Show Journal 1999-10-09
I can’t believe we hadn’t been to Bend in almost 2 years. The club has changed names but the town still seemed the the same. The drive down was interesting. Jim invented a new game called “freak the driver.” If you are familiar with Jerry Springer you can already imagine how this works. Here’s what you do, at some point during the drive (when you feel inspired) one of the passengers gets up and in true hoochie fashion you grind the back of the seat of the driver. It sounds stupid now and, well, it is. The show went pretty well. This was the first show where Jim was our “official” drummer and to mix things up even more we also had an appearance by Lyle, our “unofficial” guitar player. This was our first show as a 4 piece since 1996. Oddly it didn’t seem weird at all. Between the four of us, we provided more rock than the feeble little club could handle. They kept asking us to turn down during our set because “people can’t hear anything because of the volume.” How sad. The other bands were pretty cool to watch, but unfortunately we had to leave early to make the trek home back to Portland and didn’t get to hang out much. The drive home was interesting, topics ranged from investments to clown penis’s. Also, if you ever come see us play, be sure to ask Lyle about his ill fated trip to Spokane in his previous band. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Battle Dome. Thanks to Conor for putting on the show and the kids at the show for not rioting this time.
Show Journal 1999-09-11
Today’s show was unexpected. We got a call Friday night asking if we wanted to play a demo show for a local skate shop on Saturday morning. They said was it was an outdoor show with skate ramps and bands … sounded good to me. So we tracked down Jim (our borrowed drummer from tour), said yes and sure enough by noon the next day we were setting up getting ready to play a show. The weirdest thing about the show was that it was in the parking lot of a National Guard Armory and coincidentally was sponsored by the National Guard. I guess Guard enrollment is getting pretty low if they are recruiting local skaters. Anyway, the show was marginal at best. It’s difficult to be really into your own music when everyone is sitting down and passively listening. It was such a nice day out and with all the ramps and skating it was hard to really pay too much attention to the bands. Still it was fun so thanks to Ollie’s Skate Shop for putting on the show.
Show Journal 1999-08-21
Day 15 – Last show of the tour. To prepare for tonight’s event, we sat around Jim’s house, ate pizza and went swimming all day. We saw a big snake by the pool which really has nothing to do with the band, but it was pretty cool. We pushed on to Ashland and were greeted at the club by Jim’s girlfriend and Dave’s girlfriend. The ensuing barrage of cuteness and “I missed you” was disgusting and depressing for me. If anyone tells you that “chicks dig guitar players” don’t believe them. It’s a lie that was designed to trick people like me into thinking you can be cool. Anyway, here’s the highlight of the whole tour. We’re sitting outside the club in an alley contemplating the show and literally out of the darkness comes Nate Dawg, our roadie from the last tour and our good friend. Bear in mind that we are 300 miles from Portland. Man it was great seeing him again. Most people don’t realize that going on the tour is a big deal for us. Jen came too which rekindled by love life depression, but who cares, it was the coolest and most perfectly timed moment I’ve seen in a long time. That totally made the show for me and we hadn’t even played yet. The show itself went pretty well. Not too many people, but the ones who were there seemed to appreciate it. We ended up driving home that night. (Well actually Sesha drove, Dave slept and I just sat there and ate beef jerky). The final mileage (a.k.a. – the painometer) finished just a hair over 7200 miles. Ouch. I guess all in all it was success. The three cancelled shows and ensuing downtime was the hardest. The drives were fun, the shows were great and everyone we met was very supportive. I got to see many new parts of the country and got to see about a dozen things that started with “world’s largest.” I know we made some new fans along the way which is really the best part about it all. Thanks to all the bands, bartenders, sound guys, booking people and everyone else who helped us on the road. Oh yeah, one more fuck you to the Ford dealer in Philip, SD. Also, I need to take a second to thank Jim for coming out on the road for us. Bryan left some pretty big shoes to fill, but I think Jim filled them and made us remember why we are doing this to begin with. I’m not sure what his plans are for the future, but I’m sure we’ll be down for a long time. Thanks Jim.
Show Journal 1999-08-20
Day 14 – Tonight was Jim’s return to Redding and Anderson. He used to live there and play with 3 out of 4, a band who’s new incarnation was playing with us tonight. The show tonight ruled. Period. Kids slam dancing, jumping around, singing along … it was great. It was easily the most fun show on the tour. All ages shows rule and it’s even better when the kids go nuts. We got to hang with Statch and the Rapes who rocked everyone and then lived up to their name (who wants free PBR?). We stayed at Jim’s dad’s house which was a welcome change from the floor of the van.
Show Journal 1999-08-19
Day 13 – After our day of luxury and relaxation it was back to the road and we headed on to Long Beach. We left early so we could ride the Desperado – the 200 foot tall roller coaster on the CA/NV border. Unfortunately, it was closed and we ended up getting to Long Beach several hours ahead of time. We saw the world largest thermometer on the way. Speaking of which, it’s been over 100 degrees ever since Illinois. Portland summers are usually between 75-80 degrees, so this 100 degree thing has been quite a change for us. The rumor is true, traffic really does suck in LA. Long Beach scares me because of the gang stuff there. Nothing in particular happened, but I felt uneasy the whole day afraid I was going to get shot again. A local record store (45 Revolution) was putting on the show tonight so we went to hang out there for a while. From there we did some some more record shopping and then drove out to see the Queen Mary to kill some time. The show tonight was kind of sketchy. There were a lot of skinheads and crusty punks tonight. I thought for sure they would hate us, but they ended up liking us and everyone ended up being cool to hang out with. It always amazes me how three relatively lame looking people like us who claim to play “punk rock” can get a good reaction in these crowds. Back to the gang thing, while packing Jim saw some guys walking around yelling LBC and as we were leaving we actually saw a ghetto bird. Anyway, the show was cool and I’ve decided I’m too paranoid. We decided to get out of LA and stayed in a truck stop somewhere on I-5.
Show Journal 1999-08-18
Day 12 – After all the nights we spent in truck stops we decided it was time to put our money to use and stay at a Casino. To our dismay we found out that they were really pricey. We were sitting around discussing where we wanted to park the van and which truck stop we should stay in that night. I really didn’t want another night in the truck stop (especially not the same one), so I decided to take one for the band. I threw down the credit card, and we ended up staying at Excalibur on me … real beds, clean bathroom, a pool and a casino … exactly what I needed on this day. Worth every penny too. Feeling much better about life, we had a breakfast buffet and went into full on tourist mode and casino hopped for most of the morning. We rode the roller coaster at NY, NY and then ended up going our separate ways. Dave and Jim went down towards Treasure Island to obtain skull mugs and see the sights. I had different plans … my goal for the day was to sit by the pool and read for a few hours. Warm, sunny, poolside and incredibly happy is how I spent the afternoon. That night we went over to the Luxor and did the buffet thing again. Afterwards we went out and cruised down the strip to watch all the free entertainment … volcanoes, fountains, pirates, etc. As for the gambling, Dave was the high roller tonight packing in $8 at the roulette table. Not me, I burned $7 in slots and Jim got away losing $2.
Show Journal 1999-08-17
Day 11 – The drive today was very nice but very uneventful. I discovered that the small broom we have is a good fly exterminator. The fly problem now dwindles each hour. We tried to stop at the ‘meteor crater’ in Arizona but it cost 9 dollars a person to see it. Can you believe it? 9 dollars to see a three mile stretch of earth caused by mother nature? We are once again out of band money thanks to the cancelled shows in Dallas and OK City. We are now paying out of our own pockets again. Before Kingman, we got on Route 66 for a while and got a glimpse of the Grand Canyon. I had only seen it from a plane, very cool. The show in Kingman rocked. The guys at the club unloaded for us and gave us a full sound check. Rock on. Cool place, nice people and they had a sound system which gives the biggest and best clubs a run for their money. The two hours of metal songs for the opening bands “soundcheck” was a bit much to endure, but after so many hours in the van my patience level is at an all time high. The show was good, and it was nice to play again. I had almost forgot why I had been the van all this time. Due to the cancellations, this was our second show in six days. Props to Deborah for selling our shirts and CD’s! The show ran late, but we decided to stay at a truck stop on the road to Las Vegas. Turns out there are no truck stops on the way to Vegas, so we ended up driving much longer than we anticipated … all the way to Vegas. We got to see the Hoover Dam which was rad. Since it was 2 in the morning, we missed the tour, but it was all lit up. More impressive than the dam, was pulling up over the mountains to see the Vegas sky line at night. There are lights as far as you can see in either direction. It was surreal, very impressive after so many miles of late night driving. By now it was really late and we discovered that Las Vegas truck stops are patrolled lots, so we ended up having to drive 20 minutes past the city to find a truck stop we could sleep in.
Show Journal 1999-08-16
Day 10 – Since we had the day off, today’s goal was to see Roswell which is exactly what we did. We did the museum and gift shop thing for a while and headed on through the beautiful countryside. My camera broke today and was buried along side Smokey the Bear’s grave. There are still flies in the van. At one point I could see 7 at one time. Very annoying. They have been in there since North Dakota. Speaking of flying things, I’ve dubbed our van “the aviary” because every time someone takes a picture, someone else is almost always giving the bird. For dinner, I ate beef jerky until my jaw was sore. We stopped at Highway 666 tonight and hailed the true master. Another truck stop night, but this one was unique. We didn’t know it, but we were parked about 100 feet from some train tracks. We are about to drift off to sleep and a train comes racing through scaring the absolute crap out of us. We all thought for sure we were going to die. It sounded like a plane was about to crash into us. Too tired to move, we slept through the night with the hourly train passing.
Show Journal 1999-08-15
Day 9 – We thought the show was at 2 and left early but found it was at 7. So we had 5 hours to kill in Dallas. We had already done the JFK thing and it was really hot out, so we decided to go see the Blair Witch Project. Afterwards we splurged and got some big ol’ steaks. After that we decided to go to the club. The address we had for the club was 30 minutes out of the Dallas city limits. Didn’t seem weird until we got there and it was a house. It turns out the address we had was for the booking guy’s house. Oops. After some frantic phone calls we went back downtown and found the real club. We get there only to find that the headlining band cancelled and the booking guy “didn’t know we were coming.” We should have gone back to his house and played on his lawn. Stupid jerk. I still am in amazement that people who book shows are often not responsible enough to remember when a band from half way across the country is coming. Most booking people are great and then there are the rotten few that seemingly go out of their way to fuck you over. Our next show is almost 1000 miles away and we get another night with no gas money. What really pisses we off is that we wasted an entire day basically just waiting until the show, when we could have gotten a head start on the drive to our next show. Hell we could have stayed with Sam some more, but no, we get to spend the day tooling around Dallas. Anyway, some guy at the club (who actually lived there) did his best to help out and recommended some other clubs down the road we could try and play at. So we headed up the road looking for a show. At one of the clubs we ran into Geraldine, a band from Ohio, who also had a show in Dallas which got cancelled. They were in the exact same predicament we were in, but it was a different club. We decided this was a sign from above, so we immediately stopped looking for shows and left towards the great south west. Along the way we stopped at a cricket infested truck stop and I re-discovered the joys of beef jerky. We slept in a truck stop somewhere in the Texas panhandle.
Show Journal 1999-08-14
Day 8 – On to Austin we went with full stomachs thanks to Lisa and Mike and their veggie bacon. We picked up the required “don’t mess with texas” stickers and decided to stop in Dallas. We did the JFK thing and walked around sweating in the 100+ heat looking over at site of the assassination. Personally, I really don’t get it, but Jim and Dave were having a ball with it. The museum was cool though. On to Austin and a stay at Sam’s house. We arrived and hung out with Sam for a while (who has grown a moustache of shame) and then we walked down to the local bar/club for some food. The place has bands play regularly, so Sam asked if we could jump on the bill and the booking guy actually said yes. So we ended up playing Austin. The show kind of sucked, but who cares, we played Austin and we got free food.
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