four posts in one here, so get comfy:
VAN-TASTIC
While we still don’t have groovy visuals to show you just yet (and sister, they are groovy so just be patient.), it seems that some of you are actually dissatisfied with the breadth of this commentary—that some want more information than descriptions of our stops and all the highlights that they offer—that you actually want to hear about all the stuff in-between as well, about all the time spent in this van. Granted, the overwhelming majority of the time passed on tour has been time spent in dave’s mom’s plush ride; and yes, we’ve gone unprecedented distances to get to all these wonderful cities and towns, but is the road-time really necessary to describe? Are you sure? Do you really want to know how we all chant these grim words ‘…Back in the van…’ with irony and resignation after each local adventure and gig? Do you really want to know about all gas stations we’ve visited, about our comparisons of fuel prices and all the various procedures there are to pay with cash? Area you proud of our hyper-efficient and strangely-satisfying loading/unloading procedure? Is a rest-stop comparison that crucial? Do you really want to hear about long long hours of no conversation and the frustration of the Ipod shuffle playing the same songs over and over while ignoring whole abums? Do you really want an explanation of my rinky-dink accounting system and the fluctuating balance of gas-money cash-proceeds that have kept our vehicle well-fed? Really? Honest? Are you that interested in knowing who fits best in the floor of the back seat when sleep is the only option? Do you really care that some of has have discovered that we can actually read (and write) in a moving vehicle without spraying the entire passenger compartment with vomit? Do you really need a description of the dorky road-side yoga done at rest stops in yoga-suspicious states? Do you really want to know who has the smallest and most inconvenient bladder? Do you really want a tally of all the people in other cars who have stared with suspicion at the stickers on our roof-box, or the daily countless identical white grand caravan minivans we seem to encounter? Do you really want confirmation that—on the interstate—there are the same jackass idiots in huge shiny pickup trucks cutting people off left and right, the same sleepy truck drivers, and the same (understandably) resentful foreign-born gas station clerks, that this country is basically the same wherever you go, and therefore essentially fucked from the inside out? Really? Really? Really? I didn’t think so.
TOUR DE RIBS
Once in san diego the king hen again wallowed in luxury, hospitality, local color and way too much good food. And actually played a pretty darn fun show at SCOLARI’S OFFICE on Friday night.
This time the luxury was provided by the aforementioned pilot-man dan. We never saw him but we sprawled in his house while he was out somewhere flying fed ex packages over vast oceans. At this point I’m not sure he exists but he’s got a great house and an unmatched liquor cabinet.
The hospitality and good food were all taken care of by dan’s next door neighbor and our true local benefactors, the superhero dynamic duo of DOCTOR GUS and MARVELOUS MITA. They gave us coffee, took us surfing, charmed us with their upber-cute daughters (come on, just a baby and a toddler—don’t get any ideas, you perverts), conjured up a local audience posse for us, and fed us and fed us and fed us. We had YET AGAIN another transcendent rib fest, and damn if it wasn’t better tnan Memphis/texas/everywhere else!
SCOLARI’S OFFICE is a great little joint with no stage to think of, but with a built-in crowd ready to rock in a cozy little space that feels like the drunken captain’s cabin on a ship run aground in north park. We were anticipating our favorite position in the line-up—the middle of three—until wouldn’t you know it, we arrived to a FIVE band list, with us batting dead last. Luckily it was TGIF-niight and said built-in crowd swelled to claustrophobic move-sideways-with-your-drink-in-the-air capacity.
It was a veritable salad bar of music that night, what with the glam-metal band who’s bass player had to sit to accommodate a broken leg, the satanic Johnny rotten-looking keyboard player and his plastic skull microphone stand, and my two favorite bands, of the evening, both of whom will be in Portland next week. You will be well served by paying them a visit. Openers PONY PANTS from philly, pa. actually gave the drum-machine a good name, as they fronted a pre-programmed rhythm section with sweet math-pop-metal grooves and a vocal attack that kind of reminded me of the yeah yeah yeahs, but actually not really. I gues what I’m trying to say is that they can’t be categorized too easily, and it’s always a welcome sight to witness such invention. When it works. Equally inventive but about 35 times more searing and mutherfrigging INTENSE was tel aviv israel’s ironically-named instrumental quartet LABANON. These four very friendly, shaggy fellas blasted out something beautul, intricate, abrasive, and so ballistically loud, thaq you have to ask is that what it sounds like to live in isreal today? After all the exploded skulls were cleaned up following lebanon’s set, it was after 1 am and time for the king hen to entertain the dazed survivors—at this point a comfortable but still healthy half-capacity crowd.
Dr. gus and his cheering section kept the house on our side, and all was noise and warmth, with only one technical hitch: a broken bass string! I didn’t know that was possible without a pick, but thank heavens for the replacement-bass, senor mexi-fender.
The rock-train adjourned to pilot dan’s house where local fan mark was the latest person to use a touring band to his advantage, to party like a rock star himself and entertain the bejeezus out of the rest of us. Mark, drew’s a pretty lucky baby to have a dad like you. He’ll be the funniest bully on the block.
Add this to your list of things you Shouldn’t Do With a Hangover: drive straight through los angeles’ 2-hour stop-and-go traffic up I-5 on a Saturday afternoon. Just don’t do it. Trust me.
DON’T CALL IT FRISCO
No offense dear reader, but I’m about as tired of writing this missive as I am of waking up with a hangover and ringing ears. So please forgive your humble journalist for burning through this last report on our last—and best stop here in the birthplace of beat poetry, the grateful dead, journey, faith no more, primus, and yours’ truly.
We had high hopes that back-to-back weekend shows in the dirty bustling heart of the tenderloin district would provide a suitably entertaining finale to our little traveling circus of rock-weirdness—and at last this city did not disappoint.
It certainly helped that we had a rock-solid faithfull cheering section in friends and family, from erik’s sister Kristina, and friends darla, joe, Kristin, neal, and garrett’s dad and stepmom his sister jenny, her quick camera-work, her boyfrend Kevin, roommate chris of sonicfrontiers.net (both displaying the hilarity of a 20-something approach to holding one’s liquor), aaron’s dear friend, old band-mate and truly genuine rock star morgan, and once again, his ever stalwart twin leaning-tower Emily.
Saturday night’s show at the EDINBURGH CASTLE was unamimously our best-received and most rocking show ever. Never mind the new bass string going out of tune, its resultant technical difficulties, or the rivers of stinky man-sweat pouring through that hot little room: it was all agreed that we killed it. We were followed by the PARANOIDS, a tight combo playing interestingly constructed songs reminiscent of good bowie, but I’m afraid they suffered from a room-clearing intensity-letdown as we did when following Lebanon the previous night. Their substantial san fran hipster local supporters hung in there however, and kept things festive for them. Darla / joe and Kristina provided dual accommodations for the night, ensuring a fine finish to our lucky string of luxury lodging. Madison? What’s that?
Speaking of festive, most of the following day’s afternoon was spent up the slopes of marin’s mount tamalpias at some german club lodge chalet at their pre-oktoberfest…er, fest. Think erik becker’s version of heaven. Think summer camp with beer and lederhosen. Yes, there was polka. Yes, there was sausage. Yes, there were hordes of typically, painfully healthy and smugly good looking nor-cal types getting gobnoxiously drunk in the early atternoon. Yes, there was bratwuust. And bockwurst. And sauerkraut. And more lederhosen. And a long, hazy afternoon accordion-soaked beer buzz under the redwoods.
Some of us sobered up at darla / joes’s and some of us joined old high school friends for seafood on the bay, before heading to the HEMLOCK TAVERN for our final night. With a reduced crowd on a Sunday night, we were unceremoniously shoved into the opening slot, but I think we more than held our own and gave the half-full room a show worthy of any tour wrap-up. It may not have been as crowded and well-received as the previous night, but the room sounded better, we played perhaps a little better, and erik finished in style with his well-executed swan-dive across dave and all his drums.
We were followed by the BAD DUDES, an unfortunately-named but amazingly talented and pretty much perfectly executed poster-child for all that is math-rock, last on the list was our new dear-friends, those shambolic israelis called LEBANON, sounding—if anything—more clear and more intense than ever. Mr bass-player-whose-name-i-can’t-even-pronounce-much-less-spell, you can borrow my amp any time you wish.
We finished our last night with a final last-call toast of maker’s mark, listened to a homeless man recite sweet love-poems out on polk street; and I learned a valuable lesson: a sure-fire way to get your bartender to hate you is to steal the maraschino cherries.
….it is now currently 75-degreesF and mit. Shasta is dead ahead and partially obscured by clouds. The trip odometer is at 9960, dave’s jar of Louisiana quail eggs is leaking slightly and Portland cant approach us quickly enough.
checkpoint charlie's: a friendly home to cats of all species.
new orleans' hardest-working bar-band: foreground, slewfoot; middleground, cary b. and her exquisite voice/left hand; background, our own dave hurley, guest-drummer!
satan drives the prevailing speed.
bayou vanishing point
truth in advertising for a traveling rock band.
actually, we went the other way.
after seeing/smelling/tasting this, i take back everything bad i've ever said about texas. everything
aaron, adapting nicely to west texas.
there are worse places to be stranded, i suppose...
junction, texas, u.s.a.: where it's never christmas for bambi.
'...standing on the edge of the hoover dam..'
after 20 hours of straight driving, our early morning vegas welcome. viva...
did somebody say the food sucks on the road?
waye newton, eat your heart out.
erik, dancing with the devil--or his servant, the hula-stripper.
our san diego benefactors, the unbeatable dr.'s gus and mita
dr. gus's best medicine: RIBS. (ok, i promise this is the last photo of food. really.)
scolari's office, san diego, ca. holy crap, we finally look like a rock band!
hope for the world: a band from israel, named 'lebanon'; a great bunch of guys who play amazing music and look like THIS:
who needs brick walls and broken glass for your band photo, when you've got a plastic jungle-gym and toddler?
guster-man, defending the world from evil, one baby daughter at a time
our san frisco welcome.
the king hen did NOT play this gig. but we're looking into some polka tunes for our next album...
the king hen, circa 2030. aaron, wake up!
'you walked through that poison-oak patch too?'
