week wouldn't be the grueling test of the limits of patience and sanity that it would actually become.
Most of this was shot at this show and the Chain Reaction show. I'm peeing on Chain Reaction at 2:24.
Other bands: none
It did me well to think about waking up on a daily basis in a Mission Viejo house like this one, shuffling out to that private veranda with a French press in one hand and a laptop in the other. Clothing optional.
I never had too much of a problem with my Indiana backyard, other than the typical ennui one usually associates with one's hometown. I had a half-built fence on mine. Plus an overgrown garden. A fire pit with a few empty beer bottles scattered around it. A decaying plastic tugboat full of play sand. A fence separating my yard from my neighbor's yard and trampoline. I watched it fill up with snow in the winter, get tunneled by moles in the summer. A state of mind.
My backyard was an old comfortable shoe. Home in solitude, an ever-so-slight embarrassment in the presence of company. It's where I could sit in a plastic chair in front of a fire, drinking beer in the middle of the night to try to take the edge off the burning "whats next" questions that ate away my days off the road.
Everyone is beautiful in California and every backyard is too. Even the derelict alleys and HIV-infected denizens of skid row have cinematic charm. You've seen it all before. Probably paid $8.50 to sit in a darkened theater to do so. Johnny's neighborhood was the E.T. neighborhood, was the Mulholland Drive neighborhood, was the L.A. Story neighborhood, was the Shopgirl neighborhood.
Backyards. A state of mind. But I digress.
The label had set up a bunch of collegiate shows moving forward that offered no pay, not much stage time, yet the golden opportunity to hawk our merchandise to roving herds of students during their lunch hours. It became obvious that we were playing the role of street busker, only without a collections hat or sandwich board and with much louder instruments.
Three or four guys from Immortal made the drive to see us perform, which was something. It used to surprise me how often LA people, most of whom we'd see once or twice a year, would shirk coming to shows on the basis of the length of the drive. Maybe I just got used to driving an hour to Indianapolis or two hours to Cincinnati to see anything halfway good.
We performed in the heat of midday, the sun blistering my forehead. Hundreds of students hiked across the quad from one building to the next, usually pausing for thirty seconds to watch us, nod (or roll eyes), then walk on. We were still high off the Chain Reaction show and burnt through the set on fire until I jumped off the stage and ran and jumped in a fountain 50 yards away, twisting my ankle.
The Immortals were humbled and awed. Thankfully so. I never felt like we awed anyone at Fearless, ever. Not with our live show, anyway.
We talked strategy for a bit while I dried out and hobbled to a grassy knoll where we sat and ate label-funded burritos. The free-meal routine was just that by now. Routine. Eat what you can get for free. Nod and say your "mm-hmms" at the right place while they recite a bunch of metrics and drop a bunch of names to get everyone excited. Then get in the van and slowly realize you'll be lucky if just 20% of what gets said gets done.
We shot some video with Isaac and Jason, mostly of me harassing students and faculty with my accordion. We did manage to sell a surprising amount of CDs, giving both us and the label hope that this next week wouldn't be the grueling test of the limits of patience and sanity that it would actually become.
Most of this was shot at this show and the Chain Reaction show. I'm peeing on Chain Reaction at 2:24.
September 24, 2006 "Mr. Totally"
09/24/2006 Soma - San Diego, CA
Other bands: Mutemath, Shiny Toy Guns
Soma.
Now and again, as always, luck would take a sideways glance in our direction and we'd find ourselves on an actual stage worthy of 6 years of work and in front of crowd that, though still not ours, satiated at least briefly, a band's universal and desperate need for attention.
We pulled into the SOMA loading docks, the only van amidst a caravan of buses, still a complete unknown. The place looked like it was carved out of a relatively new movie megaplex. Covered with flyers, but still carpeted and not yet dingy enough to feel like a true musical swingers lair.
Both Mutemath and Shiny Toy Guns were bands that had thus far remained outside the ping of my radar, yet were building enough simmer to attract pricey tour budgets and stage plots with, admittedly, pretty amazing lights and fog. Indie cred be damned, I would have given my left leg to have a bus with enough room to lay longways in without having to be six inches from another members foot.
The bands were nice (unlike the house manager who told Bryan our mix sounded like shit) but aloof as the five of us were scooted onto stage for a quick soundcheck. I say "five" because Nic caught a plane home to participate in a lengthy bout of court ordered therapy due to an arrest a few months earlier. He was popped by the local 5-0 leaving a local bar and apparently blew just enough to get him a night in the drunk tank.
This stressed me out more than it should have - one, because it meant he would be leaving the tour at some point and thereby throwing our fragile (in my head) existence into tumult, and two, because for all Nic's quiet, pensive genius, I sometimes worried about his excesses, even though they were really no more excessive than any of the rest of us. I could not escape being a protective brother.
So we spent the few days off at Johnny's parents rearranging our setlist to primarily include songs with the least amount of piano and to make sure I could play and sing on the songs that we did play.
I won't say I pulled it off magnificently, but the diminishment of our life show was marginal at best. Nailed the break in The Vapours but gave up singing during the break in Breathe entirely. Regardless, the crowd of several hundred stood and stared, motionless, politely clapping at the end of each tune. I played to the front, escaping my binding nerves as I was increasingly able to do, even thought the front was a wall of text-messaging girls and their coiffed boyfriends.
And we sold no merch. Despite the lines out the door. Despite the nearly sold-out 1000-cap venue and the draw of the other bands. We were invisible, an inconvenience on the way to ninety minutes with the nu-prog rock darling of the fiscal quarter, which wasn't us.
Other bands: Mutemath, Shiny Toy Guns
Soma.
Now and again, as always, luck would take a sideways glance in our direction and we'd find ourselves on an actual stage worthy of 6 years of work and in front of crowd that, though still not ours, satiated at least briefly, a band's universal and desperate need for attention.
We pulled into the SOMA loading docks, the only van amidst a caravan of buses, still a complete unknown. The place looked like it was carved out of a relatively new movie megaplex. Covered with flyers, but still carpeted and not yet dingy enough to feel like a true musical swingers lair.
Both Mutemath and Shiny Toy Guns were bands that had thus far remained outside the ping of my radar, yet were building enough simmer to attract pricey tour budgets and stage plots with, admittedly, pretty amazing lights and fog. Indie cred be damned, I would have given my left leg to have a bus with enough room to lay longways in without having to be six inches from another members foot.
The bands were nice (unlike the house manager who told Bryan our mix sounded like shit) but aloof as the five of us were scooted onto stage for a quick soundcheck. I say "five" because Nic caught a plane home to participate in a lengthy bout of court ordered therapy due to an arrest a few months earlier. He was popped by the local 5-0 leaving a local bar and apparently blew just enough to get him a night in the drunk tank.
This stressed me out more than it should have - one, because it meant he would be leaving the tour at some point and thereby throwing our fragile (in my head) existence into tumult, and two, because for all Nic's quiet, pensive genius, I sometimes worried about his excesses, even though they were really no more excessive than any of the rest of us. I could not escape being a protective brother.
So we spent the few days off at Johnny's parents rearranging our setlist to primarily include songs with the least amount of piano and to make sure I could play and sing on the songs that we did play.
I won't say I pulled it off magnificently, but the diminishment of our life show was marginal at best. Nailed the break in The Vapours but gave up singing during the break in Breathe entirely. Regardless, the crowd of several hundred stood and stared, motionless, politely clapping at the end of each tune. I played to the front, escaping my binding nerves as I was increasingly able to do, even thought the front was a wall of text-messaging girls and their coiffed boyfriends.
And we sold no merch. Despite the lines out the door. Despite the nearly sold-out 1000-cap venue and the draw of the other bands. We were invisible, an inconvenience on the way to ninety minutes with the nu-prog rock darling of the fiscal quarter, which wasn't us.
September 23, 2006 "Death of a Gremmie"
09/23/2006 Chain Reaction - Anaheim, CA
Other bands: Lola Ray
So we stayed a long day at Johnny's house, meeting his mother and grandmother Lola Ray, for whom the band was named. She was a charming old Filipino lady that shuffled around the house making sure the rice cooker was always full and steaming for us growing boys.
We were back West for the first time since resigning and therefore had all sorts of meeting and greeting to endure. It was always a fascinating thing to do, meeting these folk and seeing their digs, but it usually always led to us being late for load in. The first person we met was Isaac who came out with our first load of CDs.
He was a gangly kid who gave us the lowdown on everyone we'd met in the offices. There was Jason who came from Victory Records, Daniel who came from Universal and Happy who owned the joint and made his money pimping nu-metal in the 90s when it was actually nu. Except Happy was never there. He was always off somewhere exotic honing his photography skills.
So we listened to our new CD in Johnny's upstairs loft. It was a bittersweet joy to finally hear it in the final version after all that we had been through to bring it into this world. The label had even taken so long to send payment that Tarbox was threatening to file suit. I can't say it was a comfortable place to be, and in fact more than a little embarrassing.
But payment did finally come from the turnip, and our CD was released fully packaged with gleamy glossy retail sheen. We each took a copy and unwrapped it. Felt its matte booklet. We'd never had anything other than straight, traditional glossy.
We stuck it in the player and during the verse of You Never Know it skipped. We put in another CD. It also skipped. We all took turns with all the rest we'd opened. They all skipped.
The strangest thing was, when we went to the Immortal Entertainment offices - which were in a Santa Monica Boulevard high rise with a huge wrought iron Immortal logo, behind a gilded receptionist desk, down a marble hallway, and through doorways slung in platinum records - and played it for them, they didn't hear it.
We pushed it a little bit, but I think we were through fighting battles on this record. It was out. I hoped that maybe each person that bought it and heard it would think that they had the only malfunctioning copy and would excuse it.
I've discovered the amount of times a band can play a shitty venue before finally deciding to mop it up, and that amount is five.
The vibe of the Chain Reaction had changed much since the first time I'd been there. Geographically it was the same. The stage was in the same place. The floor layout was the same. I had been there when it was shoulder-to-shoulder with industry trying to see what some were calling the next fill-in-the-blank band. Us. And I had been there two years later when no one gave a shit.
And we were here again, still silently hoping for the high of that first time, and knowing that we weren't going to get it. I won't attempt to wax a poetic cliche about Southern California being the proverbial boulevard of broken dreams, but there is something to be said for the enormous amounts of money and attention floating around the area looking for something to be aimed at and channeled into without rhyme or reason maybe just because the singer has two different colored eyes or the guitar player talks up a half-made up story about living on the street. The potentialities of it all make people do strange things. Perhaps the strangest of all is the compulsion to ignore the odds.
I drained a 40 in the car of Tazy Phyllipz who ran an indie show responsible for breaking No Doubt and Sublime. He put a microphone in my face and conducted an interview while I tried to keep up with the questions as best I could in a haze of Mickeys.
Blaze was there again. Hung out with us in the dressing room while Nic and I drained a bottle of cheap wine that turned our mouths purple. He said he was worried about our drinking. I told him we were fine. It was the only thing I could find that would place the buffer between a thousand sets of eyes and a soul. It was like dancing in a room walled with a 2 way mirror. I knew they were there but I didn't care because I couldn't really see them.
I wanted to burn through those bodies like napalm. The Chain Reaction was a place where I'd felt most disconcerted, the most let down in the history of all our touring. It was usually the first place we would play in the region and would set the tone for the rest of our stay. I couldn't connect with those kids because they were all rich Orange County punks with more money and better skin. We were flyover trash disconnected from any sort of scene at home or abroad.
But this time we had our armor. I had my suit on. We tore through a set like it was a snakish religious experience. I threw myself to the crowd time and again. Stood defiantly at the front of the stage, arms raised with imaginary foam fists attached to my hands, pulling out reaction from their bodies like it was hardened mutagenic tar.
At the end of Strange Days I pulled the entire front row onstage and crawled through their legs, lifting them up on my shoulders. Falling down into a pile.
Lindsey texted Blaze to ask how we were.
"It's the best I've ever seen them."
It was the last time we'd ever play Chain Reaction, and in my head, we burned the fucker down.
Other bands: Lola Ray
So we stayed a long day at Johnny's house, meeting his mother and grandmother Lola Ray, for whom the band was named. She was a charming old Filipino lady that shuffled around the house making sure the rice cooker was always full and steaming for us growing boys.
We were back West for the first time since resigning and therefore had all sorts of meeting and greeting to endure. It was always a fascinating thing to do, meeting these folk and seeing their digs, but it usually always led to us being late for load in. The first person we met was Isaac who came out with our first load of CDs.
He was a gangly kid who gave us the lowdown on everyone we'd met in the offices. There was Jason who came from Victory Records, Daniel who came from Universal and Happy who owned the joint and made his money pimping nu-metal in the 90s when it was actually nu. Except Happy was never there. He was always off somewhere exotic honing his photography skills.
So we listened to our new CD in Johnny's upstairs loft. It was a bittersweet joy to finally hear it in the final version after all that we had been through to bring it into this world. The label had even taken so long to send payment that Tarbox was threatening to file suit. I can't say it was a comfortable place to be, and in fact more than a little embarrassing.
But payment did finally come from the turnip, and our CD was released fully packaged with gleamy glossy retail sheen. We each took a copy and unwrapped it. Felt its matte booklet. We'd never had anything other than straight, traditional glossy.
We stuck it in the player and during the verse of You Never Know it skipped. We put in another CD. It also skipped. We all took turns with all the rest we'd opened. They all skipped.
The strangest thing was, when we went to the Immortal Entertainment offices - which were in a Santa Monica Boulevard high rise with a huge wrought iron Immortal logo, behind a gilded receptionist desk, down a marble hallway, and through doorways slung in platinum records - and played it for them, they didn't hear it.
We pushed it a little bit, but I think we were through fighting battles on this record. It was out. I hoped that maybe each person that bought it and heard it would think that they had the only malfunctioning copy and would excuse it.
I've discovered the amount of times a band can play a shitty venue before finally deciding to mop it up, and that amount is five.
The vibe of the Chain Reaction had changed much since the first time I'd been there. Geographically it was the same. The stage was in the same place. The floor layout was the same. I had been there when it was shoulder-to-shoulder with industry trying to see what some were calling the next fill-in-the-blank band. Us. And I had been there two years later when no one gave a shit.
And we were here again, still silently hoping for the high of that first time, and knowing that we weren't going to get it. I won't attempt to wax a poetic cliche about Southern California being the proverbial boulevard of broken dreams, but there is something to be said for the enormous amounts of money and attention floating around the area looking for something to be aimed at and channeled into without rhyme or reason maybe just because the singer has two different colored eyes or the guitar player talks up a half-made up story about living on the street. The potentialities of it all make people do strange things. Perhaps the strangest of all is the compulsion to ignore the odds.
I drained a 40 in the car of Tazy Phyllipz who ran an indie show responsible for breaking No Doubt and Sublime. He put a microphone in my face and conducted an interview while I tried to keep up with the questions as best I could in a haze of Mickeys.
Blaze was there again. Hung out with us in the dressing room while Nic and I drained a bottle of cheap wine that turned our mouths purple. He said he was worried about our drinking. I told him we were fine. It was the only thing I could find that would place the buffer between a thousand sets of eyes and a soul. It was like dancing in a room walled with a 2 way mirror. I knew they were there but I didn't care because I couldn't really see them.
I wanted to burn through those bodies like napalm. The Chain Reaction was a place where I'd felt most disconcerted, the most let down in the history of all our touring. It was usually the first place we would play in the region and would set the tone for the rest of our stay. I couldn't connect with those kids because they were all rich Orange County punks with more money and better skin. We were flyover trash disconnected from any sort of scene at home or abroad.
But this time we had our armor. I had my suit on. We tore through a set like it was a snakish religious experience. I threw myself to the crowd time and again. Stood defiantly at the front of the stage, arms raised with imaginary foam fists attached to my hands, pulling out reaction from their bodies like it was hardened mutagenic tar.
At the end of Strange Days I pulled the entire front row onstage and crawled through their legs, lifting them up on my shoulders. Falling down into a pile.
Lindsey texted Blaze to ask how we were.
"It's the best I've ever seen them."
It was the last time we'd ever play Chain Reaction, and in my head, we burned the fucker down.
September 20, 2006 "Mushmouth Shoutin"
09/20/2006 Meridien - Houston, TX
Other bands: Lola Ray
Me, at Meridien. Wait, no. That's Edgar Winter, a different albino.
It was four or five hours to Houston. We normally didn't have to be at clubs until 5 or 6, which meant we could sleep long in San Antonio. Then we had two blank days to get ourselves from eastern Texas to Orange County, California.
Meridien was a big multi-tiered complex with a small room for small shows like ours and a big room for big shows with bands like AFI or My Morning Jacket. It was well-kept and seemed fairly new, and seemed to be put together by someone who had been in the concert promotion game for quite some time.
I spent all my time in the dressing room watching Nic fashion a helmet and gloves out of aluminum foil. I tried to stay out of the main rooms in all the clubs we visited as much as possible because it still affected my nerves too much. I could toggle the alter-ego switch better if I stayed in the green rooms.
The show went well but without much audience participation (primarily because there wasn't much of an audience to participate). But there were four girls who came to see Lola Ray and became Brazil fans by the end of the concert. They were young college-types, eager to let us sleep on their floor and we obliged.
We left late the next morning, heading west on I-10 after a fast food breakfast and piss break. If we were smart we would have all been obsessive coupon clippers and Subway Sub Club card carriers. If we were even smarter, we would have signed up for a frequent-lodger program with a hotel chain. But we didn't because fame was always right around the corner and it seemed like a lot of work for something that we'd expense a major label for anyway at some point.
We saw Texas scrub once again turn to New Mexico and Arizona desert. Arizona desert turn into California desert, and then into California's version of paradise. Two and a half days seems like time enough to get from the middle of the US to the left coast. But unless you are driving in round the clock shifts, it is not.
Cash was again a scarce commodity, especially since we weren't making any money for two straight days, so we slept in the van at a rest stop on a deserted desert highway. It was high adventure camping - some of the guys opened up the trailer and used it as a shelter - but I worried about scorpions and coyotes and the fact that desert highways seemed like places where a senseless massacre by a rogue trucker would most likely take place.
That "movie" feeling of automotive desert crossing had lost some of its potency over the years but it was still there. I could still feel a tangible change the closer we came to Southern California, as if the smell of money wafted through the air the minute we passed Indio.
We arrived at Johnny's parents' house in Mission Viejo in the middle of the night. It was an upscale place in a cul-de-sac in the hilly outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a home that might fetch $400,000 in Indiana, but in California would probably sell for upwards of three quarters of a mil.
In the tradition of true Filipino hospitality, an enormous spread of food was left out on the table for us to devour at 4am.
Other bands: Lola Ray
Me, at Meridien. Wait, no. That's Edgar Winter, a different albino.
It was four or five hours to Houston. We normally didn't have to be at clubs until 5 or 6, which meant we could sleep long in San Antonio. Then we had two blank days to get ourselves from eastern Texas to Orange County, California.
Meridien was a big multi-tiered complex with a small room for small shows like ours and a big room for big shows with bands like AFI or My Morning Jacket. It was well-kept and seemed fairly new, and seemed to be put together by someone who had been in the concert promotion game for quite some time.
I spent all my time in the dressing room watching Nic fashion a helmet and gloves out of aluminum foil. I tried to stay out of the main rooms in all the clubs we visited as much as possible because it still affected my nerves too much. I could toggle the alter-ego switch better if I stayed in the green rooms.
The show went well but without much audience participation (primarily because there wasn't much of an audience to participate). But there were four girls who came to see Lola Ray and became Brazil fans by the end of the concert. They were young college-types, eager to let us sleep on their floor and we obliged.
We left late the next morning, heading west on I-10 after a fast food breakfast and piss break. If we were smart we would have all been obsessive coupon clippers and Subway Sub Club card carriers. If we were even smarter, we would have signed up for a frequent-lodger program with a hotel chain. But we didn't because fame was always right around the corner and it seemed like a lot of work for something that we'd expense a major label for anyway at some point.
We saw Texas scrub once again turn to New Mexico and Arizona desert. Arizona desert turn into California desert, and then into California's version of paradise. Two and a half days seems like time enough to get from the middle of the US to the left coast. But unless you are driving in round the clock shifts, it is not.
Cash was again a scarce commodity, especially since we weren't making any money for two straight days, so we slept in the van at a rest stop on a deserted desert highway. It was high adventure camping - some of the guys opened up the trailer and used it as a shelter - but I worried about scorpions and coyotes and the fact that desert highways seemed like places where a senseless massacre by a rogue trucker would most likely take place.
That "movie" feeling of automotive desert crossing had lost some of its potency over the years but it was still there. I could still feel a tangible change the closer we came to Southern California, as if the smell of money wafted through the air the minute we passed Indio.
We arrived at Johnny's parents' house in Mission Viejo in the middle of the night. It was an upscale place in a cul-de-sac in the hilly outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a home that might fetch $400,000 in Indiana, but in California would probably sell for upwards of three quarters of a mil.
In the tradition of true Filipino hospitality, an enormous spread of food was left out on the table for us to devour at 4am.
September 19, 2006 "My Freeholies Ain’t Free Anymore"
09/19/2006 The Sanctuary - San Antonio
Other bands: Lola Ray
Bloom, a woman of terrible genius and fashion sense, founded a summer camp, with her seventh husband, for young and exceptionally gifted writers. Bloom’s portion of the book was actually ghost written by her fourth husband at the time, owing to her obligations with a certain brand of 120 proof rye whiskey. It was her third husband who offered to publish the guide, and her thirteenth who signed on to ensure its publicity. When the Guide became somewhat of a success, her first and second husbands demanded a share of the royalties, her fifth and six husbands publicized a smear campaign against her, calling her an opportunistic windbag, while husbands eight through twelve tried, rather successfully after a time, to convince the others to form a rugby team and forget about the whole affair.
* * *
Two-day hauls across four states are usually regarded as a big ordeal by common folk, but for us half-dozen uncommon brethren it was just another interlude of gas station culture and ever-increasing familiarity of barns between mile markers.
I used look at tour itineraries of bands I liked and imagine myself following an atlas in my head playing second tambourine or perhaps singing backup doo-wops. Playing the basements and bowling alley rec rooms of the indie world. It all seemed like great fun. I would look at the itinerary one week, and then again two weeks later in awe that someone could be out having an adventure that long while I suffered quietly behind a school desk.
Then I started to do it, and it was great fun. The Unknown beckoned like a spectral hand, and for a few years it was great. But now I'd reached a point where ends of The Unknown were starting to seem like the ends of the highways in Pleasantville. Full of promise, but ultimately leading to the beginning of the shop half of an unromantic sound stage. Veil off. Magic drained.
All the times we played Houston and Dallas, and each time as if it were the first, in a new club, in front of a new handful of people. San Antonio actually had traction. The people in the audience were ours, and it caught me off guard. The Sanctuary was still a dive, and there weren't as many people there as had been for the Emery tour, but there was a small crowd and the ratio worked in our favor.
We all drank in the attached bar afterward, scoring free drinks from a gay Asian man that Nic befriended, and then drove to a gated community where lived a girl who moonlighted as a band manager for a local modern rock band. Most of her family was out of town so I was able to sleep in a bed for the first time in days.
Two days of bench-sleeping wiped me out and I crashed in some kids bedroom and slept black sleep for at least ten hours.
Other bands: Lola Ray
Bloom, a woman of terrible genius and fashion sense, founded a summer camp, with her seventh husband, for young and exceptionally gifted writers. Bloom’s portion of the book was actually ghost written by her fourth husband at the time, owing to her obligations with a certain brand of 120 proof rye whiskey. It was her third husband who offered to publish the guide, and her thirteenth who signed on to ensure its publicity. When the Guide became somewhat of a success, her first and second husbands demanded a share of the royalties, her fifth and six husbands publicized a smear campaign against her, calling her an opportunistic windbag, while husbands eight through twelve tried, rather successfully after a time, to convince the others to form a rugby team and forget about the whole affair.
* * *
Two-day hauls across four states are usually regarded as a big ordeal by common folk, but for us half-dozen uncommon brethren it was just another interlude of gas station culture and ever-increasing familiarity of barns between mile markers.
I used look at tour itineraries of bands I liked and imagine myself following an atlas in my head playing second tambourine or perhaps singing backup doo-wops. Playing the basements and bowling alley rec rooms of the indie world. It all seemed like great fun. I would look at the itinerary one week, and then again two weeks later in awe that someone could be out having an adventure that long while I suffered quietly behind a school desk.
Then I started to do it, and it was great fun. The Unknown beckoned like a spectral hand, and for a few years it was great. But now I'd reached a point where ends of The Unknown were starting to seem like the ends of the highways in Pleasantville. Full of promise, but ultimately leading to the beginning of the shop half of an unromantic sound stage. Veil off. Magic drained.
All the times we played Houston and Dallas, and each time as if it were the first, in a new club, in front of a new handful of people. San Antonio actually had traction. The people in the audience were ours, and it caught me off guard. The Sanctuary was still a dive, and there weren't as many people there as had been for the Emery tour, but there was a small crowd and the ratio worked in our favor.
We all drank in the attached bar afterward, scoring free drinks from a gay Asian man that Nic befriended, and then drove to a gated community where lived a girl who moonlighted as a band manager for a local modern rock band. Most of her family was out of town so I was able to sleep in a bed for the first time in days.
Two days of bench-sleeping wiped me out and I crashed in some kids bedroom and slept black sleep for at least ten hours.
September 17, 2006 "50 in the Clip"
09/17/2006 Big Daddy's - Tallahasee, FL
Other bands: Lola Ray
Whether or not it was the best idea I ever had, I went with Angelique to a porn mart down the street from the club in Tallahassee. It was a cheeky thing to do, completely in risque fun and with a veritable stranger (albeit a good looking one), though she had made it clear to me that at any time I wanted to ditch the scene, and for that matter our clothes, she would accomodate.
And I entertained the idea, if only at arms length, chewing on it like a warm rubber band. Having a kid does things to certain aspects of life at home. This could have been a perfect storm.
Ultimately, I never acted on any such urges. It was a short diversion and a ninety-second walk up the sidewalk to break the drudge of tour and even though I did feel a bit guilty about the whole ordeal, I was able to rationalize it by saying I ultimately never acted on any such urges. I merely danced around the flame, that's all. It was a game.
It did, however, cause me to wonder if I had opened a proverbial little red door, and maybe the next time I'd find myself in a similar situation I'd subsequently find myself on a dark van bench drenched in the smell of legs and hair with a stomach full of regret I'd have to drink away.
I put it out of my mind and Angelique left without incident.
Besides, my sex was on the stage. Maybe it was no coincidence that I now wore black gloves onstage, "rapist gloves" as some of the other guys used to call them. Performances were anymore a giant hatefuck directed in the direction of the smalls seas of apathetic faces dotting the lonely 200-cap landscapes we found ourselves in night after night.
I never turned my back on the audience anymore. They were a spotty wall of flesh that I constantly pushed against. And the more I did it, the more they seemed to pay attention.
If performing the way I did was a felonious offense, I'd just tell the cops "they asked for it."
Other bands: Lola Ray
Whether or not it was the best idea I ever had, I went with Angelique to a porn mart down the street from the club in Tallahassee. It was a cheeky thing to do, completely in risque fun and with a veritable stranger (albeit a good looking one), though she had made it clear to me that at any time I wanted to ditch the scene, and for that matter our clothes, she would accomodate.
And I entertained the idea, if only at arms length, chewing on it like a warm rubber band. Having a kid does things to certain aspects of life at home. This could have been a perfect storm.
Ultimately, I never acted on any such urges. It was a short diversion and a ninety-second walk up the sidewalk to break the drudge of tour and even though I did feel a bit guilty about the whole ordeal, I was able to rationalize it by saying I ultimately never acted on any such urges. I merely danced around the flame, that's all. It was a game.
It did, however, cause me to wonder if I had opened a proverbial little red door, and maybe the next time I'd find myself in a similar situation I'd subsequently find myself on a dark van bench drenched in the smell of legs and hair with a stomach full of regret I'd have to drink away.
I put it out of my mind and Angelique left without incident.
Besides, my sex was on the stage. Maybe it was no coincidence that I now wore black gloves onstage, "rapist gloves" as some of the other guys used to call them. Performances were anymore a giant hatefuck directed in the direction of the smalls seas of apathetic faces dotting the lonely 200-cap landscapes we found ourselves in night after night.
I never turned my back on the audience anymore. They were a spotty wall of flesh that I constantly pushed against. And the more I did it, the more they seemed to pay attention.
If performing the way I did was a felonious offense, I'd just tell the cops "they asked for it."
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