We left Detroit at 9pm the night before the Philly show…the 4pm load-in and 9 hour drive not really conducive to same-day departure. With Mick set on meeting us there, the van felt, dare I say, empty. We came to a Super 8 outside of Pittsburgh around 4am and crammed the four of us into one room.
Being giggly like a slumber party, Zack, Pat and I ventured down for free breakfast once we'd realized we'd stayed up long enough for the lodge to be serving it. I toasted a bagel on 5 (out of six) and when I dropped the blackened dough on my Styrofoam plate, Z quickly grabbed the offending roll and placed it on some napkins, stating "that shit will melt."
Sure enough, the little white bubbly part on my bagel was all I needed to see to give it a direct route into the garbage can. Instead I rocked some Corn Pops, a couple of donuts, a Danish and as much borderline-nasty orange juice I could stomach. It was fun eating breakfast with the truckers around. I again was in my shorts-zipper boots-no socks outfit and I love it more each time I bust it out. Upon meal completion we all went to sleep to aid our digestion.
Next day would be the pits. I would reel in an absolute soul-crushing head cold wreaking havoc on anything remotely close to my skull…sore throat, runny (and somehow, at the same time, stuffy) nose, that messed-up "my ears just popped" feeling, sinus pressure…it all reminded me of the first US tour we'd embarked on this year where I lived through the worst sickness of my life.
Needless to say, the entire day felt like I should be coming up with Mudhoney song titles.
Arrival in Philly, subsequent load-in and reacquainting with TV on the Radio dudes was par. Killed time in the "game room" at the Electric Factory and tied Zack in a match of Bubble Dome Hockey. He was red. I was blue. No sightings of the Broad Street Bullies.
Our set was a little of a disappointment, but only because I felt like shit and it began to effect my performance in little ways only noticeable to me. During the opening of "Leopardman" (the first time we'd play the tune as an support act), I found myself completely fixated on the specifics of my stick grip…I couldn't remember how I usually held the sticks in relation to my thumbs and forefingers and at a certain point that's all I could think about, slowly followed by my self-doubt as to whether or not I'd bought the wrong drumsticks (I hadn't) and leaving me unprepared for certain things like single-stroke rolls and general in-time execution.
Luckily, if you don't make a face when these little, half-second fuck-ups occur, no one's ever the wiser. Regardless, this leech begged us to be on the list, missed half our set, called it lackluster and then used her free ticket AND photo pass to heap praise upon TV on the Radio...
http://popwreckoning.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/tv-on-the-radio-the-electric-factory-philadelphia/
And thus is a conundrum I've felt encumbered by in this opening slot for a band whose latest album debuted at #12 on the Billboard Top 200...I feel like lesser-quality journalists may be taking advantage of the Dirtbombs' desire to be written about (and relatively empty guestlists) as a way to cover TV on the Radio without actually having to deal with them or their manager/publicist/record label directly.
I, almost to a fault, do not comment on negative reviews of the band. I think it is in bad form and merely justifies an errant opinion. But in this situation, where I feel that the Dirtbombs have been taken advantage of, the lone, stilted sentence dedicated to our "lackluster" effort fails to provide any description or rationalization for the sole adjective used to directly describe our performance. It is not a review…it's a cover-up for a writer who had no interest in the band and had no intention of reviewing us. THAT is where I take umbrage and feel it not only fair, but necessary, to call them out on it.
It's not bad reviews that I take issue with…it's lazy journalism that makes me livid. And I've surely been as guilty of it as the next person, but if I were to pitch a publicist for a live review, you best be sure I'd show up on time, take a picture of the band I'm reviewing and at least explain how I came to my conclusion/opinion of their performance.
With a quick stop in Brooklyn, our route to Providence would be crawl-like in pace. The dreams of arriving on time and getting a proper soundcheck. Instead, we found ourselves making monotonous, mic-checking noise as the first-in-line trickled into Lupo's. The defeated feeling notwithstanding, I headed cross the street to a used bookstore, delved into the Life magazines sorted by year, hoping to find the August 4, 1967 issue with a cover story on the Detroit Riot. No such luck, but I did find an issue from that year with a cover story about the burgeoning psychedelic poster scene…a steal a $3.
Our set was tighter than the previous night's…with extra time at the end of our 45-minute allotment, Pat mouthed to me "Theme" and I mouthed back "Noise" and it seems noise won out. I climbed atop his bass drum to rile the crowd and tossed my rack tom high up in the air for the same affect. Caught it the first time no problem…the second one got lost in the lights (or something) and it thudded onto the stage, not before striking my right index finger with enough force for me to think it sprained. Pat played as the rest of the band members took his drums offstage piece-by-piece. Not only does it make for a good ending but you endear yourself to the loaders by clearing the stage quickly and without their help.
After show would talk to Fritz, a Detroit-area ex-pat who played basketball under my father's tutelage back in the late '80s. He remembers me as a buzz-cut ball of energy running circles around Grosse Pointe South freshman cager practices and I merely remember being amazed that the school had three gyms.
Fritz is always quick to lambaste Grosse Pointe and all the requisite social constructs, expectations and mores that come with it and as one who likes a GP-bashing as much as the next guy it was good to experience it in Rhode Island. Plus, his Mumford Phys Ed t-shirt is off-the-chart in terms of cool points.
Ventured three blocks from the club to experience the gathering around WaterFire. As an art-installation that's been going for almost 15 years, it is simply put, a bunch of bonfires set in the middle of the rivers that dissect downtown Providence. While not necessarily overflowing with artistic panache or concept, the project does draw huge crowds and is, in this outsider's opinion, an event that every city needs more of…a reason for it's citizen's to join together outdoors for something that is not a sporting event and intends to further the populace's appreciation (or possibly even critique) of the art.
Check it out at...www.waterfire.org
The place had an almost carnival-ish feel. I learned that "doughboys" on the East Coast are what we Midwesterners call elephant ears…fried dough usually drizzled with some kind of sugary topping. I cherish discovering new regional culinary colloquialisms.
After some time spent watching old episodes of "The Muppet Show" on TVOTR's bus, (the Steve Martin episode, in particular) we trekked over to the Extended Stay we'd Pricelined earlier that night. With the front desk "closed" from 11pm to 6am we were checked in by the laundry attendant. While I initially thought it shitty that SHE be saddled with this task, almost certainly with no extra pay, I soon found my mind elsewhere when I was told that each of our two rooms contained only one bed and that there were no available rooms with two beds.
Curse you Pricline…arbiter of "acceptable" prices, concealer of lodging location until confirmation of purchase, employer of questionable company spokesperson/jingle, bane of my existence for the 5 seconds before I realized there was nothing I could do to rectify the situation before retreating to my room to spend the next couple of hours online. Yeah, curse you.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Four Shows with New Bass Player Zack Attack...
Is it even worth writing about a 4-day trip? I guess so when there's a new bass player. Practices were at Zack's house and the Woodbridge rental's basement would be the third such environ I've rehearsed at in my relatively boring musical career.
Drive to Morgantown was spent absorbing every last quip in the latest (lastest?) issue of Chunklet. As a contributor to a publication with no set schedule that also employs the donated efforts of dozens of others means combing through the pages and trying to remember exactly what the fuck it was I wrote for the issue. It's a fun little game and it makes the belly laughs all the more memorable.
Morgantown has nothing around. After soundcheck I kill most of my time on free WiFi reading the Free Press. Opening band Treasure Cat have a bass player who's fucking awesome. Head shaved except for symmetrical hammer-shaped tufts of hair positioned over each ear. Tantalizing virtuoso vocal-less metal to adore.
The show, all of these shows actually, are just to road-test Zach before the big dates with TV on the Radio. I know what you're thinking, "Ben, the Dirtbombs weren't playing West Virginia on a Wednesday night for all of the dozens of dollars you'd be paid, all the free water you could drink or the stage that was entirely carpeted?" And I would tell you no, we were not. Shock. Horror. Sarcasm.
The show went smoothly. Highlight was the Liars-like jam we ended with…having only learned enough songs for our set and one for the encore.
Someone at the show said his buddy from A.R.E. Weapons tried really hard to get on the bill and that the guy (Greg?) was friends with us. No idea what in the fuck that was about. With our attempt to rock some Priceline hotels a failure, we instead tried the blind draw that found us visiting three chain hotel establishments we settled on a local family run facility situated on a hill with actual metal keys for the doors and an interior that was only mildly depressing.
Zack and I share a bed on his first night in the band and it was only vaguely gay.
Wake up at ten for the longish ride to Nashville. The ribbing of Zack on being vegan was by now in full-swing and was not expected to end until mid-December.
Arrival at the end and we're surprised to see the Turbo Fruits kids pull up right behind us. They would be opening the show and that was an unexpected treat. After told by the egregious sound man there would be no sound check, I hoof on over to Café Coco.
It need not be stressed here that I dig a restaurant in a building clearly meant as a single family home. Coco follows in this re-appropriative approach and catering to all types while attracting a specifically hipster quotient, the end result has varied on my multiple trips there.
This visit would be stellar. My ham and cheese served hot on a croissant instantly melted in my mouth. Their bottled sodas (crème soda and orange crème) were refreshing and while their grasp of poutine was misguided – the dish is meant to be served with cheese curds, not shredded cheese, which thus made their offering "disco fries" – the overall sensation of a meal well-eaten was extremely welcomed by this lone diner. Add to that the free WiFi to kill the time and the overly friendly attitude of everyone (I was even given a copy of a free print zine based on feminism in Nashville) and I strongly urge you eat there if given the chance.
Kintaro was a surprisingly good band for the first of three slot, a spot usually occupied by something a pinch above dogshit. If they had/have recordings, I would listen to them.
Turbo Fruits were stellar. While no longer stuck with the "Be Your Own Pet side project" tag, they've grown in scary good ways. Songs like the absurdly catchy "Mom's Mad 'Cause I Fried My Brains" and "Broadzilla" showcase Jonas Stein's ever-building guitar arsenal. Rumor is he's playing Junior Brown's Fender Bullet and that kind of mojo can only help the cause.
I'd long said about Be Your Own Pet that I really wanted to see what they'd be doing in five years…it was THAT record I thought would really kick-ass. With BYOP no longer around, I'm looking towards Turbo Fruits to make that album and I don't feel I'll be disappointed.
The show was decent. We played no encore. Highlight would be Artemis Pyle of Lynyrd Skynyrd coming backstage afterwards to tell us how much he loved the show. Mick was particularly excited about this.
Night and early next day spent away from the band was refreshing…made me forget I was on tour and that's a priceless feeling. Met up at Grimey's and bought the new Modey Lemon full-length and the Melvins' Bullhead and Lysol on CD as I'd tired of the limited use I'd received out of their LP counterparts.
On our way out of town Pat noticed us driving past United Record Pressing. With no discernible schedule guiding us, we thought it worthy to try and scam a factory tour. We mumbled some white lies about being from Archer in Detroit (thinking we'd need an "in") and were easily granted entrée into vinyl Valhalla.
What impressed me most about United's operation was the sheer size of it all. They had upwards of twenty 12" presses and around eight 7" presses. Seeing them all at work, feeling the heat peel off the machine and onto your skin…it's an intensely physical experience.
United still keeps up the apartments they furnished for visiting black labels/artists who had troubles with lodging in Nashville in the 1960's. Apparently all the top artists at Motown, along with Berry Gordy, spent much time in these quarters, still with its original furniture from the era. There's even little museum-quality displays with important records they've pressed prominently featured. We appreciated their effort.
Our tour guide, a Detroit ex-pat, seemed truly delighted on taking us through the multiple floors and buildings of the entire complex. In the warehouse he relayed us a story about a label with dead stock (ie, unused LP jackets) and then the label going out of business. The records are then picked up by another label, but they don't own the jackets and they have the wrong logo on them anyways. So it just becomes a big confusing mess of red tape and ownership that usually ends up with the dead stock sent off to be recycled.
He then cracks open a box, one of many, to reveal TONS of unused V2 LP jackets for White Blood Cells. There were easily hundreds if not THOUSANDS of them there and it spanned all of the Stripes first four albums. It was weird and totally unexpected.
After spending about an hour around the complex, we said our goodbyes and thank-you's. It was truly a fascinating tour and it's a definite "must-do" if you ever find yourself in Nashville.
Drive to Knoxville got rainy and boring. Pulled into the Pilot Light and the Obama v. McCain debate was rear-projected on the wall. Walked next door to Woodward books and tried to convince Zack to spend some of his new-found Dbombs dough on Salinger's first appearance in hardback, The Kit Book. While I bought nothing, I did find Woodward's discretion in used books offered as very, very impressive. They didn't meddle in bullshit or junk. Only the finest and it showed.
Next door to the book store was the Knoxville Pearl, a fanciful cereal bar that resembled a basement rec room. I ponied up for a bowl of Cookie Crisp with skim and sat and watched the debate on an ancient television the size of a large game cat and housed in wood…the kind of television found in the middle of every vacant lot in Detroit.
I was quite impressed with what Knox had to offer. The cereal bar seemed like a simple, easy idea worked to fruition and enjoying its quirky, off-the-wall style. There seemed to be culture going on and that's not what you'd be able to say about most cities in the American South.
Dan Melchior opened the show and that was a welcome surprise. The crowd for us was receptive and ably earned the encore we foisted upon them.
Zack proved his worth by scoring us rooms at the Crowne Plaza on Priceline at a rock-bottom rate. We enjoyed the views from the 9th floor.
Charlotte would be pretty damn fun. Lunchbox Records across the street from the club, the swank vintage store right next door (and the Toledo-bred owners who opened specifically for us to shop), the Boris/Natasha store with their deceptively cool Ben Sherman wares and the historic Penguin Drive-In ("it was on the Food Network" we were told by many) with it's deep-fried tasty treats.
The show was sponsored by Camel cigarettes and their inflated payout for our performance was really the impetus behind the entire run of shows that week. So when I found myself onstage with the microphone, I took the opportunity to comment that their new Camel Crush brand, by which squeezing the cigarette filter turns your fag into a menthol.
After describing said product, I commented, "If that isn't crack, I don't know what is" Then, an excited fan kept yelling "menthols! menthols!" and I replied "Yes, Mick prefers a menthol" to some discernible laughter. I also found myself almost destroying a metal chandelier as I beat my sticks against it, sending it into a spin that caused the entire fixture to drop about three feet from its perch while still remaining loosely attached to the ceiling.
After the show each and every band member was summarily accosted by members of the audience telling us how much they enjoyed and appreciated the show. But I think I got the best moment with this particularly heady exchange:
Fan: So, do you guys party?
Me: (blank stare, pause about 15 seconds)
Fan: You know, like party party?
I wish everyone else had been in on the conversation rather than just rely on my retelling of it. The owner of the club told us about how the place had an attempted robbery, that there's bulletholes in the floor, that the patrons at the bar were more armed than the robbers. He then pointed out the pool hustler, Chico, who once beat Minnesota Fats and apparently knows a hooker who'll fellate him for $5.
Charlotte, a town none of us had ever been to before, was a great town and has certainly afforded itself inclusion on future tour routings.
Drive to Morgantown was spent absorbing every last quip in the latest (lastest?) issue of Chunklet. As a contributor to a publication with no set schedule that also employs the donated efforts of dozens of others means combing through the pages and trying to remember exactly what the fuck it was I wrote for the issue. It's a fun little game and it makes the belly laughs all the more memorable.
Morgantown has nothing around. After soundcheck I kill most of my time on free WiFi reading the Free Press. Opening band Treasure Cat have a bass player who's fucking awesome. Head shaved except for symmetrical hammer-shaped tufts of hair positioned over each ear. Tantalizing virtuoso vocal-less metal to adore.
The show, all of these shows actually, are just to road-test Zach before the big dates with TV on the Radio. I know what you're thinking, "Ben, the Dirtbombs weren't playing West Virginia on a Wednesday night for all of the dozens of dollars you'd be paid, all the free water you could drink or the stage that was entirely carpeted?" And I would tell you no, we were not. Shock. Horror. Sarcasm.
The show went smoothly. Highlight was the Liars-like jam we ended with…having only learned enough songs for our set and one for the encore.
Someone at the show said his buddy from A.R.E. Weapons tried really hard to get on the bill and that the guy (Greg?) was friends with us. No idea what in the fuck that was about. With our attempt to rock some Priceline hotels a failure, we instead tried the blind draw that found us visiting three chain hotel establishments we settled on a local family run facility situated on a hill with actual metal keys for the doors and an interior that was only mildly depressing.
Zack and I share a bed on his first night in the band and it was only vaguely gay.
Wake up at ten for the longish ride to Nashville. The ribbing of Zack on being vegan was by now in full-swing and was not expected to end until mid-December.
Arrival at the end and we're surprised to see the Turbo Fruits kids pull up right behind us. They would be opening the show and that was an unexpected treat. After told by the egregious sound man there would be no sound check, I hoof on over to Café Coco.
It need not be stressed here that I dig a restaurant in a building clearly meant as a single family home. Coco follows in this re-appropriative approach and catering to all types while attracting a specifically hipster quotient, the end result has varied on my multiple trips there.
This visit would be stellar. My ham and cheese served hot on a croissant instantly melted in my mouth. Their bottled sodas (crème soda and orange crème) were refreshing and while their grasp of poutine was misguided – the dish is meant to be served with cheese curds, not shredded cheese, which thus made their offering "disco fries" – the overall sensation of a meal well-eaten was extremely welcomed by this lone diner. Add to that the free WiFi to kill the time and the overly friendly attitude of everyone (I was even given a copy of a free print zine based on feminism in Nashville) and I strongly urge you eat there if given the chance.
Kintaro was a surprisingly good band for the first of three slot, a spot usually occupied by something a pinch above dogshit. If they had/have recordings, I would listen to them.
Turbo Fruits were stellar. While no longer stuck with the "Be Your Own Pet side project" tag, they've grown in scary good ways. Songs like the absurdly catchy "Mom's Mad 'Cause I Fried My Brains" and "Broadzilla" showcase Jonas Stein's ever-building guitar arsenal. Rumor is he's playing Junior Brown's Fender Bullet and that kind of mojo can only help the cause.
I'd long said about Be Your Own Pet that I really wanted to see what they'd be doing in five years…it was THAT record I thought would really kick-ass. With BYOP no longer around, I'm looking towards Turbo Fruits to make that album and I don't feel I'll be disappointed.
The show was decent. We played no encore. Highlight would be Artemis Pyle of Lynyrd Skynyrd coming backstage afterwards to tell us how much he loved the show. Mick was particularly excited about this.
Night and early next day spent away from the band was refreshing…made me forget I was on tour and that's a priceless feeling. Met up at Grimey's and bought the new Modey Lemon full-length and the Melvins' Bullhead and Lysol on CD as I'd tired of the limited use I'd received out of their LP counterparts.
On our way out of town Pat noticed us driving past United Record Pressing. With no discernible schedule guiding us, we thought it worthy to try and scam a factory tour. We mumbled some white lies about being from Archer in Detroit (thinking we'd need an "in") and were easily granted entrée into vinyl Valhalla.
What impressed me most about United's operation was the sheer size of it all. They had upwards of twenty 12" presses and around eight 7" presses. Seeing them all at work, feeling the heat peel off the machine and onto your skin…it's an intensely physical experience.
United still keeps up the apartments they furnished for visiting black labels/artists who had troubles with lodging in Nashville in the 1960's. Apparently all the top artists at Motown, along with Berry Gordy, spent much time in these quarters, still with its original furniture from the era. There's even little museum-quality displays with important records they've pressed prominently featured. We appreciated their effort.
Our tour guide, a Detroit ex-pat, seemed truly delighted on taking us through the multiple floors and buildings of the entire complex. In the warehouse he relayed us a story about a label with dead stock (ie, unused LP jackets) and then the label going out of business. The records are then picked up by another label, but they don't own the jackets and they have the wrong logo on them anyways. So it just becomes a big confusing mess of red tape and ownership that usually ends up with the dead stock sent off to be recycled.
He then cracks open a box, one of many, to reveal TONS of unused V2 LP jackets for White Blood Cells. There were easily hundreds if not THOUSANDS of them there and it spanned all of the Stripes first four albums. It was weird and totally unexpected.
After spending about an hour around the complex, we said our goodbyes and thank-you's. It was truly a fascinating tour and it's a definite "must-do" if you ever find yourself in Nashville.
Drive to Knoxville got rainy and boring. Pulled into the Pilot Light and the Obama v. McCain debate was rear-projected on the wall. Walked next door to Woodward books and tried to convince Zack to spend some of his new-found Dbombs dough on Salinger's first appearance in hardback, The Kit Book. While I bought nothing, I did find Woodward's discretion in used books offered as very, very impressive. They didn't meddle in bullshit or junk. Only the finest and it showed.
Next door to the book store was the Knoxville Pearl, a fanciful cereal bar that resembled a basement rec room. I ponied up for a bowl of Cookie Crisp with skim and sat and watched the debate on an ancient television the size of a large game cat and housed in wood…the kind of television found in the middle of every vacant lot in Detroit.
I was quite impressed with what Knox had to offer. The cereal bar seemed like a simple, easy idea worked to fruition and enjoying its quirky, off-the-wall style. There seemed to be culture going on and that's not what you'd be able to say about most cities in the American South.
Dan Melchior opened the show and that was a welcome surprise. The crowd for us was receptive and ably earned the encore we foisted upon them.
Zack proved his worth by scoring us rooms at the Crowne Plaza on Priceline at a rock-bottom rate. We enjoyed the views from the 9th floor.
Charlotte would be pretty damn fun. Lunchbox Records across the street from the club, the swank vintage store right next door (and the Toledo-bred owners who opened specifically for us to shop), the Boris/Natasha store with their deceptively cool Ben Sherman wares and the historic Penguin Drive-In ("it was on the Food Network" we were told by many) with it's deep-fried tasty treats.
The show was sponsored by Camel cigarettes and their inflated payout for our performance was really the impetus behind the entire run of shows that week. So when I found myself onstage with the microphone, I took the opportunity to comment that their new Camel Crush brand, by which squeezing the cigarette filter turns your fag into a menthol.
After describing said product, I commented, "If that isn't crack, I don't know what is" Then, an excited fan kept yelling "menthols! menthols!" and I replied "Yes, Mick prefers a menthol" to some discernible laughter. I also found myself almost destroying a metal chandelier as I beat my sticks against it, sending it into a spin that caused the entire fixture to drop about three feet from its perch while still remaining loosely attached to the ceiling.
After the show each and every band member was summarily accosted by members of the audience telling us how much they enjoyed and appreciated the show. But I think I got the best moment with this particularly heady exchange:
Fan: So, do you guys party?
Me: (blank stare, pause about 15 seconds)
Fan: You know, like party party?
I wish everyone else had been in on the conversation rather than just rely on my retelling of it. The owner of the club told us about how the place had an attempted robbery, that there's bulletholes in the floor, that the patrons at the bar were more armed than the robbers. He then pointed out the pool hustler, Chico, who once beat Minnesota Fats and apparently knows a hooker who'll fellate him for $5.
Charlotte, a town none of us had ever been to before, was a great town and has certainly afforded itself inclusion on future tour routings.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Spiritualized Finale: With Picture!
Show in Boston was originally set for the Wilbur Theater, but word had been relayed that that establishment had been shut down or closed the night before. Luckily and apparently with no troubles, the gig was moved across the street to the Roxy. Simple enough…don't even have to change the address in the GPS.
Arrival at the Roxy was late and soundcheck was hurried. The room itself was gaudy and regal, I seem to recall being momentarily blinded by the overabundance of gilt. Our set time was for a half-hour after doors opened and when that 7:30 hit the room was vacant. We were given an additional 15-minute reprieve.
We decide to enjoy ourselves on this night. Our set consisted of
Ever Lovin' Man
Sun is Shining
Stop
Indivisible
Sherlock Holmes
Kung Fu
Once we got onstage, there were slightly more people watching us. There were some requests for something, Mick looked back as if we should consider it and I yelled earnestly "Stick to the Plan!" We played the set as we plotted it, focusing mainly on the twenty-plus minute version of "Kung Fu."
Halfway through I grabbed the mic and as we romped through "Dance This Mess Around" I talked to the crowd about Pudge Fisk and the Green Monster and realized the crowd were not baseball fans. Remembering the unnecessary three cases of beer sitting in our dressing room backstage, I tell the crowd if anyone is truly broke, to come to the merch table to buy a shirt and I will give them a free beer.
We finished, I grabbed four beers, made my way to sell merch and was pleasantly surprised with how many concertgoers came over to compliment the band on the good show, but also, to buy t-shirts. When they realized I was not bullshitting about the free beer, they seemed all the more intrigued. I say with pride that we sold more merchandise than Spiritualized that night.
After the show we got out of town early and ate at a late night rest stop McDonald's. Got to the Best Western near the Albany Airport late (we farted around trying to find a hotel with rooms for what felt like an eternity) and I stayed up the relatively short time until they started to serve breakfast, at (I believe) 5am.
Being an airport hotel, the others awake at this time were mainly pilots and flight attendants…and Troy. The two of us looked hilarious…him in his ripped-leg sweat-pants and serial killer stubble, me in the soccer shorts and zipper boots and manicured beard. Times like these kind of transcend description and instead enter the pantheon of moments that resonate in your mind as neither important nor crucial nor groundbreaking. They are brief and unforgettable and have an unimpeachable dose of being the peculiar moments you focus on when thinking back on time spent on tour.
They had one of those timer waffle irons and I think they're heaven-sent. And orange juice. Breakfast divine.
Drive to Cleveland and I spent the entire time polishing off a biography on Robert Rauschenberg. It was good, but I was more pleased at the fact of how many books I'd finished on the tour…Marcus' Like a Rolling Stone, the Chick Sonic Youth bio, the Nick Drake bio and probably a couple more I'm forgetting. It seems like going on tour is the only time I can ever get any reading done. That bums me out usually, but we've been touring so much that I've actually finished quite a few recently.
Got into Cleveland with just enough time to check into the Days Inn and then drive a couple blocks to the fine dining of Mallorca. Spiritualized wanted to take us out for a proper meal and it was grand, the only downer being that such a meal was a great way to meet everyone…on the second-to-last day of tour. That and my food gave me diarrhea.
After the meal everyone else wanted to go grab a drink somewhere else and I wisely slipped out unnoticed. I casually walked back to the hotel. What I had figured was a straight walk on one street turned out to be not the case.
The neighborhood began to look more and more like Detroit and I realized it was not the route we had taken to the restaurant. I made a quick right turn and chanced upon a cop car pulling out of a police station. I asked the man which direction to Euclid Street. He pointed randomly and said it was two blocks. I asked again to clarify if it was two blocks forward or two blocks to my left.
He let out a sigh.
He asked if I had any guns on me.
I said no.
He told me to get in the car.
He said I was not in the best neighborhood to be walking around alone.
I told him it was alright, I'm from Detroit.
Good, he replied. Had I been wearing a Steelers shirt, I may not have been so lucky.
He then proceeded to ask me about the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal, rattling off Tamara Greene and Manoogian Mansion as if he were a grizzled Detroiter.
I was impressed.
He dropped me off at the hotel and told me to be safe.
I thanked him.
Most of down time on show day in Clevo was spent in bed. The faucets in the bathroom sink were weird in that if you twisted them just right, you'd get a weird subsonic bellow reminiscent of whale's sonar. I sat and fooled around with the handles for at least ten minutes before Pat interjected with a "Seriously…stop it."
Time at the House of Blues was nice. Decent food, good stage managing, a jolly assortment of friends and family from Detroit ventured out for the gig and only one of them cornered Spaceman awkwardly.
Highlight of our set, and possibly the tour, was Jason Pierce joining us onstage with acoustic guitar accompaniment for "Sun is Shining." I felt very humbled.
Buffalo next day was rainy and melancholy, Spirits preparing for their undoubtedly difficult sojourn across the US/CAN border and the Dirtbombs weigh the pros/cons of taking the shorter route (mileage-wise) through Canada and risk possible customs detention. We took massive group photos of both bands and the crew in front of Spiritualized's tour bus. We played…decent. I left after we had loaded the van.
Two day's later Troy quit and we were back at square one.
Arrival at the Roxy was late and soundcheck was hurried. The room itself was gaudy and regal, I seem to recall being momentarily blinded by the overabundance of gilt. Our set time was for a half-hour after doors opened and when that 7:30 hit the room was vacant. We were given an additional 15-minute reprieve.
We decide to enjoy ourselves on this night. Our set consisted of
Ever Lovin' Man
Sun is Shining
Stop
Indivisible
Sherlock Holmes
Kung Fu
Once we got onstage, there were slightly more people watching us. There were some requests for something, Mick looked back as if we should consider it and I yelled earnestly "Stick to the Plan!" We played the set as we plotted it, focusing mainly on the twenty-plus minute version of "Kung Fu."
Halfway through I grabbed the mic and as we romped through "Dance This Mess Around" I talked to the crowd about Pudge Fisk and the Green Monster and realized the crowd were not baseball fans. Remembering the unnecessary three cases of beer sitting in our dressing room backstage, I tell the crowd if anyone is truly broke, to come to the merch table to buy a shirt and I will give them a free beer.
We finished, I grabbed four beers, made my way to sell merch and was pleasantly surprised with how many concertgoers came over to compliment the band on the good show, but also, to buy t-shirts. When they realized I was not bullshitting about the free beer, they seemed all the more intrigued. I say with pride that we sold more merchandise than Spiritualized that night.
After the show we got out of town early and ate at a late night rest stop McDonald's. Got to the Best Western near the Albany Airport late (we farted around trying to find a hotel with rooms for what felt like an eternity) and I stayed up the relatively short time until they started to serve breakfast, at (I believe) 5am.
Being an airport hotel, the others awake at this time were mainly pilots and flight attendants…and Troy. The two of us looked hilarious…him in his ripped-leg sweat-pants and serial killer stubble, me in the soccer shorts and zipper boots and manicured beard. Times like these kind of transcend description and instead enter the pantheon of moments that resonate in your mind as neither important nor crucial nor groundbreaking. They are brief and unforgettable and have an unimpeachable dose of being the peculiar moments you focus on when thinking back on time spent on tour.
They had one of those timer waffle irons and I think they're heaven-sent. And orange juice. Breakfast divine.
Drive to Cleveland and I spent the entire time polishing off a biography on Robert Rauschenberg. It was good, but I was more pleased at the fact of how many books I'd finished on the tour…Marcus' Like a Rolling Stone, the Chick Sonic Youth bio, the Nick Drake bio and probably a couple more I'm forgetting. It seems like going on tour is the only time I can ever get any reading done. That bums me out usually, but we've been touring so much that I've actually finished quite a few recently.
Got into Cleveland with just enough time to check into the Days Inn and then drive a couple blocks to the fine dining of Mallorca. Spiritualized wanted to take us out for a proper meal and it was grand, the only downer being that such a meal was a great way to meet everyone…on the second-to-last day of tour. That and my food gave me diarrhea.
After the meal everyone else wanted to go grab a drink somewhere else and I wisely slipped out unnoticed. I casually walked back to the hotel. What I had figured was a straight walk on one street turned out to be not the case.
The neighborhood began to look more and more like Detroit and I realized it was not the route we had taken to the restaurant. I made a quick right turn and chanced upon a cop car pulling out of a police station. I asked the man which direction to Euclid Street. He pointed randomly and said it was two blocks. I asked again to clarify if it was two blocks forward or two blocks to my left.
He let out a sigh.
He asked if I had any guns on me.
I said no.
He told me to get in the car.
He said I was not in the best neighborhood to be walking around alone.
I told him it was alright, I'm from Detroit.
Good, he replied. Had I been wearing a Steelers shirt, I may not have been so lucky.
He then proceeded to ask me about the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal, rattling off Tamara Greene and Manoogian Mansion as if he were a grizzled Detroiter.
I was impressed.
He dropped me off at the hotel and told me to be safe.
I thanked him.
Most of down time on show day in Clevo was spent in bed. The faucets in the bathroom sink were weird in that if you twisted them just right, you'd get a weird subsonic bellow reminiscent of whale's sonar. I sat and fooled around with the handles for at least ten minutes before Pat interjected with a "Seriously…stop it."
Time at the House of Blues was nice. Decent food, good stage managing, a jolly assortment of friends and family from Detroit ventured out for the gig and only one of them cornered Spaceman awkwardly.
Highlight of our set, and possibly the tour, was Jason Pierce joining us onstage with acoustic guitar accompaniment for "Sun is Shining." I felt very humbled.
Buffalo next day was rainy and melancholy, Spirits preparing for their undoubtedly difficult sojourn across the US/CAN border and the Dirtbombs weigh the pros/cons of taking the shorter route (mileage-wise) through Canada and risk possible customs detention. We took massive group photos of both bands and the crew in front of Spiritualized's tour bus. We played…decent. I left after we had loaded the van.
Two day's later Troy quit and we were back at square one.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Spiritualized Part Four: Hair Cut...
With only a short drive between DC and Baltimore, we had some free time to explore the Charm City. Ko would shout every thirty seconds that some street corner was used in filming "The Wire" and the rest of us would all feign excitement.
We'd somehow found info for a random mall that we figured would be an easy way to kill time. As we drove from neighborhood to blighted-out neighborhood, it became clear we were headed to, as Chris Rock would put it, "the mall white people USED to go to."
Seriously, the degree of decrepitude witnessed in the depths of Baltimore make Detroit look like a resort.
We didn't even bother venture inside, instead we made our way completely out of the city to Arundel Mills mall. Big and bright and new and teeming with the overall feeling that makes you equally hate and love capitalism, we all found it suitable to our needs. Pat and Troy and I peeped The Dark Knight in a capacity theater, Ko bought clothes and Mick spent every moment at the chaotic Build-A-Bear workshop (it was Panda-monium!)
From there to headline our own show at the Ottobar…record store next door offered nothing worth note and instead Ko and I made way to Paper Moon Diner down the street. The food was forgettable, but the zany décor covered every square inch of this converted home and the atmosphere was fun.
I slept through opening bands. We played and all the fun and excitement and good times filling the room when we'd played town not three months ago was completely lost. It was a weird, hostile, borderline violent air in the room. As we ended with me on the microphone imploring them all to dance, said request was met with some fool wildly moshing the place to bits.
I instantly grabbed the guy and tried to squeeze him into submission, eventually ending up pinning him to the ground to get my point across. He apologized after the show, so that felt nice. Otherwise, the weird vibes in Balti were plenty enough for the entire tour.
NYC the next day. I hate guestlists. We had ten spots on ours and it was like a UN Security Council Meeting trying to properly divvy those up. Funnily enough, the club, Terminal 5, was nowhere near sold out. If people REALLY wanted to see us, they could just pay the cash at the door. But what fun is that?
We played decent. None better nor worse. But for all the effort, in getting there on time, the guestlist rigamarole, the excitement of playing such a huge place (3800 capacity) by the time we'd finished I just felt deflated and like I'd wasted my time.
Nevermind the debacle of figuring out where to stay/park the van afterwards. A headache to end all headaches, after about two hours of deliberating and driving and numerous changes of plan, I ended up in Brooklyn sleeping on our publicist's couch while the van took its familiar slumber in Jersey City.
Next morn Pat and Mick and I gathered for a little bit of a press junket. We began with a video interview (with a wonderful girl from West Bloomfield) for Uncensored TV. They encouraged us to be raw, vulgar, to curse…as the name says, completely uncensored. Yet if you want to drink a bottle of Poland Spring water on camera, they firmly request that you remove the label. Hilarious. View the shenanigans here:
http://www.uncensoredinterview.com/artists/364-The-Dirtbombs
From there we waltzed down the street to WNYU's basement studios to spin some tunes and chat with Kayla Cohen on the (so I'm told) legendary New Afternoon show. They had a picture of Nirvana in the studio back in '89. I was impressed. We played:
4:57 PM Death "Rock and Roll Victim"
4:59 PM Viva La American Death Ray Music "Tabloids"
5:00 PM Tyvek "Air Conditioner"
5:08 PM The Tammys "Egyptian Shumba"
5:10 PM Big Star "O My Soul" Radio City (Ardent Records)
5:16 PM The Slits "Earthbeat" Return of the Giant Slits
5:23 PM Music Convention "Belly Board Beat" CD
5:27 PM Arctic Monkeys "If You Found This, It's Probably Too Late"
5:28 PM Mick Bassett & the Marthas "The Keepers"
5:35 PM The Fire Engines "Get Up And Use Me"
5:39 PM X-ray Spex "Warrior In Woolworths"
5:41 PM Margot Benitez and the Mellotones "Winos on Parade"
5:46 PM The Dirtbombs "Kick Me"
"Kick Me" being the song's world premier, originally intended for release as a New Zealand tour single.
From there I searched for sneakers, spent much time and money at Rockit Scientist (Chubby Checker's psychedelic album a highlight), the same with St. Mark's Books, caught up with my buddy Nick for lunch and tramped around the neighborhood with impunity.
My cuisine for the night would be perfect. I started with a medium cup of frozen vanilla yogurt topped with Captain Crunch at Pinkberry and immediately followed it up with a mac'n'cheese croquet at the automat down the block. From there, tasty fresh poutine made right in front of me. How could I ever complain? Late night was a Blue 9 cheeseburger that was scrumptious.
I slept on a loveseat and had a slice from Artichoke Pizzeria for breakfast. Apparently the current hot pizza joint among NYC foodies and usually commanding a 35 minute wait for a slice, we slipped in and out in less than five and enjoyed their unique take on pie. Not usually a fan of spinach and artichoke, I was easily won over with their smooth, creamy concoction. Do search it out.
I pretty much hate Philadelphia with all my heart. I don't remember soundchecking, but I do remember hitting a record store on South Street where the girl behind the counter was really enthusiastically foisting the Dirtbombs on a customer. She even pulled out If You Don't Already... in hopes of getting him to the show that evening. I stood there bemused, waiting for a brilliant dis of the band that (un)fortunately never came.
From there I munched a cheese steak at Ishkabibbles. Not bad, but I'm told there are better in the city.
With a family wedding fast approaching the day I was set to arrive back in Detroit, I was in desperate need in figuring out how to tame my wild mane and homeless beard. I couldn't arrive to the nuptials looking like I'd just starred in "Bumfights 15" and it's not like I knew any barbers anywhere. I was feeling, to put it bluntly, screwed.
Luckily, South Street offers just about anything you could hope for. I saw what I could only describe as a traditional black barbershop. You know, the kind that Ice Cube makes movies about? Yes, that kind…the kind that I really have no reason going to. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Upon first pass the shop was full, two barbers both working fastidiously on customers. All of them were black and this was slightly intimidating. I decided to come back later.
Second pass found both barbers on the front steps and I sheepishly asked one "I know this may sound weird, but can you cut my hair?"
What I was secretly hoping for was a burst of laughter. Or the look of fire in his eyes. Or a shove to the chest. Instead, all I got was a "sure, he can take care of you."
(let it be known that the one I asked to cut my hair had directed me to his partner and I'm assuming this meant that he himself was not capable to cut my hair or had graduated from the Malcom X School of Follicle Fervor)
The man who did cut my hair and shave my beard was courteous and professional. He washed my hair before anything and I realized he was only the second man (after my father and not including myself) to ever wash my hair. He put some chemical on my head that slightly burned my scalp and Jay-Z blared over the soundsystem the entire time, but other than his every snip being extremely calculated and decisive, it was no different from any other haircut I'd ever received.
And I guess that was my problem. I was hoping for a great story to tell and all I left with was a decent haircut. I pretty much walked directly onstage after my trim and after we played, Spiritualized's tour manager looked at me perplexed and asked "Did you get your hair cut onstage?"
Now THAT would've been a story to tell
We'd somehow found info for a random mall that we figured would be an easy way to kill time. As we drove from neighborhood to blighted-out neighborhood, it became clear we were headed to, as Chris Rock would put it, "the mall white people USED to go to."
Seriously, the degree of decrepitude witnessed in the depths of Baltimore make Detroit look like a resort.
We didn't even bother venture inside, instead we made our way completely out of the city to Arundel Mills mall. Big and bright and new and teeming with the overall feeling that makes you equally hate and love capitalism, we all found it suitable to our needs. Pat and Troy and I peeped The Dark Knight in a capacity theater, Ko bought clothes and Mick spent every moment at the chaotic Build-A-Bear workshop (it was Panda-monium!)
From there to headline our own show at the Ottobar…record store next door offered nothing worth note and instead Ko and I made way to Paper Moon Diner down the street. The food was forgettable, but the zany décor covered every square inch of this converted home and the atmosphere was fun.
I slept through opening bands. We played and all the fun and excitement and good times filling the room when we'd played town not three months ago was completely lost. It was a weird, hostile, borderline violent air in the room. As we ended with me on the microphone imploring them all to dance, said request was met with some fool wildly moshing the place to bits.
I instantly grabbed the guy and tried to squeeze him into submission, eventually ending up pinning him to the ground to get my point across. He apologized after the show, so that felt nice. Otherwise, the weird vibes in Balti were plenty enough for the entire tour.
NYC the next day. I hate guestlists. We had ten spots on ours and it was like a UN Security Council Meeting trying to properly divvy those up. Funnily enough, the club, Terminal 5, was nowhere near sold out. If people REALLY wanted to see us, they could just pay the cash at the door. But what fun is that?
We played decent. None better nor worse. But for all the effort, in getting there on time, the guestlist rigamarole, the excitement of playing such a huge place (3800 capacity) by the time we'd finished I just felt deflated and like I'd wasted my time.
Nevermind the debacle of figuring out where to stay/park the van afterwards. A headache to end all headaches, after about two hours of deliberating and driving and numerous changes of plan, I ended up in Brooklyn sleeping on our publicist's couch while the van took its familiar slumber in Jersey City.
Next morn Pat and Mick and I gathered for a little bit of a press junket. We began with a video interview (with a wonderful girl from West Bloomfield) for Uncensored TV. They encouraged us to be raw, vulgar, to curse…as the name says, completely uncensored. Yet if you want to drink a bottle of Poland Spring water on camera, they firmly request that you remove the label. Hilarious. View the shenanigans here:
http://www.uncensoredinterview.com/artists/364-The-Dirtbombs
From there we waltzed down the street to WNYU's basement studios to spin some tunes and chat with Kayla Cohen on the (so I'm told) legendary New Afternoon show. They had a picture of Nirvana in the studio back in '89. I was impressed. We played:
4:57 PM Death "Rock and Roll Victim"
4:59 PM Viva La American Death Ray Music "Tabloids"
5:00 PM Tyvek "Air Conditioner"
5:08 PM The Tammys "Egyptian Shumba"
5:10 PM Big Star "O My Soul" Radio City (Ardent Records)
5:16 PM The Slits "Earthbeat" Return of the Giant Slits
5:23 PM Music Convention "Belly Board Beat" CD
5:27 PM Arctic Monkeys "If You Found This, It's Probably Too Late"
5:28 PM Mick Bassett & the Marthas "The Keepers"
5:35 PM The Fire Engines "Get Up And Use Me"
5:39 PM X-ray Spex "Warrior In Woolworths"
5:41 PM Margot Benitez and the Mellotones "Winos on Parade"
5:46 PM The Dirtbombs "Kick Me"
"Kick Me" being the song's world premier, originally intended for release as a New Zealand tour single.
From there I searched for sneakers, spent much time and money at Rockit Scientist (Chubby Checker's psychedelic album a highlight), the same with St. Mark's Books, caught up with my buddy Nick for lunch and tramped around the neighborhood with impunity.
My cuisine for the night would be perfect. I started with a medium cup of frozen vanilla yogurt topped with Captain Crunch at Pinkberry and immediately followed it up with a mac'n'cheese croquet at the automat down the block. From there, tasty fresh poutine made right in front of me. How could I ever complain? Late night was a Blue 9 cheeseburger that was scrumptious.
I slept on a loveseat and had a slice from Artichoke Pizzeria for breakfast. Apparently the current hot pizza joint among NYC foodies and usually commanding a 35 minute wait for a slice, we slipped in and out in less than five and enjoyed their unique take on pie. Not usually a fan of spinach and artichoke, I was easily won over with their smooth, creamy concoction. Do search it out.
I pretty much hate Philadelphia with all my heart. I don't remember soundchecking, but I do remember hitting a record store on South Street where the girl behind the counter was really enthusiastically foisting the Dirtbombs on a customer. She even pulled out If You Don't Already... in hopes of getting him to the show that evening. I stood there bemused, waiting for a brilliant dis of the band that (un)fortunately never came.
From there I munched a cheese steak at Ishkabibbles. Not bad, but I'm told there are better in the city.
With a family wedding fast approaching the day I was set to arrive back in Detroit, I was in desperate need in figuring out how to tame my wild mane and homeless beard. I couldn't arrive to the nuptials looking like I'd just starred in "Bumfights 15" and it's not like I knew any barbers anywhere. I was feeling, to put it bluntly, screwed.
Luckily, South Street offers just about anything you could hope for. I saw what I could only describe as a traditional black barbershop. You know, the kind that Ice Cube makes movies about? Yes, that kind…the kind that I really have no reason going to. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Upon first pass the shop was full, two barbers both working fastidiously on customers. All of them were black and this was slightly intimidating. I decided to come back later.
Second pass found both barbers on the front steps and I sheepishly asked one "I know this may sound weird, but can you cut my hair?"
What I was secretly hoping for was a burst of laughter. Or the look of fire in his eyes. Or a shove to the chest. Instead, all I got was a "sure, he can take care of you."
(let it be known that the one I asked to cut my hair had directed me to his partner and I'm assuming this meant that he himself was not capable to cut my hair or had graduated from the Malcom X School of Follicle Fervor)
The man who did cut my hair and shave my beard was courteous and professional. He washed my hair before anything and I realized he was only the second man (after my father and not including myself) to ever wash my hair. He put some chemical on my head that slightly burned my scalp and Jay-Z blared over the soundsystem the entire time, but other than his every snip being extremely calculated and decisive, it was no different from any other haircut I'd ever received.
And I guess that was my problem. I was hoping for a great story to tell and all I left with was a decent haircut. I pretty much walked directly onstage after my trim and after we played, Spiritualized's tour manager looked at me perplexed and asked "Did you get your hair cut onstage?"
Now THAT would've been a story to tell
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Spiritualized Part Three: Tales from the Chili Bowl...
Atlanta was cool. Henry from Chunklet showed up with the lone extant copy of the Rock Bible and it provided much backstage hilarity before taking the stage.
After we played I ventured with Henry and his wife to the burrito place next door as we were all starving. The waiter came and asked if any of us had anything to do with the Dirtbombs. Confused, I said yes, I play drums in the band. He then said someone wanted to buy me a drink. I was flattered and later realized it was Ria.
Ria is arguably the biggest Dirtbombs fan in all of Atlanta. She also happens to run her own restaurant, Ria's Bluebird. On two consecutive band visits to town, she cheerily invited us to her restaurant to eat the day after our show and, in her words, enjoy a "free meal."
The first visit was utterly amazing. I ordered a creamy mushroom soup that is still among one of the top five best things I've ever tasted in my life. I gave a spoonful to Ko, she shuddered and immediately ordered a bowl for herself. Next I gave a spoonful to Potter and he did the same. The soup was delightful to the nth degree.
When it came time for the bill, it turned out Ria wasn't there and had left no instructions about feeding a roving band of ruffians from Detroit for free. A simple misunderstanding, we figured, and graciously paid the bill.
Next time in Atlanta, we specifically woke up early on a drive day and all the dudes in the band off to Ria's, again invited and severely wanting to cash in our free meal offer. Delectably succulent, the meal again failed to disappoint. Yet again, Ria was nowhere to be found and we begrudgingly paid our bill.
"What a great way to get people to your restaurant," we hypothesized, "offer them a free meal, then don't be there for them to cash it in." We were only kidding (slightly) but still found it weird that the same thing could happen to us on two occasions.
Anyway, with the drink Ria sent over I hereby declare all meals paid for by the Dirtbombs detached from any resentful feelings and here's hoping for another delicious meal on our next trip to Atlanta.
Spiritualized had some time to kill before their bus call and with help from the Black Lips boys we'd been assured chill space at the Drunken Unicorn. We crammed all the Spiritualized band dudes in our van (making it snug, slightly) and after waiting forever for Jason to stop talking to a fan, motored on down to the club.
The Jacuzzi Boys had just finished their set and I bought a 7" off them even though I hadn't heard them. This is a rule of thumb. If you see a 7" and you have the $5 in your pocket, buy it…ESPECIALLY if you didn’t see them play. This is a common professional courtesy that extends to all touring bands cool enough to be selling vinyl. If you have paid to see the band and were not impressed, you are not obligated to buy anything. But if you have not paid to see them and they are selling 7"s, you have no excuse not to purchase. This rule does not extend to 12"s.
(In furthering the code of the road, when I returned home the Jacuzzi Boys had, without my knowledge, mailed me a copy of another one of their 7"s. I still haven't listened to either yet, but they are already tops in my book)
Catching up with Jared and Cole from the Lips was time well spent. I miss those boys like brothers. I asked Jared if he'd heard any good bands lately and he wisely replied "Whatever In the Red is putting out" followed by the insightful comment "It's cool that us (the Black Lips) and you (the Dirtbombs) and Jay (Reatard) are doing so well that Larry can put out all these other great bands that people haven't heard of yet."
I'd never really considered it that way and suddenly felt an even more-immeasurable amount of pride on being included on the greatest rock and roll record label in America. Granted, the Bombs/Reatard/Lips sales are piddly compared to majors, but it does afford Larry Hardy the flow to be able to foist bands like Cheap Time, Vivian Girls, Devila 666 and AH Kraken on a receptive public that may otherwise be unawares of their existence. Then, if everything goes right, those bands become sellers in their own right and it all becomes a punk rock mobius strip of sustenance benefiting bands that haven't even formed yet (or, in the worst case scenario, holding up the sagging star of bands on their way back down…and this could very well be the Dirtbombs in the near future)
Day off spent driving. I found a publication at a gas station that was nothing but people's mug shots. What a fucking brilliant idea…all your content is public domain, you organize by area, crime, release date, celebrity, bust it out on some cheap newsprint and make a killing at $2 an ish. I'm amazed this has not already become a nationwide phenomenon. If you marketed all the major metropolitan areas in the US alone I think you'd have a goldmine.
Highlights of the mag were a particular criminal named, I shit you not, Marquis Moon and in the "Celebrity" section, a mug of George Clinton that made no mention of his actual name and instead, merely listed him as "Dr. Funkenstein." We laughed like we hadn't a care in the world.
We stopped in Durham, NC and ate at a place called Honey's. Free Wifi notwithstanding, I would not recommend eating there. Meal wasn't particularly bad, it just left us all unimpressed and unsatisfied. Lodging for the night was in Hendersonville, NC and as a night off Pat and I were hoping to finally go catch The Dark Knight.
We checked in around 9pm and I was ecstatic to find that there was a theater just over a mile away where The Dark Knight was showing. And then I was bummed when I found that the final showing of the evening started at 8:45. If that weren't bad enough, the WiFi at whatever mid-level America lodging chain we'd chanced upon that evening (I believe it Super 8, yet don't quote me) easily had the worst wireless signal strength I'd ever encountered.
There was a tiny 4'x4' slab of concrete on the balcony overlooking the front entrance carport where I was able to maintain the slowest 3-bar connection known to man. Move anywhere outside the concrete coffin, including INSIDE the lobby, and the signal was completely unresponsive, like a hooker beat far past her death. The countless number of mosquito bites I endured in order to fully understand the issues in the Kwame scandal was ultimately not worth it.
We arrived well early in DC and the route to the 9:30 Club took us through neighborhoods and sites I'd never seen in town. Of all the big cities in the country, DC is the one I feel like I have the least grasp on. I don't remember neighborhoods or where to hang out or anything that can brighten up time on tour. As it stands, we've never played the same club in the DC area more than once and that hinders one's ability to get a feel for the place.
A surprising percentage of the crowd seemed as if they were there to see us. Body movement was detected, quite possibly even to the extent of dancing. The band was flying so I took the opportunity to pull my drums down onto the main floor for "I Can't Stop Thinking About It."
It was a risky move as we were openers. It could be viewed as in bad form to possibly upstage the headliners. It went over with the crowd amazingly and while it was initially met with a "How are we supposed to go on after that?" from Spiritualized, I think they genuinely enjoyed watching it themselves. Everyone happy? Good.
Post show was a leisurely stroll down to Ben's Chili Bowl. Is there anything that compares to a classic hot dog joint? Overflowing with post-night life hungries? With a sign behind the counter declaring Bill Cosby as the only person entitled to free food there? In short, these are the places I prefer to make my time. While maybe short on the delicacies and gourmet ratings, they abound with ambiance, history and people not breaking the bank to enjoy a meal and the company they're keeping.
Ben's is a place with the utmost of everything I love in an eatery.
After we played I ventured with Henry and his wife to the burrito place next door as we were all starving. The waiter came and asked if any of us had anything to do with the Dirtbombs. Confused, I said yes, I play drums in the band. He then said someone wanted to buy me a drink. I was flattered and later realized it was Ria.
Ria is arguably the biggest Dirtbombs fan in all of Atlanta. She also happens to run her own restaurant, Ria's Bluebird. On two consecutive band visits to town, she cheerily invited us to her restaurant to eat the day after our show and, in her words, enjoy a "free meal."
The first visit was utterly amazing. I ordered a creamy mushroom soup that is still among one of the top five best things I've ever tasted in my life. I gave a spoonful to Ko, she shuddered and immediately ordered a bowl for herself. Next I gave a spoonful to Potter and he did the same. The soup was delightful to the nth degree.
When it came time for the bill, it turned out Ria wasn't there and had left no instructions about feeding a roving band of ruffians from Detroit for free. A simple misunderstanding, we figured, and graciously paid the bill.
Next time in Atlanta, we specifically woke up early on a drive day and all the dudes in the band off to Ria's, again invited and severely wanting to cash in our free meal offer. Delectably succulent, the meal again failed to disappoint. Yet again, Ria was nowhere to be found and we begrudgingly paid our bill.
"What a great way to get people to your restaurant," we hypothesized, "offer them a free meal, then don't be there for them to cash it in." We were only kidding (slightly) but still found it weird that the same thing could happen to us on two occasions.
Anyway, with the drink Ria sent over I hereby declare all meals paid for by the Dirtbombs detached from any resentful feelings and here's hoping for another delicious meal on our next trip to Atlanta.
Spiritualized had some time to kill before their bus call and with help from the Black Lips boys we'd been assured chill space at the Drunken Unicorn. We crammed all the Spiritualized band dudes in our van (making it snug, slightly) and after waiting forever for Jason to stop talking to a fan, motored on down to the club.
The Jacuzzi Boys had just finished their set and I bought a 7" off them even though I hadn't heard them. This is a rule of thumb. If you see a 7" and you have the $5 in your pocket, buy it…ESPECIALLY if you didn’t see them play. This is a common professional courtesy that extends to all touring bands cool enough to be selling vinyl. If you have paid to see the band and were not impressed, you are not obligated to buy anything. But if you have not paid to see them and they are selling 7"s, you have no excuse not to purchase. This rule does not extend to 12"s.
(In furthering the code of the road, when I returned home the Jacuzzi Boys had, without my knowledge, mailed me a copy of another one of their 7"s. I still haven't listened to either yet, but they are already tops in my book)
Catching up with Jared and Cole from the Lips was time well spent. I miss those boys like brothers. I asked Jared if he'd heard any good bands lately and he wisely replied "Whatever In the Red is putting out" followed by the insightful comment "It's cool that us (the Black Lips) and you (the Dirtbombs) and Jay (Reatard) are doing so well that Larry can put out all these other great bands that people haven't heard of yet."
I'd never really considered it that way and suddenly felt an even more-immeasurable amount of pride on being included on the greatest rock and roll record label in America. Granted, the Bombs/Reatard/Lips sales are piddly compared to majors, but it does afford Larry Hardy the flow to be able to foist bands like Cheap Time, Vivian Girls, Devila 666 and AH Kraken on a receptive public that may otherwise be unawares of their existence. Then, if everything goes right, those bands become sellers in their own right and it all becomes a punk rock mobius strip of sustenance benefiting bands that haven't even formed yet (or, in the worst case scenario, holding up the sagging star of bands on their way back down…and this could very well be the Dirtbombs in the near future)
Day off spent driving. I found a publication at a gas station that was nothing but people's mug shots. What a fucking brilliant idea…all your content is public domain, you organize by area, crime, release date, celebrity, bust it out on some cheap newsprint and make a killing at $2 an ish. I'm amazed this has not already become a nationwide phenomenon. If you marketed all the major metropolitan areas in the US alone I think you'd have a goldmine.
Highlights of the mag were a particular criminal named, I shit you not, Marquis Moon and in the "Celebrity" section, a mug of George Clinton that made no mention of his actual name and instead, merely listed him as "Dr. Funkenstein." We laughed like we hadn't a care in the world.
We stopped in Durham, NC and ate at a place called Honey's. Free Wifi notwithstanding, I would not recommend eating there. Meal wasn't particularly bad, it just left us all unimpressed and unsatisfied. Lodging for the night was in Hendersonville, NC and as a night off Pat and I were hoping to finally go catch The Dark Knight.
We checked in around 9pm and I was ecstatic to find that there was a theater just over a mile away where The Dark Knight was showing. And then I was bummed when I found that the final showing of the evening started at 8:45. If that weren't bad enough, the WiFi at whatever mid-level America lodging chain we'd chanced upon that evening (I believe it Super 8, yet don't quote me) easily had the worst wireless signal strength I'd ever encountered.
There was a tiny 4'x4' slab of concrete on the balcony overlooking the front entrance carport where I was able to maintain the slowest 3-bar connection known to man. Move anywhere outside the concrete coffin, including INSIDE the lobby, and the signal was completely unresponsive, like a hooker beat far past her death. The countless number of mosquito bites I endured in order to fully understand the issues in the Kwame scandal was ultimately not worth it.
We arrived well early in DC and the route to the 9:30 Club took us through neighborhoods and sites I'd never seen in town. Of all the big cities in the country, DC is the one I feel like I have the least grasp on. I don't remember neighborhoods or where to hang out or anything that can brighten up time on tour. As it stands, we've never played the same club in the DC area more than once and that hinders one's ability to get a feel for the place.
A surprising percentage of the crowd seemed as if they were there to see us. Body movement was detected, quite possibly even to the extent of dancing. The band was flying so I took the opportunity to pull my drums down onto the main floor for "I Can't Stop Thinking About It."
It was a risky move as we were openers. It could be viewed as in bad form to possibly upstage the headliners. It went over with the crowd amazingly and while it was initially met with a "How are we supposed to go on after that?" from Spiritualized, I think they genuinely enjoyed watching it themselves. Everyone happy? Good.
Post show was a leisurely stroll down to Ben's Chili Bowl. Is there anything that compares to a classic hot dog joint? Overflowing with post-night life hungries? With a sign behind the counter declaring Bill Cosby as the only person entitled to free food there? In short, these are the places I prefer to make my time. While maybe short on the delicacies and gourmet ratings, they abound with ambiance, history and people not breaking the bank to enjoy a meal and the company they're keeping.
Ben's is a place with the utmost of everything I love in an eatery.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Spiritualized Part Two: Grill'd to Pefection...
Arriving at the Vogue in Indianapolis was comfy. Polite loaders from the club grabbed our gear and brought it inside, I set up my drums quickly on the floor and then made way to Indy CD's just up the road.
Ran into Jason Pierce on the way there and we kinda shopped together, holding up records, asking if the other had heard them, recommending other records, talking at length about the MC5 and the Stooges and discussing the merits of portable turntables, USB turntables, and LP flight cases.
Spiritualized and their protracted sound check prevented us from doing much to prepare onstage (and found both bands scuttling plans to film spots for My Old Kentucky Blog), but it mattered not. Openers Thunders were relatively decent and with room for 45 minutes of us onstage, we undershot ourselves and were out in under 35. It all felt good though, while our first time in ages playing such a short set and subsequently cutting much material, it all went reasonably well.
Immediately upon the conclusion of our set our gear was kindly but quickly loaded out of the building and we were left to break down outside. This is vaguely demoralizing, but the endorphins from the performance helped mask the feeling.
Spiritualized was fantastic.
We decided to drive a bit and ended up in a crazy-scary storm. The rain was impenetrable and if that was all it wouldn't warrant a mention. But it was accompanied by the most consistent and bright lightning any of us had ever seen, with surprisingly little thunder. I dubbed it "strobe lightning" because it was frequent enough to simulate a strobe effect.
We crawled along the highway until a worthy rest exit beckoned safe harbor. We piled into the Steak and Shake and had one of the best band meals of all time.
First off, our waitress, Caroline, had to be the happiest, most cheerful waitress to ever be stuck with the midnight-to-six shift. The smile never left her face and she was vibrant the entire length of our stay.
I started with one of their Sides-By-Side™ Milk Shakes, vanilla and orange and it tasted like a creamsicle. Man it was heavenly and properly separated like a custom colored vinyl pressing (think the White Stripes "Party of Special Things to Do") and Caroline even told me the company secret of how they keep the flavors apart.
We laughed endless at the "Chili 5-way" and "Chili Mac" on the menu, even made up a 6th grade level parody song about the perils of diarrhea to the tune of "Jimmy Mack" by the Marvellettes. The only lyric I remember is "Chili Mac, don't want you coming back"
The paper placemats were a source of infinite amusement. With one proclaiming "A calculator amount of combinations" for an order where one could pick any two of ten sides, Pat said in his cocksure tone "You don't need a calculator for that." So I replied, "Then how many combinations are there?" and he stumbled for a second before offering "Well…I'm not that good with math, so…" and I finished his sentence "…YOU'LL NEED A CALCULATOR!" to which the rest of the band laughed uproariously.
(as an aside, I did come up with the number of combos while we were seated there. I think it was 42. What's the calculator function one would use to determine this tally? My first thought was factorial, but I'm almost certain that's wrong. Any budding math majors here?)
My placemat said "So bacon, we meet again" and I loved it so much that I refused to eat on it and instead cut out the phrase and kept it in my back pocket for inspiration.
I ate a cup of soup (probably chicken noodle), an order of cheese fries and the pepperjack burger. It may read like a lot, but besides the gas station hot dog earlier in the day and some tortilla chips backstage, I hadn't eaten anything substantial since the night before. I was overdue and Steak and Shake won my heart.
We drove not much further and decamped at a Super 8 Motel. Having stayed almost exclusively at Best Western's in the US for the past few months, this opening tour and its more restrictive budget would find us experimenting with some of the less-frequented (to us) lodging chains available to the American consumer.
The Super 8 seemed fine. All the hotels seem to blur together though. I killed 5 ants somewhere down South, one room emanated a stench fairly described as death in the air and another had a Wifi signal so weak (and I was so desperate) that it was only accessible in 4 foot by 4 foot square of concrete on the second level overlooking the front desk and I sat outside being eaten alive by skeeters while the signal operated at the speed of a lone kayaker crossing the Atlantic on one of those soul-searching journeys.
The next day (or possibly even the next next day) found us eating lunch at Macaroni Grill. Having never been there before, I envisioned nothing but grilled macaroni and was DELIGHTED to no end about this. Turns out to be just another middling Italian chain restaurant (what is an Italian chain anyway? Does it smell like garlic?)
They called their olive oil "Italian water" and the tablecloth was actually two pieces of butcher paper overlapping each other. We were given crayons to decorate the paper as we saw fit. Ko wrote everyone's names with arrows pointing at them and I wrote "gay" with an arrow pointing at her. Troy sketched sad looking faces while I interpreted the restaurant's name literally and drew a hydrocephalic cartoon character with macaroni noodles for teeth wearing a t-shirt that said "Grill'd to Perfection"
All of this was infinitely more memorable that whatever meddling meta-Mediterranean muck they served us at exorbitant "lunchtime" prices.
Nashville found us in the cavernous City Hall. After check we made it next door to Ru-San's, a sushi place we've eaten at twice before on previous tours. I'd been told the original owner had sold the place and that it'd suffered ever since.
The host came up to us and told us he couldn't seat us for at least twenty minutes because a server hadn't shown up. We asked if we could just sit and order at the bar…he said we could sit, but that no one would be able to take our order for twenty minutes. At that point, a waitress walked past and asked him "What are you doing?" and said that he should just put us at a table. Awkward to be caught in the middle, we chaired it at the bar and he poured (what I believe was) complimentary sake.
When asked what happened, he replied "The state liquor board was outside and the managers split." Now even if that was the case…is that the kind of information one should be sharing with customers who've yet to even get a table? Was it some sort of warning for us to get out?
Once seated an additional server showed up and my mom and her best friend joined us. It was interesting trying to turn these two women in their fifties on to new food. I guess the older you get, the more set in your ways you're likely to become. But Pat and Mick were awesome, explaining the intricacies of yakisoba, nigiri and sashimi with dedicated patience on-par with special-ed teachers.
Mom and Susie dug their food (I was excited for them) and although the service, décor and overall crowdedness of the restaurant was nowhere near what it was under the previous owner, the food was still as delicious as ever. And really, in the end, that's all I should really judge by.
Our set was solid…as we'd ended short in Indy we added "Sharpest Claws" and "Candyass" to even us out at a proper 45 minutes. During "Can't Stop Thinking About It" I wrapped my arms around the beam directly over my drums and climbed my way over to Pat, landed (almost) on his bass drum and began beating away at his rack tom. When trying to win over a crowd, most of whom did not know you existed prior to that day, it was necessary to pull out all the stops, I figured.
Mom and Susie watched two songs by Spiritualized then split. They apparently were apparently won over enough with our set that they needed no more rock.
Harmony Korine was on the guest list plus fifteen. That may be the biggest plus I've ever seen. He was backstage after the show. Ko may or may not have met him. We piled into our van and made a couple miles outside of town to our hotel.
Ran into Jason Pierce on the way there and we kinda shopped together, holding up records, asking if the other had heard them, recommending other records, talking at length about the MC5 and the Stooges and discussing the merits of portable turntables, USB turntables, and LP flight cases.
Spiritualized and their protracted sound check prevented us from doing much to prepare onstage (and found both bands scuttling plans to film spots for My Old Kentucky Blog), but it mattered not. Openers Thunders were relatively decent and with room for 45 minutes of us onstage, we undershot ourselves and were out in under 35. It all felt good though, while our first time in ages playing such a short set and subsequently cutting much material, it all went reasonably well.
Immediately upon the conclusion of our set our gear was kindly but quickly loaded out of the building and we were left to break down outside. This is vaguely demoralizing, but the endorphins from the performance helped mask the feeling.
Spiritualized was fantastic.
We decided to drive a bit and ended up in a crazy-scary storm. The rain was impenetrable and if that was all it wouldn't warrant a mention. But it was accompanied by the most consistent and bright lightning any of us had ever seen, with surprisingly little thunder. I dubbed it "strobe lightning" because it was frequent enough to simulate a strobe effect.
We crawled along the highway until a worthy rest exit beckoned safe harbor. We piled into the Steak and Shake and had one of the best band meals of all time.
First off, our waitress, Caroline, had to be the happiest, most cheerful waitress to ever be stuck with the midnight-to-six shift. The smile never left her face and she was vibrant the entire length of our stay.
I started with one of their Sides-By-Side™ Milk Shakes, vanilla and orange and it tasted like a creamsicle. Man it was heavenly and properly separated like a custom colored vinyl pressing (think the White Stripes "Party of Special Things to Do") and Caroline even told me the company secret of how they keep the flavors apart.
We laughed endless at the "Chili 5-way" and "Chili Mac" on the menu, even made up a 6th grade level parody song about the perils of diarrhea to the tune of "Jimmy Mack" by the Marvellettes. The only lyric I remember is "Chili Mac, don't want you coming back"
The paper placemats were a source of infinite amusement. With one proclaiming "A calculator amount of combinations" for an order where one could pick any two of ten sides, Pat said in his cocksure tone "You don't need a calculator for that." So I replied, "Then how many combinations are there?" and he stumbled for a second before offering "Well…I'm not that good with math, so…" and I finished his sentence "…YOU'LL NEED A CALCULATOR!" to which the rest of the band laughed uproariously.
(as an aside, I did come up with the number of combos while we were seated there. I think it was 42. What's the calculator function one would use to determine this tally? My first thought was factorial, but I'm almost certain that's wrong. Any budding math majors here?)
My placemat said "So bacon, we meet again" and I loved it so much that I refused to eat on it and instead cut out the phrase and kept it in my back pocket for inspiration.
I ate a cup of soup (probably chicken noodle), an order of cheese fries and the pepperjack burger. It may read like a lot, but besides the gas station hot dog earlier in the day and some tortilla chips backstage, I hadn't eaten anything substantial since the night before. I was overdue and Steak and Shake won my heart.
We drove not much further and decamped at a Super 8 Motel. Having stayed almost exclusively at Best Western's in the US for the past few months, this opening tour and its more restrictive budget would find us experimenting with some of the less-frequented (to us) lodging chains available to the American consumer.
The Super 8 seemed fine. All the hotels seem to blur together though. I killed 5 ants somewhere down South, one room emanated a stench fairly described as death in the air and another had a Wifi signal so weak (and I was so desperate) that it was only accessible in 4 foot by 4 foot square of concrete on the second level overlooking the front desk and I sat outside being eaten alive by skeeters while the signal operated at the speed of a lone kayaker crossing the Atlantic on one of those soul-searching journeys.
The next day (or possibly even the next next day) found us eating lunch at Macaroni Grill. Having never been there before, I envisioned nothing but grilled macaroni and was DELIGHTED to no end about this. Turns out to be just another middling Italian chain restaurant (what is an Italian chain anyway? Does it smell like garlic?)
They called their olive oil "Italian water" and the tablecloth was actually two pieces of butcher paper overlapping each other. We were given crayons to decorate the paper as we saw fit. Ko wrote everyone's names with arrows pointing at them and I wrote "gay" with an arrow pointing at her. Troy sketched sad looking faces while I interpreted the restaurant's name literally and drew a hydrocephalic cartoon character with macaroni noodles for teeth wearing a t-shirt that said "Grill'd to Perfection"
All of this was infinitely more memorable that whatever meddling meta-Mediterranean muck they served us at exorbitant "lunchtime" prices.
Nashville found us in the cavernous City Hall. After check we made it next door to Ru-San's, a sushi place we've eaten at twice before on previous tours. I'd been told the original owner had sold the place and that it'd suffered ever since.
The host came up to us and told us he couldn't seat us for at least twenty minutes because a server hadn't shown up. We asked if we could just sit and order at the bar…he said we could sit, but that no one would be able to take our order for twenty minutes. At that point, a waitress walked past and asked him "What are you doing?" and said that he should just put us at a table. Awkward to be caught in the middle, we chaired it at the bar and he poured (what I believe was) complimentary sake.
When asked what happened, he replied "The state liquor board was outside and the managers split." Now even if that was the case…is that the kind of information one should be sharing with customers who've yet to even get a table? Was it some sort of warning for us to get out?
Once seated an additional server showed up and my mom and her best friend joined us. It was interesting trying to turn these two women in their fifties on to new food. I guess the older you get, the more set in your ways you're likely to become. But Pat and Mick were awesome, explaining the intricacies of yakisoba, nigiri and sashimi with dedicated patience on-par with special-ed teachers.
Mom and Susie dug their food (I was excited for them) and although the service, décor and overall crowdedness of the restaurant was nowhere near what it was under the previous owner, the food was still as delicious as ever. And really, in the end, that's all I should really judge by.
Our set was solid…as we'd ended short in Indy we added "Sharpest Claws" and "Candyass" to even us out at a proper 45 minutes. During "Can't Stop Thinking About It" I wrapped my arms around the beam directly over my drums and climbed my way over to Pat, landed (almost) on his bass drum and began beating away at his rack tom. When trying to win over a crowd, most of whom did not know you existed prior to that day, it was necessary to pull out all the stops, I figured.
Mom and Susie watched two songs by Spiritualized then split. They apparently were apparently won over enough with our set that they needed no more rock.
Harmony Korine was on the guest list plus fifteen. That may be the biggest plus I've ever seen. He was backstage after the show. Ko may or may not have met him. We piled into our van and made a couple miles outside of town to our hotel.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Spiritualized Part One: Free Time in Chicago...
We ride to Chicago four-deep, Mick drivin' his damn self cause he needed to be back in Detroit on Sunday for the Concert of Colors.
Craving them inexplicably for the past week, I indulge in Chicken McNuggets at an Illinois toll road oasis filled with a typically large Amish family. The ten-piece order satiated at first, but would knot my stomach later.
It was our first time at the Abbey Pub and I wasn't terribly impressed. It's slightly off the beaten path, which meant there was nothing to do nearby. And too much of the basement (ie, band room) was ravaged by rain.
After soundcheck and an inconsequential meal (Caesar salad) Mick and I called for a cab and made our way to the Experimental Garage sale, touting circuit-bent, home-made and hi-jacked electronics. I was tempted by the 8-bit Nintendo system retro-fit with sound chips from a toy ray-gun and equipped with wave modulators, but instead spent scrilla on a similar device with some knobs and switches, makes weird noise rock noises and has the ability to create loops. My brilliant description notwithstanding, it's pretty damn cool.
As we left the garage sale fans that were actually coming to that evening's performance identified us. They offered us a ride back to the club, not before dropping off a pal, and Mick and I were happy not to pay another cab fee.
The trek to drop of this friend, Caz as it were, would be roughly an hour blindly searching the curiously named streets of the Windy City. Our kind driver and his lady friend were a great audience though…they laughed at every stupid joke I made and that is the quickest way for me to like someone.
Once back at the club I gave my little sister a big bear hug and caught up with her, ignoring the opening bands. As we set the stage for our set, Troy's bass head began to emit smoke. He borrowed an amp from one of the opening bands, but the set never seemed to connect. Jay Reatard, King Khan, Dutchess and the Duke and Cheap Time were playing the "official" Pitchfork afterparty across town and clearly most of the crowd we should've drawn was there. Throughout our entire set, I wished I was too.
But the members of the crowd who felt the need to speak to me after the show seemed to enjoy it, which was nice. Was surprised to see Dave McCann, fellow stock-boy at Yorkshire Market while we were both still teenagers. He looked exactly the same and that felt very reassuring for some hard-to-describe reason.
The skies opened up and poured a pisser of a storm on the Chicago streets. Loading out through the rain was a fiasco. Me, my sister and her roommates were able to convince Mick to drop us off at their Wrigleyville apartment on his way back to Detroit. We crammed in and after not too long, I remembered, "Wait a minute, Mick is a TERRIBLE driver." Add to that his questionable vision, the pummeling rainstorm and the delay his defrost system was operating on and I was almost certain something would go wrong. And as the cab ALMOST hit us on the intersection of Clark and something I've since forgotten, that was close enough prophesy fulfillment for me. We thanked him profusely and directed him to his hotel in South Bend.
Rest of the night was spent eating ramen noodles, sipping a Slurpee and nibbling an oven-fresh pizza, falling asleep watching DVD's of The Boondocks.
A day off in Chicago with my sister was what I'd been looking forward to for some time. Late wake-up found us eating decent Thai food for lunch, me contemplating making my very own Italy Records t-shirt (utilizing the iron-on of Michelangelo's David) at Strange Cargo and stupidly deciding to be frugal and try and lay off the unnecessary purchases.
We took the bus to the Levis store where my sister works. I'd not ridden a bus since the summer of 2005 in London with assorted Datsuns to go see Black Mountain open for the Ponys (what a damn fine show to boot). She makes the 40-minute ride regularly and I peppered her with questions about how she utilizes the mindless time. She responded by saying I needed to let her have my iPod.
Levis was intriguing, but ultimately nothing suited me. Squeezing into a pair of 34x34 was funny, and while tempted to make a joke referencing Cadbury Cream Eggs and Butterfingers, let's just say shit was tight.
From Levis to Nike Town, the three-story temple of Swoosh that was amazing in it's ability to accurately recreate the stink of a locker room throughout the entire complex.
We checked The Dark Knight show times down the block and everything but only the 10:30 or later show times were already sold out.
We cabbed it to Dusty Grooves and I finally got my needy hands on the Coasters 4xCD box set. I'd been craving it far too long and the just-below $100 total did not go against my early vow of frugality, as this was the fucking Coasters and you cannot deny "Idol with the Golden Head" or ANYTHING Leiber and Stoller wrote.
I utilized new text-message sensation ChaCha to try and find the nearest batting cages to her haunt. The service works as follows: type out a question on your mobile phone, send it to ChaCha (or 242242 for those who don't know how to spell on a phone) and they will send you an answer.
Best of all, this service (supposedly only in its beta phase) is completely free. How cool is that?
We found ourselves upstairs at Sluggers' bar on Clark, glad to pay the $5 charge for Sunday's "all you can hit buffet." Icing on the cake was skee-ball, some pinball machines and even arcade basketball, complete with leathery, kidney-like balls coping through various stages of deflation.
The pitching machines in the cages criss-crossed like a version of cat's cradle gone awry. It would prove difficult at first to discern where exactly your pitch was coming from. The whole time the machines are being fed, by hand, by some schmoe whose demeanor seemed to say that having his scrotum continuously punctured by lava-hot needles could possibly be more rewarding than his current occupation.
The problem is, I could not disagree more. I think batting cage attendant would be an almost Zen-like profession. Sure, it probably doesn't pay the bills, but with $4-a-gallon gas, what does? He simply correlates the softballs and the hardballs together, loads them in the machines and gets to listen to classic rock radio while doing so.
This, I confess, would be an amazing job. Not only do I think he's got some good stories to lay on you, but I bet his swing is wicked awesome.
My sister is usually slow to bring up the fact that she was All-State first base softball her senior year of high school, but under the aegis of a few rounds at Sluggers, she relishes in lording said accolade over me. And after her failure to make contact with a single ball in the fast-pitch cage, I tell her "The only All-State you're worthy of is car insurance."
Boo-ya.
Surly cage monkey politely asks all swingers to take a moratorium so he can gather the stray balls that'd found chinks in the netting where they had failed to roll down the steep downgrade back into the pitching machine nerve center. He calmly walks around popping the yellow and orange rubber beacons out of their gnarled spiderwebbing until some dipshit 11-year-old fires up one of the machines and connects a solid line drive that comes damn near close to the dude's head.
He yells and walks back to the ball return HQ and hilariously shuts off the little prick's machine. The batting cages are clearly ruled by laws that are swift but just.
Half the arcade machines in the joint were in such disarming states of disrepair that you were actually surprised by the first machine that confusingly stole your quarter. By the time you'd encountered your FOURTH machine (seemingly in working order) to do so, it became apparent this was more of a business strategy than anything. Have half your machines work, half of them not and what on the surface appears to be an arcade now turns into a veritable casino, each machine its own game of chance.
Angie beat me two games to one (with one draw) in arcade basketball. I was slightly pissed, but now have all the more reason to come back and bond with her some more. I never really appreciated what a wonderful person she was until we no longer lived under the same roof and lately even the most miniscule email, phone conversation or face time is a wonderful treat. I'm equally enamored and proud with how she survives in the city. Now if she could stock Levis in my size, clear a Dark Knight screening at an appropriate time, make my Italy Records t-shirt and be just a tad shittier at basketball, she could just be the best sister ever.
Craving them inexplicably for the past week, I indulge in Chicken McNuggets at an Illinois toll road oasis filled with a typically large Amish family. The ten-piece order satiated at first, but would knot my stomach later.
It was our first time at the Abbey Pub and I wasn't terribly impressed. It's slightly off the beaten path, which meant there was nothing to do nearby. And too much of the basement (ie, band room) was ravaged by rain.
After soundcheck and an inconsequential meal (Caesar salad) Mick and I called for a cab and made our way to the Experimental Garage sale, touting circuit-bent, home-made and hi-jacked electronics. I was tempted by the 8-bit Nintendo system retro-fit with sound chips from a toy ray-gun and equipped with wave modulators, but instead spent scrilla on a similar device with some knobs and switches, makes weird noise rock noises and has the ability to create loops. My brilliant description notwithstanding, it's pretty damn cool.
As we left the garage sale fans that were actually coming to that evening's performance identified us. They offered us a ride back to the club, not before dropping off a pal, and Mick and I were happy not to pay another cab fee.
The trek to drop of this friend, Caz as it were, would be roughly an hour blindly searching the curiously named streets of the Windy City. Our kind driver and his lady friend were a great audience though…they laughed at every stupid joke I made and that is the quickest way for me to like someone.
Once back at the club I gave my little sister a big bear hug and caught up with her, ignoring the opening bands. As we set the stage for our set, Troy's bass head began to emit smoke. He borrowed an amp from one of the opening bands, but the set never seemed to connect. Jay Reatard, King Khan, Dutchess and the Duke and Cheap Time were playing the "official" Pitchfork afterparty across town and clearly most of the crowd we should've drawn was there. Throughout our entire set, I wished I was too.
But the members of the crowd who felt the need to speak to me after the show seemed to enjoy it, which was nice. Was surprised to see Dave McCann, fellow stock-boy at Yorkshire Market while we were both still teenagers. He looked exactly the same and that felt very reassuring for some hard-to-describe reason.
The skies opened up and poured a pisser of a storm on the Chicago streets. Loading out through the rain was a fiasco. Me, my sister and her roommates were able to convince Mick to drop us off at their Wrigleyville apartment on his way back to Detroit. We crammed in and after not too long, I remembered, "Wait a minute, Mick is a TERRIBLE driver." Add to that his questionable vision, the pummeling rainstorm and the delay his defrost system was operating on and I was almost certain something would go wrong. And as the cab ALMOST hit us on the intersection of Clark and something I've since forgotten, that was close enough prophesy fulfillment for me. We thanked him profusely and directed him to his hotel in South Bend.
Rest of the night was spent eating ramen noodles, sipping a Slurpee and nibbling an oven-fresh pizza, falling asleep watching DVD's of The Boondocks.
A day off in Chicago with my sister was what I'd been looking forward to for some time. Late wake-up found us eating decent Thai food for lunch, me contemplating making my very own Italy Records t-shirt (utilizing the iron-on of Michelangelo's David) at Strange Cargo and stupidly deciding to be frugal and try and lay off the unnecessary purchases.
We took the bus to the Levis store where my sister works. I'd not ridden a bus since the summer of 2005 in London with assorted Datsuns to go see Black Mountain open for the Ponys (what a damn fine show to boot). She makes the 40-minute ride regularly and I peppered her with questions about how she utilizes the mindless time. She responded by saying I needed to let her have my iPod.
Levis was intriguing, but ultimately nothing suited me. Squeezing into a pair of 34x34 was funny, and while tempted to make a joke referencing Cadbury Cream Eggs and Butterfingers, let's just say shit was tight.
From Levis to Nike Town, the three-story temple of Swoosh that was amazing in it's ability to accurately recreate the stink of a locker room throughout the entire complex.
We checked The Dark Knight show times down the block and everything but only the 10:30 or later show times were already sold out.
We cabbed it to Dusty Grooves and I finally got my needy hands on the Coasters 4xCD box set. I'd been craving it far too long and the just-below $100 total did not go against my early vow of frugality, as this was the fucking Coasters and you cannot deny "Idol with the Golden Head" or ANYTHING Leiber and Stoller wrote.
I utilized new text-message sensation ChaCha to try and find the nearest batting cages to her haunt. The service works as follows: type out a question on your mobile phone, send it to ChaCha (or 242242 for those who don't know how to spell on a phone) and they will send you an answer.
Best of all, this service (supposedly only in its beta phase) is completely free. How cool is that?
We found ourselves upstairs at Sluggers' bar on Clark, glad to pay the $5 charge for Sunday's "all you can hit buffet." Icing on the cake was skee-ball, some pinball machines and even arcade basketball, complete with leathery, kidney-like balls coping through various stages of deflation.
The pitching machines in the cages criss-crossed like a version of cat's cradle gone awry. It would prove difficult at first to discern where exactly your pitch was coming from. The whole time the machines are being fed, by hand, by some schmoe whose demeanor seemed to say that having his scrotum continuously punctured by lava-hot needles could possibly be more rewarding than his current occupation.
The problem is, I could not disagree more. I think batting cage attendant would be an almost Zen-like profession. Sure, it probably doesn't pay the bills, but with $4-a-gallon gas, what does? He simply correlates the softballs and the hardballs together, loads them in the machines and gets to listen to classic rock radio while doing so.
This, I confess, would be an amazing job. Not only do I think he's got some good stories to lay on you, but I bet his swing is wicked awesome.
My sister is usually slow to bring up the fact that she was All-State first base softball her senior year of high school, but under the aegis of a few rounds at Sluggers, she relishes in lording said accolade over me. And after her failure to make contact with a single ball in the fast-pitch cage, I tell her "The only All-State you're worthy of is car insurance."
Boo-ya.
Surly cage monkey politely asks all swingers to take a moratorium so he can gather the stray balls that'd found chinks in the netting where they had failed to roll down the steep downgrade back into the pitching machine nerve center. He calmly walks around popping the yellow and orange rubber beacons out of their gnarled spiderwebbing until some dipshit 11-year-old fires up one of the machines and connects a solid line drive that comes damn near close to the dude's head.
He yells and walks back to the ball return HQ and hilariously shuts off the little prick's machine. The batting cages are clearly ruled by laws that are swift but just.
Half the arcade machines in the joint were in such disarming states of disrepair that you were actually surprised by the first machine that confusingly stole your quarter. By the time you'd encountered your FOURTH machine (seemingly in working order) to do so, it became apparent this was more of a business strategy than anything. Have half your machines work, half of them not and what on the surface appears to be an arcade now turns into a veritable casino, each machine its own game of chance.
Angie beat me two games to one (with one draw) in arcade basketball. I was slightly pissed, but now have all the more reason to come back and bond with her some more. I never really appreciated what a wonderful person she was until we no longer lived under the same roof and lately even the most miniscule email, phone conversation or face time is a wonderful treat. I'm equally enamored and proud with how she survives in the city. Now if she could stock Levis in my size, clear a Dark Knight screening at an appropriate time, make my Italy Records t-shirt and be just a tad shittier at basketball, she could just be the best sister ever.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Last Thoughts on Bo Diddley...
I wrote this for Rich over at Turn It Down back in June and immediately forgot about it. Here it is in all its resplendent glory. Note: it seems like I may have predicted the future on this one.
If the Jesus and Mary Chain ever uttered a nugget of truth, it was "Bo Diddley is Jesus."
As I sit here a day after the Originator's death (digging on the Raconteurs throwing some "Hey Bo Diddley!" into their jam on Conan O'Brien a befitting tribute last night), I can't help but feel that there's now just an utter void on the Mantle of Rock Importance in which he was the only one who mattered. You can have your Chuck Berry, your Little Richard, your Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis…Bo Diddley seems like the only one worth a shit in that whole pile. Elvis never wrote a song in his life, Jerry Lee and Chuck got caught up in tawdry sex affairs back in the good ole' days when that was enough to kill a career and Penniman went and found the Lord at a time when the world needed him the most.
The whole time, amidst it all, was Bo Diddley.
You'll be hard-pressed to name me a debut single that carries as much musical, cultural and outright badass heft as Checker Records 814 "Bo Diddley" backed with "I'm a Man"
To name your first single after yourself is pure cockiness and to pair it with the brilliant boasting of making love to a whole line of women in an hour, he clearly set the template for self-assuredness that permeates all facets of hip-hop culture…and he did it in 1955!
He was on the Ed Sullivan complete with shakin legs before Elvis Presley and instead of covering Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" like he was supposed to he bucked it all and just did "Bo Diddley." Watching the footage now brings me to genuine tears, a piece of majestic beauty, the matching suits, Jerome quaking maracas cause his life depended on it, Bo as sure of himself as one could ever be, a bad ass black man beamed into the living room of millions of those in white America …some called it jungle music, race records…it's simply and purely rock and roll.
(if there's a better one minute ten seconds on YouTube, I've yet to find it)
I could go on even more about how genius it is to surround yourself with genius…Jerome Greene(fucking JEROME deserves his own fucking wing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I could wax about him for hours, but another time clearly), Billy Boy Arnold and the most perfect harmonica sound ever committed to tape, the Dutchess, Lady Bo and the Bo-Ettes are all evidence that the man knew how to put together a band.
Not only is Bo Diddley the only person with a drum beat named after him, but HE'S NOT EVEN A DRUMMER! HE'S A GUITAR PLAYER! That fact alone speaks volumes…and you can argue day and night about whether or not Bo just reappropriated the clave beat, shave and a haircut or the juba, one thing remains is that if you heard any of those, you wouldn't call them by their esoteric names…you'd just call it as the Bo Diddley Beat.
A few weeks ago the Dirtbombs were recording some "stripped-down" performance for an internet TV something or other. Not fans of deconstruction or decollage, it was difficult figuring out what in the hell we could actually do without amplified bass or fuzz guitar. In comes the Bo Diddley Beat to the rescue…we vaguely re-jigger "Leopardman at C&A" to include maracas and a tambourine and the thing works like a charm. It left us with a pretty failsafe dictum that I now share with you: whenever in doubt…the Bo Diddley Beat.
Coupled with the Back from the Grave compilation series (which is also somehow only in existence because OF Bo) Diddley is the sole reason that the Gories ever came together and their recorded versions of his songs "Crawdad", "Hey Bo Diddley" and "Mona" are further proof for advanced primitive life on this planet.
Mick Collins had told me before that the Gories had all agreed that they would reunite if presented with the chance of backing Bo Diddley. Mick was the first person I called when I'd heard Bo died and I sadly commented that it seemed like they wouldn't get back together now. But after thinking about it for a second, it was clear. With Bo Diddley gone, the world need the Gories now more than ever. Hopefully, if any good can come with his passing, it will be the much-needed reunion of the Gories.
I can safely say that Bo Diddley is in heaven right now, surely giving hell to the imposter who's been parading around as Jesus for the past two millennia and hopefully claiming his rightful place guiding us with that driving beat. Godspeed Bo, you're already missed.
http://www.turnitdownlansing.com/?p=89
If the Jesus and Mary Chain ever uttered a nugget of truth, it was "Bo Diddley is Jesus."
As I sit here a day after the Originator's death (digging on the Raconteurs throwing some "Hey Bo Diddley!" into their jam on Conan O'Brien a befitting tribute last night), I can't help but feel that there's now just an utter void on the Mantle of Rock Importance in which he was the only one who mattered. You can have your Chuck Berry, your Little Richard, your Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis…Bo Diddley seems like the only one worth a shit in that whole pile. Elvis never wrote a song in his life, Jerry Lee and Chuck got caught up in tawdry sex affairs back in the good ole' days when that was enough to kill a career and Penniman went and found the Lord at a time when the world needed him the most.
The whole time, amidst it all, was Bo Diddley.
You'll be hard-pressed to name me a debut single that carries as much musical, cultural and outright badass heft as Checker Records 814 "Bo Diddley" backed with "I'm a Man"
To name your first single after yourself is pure cockiness and to pair it with the brilliant boasting of making love to a whole line of women in an hour, he clearly set the template for self-assuredness that permeates all facets of hip-hop culture…and he did it in 1955!
He was on the Ed Sullivan complete with shakin legs before Elvis Presley and instead of covering Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" like he was supposed to he bucked it all and just did "Bo Diddley." Watching the footage now brings me to genuine tears, a piece of majestic beauty, the matching suits, Jerome quaking maracas cause his life depended on it, Bo as sure of himself as one could ever be, a bad ass black man beamed into the living room of millions of those in white America …some called it jungle music, race records…it's simply and purely rock and roll.
(if there's a better one minute ten seconds on YouTube, I've yet to find it)
I could go on even more about how genius it is to surround yourself with genius…Jerome Greene(fucking JEROME deserves his own fucking wing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I could wax about him for hours, but another time clearly), Billy Boy Arnold and the most perfect harmonica sound ever committed to tape, the Dutchess, Lady Bo and the Bo-Ettes are all evidence that the man knew how to put together a band.
Not only is Bo Diddley the only person with a drum beat named after him, but HE'S NOT EVEN A DRUMMER! HE'S A GUITAR PLAYER! That fact alone speaks volumes…and you can argue day and night about whether or not Bo just reappropriated the clave beat, shave and a haircut or the juba, one thing remains is that if you heard any of those, you wouldn't call them by their esoteric names…you'd just call it as the Bo Diddley Beat.
A few weeks ago the Dirtbombs were recording some "stripped-down" performance for an internet TV something or other. Not fans of deconstruction or decollage, it was difficult figuring out what in the hell we could actually do without amplified bass or fuzz guitar. In comes the Bo Diddley Beat to the rescue…we vaguely re-jigger "Leopardman at C&A" to include maracas and a tambourine and the thing works like a charm. It left us with a pretty failsafe dictum that I now share with you: whenever in doubt…the Bo Diddley Beat.
Coupled with the Back from the Grave compilation series (which is also somehow only in existence because OF Bo) Diddley is the sole reason that the Gories ever came together and their recorded versions of his songs "Crawdad", "Hey Bo Diddley" and "Mona" are further proof for advanced primitive life on this planet.
Mick Collins had told me before that the Gories had all agreed that they would reunite if presented with the chance of backing Bo Diddley. Mick was the first person I called when I'd heard Bo died and I sadly commented that it seemed like they wouldn't get back together now. But after thinking about it for a second, it was clear. With Bo Diddley gone, the world need the Gories now more than ever. Hopefully, if any good can come with his passing, it will be the much-needed reunion of the Gories.
I can safely say that Bo Diddley is in heaven right now, surely giving hell to the imposter who's been parading around as Jesus for the past two millennia and hopefully claiming his rightful place guiding us with that driving beat. Godspeed Bo, you're already missed.
http://www.turnitdownlansing.com/?p=89
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Europe Finale: Finally...
We drove straight through the night, straight through Slovenia and Croatia into the bowels of Serbia. Belgrade looked exactly as I remembered it (there's an old tour diary at metrotimes.com if you care) and I thought it was cute as our promoter Aleks kept mentioning checking us into our "hostel" when he clearly meant hotel.
So as we lugged our bags up the stairs of the Chillton Hostel in Belgrade I didn't think it cute so more. Our previous trip to town found us in a decent hotel so our surprising appearance at the hostel perplexed me. Later Aleks would explain to Ko that our hotel last time was a "whore" hotel and that he no longer employed their services.
I was excited because there was an old Crypt Records print ad on the wall at the hostel that detailed the release of the Gories Outta Here as set for April 14, 1992. The ad copy curiously states that the CD version would include the A-sides to all the band's 7"s at the time (released by In the Red, Giant Claw, Estrus and Sub Pop).
This is interesting, as you already know, because the CD release includes only the A-side of the In the Red single. It includes the B-sides to the Estrus and Giant Claw singles ("Idol with the Golden Head" and "Ichiban" respectively) while featuring NOTHING from the Sub Pop single.
If Tim Warren is reading this, I'm curious as to how this came about. Mick has no recollection.
Dinner was had at Aleks' mom's house…a wonderful homemade affair of all things Serb. I even partook in a swig of his father's home-stilled plum brandy, stored in a plastic water bottle and vaguely virulent.
From mom's house to SKC club. Decent-sized room. There were openers I didn't watch as the club had free WiFi. Our show was admittedly stellar…while language barrier as present as ever, the crowd seemed like they wanted so much more just to BELIEVE what was happening on stage. There was a gigantic 9'x12' poster advertising the show, featuring a live photo of the band that was surprisingly flattering. We took photos in front of it after we played. We also all slept in the same room, bunk beds like summer camp without the ghost stories or panty raids. Do they still do panty raids?
I hid poems in the books at the hostel and purposefully left my copy of Hitmen there for some enterprising music biz student to find like some long-lost incunabula. Drive to Croatia would prove uneventful, rural and winding.
The Dirty Old Empire Fest was a booking mistake. We clearly should not have been there. We bore no resemblance to the other acts whether it audible, sartorial, dietary, or (probably) morally.
I did, however, devour a delicious cinnamon and honey crepe during soundcheck.
After the second band of breakneck, chucka-chucka super punk rock while eating dinner (menu choices were: sausage, a hamburger, or TWO sausages) I looked at my fellow band members and asked "So how do you feel about a 45 minute version of 'Kung Fu?'"
And so faced with yet another quandary…when playing a show that is obviously mismatched does the band do our standard 45-minute set, hope to maybe win some converts and make a mental note for extra gig selecting scrutiny in the future? Or do you hop onstage middle fingers a'blazing and do your best to try and make a "statement"…whatever that may be?
After a band he would describe as "dub-step" finished their set, Mick would prove a tad apprehensive at the "Kung Fu" proposition. But thankfully everyone's resolve proved steely, hell, we'd even written up setlists (written on paper hotdog trays) for the occasion, and we took the stage to a crowd of absolutely none of our fans with the tickling feeling of playing a prank.
It being the 4th of July AND our 100th show of the year, we deserved to celebrate a little.
So we'd bartered it out and decided not to do merely "Kung Fu" but to intersperse other songs throughout it. The setlist, as we wrote it, was:
War Pigs
Kung Fu
(Mick singing some of Marley's "Exodus", not on my setlist, possibly on others')
Bela Lugosi's Dead
Dance This Mess Around
2+2=?
Kung Fu
Indivisible
Kung Fu
Start the Party
We'd even developed hand signals with Louisa to indicate how much time we'd have as it'd be clear to lose sense of time once wrapped in the enveloping groove. And we did the set exactly in that order…only the whole thing took approximately 30 minutes.
It seems in all the excitement we, as a whole, failed to draw-out the jam to a substantial enough length. So as we ended "Start the Party" (us trying to be ironic, ending with that one) we then just went in to the rest of the set as it would go from there…"Get it While You Can" then "Underdog" then "Ode to a Black Man" and finally ending with "I Can't Stop Thinking About It."
Someone from another band said that it took a lot of balls to come out there and start playing like Can, and it was enjoyable on our end, but I think we all hoped it would prove a little more controversial or at least a little more jammy, rambling and take-up a larger portion of our allotted time.
After we played we ate some local traditional soup/stew that'd been simmering over a fire most of the day. Everyone was in agreement that it may have been one of the best things they'd ever tasted. I believe there were at least four different types of meat in it. I do not know what it was called.
After us was a Canadian punk balled called the Real Mackenzies. They wore kilts and sang Scottish-centric songs about how the Loch Ness monster is real and things of that nature. They had a bag-piper. It was all very, very laughable to me.
After ingesting enough of their set, I offered Ko 100 Euros cash to go onstage and lift the lead singer's kilt. She was surprisingly accepting of this offer and as I started to worry, not only about my pocketbook but the resultant melee that was sure to ensue, I was relieved when she was unable to get onstage, the necessary stairway entrance blocked by their crew.
But the singe of the Mackenzies was one antagonizing motherfucker. Just giving shit to the audience left and right. About an hour into the set, someone threw a shoe and hit the singer in the face. I didn't see this and in any other situation I would consider this a very despicable thing to do. But with the unrelenting verbal abuse this guy was spitting a shoe to the face seemed strangely fitting.
This just seemed to push him over the edge. He had a remarkable cut on his face and there was some blood. His dogging of the crowd got more intense (he even called them "fascists) and he openly challenged whoever threw the shoe to get on stage and fight him one-on-one. I'll never forget him saying "When you fuck with a Mackenzie you're fucked for LIFE!"
This goes on for a handful of songs before the singer jumps into the crowd and (as it seems to me) just starts wailing on some dude indiscriminately. The security quickly peels the attack apart and the rest of the band as if to say "fuck it" walks off the stage.
The singer then says "The Real Mackenzies were prepared to play for another hour but because…" and trailed off into some since-forgotten criticism of the shoe-tosser and promise to come back and play a BETTER show sometime in the future, followed quickly by a Chris Rock-approved microphone drop and a provoking full lift of his kilt.
The whole thing left me feeling very awkward and all I could really say was "Jeeez" Some at the festival would claim that the Dirtbombs confrontational set that night merely stoked the crowd into furor that would eventually roil over during the Mackenzies set. I can neither confirm nor deny this, but am flattered if others truly believe so.
We managed to get the van up a muddy incline and to a cabin up the road that felt like the kind of place my parents would take us to during childhood summers, that peculiar half-lived-in feel of a seasonal cottage with it's underused dishware and thin mattresses all bringing to mind the memories of rural Michigan lakeside retreats in the late 1980's.
We barely had time to sleep, I spent most of mine condensing my pack for the impending flight.
Early to rise and arrive on-time to the Zagreb airport. It's a heartfelt goodbye to Louisa…she driving to van all alone back to London (some 18 hours away) but the probable end to her rock touring days as she'd enrolled in university in Manchester to become a teacher.
After sad goodbyes, we check-in for our flight on Hungarian Airlines. We'd been told by promoters that they'd pre-paid a few as we'd anticipated our baggage to be severely overweight (insert Karen Carpenter joke here). So as the wonderfully helpful ticket agent informed us that nothing had been prepaid and that their overage charges were ten euros PER KILO all of our stomachs sank dramatically.
Fevered phone calls and frantic weigh-ins ensued. It became clear there was no way the promoters could have pre-paid this charge as we had no idea how much over our baggage was. The counter lady did us a complete solid by printing up a bill that said we were collectively only 13 kilos over the limit (we were more likely three times that) and we were soon re-assured by our UK booking agent that the promoters would reimburse our baggage charge.
This is, quite possibly, where it all started to go wrong.
Our flight would be a brief hop over to Budapest. The 30-seat prop aircraft was charming in an Iron Curtain-leftover kind of way. The half-hour spent in the airport was spent hiding poems in the terminal bookstore and being thrilled at getting a Hungarian stamp on my passport.
Flight from Budapest to Malaga was filled with the most annoying sniveling little European shits I'd ever come across. Loud as all get-out, pounding on the back of my seat and not letting up one iota the entire two-hour journey. My vasectomy was scheduled immediately upon landing.
Baggage claim at Malaga was a bad scene…anything checked-in in non-EU countries was supposed to pop out of a secured baggage carousel (this would mean our luggage) even though the particular flight was from Hungary (a EU country) some of it ended up at the regular reclaim.
To confuse us even more, Mick's suitcase, Troy's bass and suitcase, Pat's suitcase and the cymbal case (with all of his cymbals and mine inside) all failed to pop out on either of the merry-go-rounds. So we sat around while Pat did his damnedest to try and communicate to airline rep (who understood little English) that the forwarding address was in Detroit, our time in Spain actually only amounting to a handful of hours.
Deflated, we poured into the van with what was left of our luggage and were chauffeured the frustratingly sunny route snaking through the craggy, coast-bluffing Spanish landscape. Through the two and a half-hour drive, no more than five total sentences were spoken.
The other problem thrust upon us was the topic of our set time. We were scheduled to take the stage at 2am. This would usually only be a mild inconvenience (the Spanish like late nights) of personal preference, but today would prove to be a logistical problem.
Our departing flight from the Malaga airport was scheduled for 7am. If we went onstage at 2am, played for the hour and a half they wanted us for, then hopped into the van immediately thereafter, chilled for the two and a half-hour ride and it puts us there at 6am at the EARLIEST. This simply would not work.
The promoters were told our flight details with ample time to prepare around them so it was all the more confusing. Being the night's headliners though was not without its perks. We politely but FIRMLY made it clear that we needed to be at the Malaga Airport no later than 5am. Our driver put the call through and we were swiftly moved to the midnight time slot. Nice.
We had approximately one hour to gather ourselves at some day rooms at the hotel. We all saw toreadors in the hallway. From there to the festival, taking place in an old monastery, designed to look like a prison, clearly a metaphorical device that struck us strongly after our month of riding relaxing/imprisoning see-saw.
Upon entry we happen upon Holly Golightly and Lawyer Dave, good friends who'd stuck around after their early show to catch our late one. We hadn't anticipated seeing them, so this was a welcome surprise in the middle of a day that was pretty shit otherwise. We swiftly figured shit out on stage…Mick borrowed some cords, Troy a Fender P-bass, Pat and I cymbals, and once 'twas all in place, we barreled through the set.
I was particularly fun with the crowd when I took the mic…I got handed an old-style accordion fan, scolded a high girl who kept on sitting on the barrier (who then tried to dance with me) and dragged the ending of the set out for all it was worth. By the end, in an effort to rid my homecoming baggage of any excess weight, I took to throwing any of the drumsticks I had left. While atop the bass drum I was aiming for a window, no bigger than 36"x24", at the top of the building about one hundred feet away.
I probably threw about six sticks total (Pat threw one that failed to leave the stage) and lucky number five actually made it through. I was overjoyed. Off the stage and into the van, snoozing through the van ride back to the airport. We made it easily. With Mick headed to NYC as his final destination we said goodbye there. The four of us then made way to Paris.
At the gate in Spain we happened upon four guys who looked completely out of place, well, as much as someone from the Dirtbombs can judge someone as so. Intrigued, I mustered past the "don't annoy people" bell in my mind and made conversation. They too were musicians, and once I mentioned Detroit, the older, more-respectable looking one of the bunch perked up. Come to have it, he was from there. The man was Kenny Garrett, world-renowned jazz musician who's played with the liked of Miles Davis and Marcus Belgrave. As someone who knows absolutely nothing about jazz, even I was immensely impressed.
With a 50-minute lay-over we were set to kick and scream our way through De Gaulle to be certain to catch our flight. Luckily the airline was prepared for the situation and as soon as we exited the jet there was a representative holding a sign that read "Detroit" and we hopped into a minivan with a handful of others and were whisked through passport control and security and boarded our flight home with time to spare.
Arrival at DTW was alright. Pat and Troy, with no checked luggage, simply left the airport once they got through customs. Ko and I waited and waited and waited and after too long it was clear OUR bags were now lost. It would be a little over a day without our luggage but it turned up and besides a crack in my snare drum case it was no worse for the wear.
Mick, Pat and Troy's luggage, somehow routed through Germany, would take a few more days to arrive. Without enough time for them to deliver the baggage before we left for NYC, Pat trucked out to DTW to pick it up.
Troy's bass case curiously contained no bass. A classic Rickenbacker he's used for over twenty years had vanished, somewhere between Croatia, Hungary, Spain, Germany and Detroit. There's no way to place a monetary value on such an item and equally no way to track an object that was in your luggage. It was a somber note to end a tour that was, in almost every other way, triumphant.
So as we lugged our bags up the stairs of the Chillton Hostel in Belgrade I didn't think it cute so more. Our previous trip to town found us in a decent hotel so our surprising appearance at the hostel perplexed me. Later Aleks would explain to Ko that our hotel last time was a "whore" hotel and that he no longer employed their services.
I was excited because there was an old Crypt Records print ad on the wall at the hostel that detailed the release of the Gories Outta Here as set for April 14, 1992. The ad copy curiously states that the CD version would include the A-sides to all the band's 7"s at the time (released by In the Red, Giant Claw, Estrus and Sub Pop).
This is interesting, as you already know, because the CD release includes only the A-side of the In the Red single. It includes the B-sides to the Estrus and Giant Claw singles ("Idol with the Golden Head" and "Ichiban" respectively) while featuring NOTHING from the Sub Pop single.
If Tim Warren is reading this, I'm curious as to how this came about. Mick has no recollection.
Dinner was had at Aleks' mom's house…a wonderful homemade affair of all things Serb. I even partook in a swig of his father's home-stilled plum brandy, stored in a plastic water bottle and vaguely virulent.
From mom's house to SKC club. Decent-sized room. There were openers I didn't watch as the club had free WiFi. Our show was admittedly stellar…while language barrier as present as ever, the crowd seemed like they wanted so much more just to BELIEVE what was happening on stage. There was a gigantic 9'x12' poster advertising the show, featuring a live photo of the band that was surprisingly flattering. We took photos in front of it after we played. We also all slept in the same room, bunk beds like summer camp without the ghost stories or panty raids. Do they still do panty raids?
I hid poems in the books at the hostel and purposefully left my copy of Hitmen there for some enterprising music biz student to find like some long-lost incunabula. Drive to Croatia would prove uneventful, rural and winding.
The Dirty Old Empire Fest was a booking mistake. We clearly should not have been there. We bore no resemblance to the other acts whether it audible, sartorial, dietary, or (probably) morally.
I did, however, devour a delicious cinnamon and honey crepe during soundcheck.
After the second band of breakneck, chucka-chucka super punk rock while eating dinner (menu choices were: sausage, a hamburger, or TWO sausages) I looked at my fellow band members and asked "So how do you feel about a 45 minute version of 'Kung Fu?'"
And so faced with yet another quandary…when playing a show that is obviously mismatched does the band do our standard 45-minute set, hope to maybe win some converts and make a mental note for extra gig selecting scrutiny in the future? Or do you hop onstage middle fingers a'blazing and do your best to try and make a "statement"…whatever that may be?
After a band he would describe as "dub-step" finished their set, Mick would prove a tad apprehensive at the "Kung Fu" proposition. But thankfully everyone's resolve proved steely, hell, we'd even written up setlists (written on paper hotdog trays) for the occasion, and we took the stage to a crowd of absolutely none of our fans with the tickling feeling of playing a prank.
It being the 4th of July AND our 100th show of the year, we deserved to celebrate a little.
So we'd bartered it out and decided not to do merely "Kung Fu" but to intersperse other songs throughout it. The setlist, as we wrote it, was:
War Pigs
Kung Fu
(Mick singing some of Marley's "Exodus", not on my setlist, possibly on others')
Bela Lugosi's Dead
Dance This Mess Around
2+2=?
Kung Fu
Indivisible
Kung Fu
Start the Party
We'd even developed hand signals with Louisa to indicate how much time we'd have as it'd be clear to lose sense of time once wrapped in the enveloping groove. And we did the set exactly in that order…only the whole thing took approximately 30 minutes.
It seems in all the excitement we, as a whole, failed to draw-out the jam to a substantial enough length. So as we ended "Start the Party" (us trying to be ironic, ending with that one) we then just went in to the rest of the set as it would go from there…"Get it While You Can" then "Underdog" then "Ode to a Black Man" and finally ending with "I Can't Stop Thinking About It."
Someone from another band said that it took a lot of balls to come out there and start playing like Can, and it was enjoyable on our end, but I think we all hoped it would prove a little more controversial or at least a little more jammy, rambling and take-up a larger portion of our allotted time.
After we played we ate some local traditional soup/stew that'd been simmering over a fire most of the day. Everyone was in agreement that it may have been one of the best things they'd ever tasted. I believe there were at least four different types of meat in it. I do not know what it was called.
After us was a Canadian punk balled called the Real Mackenzies. They wore kilts and sang Scottish-centric songs about how the Loch Ness monster is real and things of that nature. They had a bag-piper. It was all very, very laughable to me.
After ingesting enough of their set, I offered Ko 100 Euros cash to go onstage and lift the lead singer's kilt. She was surprisingly accepting of this offer and as I started to worry, not only about my pocketbook but the resultant melee that was sure to ensue, I was relieved when she was unable to get onstage, the necessary stairway entrance blocked by their crew.
But the singe of the Mackenzies was one antagonizing motherfucker. Just giving shit to the audience left and right. About an hour into the set, someone threw a shoe and hit the singer in the face. I didn't see this and in any other situation I would consider this a very despicable thing to do. But with the unrelenting verbal abuse this guy was spitting a shoe to the face seemed strangely fitting.
This just seemed to push him over the edge. He had a remarkable cut on his face and there was some blood. His dogging of the crowd got more intense (he even called them "fascists) and he openly challenged whoever threw the shoe to get on stage and fight him one-on-one. I'll never forget him saying "When you fuck with a Mackenzie you're fucked for LIFE!"
This goes on for a handful of songs before the singer jumps into the crowd and (as it seems to me) just starts wailing on some dude indiscriminately. The security quickly peels the attack apart and the rest of the band as if to say "fuck it" walks off the stage.
The singer then says "The Real Mackenzies were prepared to play for another hour but because…" and trailed off into some since-forgotten criticism of the shoe-tosser and promise to come back and play a BETTER show sometime in the future, followed quickly by a Chris Rock-approved microphone drop and a provoking full lift of his kilt.
The whole thing left me feeling very awkward and all I could really say was "Jeeez" Some at the festival would claim that the Dirtbombs confrontational set that night merely stoked the crowd into furor that would eventually roil over during the Mackenzies set. I can neither confirm nor deny this, but am flattered if others truly believe so.
We managed to get the van up a muddy incline and to a cabin up the road that felt like the kind of place my parents would take us to during childhood summers, that peculiar half-lived-in feel of a seasonal cottage with it's underused dishware and thin mattresses all bringing to mind the memories of rural Michigan lakeside retreats in the late 1980's.
We barely had time to sleep, I spent most of mine condensing my pack for the impending flight.
Early to rise and arrive on-time to the Zagreb airport. It's a heartfelt goodbye to Louisa…she driving to van all alone back to London (some 18 hours away) but the probable end to her rock touring days as she'd enrolled in university in Manchester to become a teacher.
After sad goodbyes, we check-in for our flight on Hungarian Airlines. We'd been told by promoters that they'd pre-paid a few as we'd anticipated our baggage to be severely overweight (insert Karen Carpenter joke here). So as the wonderfully helpful ticket agent informed us that nothing had been prepaid and that their overage charges were ten euros PER KILO all of our stomachs sank dramatically.
Fevered phone calls and frantic weigh-ins ensued. It became clear there was no way the promoters could have pre-paid this charge as we had no idea how much over our baggage was. The counter lady did us a complete solid by printing up a bill that said we were collectively only 13 kilos over the limit (we were more likely three times that) and we were soon re-assured by our UK booking agent that the promoters would reimburse our baggage charge.
This is, quite possibly, where it all started to go wrong.
Our flight would be a brief hop over to Budapest. The 30-seat prop aircraft was charming in an Iron Curtain-leftover kind of way. The half-hour spent in the airport was spent hiding poems in the terminal bookstore and being thrilled at getting a Hungarian stamp on my passport.
Flight from Budapest to Malaga was filled with the most annoying sniveling little European shits I'd ever come across. Loud as all get-out, pounding on the back of my seat and not letting up one iota the entire two-hour journey. My vasectomy was scheduled immediately upon landing.
Baggage claim at Malaga was a bad scene…anything checked-in in non-EU countries was supposed to pop out of a secured baggage carousel (this would mean our luggage) even though the particular flight was from Hungary (a EU country) some of it ended up at the regular reclaim.
To confuse us even more, Mick's suitcase, Troy's bass and suitcase, Pat's suitcase and the cymbal case (with all of his cymbals and mine inside) all failed to pop out on either of the merry-go-rounds. So we sat around while Pat did his damnedest to try and communicate to airline rep (who understood little English) that the forwarding address was in Detroit, our time in Spain actually only amounting to a handful of hours.
Deflated, we poured into the van with what was left of our luggage and were chauffeured the frustratingly sunny route snaking through the craggy, coast-bluffing Spanish landscape. Through the two and a half-hour drive, no more than five total sentences were spoken.
The other problem thrust upon us was the topic of our set time. We were scheduled to take the stage at 2am. This would usually only be a mild inconvenience (the Spanish like late nights) of personal preference, but today would prove to be a logistical problem.
Our departing flight from the Malaga airport was scheduled for 7am. If we went onstage at 2am, played for the hour and a half they wanted us for, then hopped into the van immediately thereafter, chilled for the two and a half-hour ride and it puts us there at 6am at the EARLIEST. This simply would not work.
The promoters were told our flight details with ample time to prepare around them so it was all the more confusing. Being the night's headliners though was not without its perks. We politely but FIRMLY made it clear that we needed to be at the Malaga Airport no later than 5am. Our driver put the call through and we were swiftly moved to the midnight time slot. Nice.
We had approximately one hour to gather ourselves at some day rooms at the hotel. We all saw toreadors in the hallway. From there to the festival, taking place in an old monastery, designed to look like a prison, clearly a metaphorical device that struck us strongly after our month of riding relaxing/imprisoning see-saw.
Upon entry we happen upon Holly Golightly and Lawyer Dave, good friends who'd stuck around after their early show to catch our late one. We hadn't anticipated seeing them, so this was a welcome surprise in the middle of a day that was pretty shit otherwise. We swiftly figured shit out on stage…Mick borrowed some cords, Troy a Fender P-bass, Pat and I cymbals, and once 'twas all in place, we barreled through the set.
I was particularly fun with the crowd when I took the mic…I got handed an old-style accordion fan, scolded a high girl who kept on sitting on the barrier (who then tried to dance with me) and dragged the ending of the set out for all it was worth. By the end, in an effort to rid my homecoming baggage of any excess weight, I took to throwing any of the drumsticks I had left. While atop the bass drum I was aiming for a window, no bigger than 36"x24", at the top of the building about one hundred feet away.
I probably threw about six sticks total (Pat threw one that failed to leave the stage) and lucky number five actually made it through. I was overjoyed. Off the stage and into the van, snoozing through the van ride back to the airport. We made it easily. With Mick headed to NYC as his final destination we said goodbye there. The four of us then made way to Paris.
At the gate in Spain we happened upon four guys who looked completely out of place, well, as much as someone from the Dirtbombs can judge someone as so. Intrigued, I mustered past the "don't annoy people" bell in my mind and made conversation. They too were musicians, and once I mentioned Detroit, the older, more-respectable looking one of the bunch perked up. Come to have it, he was from there. The man was Kenny Garrett, world-renowned jazz musician who's played with the liked of Miles Davis and Marcus Belgrave. As someone who knows absolutely nothing about jazz, even I was immensely impressed.
With a 50-minute lay-over we were set to kick and scream our way through De Gaulle to be certain to catch our flight. Luckily the airline was prepared for the situation and as soon as we exited the jet there was a representative holding a sign that read "Detroit" and we hopped into a minivan with a handful of others and were whisked through passport control and security and boarded our flight home with time to spare.
Arrival at DTW was alright. Pat and Troy, with no checked luggage, simply left the airport once they got through customs. Ko and I waited and waited and waited and after too long it was clear OUR bags were now lost. It would be a little over a day without our luggage but it turned up and besides a crack in my snare drum case it was no worse for the wear.
Mick, Pat and Troy's luggage, somehow routed through Germany, would take a few more days to arrive. Without enough time for them to deliver the baggage before we left for NYC, Pat trucked out to DTW to pick it up.
Troy's bass case curiously contained no bass. A classic Rickenbacker he's used for over twenty years had vanished, somewhere between Croatia, Hungary, Spain, Germany and Detroit. There's no way to place a monetary value on such an item and equally no way to track an object that was in your luggage. It was a somber note to end a tour that was, in almost every other way, triumphant.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Europe Part Nine: Italian Beach Blanket Bingo...
After Rome was the charming small town of Avellino. The gig was the Stupid Robot Festival, a phrase that was repeated in classic Homer Simpson intonation ad nauseum by everyone throughout the day. Say it to yourself out loud…it makes sense.
Stage was set up on a soccer field and after check I took delight in kicking balls around with Pantano. I sincerely miss playing soccer and always vow to take it up again, and the joy from the mere 5 minutes of goofing around merely amplified that desire.
Dinner at a splendid outdoor Italo resto. Our promoter, Francisco, would be our epicurean sherpa for the evening, translating the menu for us, making recommendations, ordering choice appetizers and introducing us to his father, who just happened to be mayor of the town.
Chilling with the mayor…this is what the Dirtbombs were meant to do.
Diavola is totally the pizza you need to get when in Italy. It's what we'd know as your basic pepperoni, but they INVENTED it man. Never before a fan of thin crust, the Italians do it better. I would not complain about any pizza I rocked in Italy.
Francisco also told us over dinner that the festival was just put together as an excuse to get the Dirtbombs to play. I thought that was infinitely cool and flattering. Mick busted a few too many strings during the set, borrowed a classy Fender Jazzmaster once he'd run out of usable axes and when he apologized for the continuous breaking of strings, Francisco waved it off, "No, it is GOOD, they think you are destroying the guitar!"
All of these so-called festivals have tents set up for the specific purpose of vending…usually it's crappy hippy jewelry or Jerry Bear-shaped bongs, but occasionally someone will have some decent records or bootleg t-shirts. Avellino had a group who custom-made rock and roll dolls, all hand-painted, about 7"s tall and slightly resembling voodoo totems.
Ko bought a complete set of the Monks and Pantano bought one of two Mick Collins dolls. The creators gave Mick a Mick doll as well. I was told there was also a Screamin' Jay Hawkins doll available. I asked if I could buy a Mick doll as well (never know when I'm gonna need to stick some pins, you know?) and they'd only made the two. As selfless as a saint, Pantano hands me his and I smile widely.
All that needs to be remembered about our time in Mogliano is as follows: unbearable heat, unbearable mosquitos, completely bearable opening band Movie Star Junkies, restaurant owner who tried to make us buy a CD of his daughter singing.
Marina Di Ravenna was completely stupendous. The club, Hana-Bi, has a stage situated so the band plays directly facing the Adriatic Sea. To call it a club is unfair as it was more a resort and we even had to take a 30-second ferry to get on the island(?) it is an island somehow, right? Or is there just no road leading there?
Upon arrival I'm greeted by name by Julian from Liars. Having only met him briefly twice before, I was giddy he actually remembered my name as Liars are, inarguably, one of the most important bands around today. He just happened to be vacationing in town and was looking forward to seeing the show. We chatted a tad before sound check and he still promises to make the edible covers for "It Fit When I Was a Kid" and, even better, said he'd make sure I'd get one.
After check I change into togs and do my part in conquering the sea. I've always been curious as to why celebrities are always photographed on beaches, these big expanses of public land just ripe to be visually captured for sale to the evil 'bloids. And it was with my most recent dip that I realized…beaches are fucking fun! I don't care how pasty white my skin is or that by comparison to the locals my trunks might as well be a pair of sweat pants…frolicking in the water and pulling up clams with my toes and jumping headfirst into waves are all a blast. I need to do that shit more.
Would be the last night Stoltz band would play with us and 'twas bittersweet. As they jammed it was chill and calm sitting on the patio, reclining, and enjoying the laid back vibe of it all. Maybe twenty people watching them, dispensing with ample applause after songs, I was content in expecting a relaxed session.
So we were all caught off guard when by the time we took the stage the whole complex was SWARMING. People everywhere, up on sand dunes, completely crowding the front of the stage, rabidly awaiting what we were about to lay down.
Shit was electric. The crowd propelled us into rocking that much harder. The fact that it was a free show may have also helped. By encore time we beserked…I headstood, rocked the mic, drummed in the middle of the crowd, made my way onto the roof of the little beach shack we were playing by climbing on top of a bouncer, partook in some soul clapping…you know, all that good shit.
Troy followed me up on top of the roof but finally managed to one-up me by actually jumping off it into the crowd's receiving hands. Gotta admit…that took balls.
"Granny's Little Chicken" with added instrumentation from everyone in the Stoltz band dragged on for some time in what started off feeling cool, turned a little hokey, veered slightly toward annoying, then at about the half-hour mark was grandfathered into sheer brilliance, especially with Pantano keeping that same chippy beat for the entire time.
I walked off around half-way through and chose to watch the rest from the sidelines. Stoltz blowing like Sonny Stitt on the sax was supreme.
Julian effuses with praise after the show and I can't help but be completely excited by it. This is the drummer from one of my favorite bands telling me how much he dug the show, how jealous he was of not being able to bring his drums into the crowd, how he saw me test to see if the roof could hold my weight, or in his own words, how we "completely destroyed the crowd."
What can I say to that? Chatted more with him and was still easily excited just about making the connection with him. Not to mention being able to share touring stories and speak with someone in English too.
Said g'bye's to the Stotlz's at the hotel. Was sad.
Drive to Lodi the next day was pleasantly punctuated by a stop in Rimini. Louisa's mother does booking for the Grand Hotel there and we were invited to spend the afternoon checking the place out.
Let it be known that I am so far completely removed from being a cineaste that it's laughable. But when I'm told that Fellini used to hang out at the hotel, that prominent portions of 8 1/2 were filmed on the premises and that he himself actually died at the hotel…I begin to perk up and pledge to learn more about this mysterious Italian filmmaker.
We started with lunch on the beach. Quite a tasty buffet with classier Italian fare we were all quite pleased with the delicousness and scrumdiddlyumsciousness of the meal. The portion of the beach occupied by the Grand Hotel is situated directly in-between numbered beaches 8 and 9…supposedly one of the inspirations for the name of Fellini's previously mentioned masterpiece.
After lunch we took to the pool and swam. The next day the hotel would be celebrating their 100-year anniversary. The place legitimately has a 5-star rating. It is beyond beautiful. I think we all kinda felt like we were sticking out like sore thumbs, but that hardly detracted from the enjoyment and relaxation we took from those couple of hours. If you ever get the chance, the Dirtbombs enthusiastically endorse the Grand Hotel in Rimini. It is exquisite.
Lodi would be bit of a let-down. Again with the mosquitos, we all getting eaten alive and such. Mick's guitar problems are merely amplified, being outdoors a lot of our shit became wet merely through condensation and just a general feeling of disconnect permeated through the performance.
When Mick commented afterwards that we should be fine, that the rest of the band's gear wasn't fucking up, I without thinking uttered "I kinda feel like if one of us looks bad, we all look bad" and I was happy with how that came out. No matter how awesome I could've played, if the rest of the band isn't on the same page, there's no real point to it all. The rest of the band agreed and it felt like we were all just a little bit closer after having figured it out.
Stage was set up on a soccer field and after check I took delight in kicking balls around with Pantano. I sincerely miss playing soccer and always vow to take it up again, and the joy from the mere 5 minutes of goofing around merely amplified that desire.
Dinner at a splendid outdoor Italo resto. Our promoter, Francisco, would be our epicurean sherpa for the evening, translating the menu for us, making recommendations, ordering choice appetizers and introducing us to his father, who just happened to be mayor of the town.
Chilling with the mayor…this is what the Dirtbombs were meant to do.
Diavola is totally the pizza you need to get when in Italy. It's what we'd know as your basic pepperoni, but they INVENTED it man. Never before a fan of thin crust, the Italians do it better. I would not complain about any pizza I rocked in Italy.
Francisco also told us over dinner that the festival was just put together as an excuse to get the Dirtbombs to play. I thought that was infinitely cool and flattering. Mick busted a few too many strings during the set, borrowed a classy Fender Jazzmaster once he'd run out of usable axes and when he apologized for the continuous breaking of strings, Francisco waved it off, "No, it is GOOD, they think you are destroying the guitar!"
All of these so-called festivals have tents set up for the specific purpose of vending…usually it's crappy hippy jewelry or Jerry Bear-shaped bongs, but occasionally someone will have some decent records or bootleg t-shirts. Avellino had a group who custom-made rock and roll dolls, all hand-painted, about 7"s tall and slightly resembling voodoo totems.
Ko bought a complete set of the Monks and Pantano bought one of two Mick Collins dolls. The creators gave Mick a Mick doll as well. I was told there was also a Screamin' Jay Hawkins doll available. I asked if I could buy a Mick doll as well (never know when I'm gonna need to stick some pins, you know?) and they'd only made the two. As selfless as a saint, Pantano hands me his and I smile widely.
All that needs to be remembered about our time in Mogliano is as follows: unbearable heat, unbearable mosquitos, completely bearable opening band Movie Star Junkies, restaurant owner who tried to make us buy a CD of his daughter singing.
Marina Di Ravenna was completely stupendous. The club, Hana-Bi, has a stage situated so the band plays directly facing the Adriatic Sea. To call it a club is unfair as it was more a resort and we even had to take a 30-second ferry to get on the island(?) it is an island somehow, right? Or is there just no road leading there?
Upon arrival I'm greeted by name by Julian from Liars. Having only met him briefly twice before, I was giddy he actually remembered my name as Liars are, inarguably, one of the most important bands around today. He just happened to be vacationing in town and was looking forward to seeing the show. We chatted a tad before sound check and he still promises to make the edible covers for "It Fit When I Was a Kid" and, even better, said he'd make sure I'd get one.
After check I change into togs and do my part in conquering the sea. I've always been curious as to why celebrities are always photographed on beaches, these big expanses of public land just ripe to be visually captured for sale to the evil 'bloids. And it was with my most recent dip that I realized…beaches are fucking fun! I don't care how pasty white my skin is or that by comparison to the locals my trunks might as well be a pair of sweat pants…frolicking in the water and pulling up clams with my toes and jumping headfirst into waves are all a blast. I need to do that shit more.
Would be the last night Stoltz band would play with us and 'twas bittersweet. As they jammed it was chill and calm sitting on the patio, reclining, and enjoying the laid back vibe of it all. Maybe twenty people watching them, dispensing with ample applause after songs, I was content in expecting a relaxed session.
So we were all caught off guard when by the time we took the stage the whole complex was SWARMING. People everywhere, up on sand dunes, completely crowding the front of the stage, rabidly awaiting what we were about to lay down.
Shit was electric. The crowd propelled us into rocking that much harder. The fact that it was a free show may have also helped. By encore time we beserked…I headstood, rocked the mic, drummed in the middle of the crowd, made my way onto the roof of the little beach shack we were playing by climbing on top of a bouncer, partook in some soul clapping…you know, all that good shit.
Troy followed me up on top of the roof but finally managed to one-up me by actually jumping off it into the crowd's receiving hands. Gotta admit…that took balls.
"Granny's Little Chicken" with added instrumentation from everyone in the Stoltz band dragged on for some time in what started off feeling cool, turned a little hokey, veered slightly toward annoying, then at about the half-hour mark was grandfathered into sheer brilliance, especially with Pantano keeping that same chippy beat for the entire time.
I walked off around half-way through and chose to watch the rest from the sidelines. Stoltz blowing like Sonny Stitt on the sax was supreme.
Julian effuses with praise after the show and I can't help but be completely excited by it. This is the drummer from one of my favorite bands telling me how much he dug the show, how jealous he was of not being able to bring his drums into the crowd, how he saw me test to see if the roof could hold my weight, or in his own words, how we "completely destroyed the crowd."
What can I say to that? Chatted more with him and was still easily excited just about making the connection with him. Not to mention being able to share touring stories and speak with someone in English too.
Said g'bye's to the Stotlz's at the hotel. Was sad.
Drive to Lodi the next day was pleasantly punctuated by a stop in Rimini. Louisa's mother does booking for the Grand Hotel there and we were invited to spend the afternoon checking the place out.
Let it be known that I am so far completely removed from being a cineaste that it's laughable. But when I'm told that Fellini used to hang out at the hotel, that prominent portions of 8 1/2 were filmed on the premises and that he himself actually died at the hotel…I begin to perk up and pledge to learn more about this mysterious Italian filmmaker.
We started with lunch on the beach. Quite a tasty buffet with classier Italian fare we were all quite pleased with the delicousness and scrumdiddlyumsciousness of the meal. The portion of the beach occupied by the Grand Hotel is situated directly in-between numbered beaches 8 and 9…supposedly one of the inspirations for the name of Fellini's previously mentioned masterpiece.
After lunch we took to the pool and swam. The next day the hotel would be celebrating their 100-year anniversary. The place legitimately has a 5-star rating. It is beyond beautiful. I think we all kinda felt like we were sticking out like sore thumbs, but that hardly detracted from the enjoyment and relaxation we took from those couple of hours. If you ever get the chance, the Dirtbombs enthusiastically endorse the Grand Hotel in Rimini. It is exquisite.
Lodi would be bit of a let-down. Again with the mosquitos, we all getting eaten alive and such. Mick's guitar problems are merely amplified, being outdoors a lot of our shit became wet merely through condensation and just a general feeling of disconnect permeated through the performance.
When Mick commented afterwards that we should be fine, that the rest of the band's gear wasn't fucking up, I without thinking uttered "I kinda feel like if one of us looks bad, we all look bad" and I was happy with how that came out. No matter how awesome I could've played, if the rest of the band isn't on the same page, there's no real point to it all. The rest of the band agreed and it felt like we were all just a little bit closer after having figured it out.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Europe Part Eight: Wet Grass, Bare Breasts and Roaming Roam...
First day in Italy, Rovereto and it would be the first of a plethora of outdoor shows. Sound check was interminable in the most depressing of ways that I actually began to count how many times I hit each drum…my floor tom maxing out at 105 hits (while the next day it was a reasonable 102). Having rained earlier in the day, the whole space carries one of my top five least favorite aromas…wet grass.
I guess I just equate wet grass to rain-delayed (or rain-cancelled, or worst of all, rain-soaked) soccer or baseball matches of my youth. I never liked a wet competition…slipping and sliding didn't level the playing field, it merely turned a game of skill into a game of chance. That, coupled with the even-more-nauseating concoction of wet grass stains and sweat and let's just talk about something else.
With absolutely NO carpets around to put our drums on, the first suggestion of putting kegs of beer in front of our bass drums worked ok for Pantano, but mine still kept on slipping. Seriously, there were at least half a dozen runners/loaders working there, would it be that much trouble to get one of the fools to drive into town and just turn up two old rugs from anywhere? The front door of a restaurant? A carpet scrap store? Your own house for chrissakes? How do you have festival and not have ANY CARPETS FOR THE DRUMS?
Luckily a stage tech came correct with a much better plan. Armed with some scrap wood, a handful of nails and a hammer, he battered those pieces of wood into the drum riser old school-style and the problem of the sliding bass drums was a problem no more.
After check to the hotel and they've graced us with 5 hotel rooms. That means almost everyone gets their own room. If that weren't enough, they all have individual air conditioning units and free WiFi. Bonus! Mick and Troy end up bunking together as they were the last to get their own rooms and I strip down to my drawers, crank the AC to 15 Celsius and catch up on Freep.com
Dinner in the hotel was magnificent. I had some pasta, in some kind of sauce and a desert of a kinda ice cream thing then chilled more in my solo room.
Arrived back at the site after El Tres played. I actually wanted to see them…during check they did nothing but covers, but COOL ones at that…"Blue Moon of Kentucky" and a handful of spot-on renditions of Morricone tunes (not the easiest things to pull off). They were followed by the Mojomatics, dressed in all black, playing a vague amalgamation of R&B and garage. I can see why some may like it, but 'twasn't my cup of tea.
It seemed the rain had thinned the crowd and if we were playing in front of more than 100 people I'd be surprised. Sort of a shame figuring how big the stage was and what a big production it seemed (Bad Manners would be playing the next night and I had to listen to the rest of the band do their own approximations of their C-level Two-Tone Records "hits")
The view of stationary lights in the distance in the Italian Alps was mystifying. Under cover of darkness it was impossible to even notice the existence of the mountains. Instead, lights of homes or other buildings on the cliffside appeared to hover motionless in the blank evening sky. It's a strange phenomena one witnesses rarely.
The next day, while like most of our Italian days would find us sweating our balls off in a van with no AC and temps boiling, was a bit more exciting as it would be the first trip to Rome for everyone in the band.
My first and most lasting impression of the place was one of disgust at the complete proliferation of graffiti in every goddamned corner of the ancient city. And most of it wasn't even good graffiti under the veil of artistic protest. No, it was a lot of shitty tags, a fair amount of long-winded political treatises and occasionally the random etching by conquering centurians of millennia past.
The club was a decent, non-air conditioned room. Another long soundcheck makes me realize my favorite time of day is the completion of soundcheck, only because it signals the most amount of time until another soundcheck. I putz around free wifi for the duration of our time there and vaguely enjoy the cold pasta dinner coupled with bread and olive oil.
The room would royally pack out. Intellectuals and Margaret Doll Rod opened, amongst others, but I watched none of them. The crowd would only amplify the heat and it would become, arguably, the Dirtbombs' sweatiest show ever.
Thankfully, the crowd was amply amped and it merely propelled us to play that much better. I called Rome "the birthplace of graffiti" during the encore and got a chuckle out of the band. I also said I used to have a crush on Margaret Doll Rod when I was 15-years-old and that hers may have been the first bare breasts I'd ever seen with my own eyes.
Upon completion of the set, I went to the bathroom sink and easily rung more than a pint of sweat out of my shirt. My jeans were thoroughly soaked as well and surprisingly my boots even seemed wet. We load out through the crowd of disco dancing demi-sluts and find our way to the hotel that feels more like someone who happens to have three rooms each with a bed and a futon in their apartment.
I take a cold nighttime shower and the sounds I make underneath the wintry water spout are hilarious to me. I had to be brave though and ultimately it aided in my getting through the scorching night.
We awoke early the next morn with hopes of being touristy. As it was a Sunday and St. Paulo day, the Vatican was immediately ruled out. Sights were set on the Coliseum and the Forum with approximately two hours to kill.
As I walked down some steps approaching the Coliseum, I was astonished to see an old man pickpocketed by a girl no more than 9-years-old. The girl appeared to be in cahoots with a seemingly pregnant woman as the scam was to offer the unsuspecting man his wallet back for a price.
I didn't let the shadiness of it all bum me out as much as I left the craftiness of the operation impress me.
Line to get tickets for the Coliseum was 40 minutes long and it was suggested one needed at least an hour to view it all properly. Or we could get a proper tour guide for 10 euros extra per person and be taken directly into the Coliseum for a guided viewing. I decided I'd rather just peek around than feel rushed, so we passed up paying for anything and took some photos from the outside.
All around there are "actors" for lack of a better term, dressed as Roman soldiers and offering to take pictures with you, you know, for a little donation. As I made my way away from the Coliseum towards some huge white building down the street with all kinds of statues and fountains in front of it, the blinding sun was soaking everything and everyone as a celestial equalizer in terms of oppression. I had not an umbrella nor sunglasses, but felt strangely happy to be walking around.
My highlight was using the digital photobooth in subway station, immediately followed by using the pay-per-pee toilet in the subway station. A more disgusting and vile shit-torium I have never been privy to. Ice cream and Gatorade lessen the heat's affects, but ultimately, just to wander 'round the ancient town two hours in full was as timely treat as any. That last sentence was so gay I promise to kick my own ass for forgiveness.
I guess I just equate wet grass to rain-delayed (or rain-cancelled, or worst of all, rain-soaked) soccer or baseball matches of my youth. I never liked a wet competition…slipping and sliding didn't level the playing field, it merely turned a game of skill into a game of chance. That, coupled with the even-more-nauseating concoction of wet grass stains and sweat and let's just talk about something else.
With absolutely NO carpets around to put our drums on, the first suggestion of putting kegs of beer in front of our bass drums worked ok for Pantano, but mine still kept on slipping. Seriously, there were at least half a dozen runners/loaders working there, would it be that much trouble to get one of the fools to drive into town and just turn up two old rugs from anywhere? The front door of a restaurant? A carpet scrap store? Your own house for chrissakes? How do you have festival and not have ANY CARPETS FOR THE DRUMS?
Luckily a stage tech came correct with a much better plan. Armed with some scrap wood, a handful of nails and a hammer, he battered those pieces of wood into the drum riser old school-style and the problem of the sliding bass drums was a problem no more.
After check to the hotel and they've graced us with 5 hotel rooms. That means almost everyone gets their own room. If that weren't enough, they all have individual air conditioning units and free WiFi. Bonus! Mick and Troy end up bunking together as they were the last to get their own rooms and I strip down to my drawers, crank the AC to 15 Celsius and catch up on Freep.com
Dinner in the hotel was magnificent. I had some pasta, in some kind of sauce and a desert of a kinda ice cream thing then chilled more in my solo room.
Arrived back at the site after El Tres played. I actually wanted to see them…during check they did nothing but covers, but COOL ones at that…"Blue Moon of Kentucky" and a handful of spot-on renditions of Morricone tunes (not the easiest things to pull off). They were followed by the Mojomatics, dressed in all black, playing a vague amalgamation of R&B and garage. I can see why some may like it, but 'twasn't my cup of tea.
It seemed the rain had thinned the crowd and if we were playing in front of more than 100 people I'd be surprised. Sort of a shame figuring how big the stage was and what a big production it seemed (Bad Manners would be playing the next night and I had to listen to the rest of the band do their own approximations of their C-level Two-Tone Records "hits")
The view of stationary lights in the distance in the Italian Alps was mystifying. Under cover of darkness it was impossible to even notice the existence of the mountains. Instead, lights of homes or other buildings on the cliffside appeared to hover motionless in the blank evening sky. It's a strange phenomena one witnesses rarely.
The next day, while like most of our Italian days would find us sweating our balls off in a van with no AC and temps boiling, was a bit more exciting as it would be the first trip to Rome for everyone in the band.
My first and most lasting impression of the place was one of disgust at the complete proliferation of graffiti in every goddamned corner of the ancient city. And most of it wasn't even good graffiti under the veil of artistic protest. No, it was a lot of shitty tags, a fair amount of long-winded political treatises and occasionally the random etching by conquering centurians of millennia past.
The club was a decent, non-air conditioned room. Another long soundcheck makes me realize my favorite time of day is the completion of soundcheck, only because it signals the most amount of time until another soundcheck. I putz around free wifi for the duration of our time there and vaguely enjoy the cold pasta dinner coupled with bread and olive oil.
The room would royally pack out. Intellectuals and Margaret Doll Rod opened, amongst others, but I watched none of them. The crowd would only amplify the heat and it would become, arguably, the Dirtbombs' sweatiest show ever.
Thankfully, the crowd was amply amped and it merely propelled us to play that much better. I called Rome "the birthplace of graffiti" during the encore and got a chuckle out of the band. I also said I used to have a crush on Margaret Doll Rod when I was 15-years-old and that hers may have been the first bare breasts I'd ever seen with my own eyes.
Upon completion of the set, I went to the bathroom sink and easily rung more than a pint of sweat out of my shirt. My jeans were thoroughly soaked as well and surprisingly my boots even seemed wet. We load out through the crowd of disco dancing demi-sluts and find our way to the hotel that feels more like someone who happens to have three rooms each with a bed and a futon in their apartment.
I take a cold nighttime shower and the sounds I make underneath the wintry water spout are hilarious to me. I had to be brave though and ultimately it aided in my getting through the scorching night.
We awoke early the next morn with hopes of being touristy. As it was a Sunday and St. Paulo day, the Vatican was immediately ruled out. Sights were set on the Coliseum and the Forum with approximately two hours to kill.
As I walked down some steps approaching the Coliseum, I was astonished to see an old man pickpocketed by a girl no more than 9-years-old. The girl appeared to be in cahoots with a seemingly pregnant woman as the scam was to offer the unsuspecting man his wallet back for a price.
I didn't let the shadiness of it all bum me out as much as I left the craftiness of the operation impress me.
Line to get tickets for the Coliseum was 40 minutes long and it was suggested one needed at least an hour to view it all properly. Or we could get a proper tour guide for 10 euros extra per person and be taken directly into the Coliseum for a guided viewing. I decided I'd rather just peek around than feel rushed, so we passed up paying for anything and took some photos from the outside.
All around there are "actors" for lack of a better term, dressed as Roman soldiers and offering to take pictures with you, you know, for a little donation. As I made my way away from the Coliseum towards some huge white building down the street with all kinds of statues and fountains in front of it, the blinding sun was soaking everything and everyone as a celestial equalizer in terms of oppression. I had not an umbrella nor sunglasses, but felt strangely happy to be walking around.
My highlight was using the digital photobooth in subway station, immediately followed by using the pay-per-pee toilet in the subway station. A more disgusting and vile shit-torium I have never been privy to. Ice cream and Gatorade lessen the heat's affects, but ultimately, just to wander 'round the ancient town two hours in full was as timely treat as any. That last sentence was so gay I promise to kick my own ass for forgiveness.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Europe Part Seven: Churching...
Bordeaux…I used to play baseball with a John Bordeau (I don't think there was an 'x' at the end of it) he lived down the street and I always had the best time hanging out with him. I think his mom had us pick boysenberries from their backyard.
The crew in B-d'oh always takes care of us and this night would be no exception. Dinner was some fancy duck and the ice cream dessert just put it all over the top. Openers were Bob and Lisa (of the Bellrays) doing their acoustic thing. I am completely unashamed to admit that I thought Lisa's plaintive voice accompanied solely by Bob's solemn acoustic guitar was way more my speed than anything done as the BellRays. I think there's a Myspace and even an EP dedicated solely to this side-project and I suggest y'all search it out with utmost speed.
Dirtbombs show summary as told by one compliment from a satisfied fan: "It is the first time a rock and roll show makes me cry. Thank you."
Afterwards we climb into the van and follow the Bellrays crew to a late-night kebab shop and we bond a little. Good times, not-so-good kebabs. It seemed our band was merely prolonging the inevitable.
Hotel Stars is as close to a bane of the Dirtbombs' existence as there is. Apparently a chain, we only ever stay at the Bordeaux franchise. First trip I seem to remember awkwardly watching hardcore pornography on regular television (as is available in France) with Mick making even more awkward comments.
Second lodging was a stellar experience…our van got broken into and all of Mick's guitar pedals stolen, along with a1/2 bottle of rum, ten "This American Life" cd-r's, a stash of Dirtbombs t-shirts and three matching track jackets as seen on the cover of the If You Don't Already... album.
Third time would be equally as charming. With the temperature hovering fairly close to hellfire levels and with no air conditioning available in the entire country (it is the French way) Pat and I are left to stew in our room and even with the window completely open, we sweat the night away, never really achieving a state that would resemble what we'd usually call sleep.
To top it all off, Hotel Stars has an absolutely stupefying nautical theme. Each room has rope lining the inside and it just might be the stupidest thing I've ever been witness to. I believe one comment on Trip Advisor says the place stinks of "sweat and vomit" and I could hardly disagree.
Lyon would prove much more fun. Meet up with the Stoltz crew after some time apart and it's a gas. Upon arrival at the club I had a nagging headache so I was sidelined for the impromptu stickball game they scared up outside, but I regained my composure in time for the meaty dinner and conversation catch-up. Someone produced a hacky-sack and I found myself partaking (out of sheer boredom) for the first time since freshman year of high school (stall!)
Stoltz band was solid. Decent middle set by local soul impresarios the Buttshakers. Dirtbombs weren't too shabby either.
Sleeping arrangements that night would be at an off-site location (Grrrnd Zero) that seemed to be one floor of an office building converted as the headquarters for this arts collective that puts on shows and puts up bands. Stoltz band had two rooms but also had to leave at 4am for flights. Dbombs had two rooms, I indulged in a late night cold shower (what a pleasant delight) and killed the night on free Wifi.
I woke early in the morning with my sights set on St. Jean Cathedral. I hand-scribed the pedestrian directions from Mappy and was excitedly off for the proposed 50 minute walk. Somehow, the first turn I'm supposed to make, I fuck up and go the wrong way. I get some help from some kind locals and while I'm close to being where I should, I never really do get back on track.
Instead, one in every three or four street names I'm supposed to be on appears at the precise moment I begin to doubt my sense of direction. I know I need to cross two rivers, I know the church is at the bottom of a hill, but all these superfluous streets start to bogue my high.
Luckily, my instincts prove well. While never feeling completely discombobulated, I followed my instincts and in no time the building was within striking distance. In spite of getting royally turned around, I still make it there 10 minutes earlier than Mappy had said I would. I walk fast, I rule.
A trip to a church is like a trip back to grade school. As a Catholic school student for 13 years, there's a strangely comforting feeling in finding a place, thousands of miles away from home, that almost instantly feels inviting and familiar.
Up until the age of 13 I went to mass two times a week. Like it or not, that stuff stays with you. And while there was no mass said on this day, merely being in the sanctuary was enough to put my mind at ease and let me forget about the grind.
Inside there's an amazing astronomical clock…one dial tells when the Holy Days fall not just for this year, but as far back as 1959 and all the way until 2019. On the same axis is a disk that lists every day of the year and names the relevant patron saints for each date. The regular 24-hour clock is mighty extraordinary as well. Based on the day of the week, certain figures on top of the structure (it is at least twenty feet tall) whether it be Christ or other Bible heroes, show their automaton selves and begin to move. My description completely fails to capture the grandiosity of it all, but it's very, very impressive.
The stained glass windows were all impeccable and finding out some had been blown out during World War II was sobering. Churches have been on that same plot of land since the 800's. Napoleon was received in this particular building.
I came away from the cathedral feeling humbled. When my mind starts to wonder about all the shit St. Jean has seen, it makes my petty problems like being tired on the road or missing home seem petty and insignificant. It left me feeling aligned, balanced, back on track. I only wish that my grandmother could have been there with me. She and churches go way back…she's basically God's biggest fan and to go to a church with her is a whole other humbling experience. She knows the name of EVERYTHING…shit like the sacristy and the narthex and all kinds of other fancy words that only ever get used in dusty books. She would have loved St. Jean and probably could've have been the tour guide.
Onward to Winterthur, a new town for us. Club Gaswerk was quite professional. We'd been told that because of the European Cup the club had passed on booking bands for the month of June…it would just be too much of a conflict and hassle. But apparently when the Dirtbombs name was offered, they wanted to see us so bad they said "fuck it" and booked us anyway. I like.
The food prepared for us was mouthwateringly brilliant. Shish-kebabs, amazing salad…I hate to say it, but one day in Switzerland trumped every meal we had in France. Opening act was big screen projection of the semi-final Euro match between Germany and Russia. We played well to a small crowd of about thirty or so, but when implored to clap or dance they merely stared at us like we had dicks on our foreheads.
Sleep would be at the venue that night. Upstairs from the backstage was a room with a fleet of bunkbeds. We would chill most of the night in the backstage area, swatting flies and stewing in our own personal juices and as the ladies in the party expressed concern about the impending snoring situation, Ko slept in the van outside, Troy curled up in the theater room of the Gaswerk complex, Mick, Pat and Louisa slept in the actual "artist apartments" and I konked on the backstage couch having promised Ko that I would let her inside in the morning with said couch abutting on said door making the job quite easy.
Bern and the Reitschule are like family to us Dirtbombs. Kat and Sabine have taken care of us since our first trip there in 2002 and it's always a delight to see them. With loads of time to kill after soundcheck I venture into city centre with Mick.
With another Euro semifinal match that night (Spain vs. Russia) the whole place was abuzz. There was a massive screen set up for people to watch and along with that came a substantial official merchandise tent, plenty of places to buy beer, and individual restaurants outdoor grills each accompanied by a flat screen TV to optimize the dining experience.
I strolled around looking for fancy Nikes and Adidas with no luck. I bought an ice cream cone (straciatelli) from a vendor on the street. Hid poems in paperbacks in what I would assume is the only bookstore in town with an entire floor dedicated to the English language. I found post card stamps within view of the Baby Eater statue. For lack of a better description, it's a goblin on top of a fountain platform with babies crawling all over him and him squarely pushing one into his mouth. You should look up the image when you're bored (if you're reading this, how can you not be already?)
Ko's fuzz pedal crapped out before we could even begin. She found a temporary fix and said she couldn't do "Sherlock Holmes" so we replaced it with "Sun Is Shining" (as we need at least, or lately, at most, one slow jam in the set) and going straight into "Motor City Baby" it was like a setlist of old.
We didn't want to do an encore and the crowd wasn't terribly demanding of one. I expressly said backstage "What is something we all WANT to do?" and no one had an immediate answer. We came up with some standard encore bullshit and all hobbled back on the stage.
Before we could play a note, Pat wisely calls "dub time" and we start with an unnamed, only-really-ever-done-before-at-soundcheck-that-day groove that ambulates into "Shake Shivaree" then back to dub, then to "Can't Stop Thinking About It" which settles back into the dub, which then finds its way to "Kung Fu" which naturally crests into "2+2=?" which again morphs into the dub cipher and then finishes strongly on the last verse of "Kung Fu."
We had a right-on blast doing it and it was probably the only right answer to the question I'd asked earlier. We were all very, very pleased.
The crew in B-d'oh always takes care of us and this night would be no exception. Dinner was some fancy duck and the ice cream dessert just put it all over the top. Openers were Bob and Lisa (of the Bellrays) doing their acoustic thing. I am completely unashamed to admit that I thought Lisa's plaintive voice accompanied solely by Bob's solemn acoustic guitar was way more my speed than anything done as the BellRays. I think there's a Myspace and even an EP dedicated solely to this side-project and I suggest y'all search it out with utmost speed.
Dirtbombs show summary as told by one compliment from a satisfied fan: "It is the first time a rock and roll show makes me cry. Thank you."
Afterwards we climb into the van and follow the Bellrays crew to a late-night kebab shop and we bond a little. Good times, not-so-good kebabs. It seemed our band was merely prolonging the inevitable.
Hotel Stars is as close to a bane of the Dirtbombs' existence as there is. Apparently a chain, we only ever stay at the Bordeaux franchise. First trip I seem to remember awkwardly watching hardcore pornography on regular television (as is available in France) with Mick making even more awkward comments.
Second lodging was a stellar experience…our van got broken into and all of Mick's guitar pedals stolen, along with a1/2 bottle of rum, ten "This American Life" cd-r's, a stash of Dirtbombs t-shirts and three matching track jackets as seen on the cover of the If You Don't Already... album.
Third time would be equally as charming. With the temperature hovering fairly close to hellfire levels and with no air conditioning available in the entire country (it is the French way) Pat and I are left to stew in our room and even with the window completely open, we sweat the night away, never really achieving a state that would resemble what we'd usually call sleep.
To top it all off, Hotel Stars has an absolutely stupefying nautical theme. Each room has rope lining the inside and it just might be the stupidest thing I've ever been witness to. I believe one comment on Trip Advisor says the place stinks of "sweat and vomit" and I could hardly disagree.
Lyon would prove much more fun. Meet up with the Stoltz crew after some time apart and it's a gas. Upon arrival at the club I had a nagging headache so I was sidelined for the impromptu stickball game they scared up outside, but I regained my composure in time for the meaty dinner and conversation catch-up. Someone produced a hacky-sack and I found myself partaking (out of sheer boredom) for the first time since freshman year of high school (stall!)
Stoltz band was solid. Decent middle set by local soul impresarios the Buttshakers. Dirtbombs weren't too shabby either.
Sleeping arrangements that night would be at an off-site location (Grrrnd Zero) that seemed to be one floor of an office building converted as the headquarters for this arts collective that puts on shows and puts up bands. Stoltz band had two rooms but also had to leave at 4am for flights. Dbombs had two rooms, I indulged in a late night cold shower (what a pleasant delight) and killed the night on free Wifi.
I woke early in the morning with my sights set on St. Jean Cathedral. I hand-scribed the pedestrian directions from Mappy and was excitedly off for the proposed 50 minute walk. Somehow, the first turn I'm supposed to make, I fuck up and go the wrong way. I get some help from some kind locals and while I'm close to being where I should, I never really do get back on track.
Instead, one in every three or four street names I'm supposed to be on appears at the precise moment I begin to doubt my sense of direction. I know I need to cross two rivers, I know the church is at the bottom of a hill, but all these superfluous streets start to bogue my high.
Luckily, my instincts prove well. While never feeling completely discombobulated, I followed my instincts and in no time the building was within striking distance. In spite of getting royally turned around, I still make it there 10 minutes earlier than Mappy had said I would. I walk fast, I rule.
A trip to a church is like a trip back to grade school. As a Catholic school student for 13 years, there's a strangely comforting feeling in finding a place, thousands of miles away from home, that almost instantly feels inviting and familiar.
Up until the age of 13 I went to mass two times a week. Like it or not, that stuff stays with you. And while there was no mass said on this day, merely being in the sanctuary was enough to put my mind at ease and let me forget about the grind.
Inside there's an amazing astronomical clock…one dial tells when the Holy Days fall not just for this year, but as far back as 1959 and all the way until 2019. On the same axis is a disk that lists every day of the year and names the relevant patron saints for each date. The regular 24-hour clock is mighty extraordinary as well. Based on the day of the week, certain figures on top of the structure (it is at least twenty feet tall) whether it be Christ or other Bible heroes, show their automaton selves and begin to move. My description completely fails to capture the grandiosity of it all, but it's very, very impressive.
The stained glass windows were all impeccable and finding out some had been blown out during World War II was sobering. Churches have been on that same plot of land since the 800's. Napoleon was received in this particular building.
I came away from the cathedral feeling humbled. When my mind starts to wonder about all the shit St. Jean has seen, it makes my petty problems like being tired on the road or missing home seem petty and insignificant. It left me feeling aligned, balanced, back on track. I only wish that my grandmother could have been there with me. She and churches go way back…she's basically God's biggest fan and to go to a church with her is a whole other humbling experience. She knows the name of EVERYTHING…shit like the sacristy and the narthex and all kinds of other fancy words that only ever get used in dusty books. She would have loved St. Jean and probably could've have been the tour guide.
Onward to Winterthur, a new town for us. Club Gaswerk was quite professional. We'd been told that because of the European Cup the club had passed on booking bands for the month of June…it would just be too much of a conflict and hassle. But apparently when the Dirtbombs name was offered, they wanted to see us so bad they said "fuck it" and booked us anyway. I like.
The food prepared for us was mouthwateringly brilliant. Shish-kebabs, amazing salad…I hate to say it, but one day in Switzerland trumped every meal we had in France. Opening act was big screen projection of the semi-final Euro match between Germany and Russia. We played well to a small crowd of about thirty or so, but when implored to clap or dance they merely stared at us like we had dicks on our foreheads.
Sleep would be at the venue that night. Upstairs from the backstage was a room with a fleet of bunkbeds. We would chill most of the night in the backstage area, swatting flies and stewing in our own personal juices and as the ladies in the party expressed concern about the impending snoring situation, Ko slept in the van outside, Troy curled up in the theater room of the Gaswerk complex, Mick, Pat and Louisa slept in the actual "artist apartments" and I konked on the backstage couch having promised Ko that I would let her inside in the morning with said couch abutting on said door making the job quite easy.
Bern and the Reitschule are like family to us Dirtbombs. Kat and Sabine have taken care of us since our first trip there in 2002 and it's always a delight to see them. With loads of time to kill after soundcheck I venture into city centre with Mick.
With another Euro semifinal match that night (Spain vs. Russia) the whole place was abuzz. There was a massive screen set up for people to watch and along with that came a substantial official merchandise tent, plenty of places to buy beer, and individual restaurants outdoor grills each accompanied by a flat screen TV to optimize the dining experience.
I strolled around looking for fancy Nikes and Adidas with no luck. I bought an ice cream cone (straciatelli) from a vendor on the street. Hid poems in paperbacks in what I would assume is the only bookstore in town with an entire floor dedicated to the English language. I found post card stamps within view of the Baby Eater statue. For lack of a better description, it's a goblin on top of a fountain platform with babies crawling all over him and him squarely pushing one into his mouth. You should look up the image when you're bored (if you're reading this, how can you not be already?)
Ko's fuzz pedal crapped out before we could even begin. She found a temporary fix and said she couldn't do "Sherlock Holmes" so we replaced it with "Sun Is Shining" (as we need at least, or lately, at most, one slow jam in the set) and going straight into "Motor City Baby" it was like a setlist of old.
We didn't want to do an encore and the crowd wasn't terribly demanding of one. I expressly said backstage "What is something we all WANT to do?" and no one had an immediate answer. We came up with some standard encore bullshit and all hobbled back on the stage.
Before we could play a note, Pat wisely calls "dub time" and we start with an unnamed, only-really-ever-done-before-at-soundcheck-that-day groove that ambulates into "Shake Shivaree" then back to dub, then to "Can't Stop Thinking About It" which settles back into the dub, which then finds its way to "Kung Fu" which naturally crests into "2+2=?" which again morphs into the dub cipher and then finishes strongly on the last verse of "Kung Fu."
We had a right-on blast doing it and it was probably the only right answer to the question I'd asked earlier. We were all very, very pleased.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Interruption from Tour Diary Bullshit: I've Been Interviewed...
You can win a free unheard of Cass record if you ask a seriously good question in the comments over at...
http://fivethreedialtone.com/podcastbox/?p=541
It's not like you're doing anything better.
http://fivethreedialtone.com/podcastbox/?p=541
It's not like you're doing anything better.
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