Just a quickie, but.....I love Perry Mason. The TV show, especially, although I read many of Erle Stanley Gardner's books back in my schooldays. Yes, it's a formula set-up (what series isn't?), but to my eyes and ears, there's always just the right amount of spark and intrigue in each premise.
I didn't see any of the show's episodes until I was into college, and by then, I had read a few of the books. My best friend during high school remarked to me how he'd started watching it in the morning when getting ready for his U of H classes, and that got me started watching it. It was easy to get hooked. Who doesn't like a good mystery? Which is what these stories are, ultimately.
Like the true hoarder I am, I bought all the episodes on DVD when the price became to my liking.....sometime earlier this year. The show is a good watch when I want to get some bike riding in, but unlike some other shows, I can't watch this one while doing something else. There are too many visual cues that can be easily missed, so "full attention, please." Oftentimes, while working on something not really demanding full attention, I'll put on "Gunsmoke" or "Dark Shadows" (yep, I will finish it one day). But for "Perry," gotta keep eyes glued to the screen.
That's it. One for the online record.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
The Itch
Sunday, December 30th, 2018. One more day in this strange, strange year. And I gots the itch. The itch. A strong itch. An itch to do something different with my life, most likely artistically (sic). I certainly enjoy the bands I play with now, but I'm pretty much a sideman in those bands and need something more fulfilling. And that itch gets stronger by the week. Trouble is - will anyone want to walk that path with me? I'm a man of odd tastes, at least where the musician friends I have are concerned.
After moving to Austin in early '86, the people I knew were already musically pedigreed, much more than me. I had a band in California in '85 that was a fun but pretty low-key effort. We played a few shows around the Peninsula, and even once made a trip to Sacramento for a big gig! But that was about it. In Austin, things started off slowly. I played for a brief time in a band ultimately called Jet Texas, but when I was on the verge of quitting anyway, I was replaced by Terri Lord. To this day, if I run into her, we have a laugh about Jet Texas. The lead guitarist in that band was named Andy Bullington, and he was pretty badass. I've wondered lately what happened to him.
I then played in a band called Animal Farm, with some ex-Steroids, a transplanted band from the Valley I knew. That led to some shows meeting other people, and before too long, I found myself in the latter-half-of-the-80s Austin indie/punk scene.
But I didn't intend this post to be a history lesson....I think I wanted to use it to type until I find a solution. Or at least talk about an idea I have.
My first love musically was jazz, and I got that largely from my dad. One of the stylistic tropes of bop (maybe the main one) is the notion of using a popular tune of the day and then once the melody is established, everybody gets "a blow." After everybody's exhausted their improvisational resources, the melody is stated again, and the song ends.
So, I've been wondering if that same approach could be used in an instrumental rock combo. And, I wonder if anyone else would like to try that method. My idea at this point is just to have people get together (I have a practice room with a lot of the needed equipment already available), beforehand having decided on a few tunes to know as a beginning framework. And, I mean easy tunes. Nothing that requires much thought to pull off. I even thought it'd be fun to use a Chuck Berry song, for instance.....maybe "School Days." Turning that into a jazz rave-up might cause Berry to rise from the grave, though. Could be fun. And for now, I only want to use this as a lab experiment. I even wanted to (half-jokingly) call it "The Music Lab." And I'd like to forego vocals, unless it's necessary to establish the opening melody of the song. I'd really like this to be an opportunity for people to get together and egg each other on to be better musicians. We could all use that environment, I think. I hope I can convince some others, too.
Am I crazy heah? Guess I'll find out. I've discussed this a bit with a couple of people who seem game. Maybe by next week, I'll have more information and have changed my mind. Maybe do a funk tribute to David Allen Coe. That could be good, too.
After moving to Austin in early '86, the people I knew were already musically pedigreed, much more than me. I had a band in California in '85 that was a fun but pretty low-key effort. We played a few shows around the Peninsula, and even once made a trip to Sacramento for a big gig! But that was about it. In Austin, things started off slowly. I played for a brief time in a band ultimately called Jet Texas, but when I was on the verge of quitting anyway, I was replaced by Terri Lord. To this day, if I run into her, we have a laugh about Jet Texas. The lead guitarist in that band was named Andy Bullington, and he was pretty badass. I've wondered lately what happened to him.
I then played in a band called Animal Farm, with some ex-Steroids, a transplanted band from the Valley I knew. That led to some shows meeting other people, and before too long, I found myself in the latter-half-of-the-80s Austin indie/punk scene.
But I didn't intend this post to be a history lesson....I think I wanted to use it to type until I find a solution. Or at least talk about an idea I have.
My first love musically was jazz, and I got that largely from my dad. One of the stylistic tropes of bop (maybe the main one) is the notion of using a popular tune of the day and then once the melody is established, everybody gets "a blow." After everybody's exhausted their improvisational resources, the melody is stated again, and the song ends.
So, I've been wondering if that same approach could be used in an instrumental rock combo. And, I wonder if anyone else would like to try that method. My idea at this point is just to have people get together (I have a practice room with a lot of the needed equipment already available), beforehand having decided on a few tunes to know as a beginning framework. And, I mean easy tunes. Nothing that requires much thought to pull off. I even thought it'd be fun to use a Chuck Berry song, for instance.....maybe "School Days." Turning that into a jazz rave-up might cause Berry to rise from the grave, though. Could be fun. And for now, I only want to use this as a lab experiment. I even wanted to (half-jokingly) call it "The Music Lab." And I'd like to forego vocals, unless it's necessary to establish the opening melody of the song. I'd really like this to be an opportunity for people to get together and egg each other on to be better musicians. We could all use that environment, I think. I hope I can convince some others, too.
Am I crazy heah? Guess I'll find out. I've discussed this a bit with a couple of people who seem game. Maybe by next week, I'll have more information and have changed my mind. Maybe do a funk tribute to David Allen Coe. That could be good, too.
Friday, December 28, 2018
Time on my Hands / "Roma" / "Blow Up"
Ooooh, yeah! Time on my hands!! Ooooh, yeah! Now, whatcha gonna do?
Ooooh, yeah! Time on my hands!! Ooooh, yeah! I can't really, well, uh. um, I don't know...uh...really?
It's that time of the year again. And by that, I don't really mean "the holidays." Although it is. But more importantly, I mean the time of year when government fights over budget issues to keep running, and sometimes yours truly becomes part of a furloughed work force. That time is now once again. Oh, boy. This shutdown is, I think, the most unpredictable one we've had yet. Unpredictable as in....when it will end. The primary issue is this border wall the President wants, an issue where he doesn't even have 50% support in his own party. This could drag on. And on. The last shutdown of note was in 2013, when we were off duty for 16 days. I'm afraid this one could eclipse even that quagmire. That five-years-ago stalemate was largely over the ACA, which now enjoys majority approval. But this wall business. Talk about a symbolic battle. Ugh. Trump's Last Stand. Maybe January 3rd will bring some sort of urgency to this situation. We'll see.
In the meantime, your furloughed working boy should get some stuff done. Should. Well, I'm installing one of those video doorbells today. It was a Christmas present from the in-laws. We don't get much traffic at the front door anyway (usually only the mail lady), so I'm not sure how necessary this was. But I suppose if we get a package left on the front porch, it could come in handy. We'll see. (Boy, I have exciting stuff to write about this morning.)
I think I'll head to Hard Luck Lounge tonight to see Dave Fisher play. Haven't seen him in quite awhile, and he recently moved to Malta. I'd like to hear about that.
On the watching front, yesterday I watched "Roma" and "Blow Up."
"Roma" is the latest from Mexican-born director Alfonso Cuaron, who brought us "Gravity," "Children of Men," and "Y Tu Mama Tambien" previously. Also, a Harry Potter movie everybody likes, but I haven't seen it and can't remember the title. And an updated "Great Expectations" my wife liked. "Roma" apparently has some autobiographical overtones from Cuaron's own life, as it takes place in the Roma area of Mexico City in 1970/71, and Cuaron grew up in a similar situation. There isn't a whole lot plot-wise to the "Roma" story; it follows the life of a domestic worker, who lives with the family she works for. The black-and-white photography is stunning (even on a computer monitor, as I watched it), and the performances (from a completely unknown - at least to this gringo - cast) are excellent to a fault. There are some definite similarities between the feel of this movie and the feel of "Y Tu Mama Tambien," especially in the portrayals of politically-motivated events happening in the mosaic of the story. The student protest in the latter third of the movie reminded me of the unrest the protagonists in "Y Tu" view from the car during their travels. Come to think of it, there was a hint of the huge tracking shot in "Children of Men" during the student protest as well. Cuaron's just an excellent director, no question. I could watch this movie fifty more times, I think. How's that for a recommendation?
And I finally got around to watching "Blow Up." I've had the Criterion disc for probably six months now but hadn't gotten around to it yet. It was.....interesting.....I guess? This is only the second Antonioni movie I've watched; I saw "L'Avventura" a couple of months ago. Right off, I'll say I liked "L'Avventura" a lot more. "Blow Up" is seen by a lot of people as the ultimate "Swinging London" movie, and I guess it has that going for it. I also knew Brian de Palma's "Blow Out" takes its plot cue from this movie, but hell, I like "Blow Out" a lot more than this one. "Blow Up"'s main plot point involves the professional photographer central character discovering a murder happened while he was snapping some photos in a park. What I thought might develop into more mystery and intrigue....never did. A big problem I had with the movie was the central character himself. He, simply put, came off as a complete asshole. I can accept the "flawed hero" character any day, but this guy was just a dick. No other way to put it. And when you don't have many other characters to sink your teeth into (star-billed Vanessa Redgrave is in the movie all of 15 minutes, tops), the assholishness (hello, Webster's?) just becomes more pronounced. And this isn't a comment on David Hemmings' performance, an actor who I haven't seen a lot of, but still....
What I did enjoy was the retrospective making-of that was included on the disc. And I got an impression of why this movie turned out the way it did. It seems Antonioni was such a revered character that no one wanted to do anything but kiss his ass when he came to England to make this. This movie just really felt like it was made by someone who was winging it as he went. Sometimes that can work out (wish I could think of a specific example to put here.....Lance, edit later!), but here, to me, it just doesn't. I enjoyed the story of how the Yardbirds ended up in the club scene; especially why Jeff Beck is smacking his guitar against his amp (The Who were originally wanted, but something went wrong with Kit Lambert). I still think this is one Criterion I'll be selling. Rare!
Back to not working.....and not playing....until Tuesday, or so.....
Ooooh, yeah! Time on my hands!! Ooooh, yeah! I can't really, well, uh. um, I don't know...uh...really?
It's that time of the year again. And by that, I don't really mean "the holidays." Although it is. But more importantly, I mean the time of year when government fights over budget issues to keep running, and sometimes yours truly becomes part of a furloughed work force. That time is now once again. Oh, boy. This shutdown is, I think, the most unpredictable one we've had yet. Unpredictable as in....when it will end. The primary issue is this border wall the President wants, an issue where he doesn't even have 50% support in his own party. This could drag on. And on. The last shutdown of note was in 2013, when we were off duty for 16 days. I'm afraid this one could eclipse even that quagmire. That five-years-ago stalemate was largely over the ACA, which now enjoys majority approval. But this wall business. Talk about a symbolic battle. Ugh. Trump's Last Stand. Maybe January 3rd will bring some sort of urgency to this situation. We'll see.
In the meantime, your furloughed working boy should get some stuff done. Should. Well, I'm installing one of those video doorbells today. It was a Christmas present from the in-laws. We don't get much traffic at the front door anyway (usually only the mail lady), so I'm not sure how necessary this was. But I suppose if we get a package left on the front porch, it could come in handy. We'll see. (Boy, I have exciting stuff to write about this morning.)
I think I'll head to Hard Luck Lounge tonight to see Dave Fisher play. Haven't seen him in quite awhile, and he recently moved to Malta. I'd like to hear about that.
On the watching front, yesterday I watched "Roma" and "Blow Up."
"Roma" is the latest from Mexican-born director Alfonso Cuaron, who brought us "Gravity," "Children of Men," and "Y Tu Mama Tambien" previously. Also, a Harry Potter movie everybody likes, but I haven't seen it and can't remember the title. And an updated "Great Expectations" my wife liked. "Roma" apparently has some autobiographical overtones from Cuaron's own life, as it takes place in the Roma area of Mexico City in 1970/71, and Cuaron grew up in a similar situation. There isn't a whole lot plot-wise to the "Roma" story; it follows the life of a domestic worker, who lives with the family she works for. The black-and-white photography is stunning (even on a computer monitor, as I watched it), and the performances (from a completely unknown - at least to this gringo - cast) are excellent to a fault. There are some definite similarities between the feel of this movie and the feel of "Y Tu Mama Tambien," especially in the portrayals of politically-motivated events happening in the mosaic of the story. The student protest in the latter third of the movie reminded me of the unrest the protagonists in "Y Tu" view from the car during their travels. Come to think of it, there was a hint of the huge tracking shot in "Children of Men" during the student protest as well. Cuaron's just an excellent director, no question. I could watch this movie fifty more times, I think. How's that for a recommendation?
And I finally got around to watching "Blow Up." I've had the Criterion disc for probably six months now but hadn't gotten around to it yet. It was.....interesting.....I guess? This is only the second Antonioni movie I've watched; I saw "L'Avventura" a couple of months ago. Right off, I'll say I liked "L'Avventura" a lot more. "Blow Up" is seen by a lot of people as the ultimate "Swinging London" movie, and I guess it has that going for it. I also knew Brian de Palma's "Blow Out" takes its plot cue from this movie, but hell, I like "Blow Out" a lot more than this one. "Blow Up"'s main plot point involves the professional photographer central character discovering a murder happened while he was snapping some photos in a park. What I thought might develop into more mystery and intrigue....never did. A big problem I had with the movie was the central character himself. He, simply put, came off as a complete asshole. I can accept the "flawed hero" character any day, but this guy was just a dick. No other way to put it. And when you don't have many other characters to sink your teeth into (star-billed Vanessa Redgrave is in the movie all of 15 minutes, tops), the assholishness (hello, Webster's?) just becomes more pronounced. And this isn't a comment on David Hemmings' performance, an actor who I haven't seen a lot of, but still....
What I did enjoy was the retrospective making-of that was included on the disc. And I got an impression of why this movie turned out the way it did. It seems Antonioni was such a revered character that no one wanted to do anything but kiss his ass when he came to England to make this. This movie just really felt like it was made by someone who was winging it as he went. Sometimes that can work out (wish I could think of a specific example to put here.....Lance, edit later!), but here, to me, it just doesn't. I enjoyed the story of how the Yardbirds ended up in the club scene; especially why Jeff Beck is smacking his guitar against his amp (The Who were originally wanted, but something went wrong with Kit Lambert). I still think this is one Criterion I'll be selling. Rare!
Back to not working.....and not playing....until Tuesday, or so.....
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
"The Inheritors" / "Lake of Dracula"
Howdy, post-Christmaserinos! Thought I'd write some movie watching reaction (the reason I originally set up this blog but haven't done much of lately). Plus, I need to get back to writing regularly and not just during the Sunday writing group sessions.
Michelle was working last night at the Continental Club, so I watched an Austrian film from 1983 called "The Inheritors" and began another I'll write about shortly. "The Inheritors" is, well, timely, let's say. Even if it is from 1983. Europe was having a rise of fascism, and that's essentially what this movie is about. And I suppose you get why I say it's timely. The plot involves a teenager of 16 becoming involved in a neo-Nazi group. He has a troubled home life already, and it's easy to see how he fell to prey to recruitment techniques by one of these groups. It's not a very long film, 88 minutes or so, and it's pretty compact in the telling. And there are some pretty disturbing scenes, as well, mostly after the halfway mark. I've read criticism of the movie for the sex scenes, and I sort of get that, although (and I can vouch) when you're a teenage boy, sex is pretty much on your mind 96% of the time. What that does do however is marginalize the teenage girls in the movie as little more than objects. But again, this movie was made 35 years ago. And the sex scenes are only in the first half or so of the movie.
The ending is blunt and not what I was expecting at all. Give it a watch. If you've seen "American History X" (which I'd argue is a better overall movie), you won't be able to not think of that one while viewing this. I'm inserting the English trailer here, as that's what I found first, and both German and English are available on the Mondo Macabro release, but I'd strongly suggest watching it in German. The actors are clearly speaking that.
To cleanse the palette a bit, I guess, I began (and finished this morning) "Lake of Dracula." That one is the second of a trio of Japanese movies made in the seventies aping the Hammer horror formula. The trio you can get in an Arrow Video release, and I've greatly enjoyed these first two films. Neither one is going to change how you think of anything, but they're both great popcorn entertainment. Vivid colors, creepy mansions, pasty-faced vampires, etc. That's about all I have to say about these so far (the first one's called "The Vampire Doll;" the third one, which I've yet to watch is "Evil of Dracula"), but I'm looking forward to the third one. I might also mention they're all in the 80-minute range, so you won't be looking at the disc time or your watch very much. The only reason this one was a two-parter for me was my getting extremely sleepy after starting it at 3 am. Give 'em a try!
Quick, I know. More soon....
Michelle was working last night at the Continental Club, so I watched an Austrian film from 1983 called "The Inheritors" and began another I'll write about shortly. "The Inheritors" is, well, timely, let's say. Even if it is from 1983. Europe was having a rise of fascism, and that's essentially what this movie is about. And I suppose you get why I say it's timely. The plot involves a teenager of 16 becoming involved in a neo-Nazi group. He has a troubled home life already, and it's easy to see how he fell to prey to recruitment techniques by one of these groups. It's not a very long film, 88 minutes or so, and it's pretty compact in the telling. And there are some pretty disturbing scenes, as well, mostly after the halfway mark. I've read criticism of the movie for the sex scenes, and I sort of get that, although (and I can vouch) when you're a teenage boy, sex is pretty much on your mind 96% of the time. What that does do however is marginalize the teenage girls in the movie as little more than objects. But again, this movie was made 35 years ago. And the sex scenes are only in the first half or so of the movie.
The ending is blunt and not what I was expecting at all. Give it a watch. If you've seen "American History X" (which I'd argue is a better overall movie), you won't be able to not think of that one while viewing this. I'm inserting the English trailer here, as that's what I found first, and both German and English are available on the Mondo Macabro release, but I'd strongly suggest watching it in German. The actors are clearly speaking that.
To cleanse the palette a bit, I guess, I began (and finished this morning) "Lake of Dracula." That one is the second of a trio of Japanese movies made in the seventies aping the Hammer horror formula. The trio you can get in an Arrow Video release, and I've greatly enjoyed these first two films. Neither one is going to change how you think of anything, but they're both great popcorn entertainment. Vivid colors, creepy mansions, pasty-faced vampires, etc. That's about all I have to say about these so far (the first one's called "The Vampire Doll;" the third one, which I've yet to watch is "Evil of Dracula"), but I'm looking forward to the third one. I might also mention they're all in the 80-minute range, so you won't be looking at the disc time or your watch very much. The only reason this one was a two-parter for me was my getting extremely sleepy after starting it at 3 am. Give 'em a try!
Quick, I know. More soon....
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Ding Dong! The....
Let's reach deep into my psyche, shall we? Ha ha, I just named this post based on the "Ding Dong, the Witch is dead...." line and looked at my music player to see the song I'm listening to (a Lester Young number, featuring Roy Haynes' drumming) is called "Ding Dong." Well, there you go. Anyway.....
I found out some interesting information yesterday, but to put it in perspective, I have to give some backstory.
When I was young, I was rail-thin, which if you know me now, might seem surprising. I mean, I was a runt. Five feet tall, maybe 120 pounds....really small. Until I reached junior year of high school, when I sprouted about a foot. I was still thin, don't think I topped 140, but at least I was taller. Until then, I was game for hulking rednecks, of which there were plenty in Pearland, where I went to the last year of junior high and all of high school. One in particular was especially brutal to me, not beating me up or anything like that, but he enjoyed humiliating my puniness in front of anybody he could. This went on from approximately eighth through tenth grade. As I wrote a bit ago, I shot up a foot in very little time, and by eleventh grade, most of the picking-on had stopped. Now, I wasn't a super shy nerd who kept to himself, it wasn't like that. But still, I was no match physically for most of my male classmates. Part of the reason for this was that I was a year younger than almost all my classmates, too, having started first grade at five years old.
Now that I REALLY think about it, I believe the reason I gravitated to drums as an instrument was my lack of physical body. I wanted to play something physical to show that I could stand up to any jock and say "see??" I always liked sports and would have played them more if I could have stood up to the punishment. Other than some baseball (still my favorite sport), I didn't play much throughout school. I ran track some in school, and played golf, but that was about it. Playing drums was going to have be the answer, and I guess it still is. Even though, through food, etc. I don't think I'll ever return to the land of the "hey, count my ribs!"
So, back to the "one in particular" who liked to humiliate me in front of others at school. I found out yesterday that he died. Right or wrong, I had a feeling of immense joy. I won't state his name - I'm sure he had a family and such, and I have sympathy for them. But him? No way. He treated me like shit during school, and I'm glad I outlived him. So there. I'm doing a little dance. Even if I die in a car wreck this afternoon, I still exceeded his "sell by" date. I suppose, in a small way, that he, along with a couple of others, had something to do with my taking up drumming as a hobby/vocation, so maybe I should even thank him slightly for that. But it would only be slightly, believe me. It surprised me how much hearing he died affected me. I must have a lot of this stuff buried deeply.
Short post, I know, but it had to be made. This might begat more "school memories" posts. We'll see......
I found out some interesting information yesterday, but to put it in perspective, I have to give some backstory.
When I was young, I was rail-thin, which if you know me now, might seem surprising. I mean, I was a runt. Five feet tall, maybe 120 pounds....really small. Until I reached junior year of high school, when I sprouted about a foot. I was still thin, don't think I topped 140, but at least I was taller. Until then, I was game for hulking rednecks, of which there were plenty in Pearland, where I went to the last year of junior high and all of high school. One in particular was especially brutal to me, not beating me up or anything like that, but he enjoyed humiliating my puniness in front of anybody he could. This went on from approximately eighth through tenth grade. As I wrote a bit ago, I shot up a foot in very little time, and by eleventh grade, most of the picking-on had stopped. Now, I wasn't a super shy nerd who kept to himself, it wasn't like that. But still, I was no match physically for most of my male classmates. Part of the reason for this was that I was a year younger than almost all my classmates, too, having started first grade at five years old.
Now that I REALLY think about it, I believe the reason I gravitated to drums as an instrument was my lack of physical body. I wanted to play something physical to show that I could stand up to any jock and say "see??" I always liked sports and would have played them more if I could have stood up to the punishment. Other than some baseball (still my favorite sport), I didn't play much throughout school. I ran track some in school, and played golf, but that was about it. Playing drums was going to have be the answer, and I guess it still is. Even though, through food, etc. I don't think I'll ever return to the land of the "hey, count my ribs!"
So, back to the "one in particular" who liked to humiliate me in front of others at school. I found out yesterday that he died. Right or wrong, I had a feeling of immense joy. I won't state his name - I'm sure he had a family and such, and I have sympathy for them. But him? No way. He treated me like shit during school, and I'm glad I outlived him. So there. I'm doing a little dance. Even if I die in a car wreck this afternoon, I still exceeded his "sell by" date. I suppose, in a small way, that he, along with a couple of others, had something to do with my taking up drumming as a hobby/vocation, so maybe I should even thank him slightly for that. But it would only be slightly, believe me. It surprised me how much hearing he died affected me. I must have a lot of this stuff buried deeply.
Short post, I know, but it had to be made. This might begat more "school memories" posts. We'll see......
I Suppose You'd Call This a Full Week (and Weekend)
Sunday, glorious Sunday. Other than this blog post, I'm not doing much else today. And I've earned it.
I had a full week of development at work, and that following a weekend where I, more or less, worked the entire time....at least through monitoring and updating. And, of course, what should happen Friday? Another one of these government shutdowns. Which means I'm out of work until the budget situation is resolved. I won't even go into that much, you know the details. It would be nice to know how long this will take, so I could maybe make some plans.....but that's an impossible task. In a way, I hope it takes awhile....although I don't want struggling friends to be out of work.
This weekend was filled with a couple of shows, both out of town, one for the Hickoids and one for the Hickoids offshoot, the Swishbucklers. The Hickoids show was Friday in Houston, with an all-star line up of friends, at one of the last shows to take place at Fitzgerald's. Fitzgerald's has been sold to a developer and is about to be razed for the future, as they say. Shame. I can't say I have a deep, emotional tie to the place, but I have played there several times over the last 30 years. Oddly, I feel more of a tie to Rudyard's. But anyway....
The Hickoids' set was one of the roughest times I've had playing in a while. It seemed like nothing on my drum kit would stay put or work right. The most major thing was that my kick drum pedal kept sliding to the left and right while playing, no matter how hard I clamped the sucker onto the rim of the kick drum. Dash Rip Rock had used my drums prior to us playing, and I wondered if that guy's pedal had oozed some oil onto the rim. I don't have this problem normally, so something had changed, for sure. In the middle of this, the general bounciness of the riser kept moving my rack tom down, which would cause it to catch a stick occasionally and flip it majestically in the air. During "Best Liquor Store" that happened no fewer than three times. The mic stand next to me kept sliding toward me, sometimes catching my shoulder and causing problems. At one point, while playing and after nudging the mic stand back to its proper place, I turned to hit my right-side crash and broke a stick at that moment. This was pretty much the scenario for the second half of our set. As we began our last number, "Brontosaurus," for whatever reason (and I've NEVER had this happen in 40+ years of playing) the hi-hat stand's pedal hooks came out of the holes they fit in, so the pedal was fairly uncontrollable for that whole song. And the kick drum pedal started sliding again. I kept trying to move it back as we played, and at one point completely lost where we were in the song. I looked up to see everybody looking at me. Harrumph! I cued some way to get back into the fast part of the song, and mostly everybody followed me. What a fucking nightmare. After leaving the stage at the end of the set, I immediately went backstage and yelled "FUCK!!!!!!" at the top of my lungs, startling the relaxing Beaumonts. I hope they're okay.
It seems everybody enjoyed the show, so I'm happy about that. I was not happy at all, but I'm just that way. I don't like letting the band or the show down. My bandmates seemed undisturbed about it all, so that's good. For the record, Smitty had been sick as a dog for a couple of days, and he pulled off not one, but two performances that night (also with the Texas Biscuit Bombs). I was pretty amazed by that. Man of steel, there.
Last night in San Antonio was a different story, playing-wise anyway. The Swishbucklers took the stage in between Dr. Green Dreams (from Bend, OR!) and We Are The Asteroid. We had a pretty killer set. Tommy Rowsey (original Swishbuckler) has been playing with us again, and he's getting better integrated into it all. I had a great time overall. Dr. Green Dreams rocked us and We Are The Asteroid....jeez, what can you say there? They just get better all the time. And they started off great! Just a fun night. Thank you, Jerry Clayworth, for putting that together. Jerry also talked with Michelle about the possibility of doing a burlesque/bellydance event there. Could be cool......Michelle really liked the room.
All this with allergies from hell!!!!!!
I had a full week of development at work, and that following a weekend where I, more or less, worked the entire time....at least through monitoring and updating. And, of course, what should happen Friday? Another one of these government shutdowns. Which means I'm out of work until the budget situation is resolved. I won't even go into that much, you know the details. It would be nice to know how long this will take, so I could maybe make some plans.....but that's an impossible task. In a way, I hope it takes awhile....although I don't want struggling friends to be out of work.
This weekend was filled with a couple of shows, both out of town, one for the Hickoids and one for the Hickoids offshoot, the Swishbucklers. The Hickoids show was Friday in Houston, with an all-star line up of friends, at one of the last shows to take place at Fitzgerald's. Fitzgerald's has been sold to a developer and is about to be razed for the future, as they say. Shame. I can't say I have a deep, emotional tie to the place, but I have played there several times over the last 30 years. Oddly, I feel more of a tie to Rudyard's. But anyway....
The Hickoids' set was one of the roughest times I've had playing in a while. It seemed like nothing on my drum kit would stay put or work right. The most major thing was that my kick drum pedal kept sliding to the left and right while playing, no matter how hard I clamped the sucker onto the rim of the kick drum. Dash Rip Rock had used my drums prior to us playing, and I wondered if that guy's pedal had oozed some oil onto the rim. I don't have this problem normally, so something had changed, for sure. In the middle of this, the general bounciness of the riser kept moving my rack tom down, which would cause it to catch a stick occasionally and flip it majestically in the air. During "Best Liquor Store" that happened no fewer than three times. The mic stand next to me kept sliding toward me, sometimes catching my shoulder and causing problems. At one point, while playing and after nudging the mic stand back to its proper place, I turned to hit my right-side crash and broke a stick at that moment. This was pretty much the scenario for the second half of our set. As we began our last number, "Brontosaurus," for whatever reason (and I've NEVER had this happen in 40+ years of playing) the hi-hat stand's pedal hooks came out of the holes they fit in, so the pedal was fairly uncontrollable for that whole song. And the kick drum pedal started sliding again. I kept trying to move it back as we played, and at one point completely lost where we were in the song. I looked up to see everybody looking at me. Harrumph! I cued some way to get back into the fast part of the song, and mostly everybody followed me. What a fucking nightmare. After leaving the stage at the end of the set, I immediately went backstage and yelled "FUCK!!!!!!" at the top of my lungs, startling the relaxing Beaumonts. I hope they're okay.
It seems everybody enjoyed the show, so I'm happy about that. I was not happy at all, but I'm just that way. I don't like letting the band or the show down. My bandmates seemed undisturbed about it all, so that's good. For the record, Smitty had been sick as a dog for a couple of days, and he pulled off not one, but two performances that night (also with the Texas Biscuit Bombs). I was pretty amazed by that. Man of steel, there.
Last night in San Antonio was a different story, playing-wise anyway. The Swishbucklers took the stage in between Dr. Green Dreams (from Bend, OR!) and We Are The Asteroid. We had a pretty killer set. Tommy Rowsey (original Swishbuckler) has been playing with us again, and he's getting better integrated into it all. I had a great time overall. Dr. Green Dreams rocked us and We Are The Asteroid....jeez, what can you say there? They just get better all the time. And they started off great! Just a fun night. Thank you, Jerry Clayworth, for putting that together. Jerry also talked with Michelle about the possibility of doing a burlesque/bellydance event there. Could be cool......Michelle really liked the room.
All this with allergies from hell!!!!!!
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Pizza, Pizza, Pasta, Pizza, Pasta, A Steak, and Gelato
Michelle and I have just returned from 10 days in Italy, plus about a day and a half of travel. I write this still feeling the effects.
I was pretty wiped out from playing two of the three nights prior to leaving, so I was a bit wonky waking up Monday morning. But the first thing I did was check the flight departure times at the Austin airport. And I was shocked to see that our flight was listed as leaving a full hour earlier (11:35 am) than we were originally scheduled (12:35 pm)! I told Michelle we'd have to hustle it, and I rescheduled our Uber ride to the airport as I ran around getting things together. Our driver got to our house on time, and off we went, a bit shaken but somewhat together. We got to the ticket counter at the airport, and while checking our bags, the gentleman said something to the effect of "you've got 'til noon" about leaving. I thought that was a bit weird, but we went off to security and after that, the departures screen showed that our flight was indeed leaving at 12:35. Whaaa??? All that rushing for nothing. Wow. For some reason, the ABIA website had the time wrong. But at least we were there with plenty of time.
The first flight, Austin to Atlanta, was fairly rough, but we had some weather to get through. It was pretty nasty in Austin when we left. The flight was delayed about 15 minutes, and we only had about an hour-forty to get to our connecting flight to Paris. We didn't have to recheck our luggage, so it wasn't a problem; we went straight to the gate and boarded the plane pretty much straight away. For this flight, I had had the prior opportunity to upgrade a bit to a row with only two seats, so it would be Michelle and me only. It wasn't much, and I'm glad I took the upgrade. We were able to sleep a bit during the eight-hour flight to Paris, although bits of that flight were rough as well. We had another hour-forty to get to our final flight to Naples, and we had another security check along the way. We got to the gate with plenty of time to spare. This flight was smoother than the other two, and we were in Naples at 11:35 am. After a quick cab ride to the hotel, the Stelle Hotel, we got checked in, despite being there so early. We had lunch at the adjoining restaurant and then began to investigate Naples a little, although we were dog-tired. We ended up taking it easy toward the evening; Michelle even crashed early. I went out on my own a bit, and ended up having a pastry at a shop a couple of blocks away, but that was about the extent of Tuesday.
Wednesday morning, we had the National Archeological Museum booked, so after the hotel breakfast, we booked it over there in a cab. Michelle booked all our tours, museums and otherwise, for this trip. She has an art and archeology passion, and I think she's pushing it on me, too. This museum had lots of statuary from Italian history, and we had audio guides to help. Michelle saw a couple of pieces she remembered seeing as a kid - that's the sort of mind she has for this stuff. The museum was pretty huge and contained frescoes rescued from Pompeii, among other artifacts. We were in there about three hours. After emerging, we walked around a bit and looked in shops, etc. There was nothing else booked for the day, so we took a cab back to the hotel, and then headed to a place called "Ieri, Oggi, Domani" for lunch. It was a nicer place, decorated with Sophia Loren memorabilia. I would say the food was good, but this is Italy. Much like 7 is a prime number, take the "good food" as a given. After a nap, we headed out a bit more, walking around and look in shops, etc. Michelle was in need of sunglasses, and I was in need of readers. We finally procured those and ended up back at the hotel to wrap it up. The next day was Pompeii/Herculaneum for most of it, so we wanted to be rested.
Thursday, and it was off to Pompeii on a tour bus. We had to be at a neighboring Holiday Inn by 8:00 in the morning, so we cabbed it over there and waited. Someone came to pick us up and take us to the actual bus. It was a fairly full bus. Before long, we were in Pompeii at the fairly large tourist hub. Our tour guide was very animated and passionate about the subject matter (all the tour guides were, for the record). The weather got pretty warm, and I was glad we were wearing hats. There was an occasional respite from the roasting, but I tried to stay focused on the sights. One of the most interesting aspects to the tour was the Pompeii streets themselves. Many places had large blocks crossing the street, apparently for skipping across the street if there was a lot of standing water. You could also see carriage wheel marks where they had been embedded in the street post-Vesuvius. We were taken by the Lupamare, the brothel area, where even some "menus" still exist. Pictorial menus, at that. And we saw one cast of a person....not sure where the others were.
Following the tour, we went to another area for our lunch. It was a fairly long lunch, including two courses and dessert. I watched some guys eat margherita pizzas behind our table, and I'm still amazed how fast Neapolitans gobble those things up.
The second part of the tour was Herculaneum, a more-recently excavated town closer to Naples. As good as the Pompeii tour was, I think Michelle and I enjoyed the Herculaneum part more. Herculaneum was where the rich folk vacationed near the water, north of Pompeii, and as such, there were more elaborate dwellings to view. We headed back to Naples and were dropped off near what I thought was our hotel (they kept saying "Stars Hotel"). Turned out it wasn't, the Stars Hotel was not the same as the Stelle ("stars" in Italian) Hotel. No biggie, though; we were only a couple of blocks away.
We rested a bit and then walked around our neighborhood a bit that evening, although we didn't really go that far. When we got back to the hotel, we stopped by the restaurant next to the hotel to purchase a couple of bottled waters and got serious attitude from the cashier there. I had gotten similar treatment that morning from the counter person trying to get a to-go coffee. Some Neapolitans may not like tourists - that's my takeaway. Or maybe something about that restaurant makes some of them grumpy. Hard to tell.
Friday morning, we checked out and were off to Rome. You could walk through a corridor behind the hotel and straight to the train station, which was very convenient. We had an Italo train at about 9:30, putting us in Rome at 10:30 or so. Looking at our voucher, I only saw what coach we were in and that we had a window seat and an aisle seat. When I jumped on the train and got into our coach, the first two seats were available, so I snagged those for us. Later I realized that those were our assigned seats, after all. This trip was a continual learning process.
We got out of the train station and grabbed a cab to our hotel. Our luggage was just big enough that taking the Metro to the hotel wasn't an easy option. Our hotel was the Hotel Villafranca and turned out to be a couple of blocks away from another Metro station, and that turned out to be extremely handy while we were there. We got checked into the hotel by 11:30 (lucky again!) and decided to head to the Trevi Fountain first, which we got a cab to, not really knowing routing in the city yet. To anyone visiting Rome for the first time, I'd say hit a more defined landmark near a Metro station first. As we had no phone service and were relying on physical maps, all the little streets around the Trevi Fountain got me confused instantly. Still, we enjoyed wandering around, taking in Rome, and ended up having monumental gelato creations at one point. The Trevi Fountain made my jaw drop when I first saw it. I guess just seeing something that monumental (no pun intended) around a corner got to me a bit. (Ever see "The Stendhal Syndrome?") We also saw The Pantheon, inside and out.
After getting back to the hotel, we rested a bit before tackling the Vatican Museums, which we were signed up for that night. We ate dinner a couple of blocks away from the tour office and then headed back to await our tour group. The tour itself was great, very informative and full of all kinds of visual wonderment, but by the end, I was completely exhausted. The Sistine Chapel was the last part, and by that time, I was wearily looking up thinking, "yep, that's it." Still, a great tour. We left the others behind as we made our way out, that's how tired we were. Later that night, we still made it out for a little dessert to a restaurant a couple of blocks away.
One thing I'll mention here: our hotel room was one of those European hotel rooms without much regard for guests needing electricity. There were exactly three outlets in the room, one in the bathroom, one behind the desk (into which was plugged the TV, refrigerator, and a desk lamp), and one, oddly, right by the front door, just above the floor. What this meant was, "hey Lance, you're smart to bring your new CPAP battery! Going to pay off here." Yes, I ran the CPAP off the battery all four nights we stayed in Rome. Worked like a champ.
Saturday, after a quick hotel breakfast, it was off to the Colosseum for a morning tour. The Metro had a "Colosseo" stop right in front of the structure, which was convenient. Upon leaving the station, we were immediately accosted by a Slovenian gentleman collecting money for anti-drug programs, but since he was helpful about how we'd find our tour group, etc. I pitched in for his cause. This tour featured my most difficult moment of being a tourist: getting past the security checkpoint entering the Colosseum. All the museums and sites we visited had security checkpoints, but almost all were a breeze to get through. Put your camera and change in the tray, walk through the metal detector, and you're in. Not this one. I could not get past the detector without being told to go back. I thought I was going to have to strip nude. Finally, it was determined my knee brace (which is only stiff fabric) was the culprit, and the guy let me through. Once rejoining our tour group, I joked to them I had to have sex with the security guy, mainly because I was embarrassed to hold up the group. They all laughed heartily, and I felt better.
The Colosseum tour included the Colosseum and a large part of the Forum. It did not include the "underground" part of the Colosseum, which is now visible from overhead, nor did it include Circus Maximus, which was nearby. Still, it was about a three-hour tour and covered a lot. Once done with the tour, we had lunch and headed back to the hotel.
Next up was my only planned destination of the entire vacation: the Profondo Rosso shop. The shop was opened by Dario Argento and Luigi Cozzi in 1989, and it's a combination Italian horror store and smallish basement museum, featuring artifacts from Argento-related films. We took the train to the Lepanto stop (north of the Vatican) and walked the few blocks to the shop. I was in heaven, although the shop is not for the claustrophobic. Very small, and packed with merchandise. We paid our five Euro admission to the basement and took that in. It had around ten scenes from movies, such as "The Black Cat" (from "Two Evil Eyes") and "Demons," each scene featuring actual props from the movie. We went back upstairs, and I tried not to buy out the store. I picked up a couple of books, two t-shirts, one t-shirt for Michelle, and got ideas for other things I could perhaps order elsewhere. The books are produced in-house and have the "Profondo Rosso" stamp on them. I was surprised that Luigi Cozzi had written many books, as I really only knew of him as a film director.
Back to the hotel we went. I was starting to get this "travel on the Metro" thing down.
Sunday, we had one thing scheduled: the Borghese museum in the early afternoon. And as to the location, Google let us down on this front. I'd mapped the Borghese museum, and Google insisted it was at Piazza Borghese, on Via Borghese, in a central area of Rome. We went over there fairly early, to take a look at some sites before hitting the tour. As I was looking for the museum, it was starting to become obvious that we were not in the right place. I asked at a restaurant where the museum was, and after getting conflicting responses from employees there (one said "it's closed!"; I later realized he was talking about the building next door), someone finally told me it was a few kilometers away. We quickly hailed a cab and got to where we were supposed to be in plenty of time. I still need to contact Google about that; I'm sure we're not the only folks this has happened to.
The Borghese Museum had some parts roped off, as a Pablo Picasso exhibition was close to opening. We still got to see all the important stuff, such as the Paola Borghese Venus statue. (I got seriously "arted" this trip.) After the tour, we waited awhile at a taxi stand for a cab with no luck. Others were waiting with us, but no taxis wanted to stop. A tour guide, obviously British, took us under her wing and said we should just walk to the Metro station, as no cabs were going to stop there. So, off we went, on a walk to the nearest Metro stop....I forget which one it was. Quite a walk, but we were back to the hotel within an hour. Not having phone service was indeed a pain, in terms of finding our way around, but it wasn't as terrible a problem as I thought it might be. Physical maps and helpful tour guides were our saviors.
That night, we had dinner across the street from the hotel at the Tre Archi. We had a nice dinner while a torrential rain began outside. At least we were directly across the street from the hotel, if it didn't let up. It did, though, not long after we finished our meal. There was an awful lot falling into place on thi trip. We were lucky, I kept thinking. As it turned out, that was the only real rainfall of the entire trip. Rome got inundated the week after we were there.
On Sunday, the only scheduled event we had was the Capitoline museums at around 3:00. So, now that we had the hang of travelling around the city, we took the train to the Colosseum stop and started walking. After some viewing and shopping (Michelle picked up a coat and hat combo, but in two separate visits two separate days), we made our way to the area where our Capitoline tour was supposed to start. When we got to the plaza separating the two museums, there was a demonstration beginning. It had something to do with abortion, but I wasn't sure what it was about. The police were out as a just in case. Nothing much seemed to happen as we waited and watched. Some speaking through a megaphone, but it seemed like the whole demonstration was over in under an hour.
But something was up concerning this tour. We couldn't find any sign of a tour group. I asked two separate people about where the tour would start, correlating what they said with our rather specific directions. I was pointed each time to the same place: at the foot of some stairs leading to a cathedral. It seemed like the logical place to start, so wait, we did. At one point, we thought perhaps the tour might start at the top of some other stairs leading to the front of the cathedral, but that was about 1/4 mile of stairs. We looked up there, walked maybe halfway. No tour up there. Hmmh. So, we went back to the original place we'd been waiting. Finally, as we realized there was either no tour or we somehow weren't in the right place (and we had no way to contact them), we just bought tickets and went in. The line wasn't long, so we got to see what we wanted. There weren't that many people in the museums, and we never ran into what would have been our tour group.
[After we returned, Michelle contacted the company she bought the tour tickets from. They insisted the tour had taken place, and that we were listed as "no-shows." I find this hard to believe. We didn't have any problem with any other tours. It's pretty obvious where and when tour groups are coming together, and we saw some in the plaza, just not ours. Also, our directions were pretty specific about where we were meeting. Plus, I think we would have run into the tour sporting the "Mea" flag at some point while we were in the museums, and that didn't happen. I suspect some bad communication here somewhere, but at least Michelle got her money back, after some waffling on their part.]
For our last night in Rome, we went back to the restaurant we had the desserts at Friday night. I was going to miss this food.
Tuesday morning, it was up and out and to the train station. We took a cab the short distance to the Termini station, as our suitcases were a pain on these sidewalks. Off to Florence it was....arrivederci, Roma. I like.
We arrived in Firenze around 11:45 and got to the De Rose Palace hotel shortly after that. We were able to check in right away. We were three for three on that. No stashing our luggage while we wandered around. Nice. I think I liked this hotel room the most of all. Probably the oldest of the three, but very nice. And there were more electrical outlets in it! It had kind of an odd layout, with there being sort of a separate entrance chamber, with the bathroom to the left, and a coat closet to the right. Oh, Lance, don't leave your jacket in there when checking out!
Florence is more of a "walking town" than either Rome or Naples. The biggest challenge to that was that our hotel was set off a bit from the city center, so it was a case of walking some to get to anything of import, but once you were there, everything else was relatively close. I later learned that our hotel's area was a popular place for tourists to stay. My knee brace was treating my right leg great, but our feets was a-achin' at the end of every day.
We took a stroll toward the city center after checking into the hotel. We went to the Santa Maria Novella, which was near the train station we'd just come into. From there, it was a relatively easy walk to the Duomo and other sites. We had lunch at a great sidewalk cafe (but really, did we have bad food in Italy?). Michelle wanted to find something called The Pharmacy, which was the oldest pharmacy (in the world?); she'd found it on Atlas Obscura. After purchasing my buddy Charles' requisite town magnet, I inquired about this "Pharmacy." The proprietor of the magnet place told me where it was, but I wasn't sure she had understood what I was talking about. We headed her directions' way, but I lost faith a little too quickly. More on that later.
That night, we had a Bistecca Firenze, or a Florence steak, which is a big deal there. It was on odd experience, as the steak was flayed open, mostly in halves, and my half was quite delicious. For some strange reason, Michelle's half was much fattier and tougher than mine. There was not a steak equilibrium. Sort of disconcerting, but we met a nice, older American couple. The woman needed a nail fixed and discussed that issue with Michelle.
The next day was a more structured day. The only tour Michelle had scheduled in Florence was at the Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery, and it was a two-part tour. The Accademia, which is largely centered around Michelangelo's David statue, was in the morning, and we were done with that one fairly quickly. We did another walk around the town, waiting for the second part of the tour to begin. One thing became apparent after a couple of days in the town: there was a level of aggression amongst people selling things on the street that was not present in the mostly-immigrant street salespeople in Rome. If one of these folks focused on you, they weren't taking "no" for an answer for a good while. I was pretty amazed at it, frankly. It only happened four or five times, but each time was like dodging a spider shooting web material out to snare you.
But we did go back to find The Pharmacy and found it on the same street we'd walked down the first time...we just hadn't walked far enough. Nice place, full of perfumes and remedies, and nice statuary and paintings as well. A bit "perfumy," if you're the sort who starts sneezing when you're around too much of that penetrating smell, but still nice. It had a cafe in it as well, but we didn't partake of it.
The Uffizi Gallery was.....the Uffizi Gallery. Exquisite paintings and statuary (I'm liking that word) everywhere. One highlight was the Caravaggio Medusa painting, which is on what looks to be a concave-shaped disc, and the whole thing is encased in a glass cube. I was a little surprised at how small it was; for some reason, I thought it was larger. Still mind-bogglingly impressive. After all these tours over many days, I felt completely full in the "art" department. A good kind of full.
Thursday included more walking around the town, and there was another trip to The Pharmacy (Michelle had still been planning her purchases). We went north in the town toward the old town's fort and found some really cool shops. One was a mask shop that had some interesting doodads I purchased. The people who ran the shop were sitting there making masks as we shopped. Later, when we were heading to find a restaurant for dinner, we ran into the older couple from Monday evening, and the woman showed Michelle her new nails. Her husband was getting around in an electric chair, and apparently doing pretty well. I was impressed that he was maneuvering those uneven, cobblestone streets.
It feels like the Florence days blur together (I'm writing this too late, I'm afraid) more so than the Rome or Naples ones. We visited and re-visited a lot of the same shops in downtown Florence. The whole area is not that large, and as we only had the Uffizi Gallery to visit tour-wise, our three days there felt freer than the others.
Friday, it was "waaaaah," time to leave. We had a really early flight out of Florence, leaving at 6:30 am. After a particularly speedy cab ride to the airport, we got to the ticket counter and noticed only one person working and some people in line. After a few minutes of no movement, a rather nervous guy walked up and informed us all that there was a strike (of some workers, but I was never sure whom), but that help was on the way. As we had to get to our connecting flight in Amsterdam rather quickly, I was concerned. But after ten minutes or so, some folks showed up, took positions at the counter, and began checking us in and our bags, etc.
On through security and to the gate. After getting to the gate, the aforementioned nervous guy appeared at the door to the gate and stated that there was a strike (of....somebody, or somebodies), but that they would get us to the plane as quickly as they good. I was still concerned. In a few minutes, though, they started processing boarding passes and letting us on the tram to get to the plane. We got to the plane and began our flight maybe ten minutes late at most. I never knew what all the "strike" hubbub was about.
We got to Amsterdam on time and got onto the next flight without incident, but with the usual long line for international flights. This time we were seated in the middle of one of those large plane middle rows. I only had one person to the right of me, though, and so getting up occasionally wasn't a problem. Smooth flight.
We landed in Detroit and had to claim our baggage to recheck for the flight to Austin. When I got my suitcase, it looked like someone had deliberately smashed it into a rock, or something really heavy had fallen on it. There was a hole in one side, the wire frame was protruding, bent in an especially crazy fashion. Nothing was missing from the suitcase; the way it was torn precluded things from falling out easily, thankfully. I had a little more time in Detroit to try to fix the problem. After asking a Delta representative for some sort of temporary solution, he handed me a roll of clear tape without any look of concern at all. Annoying. But I taped up the hole by wrapping the suitcase a few times and leaving it at that. The baggage handler who was taking care of rechecks was especially helpful and told me I could file a claim when I got to Austin. Even though I had a little time, I wasn't sure what else we'd have to do to get to our gate. So I thanked him, sent the taped bag on its way and moved on. Probably a good thing I waited to file the claim, as security took longer than normal. And off we went.
We landed in Austin around 7 in the evening, I filed that baggage claim, and then we grabbed an Uber home. I'm finishing this blog post two months after we left for Italy, and I miss it every day. So there's that. Buona notte.
(Note: Delta sent me $100 to cover the cost of a new suitcase, asking almost no questions. I bought a new one for $70. Not too shabby.)
I was pretty wiped out from playing two of the three nights prior to leaving, so I was a bit wonky waking up Monday morning. But the first thing I did was check the flight departure times at the Austin airport. And I was shocked to see that our flight was listed as leaving a full hour earlier (11:35 am) than we were originally scheduled (12:35 pm)! I told Michelle we'd have to hustle it, and I rescheduled our Uber ride to the airport as I ran around getting things together. Our driver got to our house on time, and off we went, a bit shaken but somewhat together. We got to the ticket counter at the airport, and while checking our bags, the gentleman said something to the effect of "you've got 'til noon" about leaving. I thought that was a bit weird, but we went off to security and after that, the departures screen showed that our flight was indeed leaving at 12:35. Whaaa??? All that rushing for nothing. Wow. For some reason, the ABIA website had the time wrong. But at least we were there with plenty of time.
The first flight, Austin to Atlanta, was fairly rough, but we had some weather to get through. It was pretty nasty in Austin when we left. The flight was delayed about 15 minutes, and we only had about an hour-forty to get to our connecting flight to Paris. We didn't have to recheck our luggage, so it wasn't a problem; we went straight to the gate and boarded the plane pretty much straight away. For this flight, I had had the prior opportunity to upgrade a bit to a row with only two seats, so it would be Michelle and me only. It wasn't much, and I'm glad I took the upgrade. We were able to sleep a bit during the eight-hour flight to Paris, although bits of that flight were rough as well. We had another hour-forty to get to our final flight to Naples, and we had another security check along the way. We got to the gate with plenty of time to spare. This flight was smoother than the other two, and we were in Naples at 11:35 am. After a quick cab ride to the hotel, the Stelle Hotel, we got checked in, despite being there so early. We had lunch at the adjoining restaurant and then began to investigate Naples a little, although we were dog-tired. We ended up taking it easy toward the evening; Michelle even crashed early. I went out on my own a bit, and ended up having a pastry at a shop a couple of blocks away, but that was about the extent of Tuesday.
Wednesday morning, we had the National Archeological Museum booked, so after the hotel breakfast, we booked it over there in a cab. Michelle booked all our tours, museums and otherwise, for this trip. She has an art and archeology passion, and I think she's pushing it on me, too. This museum had lots of statuary from Italian history, and we had audio guides to help. Michelle saw a couple of pieces she remembered seeing as a kid - that's the sort of mind she has for this stuff. The museum was pretty huge and contained frescoes rescued from Pompeii, among other artifacts. We were in there about three hours. After emerging, we walked around a bit and looked in shops, etc. There was nothing else booked for the day, so we took a cab back to the hotel, and then headed to a place called "Ieri, Oggi, Domani" for lunch. It was a nicer place, decorated with Sophia Loren memorabilia. I would say the food was good, but this is Italy. Much like 7 is a prime number, take the "good food" as a given. After a nap, we headed out a bit more, walking around and look in shops, etc. Michelle was in need of sunglasses, and I was in need of readers. We finally procured those and ended up back at the hotel to wrap it up. The next day was Pompeii/Herculaneum for most of it, so we wanted to be rested.
Thursday, and it was off to Pompeii on a tour bus. We had to be at a neighboring Holiday Inn by 8:00 in the morning, so we cabbed it over there and waited. Someone came to pick us up and take us to the actual bus. It was a fairly full bus. Before long, we were in Pompeii at the fairly large tourist hub. Our tour guide was very animated and passionate about the subject matter (all the tour guides were, for the record). The weather got pretty warm, and I was glad we were wearing hats. There was an occasional respite from the roasting, but I tried to stay focused on the sights. One of the most interesting aspects to the tour was the Pompeii streets themselves. Many places had large blocks crossing the street, apparently for skipping across the street if there was a lot of standing water. You could also see carriage wheel marks where they had been embedded in the street post-Vesuvius. We were taken by the Lupamare, the brothel area, where even some "menus" still exist. Pictorial menus, at that. And we saw one cast of a person....not sure where the others were.
Following the tour, we went to another area for our lunch. It was a fairly long lunch, including two courses and dessert. I watched some guys eat margherita pizzas behind our table, and I'm still amazed how fast Neapolitans gobble those things up.
The second part of the tour was Herculaneum, a more-recently excavated town closer to Naples. As good as the Pompeii tour was, I think Michelle and I enjoyed the Herculaneum part more. Herculaneum was where the rich folk vacationed near the water, north of Pompeii, and as such, there were more elaborate dwellings to view. We headed back to Naples and were dropped off near what I thought was our hotel (they kept saying "Stars Hotel"). Turned out it wasn't, the Stars Hotel was not the same as the Stelle ("stars" in Italian) Hotel. No biggie, though; we were only a couple of blocks away.
We rested a bit and then walked around our neighborhood a bit that evening, although we didn't really go that far. When we got back to the hotel, we stopped by the restaurant next to the hotel to purchase a couple of bottled waters and got serious attitude from the cashier there. I had gotten similar treatment that morning from the counter person trying to get a to-go coffee. Some Neapolitans may not like tourists - that's my takeaway. Or maybe something about that restaurant makes some of them grumpy. Hard to tell.
Friday morning, we checked out and were off to Rome. You could walk through a corridor behind the hotel and straight to the train station, which was very convenient. We had an Italo train at about 9:30, putting us in Rome at 10:30 or so. Looking at our voucher, I only saw what coach we were in and that we had a window seat and an aisle seat. When I jumped on the train and got into our coach, the first two seats were available, so I snagged those for us. Later I realized that those were our assigned seats, after all. This trip was a continual learning process.
We got out of the train station and grabbed a cab to our hotel. Our luggage was just big enough that taking the Metro to the hotel wasn't an easy option. Our hotel was the Hotel Villafranca and turned out to be a couple of blocks away from another Metro station, and that turned out to be extremely handy while we were there. We got checked into the hotel by 11:30 (lucky again!) and decided to head to the Trevi Fountain first, which we got a cab to, not really knowing routing in the city yet. To anyone visiting Rome for the first time, I'd say hit a more defined landmark near a Metro station first. As we had no phone service and were relying on physical maps, all the little streets around the Trevi Fountain got me confused instantly. Still, we enjoyed wandering around, taking in Rome, and ended up having monumental gelato creations at one point. The Trevi Fountain made my jaw drop when I first saw it. I guess just seeing something that monumental (no pun intended) around a corner got to me a bit. (Ever see "The Stendhal Syndrome?") We also saw The Pantheon, inside and out.
After getting back to the hotel, we rested a bit before tackling the Vatican Museums, which we were signed up for that night. We ate dinner a couple of blocks away from the tour office and then headed back to await our tour group. The tour itself was great, very informative and full of all kinds of visual wonderment, but by the end, I was completely exhausted. The Sistine Chapel was the last part, and by that time, I was wearily looking up thinking, "yep, that's it." Still, a great tour. We left the others behind as we made our way out, that's how tired we were. Later that night, we still made it out for a little dessert to a restaurant a couple of blocks away.
One thing I'll mention here: our hotel room was one of those European hotel rooms without much regard for guests needing electricity. There were exactly three outlets in the room, one in the bathroom, one behind the desk (into which was plugged the TV, refrigerator, and a desk lamp), and one, oddly, right by the front door, just above the floor. What this meant was, "hey Lance, you're smart to bring your new CPAP battery! Going to pay off here." Yes, I ran the CPAP off the battery all four nights we stayed in Rome. Worked like a champ.
Saturday, after a quick hotel breakfast, it was off to the Colosseum for a morning tour. The Metro had a "Colosseo" stop right in front of the structure, which was convenient. Upon leaving the station, we were immediately accosted by a Slovenian gentleman collecting money for anti-drug programs, but since he was helpful about how we'd find our tour group, etc. I pitched in for his cause. This tour featured my most difficult moment of being a tourist: getting past the security checkpoint entering the Colosseum. All the museums and sites we visited had security checkpoints, but almost all were a breeze to get through. Put your camera and change in the tray, walk through the metal detector, and you're in. Not this one. I could not get past the detector without being told to go back. I thought I was going to have to strip nude. Finally, it was determined my knee brace (which is only stiff fabric) was the culprit, and the guy let me through. Once rejoining our tour group, I joked to them I had to have sex with the security guy, mainly because I was embarrassed to hold up the group. They all laughed heartily, and I felt better.
The Colosseum tour included the Colosseum and a large part of the Forum. It did not include the "underground" part of the Colosseum, which is now visible from overhead, nor did it include Circus Maximus, which was nearby. Still, it was about a three-hour tour and covered a lot. Once done with the tour, we had lunch and headed back to the hotel.
Next up was my only planned destination of the entire vacation: the Profondo Rosso shop. The shop was opened by Dario Argento and Luigi Cozzi in 1989, and it's a combination Italian horror store and smallish basement museum, featuring artifacts from Argento-related films. We took the train to the Lepanto stop (north of the Vatican) and walked the few blocks to the shop. I was in heaven, although the shop is not for the claustrophobic. Very small, and packed with merchandise. We paid our five Euro admission to the basement and took that in. It had around ten scenes from movies, such as "The Black Cat" (from "Two Evil Eyes") and "Demons," each scene featuring actual props from the movie. We went back upstairs, and I tried not to buy out the store. I picked up a couple of books, two t-shirts, one t-shirt for Michelle, and got ideas for other things I could perhaps order elsewhere. The books are produced in-house and have the "Profondo Rosso" stamp on them. I was surprised that Luigi Cozzi had written many books, as I really only knew of him as a film director.
Back to the hotel we went. I was starting to get this "travel on the Metro" thing down.
Sunday, we had one thing scheduled: the Borghese museum in the early afternoon. And as to the location, Google let us down on this front. I'd mapped the Borghese museum, and Google insisted it was at Piazza Borghese, on Via Borghese, in a central area of Rome. We went over there fairly early, to take a look at some sites before hitting the tour. As I was looking for the museum, it was starting to become obvious that we were not in the right place. I asked at a restaurant where the museum was, and after getting conflicting responses from employees there (one said "it's closed!"; I later realized he was talking about the building next door), someone finally told me it was a few kilometers away. We quickly hailed a cab and got to where we were supposed to be in plenty of time. I still need to contact Google about that; I'm sure we're not the only folks this has happened to.
The Borghese Museum had some parts roped off, as a Pablo Picasso exhibition was close to opening. We still got to see all the important stuff, such as the Paola Borghese Venus statue. (I got seriously "arted" this trip.) After the tour, we waited awhile at a taxi stand for a cab with no luck. Others were waiting with us, but no taxis wanted to stop. A tour guide, obviously British, took us under her wing and said we should just walk to the Metro station, as no cabs were going to stop there. So, off we went, on a walk to the nearest Metro stop....I forget which one it was. Quite a walk, but we were back to the hotel within an hour. Not having phone service was indeed a pain, in terms of finding our way around, but it wasn't as terrible a problem as I thought it might be. Physical maps and helpful tour guides were our saviors.
That night, we had dinner across the street from the hotel at the Tre Archi. We had a nice dinner while a torrential rain began outside. At least we were directly across the street from the hotel, if it didn't let up. It did, though, not long after we finished our meal. There was an awful lot falling into place on thi trip. We were lucky, I kept thinking. As it turned out, that was the only real rainfall of the entire trip. Rome got inundated the week after we were there.
On Sunday, the only scheduled event we had was the Capitoline museums at around 3:00. So, now that we had the hang of travelling around the city, we took the train to the Colosseum stop and started walking. After some viewing and shopping (Michelle picked up a coat and hat combo, but in two separate visits two separate days), we made our way to the area where our Capitoline tour was supposed to start. When we got to the plaza separating the two museums, there was a demonstration beginning. It had something to do with abortion, but I wasn't sure what it was about. The police were out as a just in case. Nothing much seemed to happen as we waited and watched. Some speaking through a megaphone, but it seemed like the whole demonstration was over in under an hour.
But something was up concerning this tour. We couldn't find any sign of a tour group. I asked two separate people about where the tour would start, correlating what they said with our rather specific directions. I was pointed each time to the same place: at the foot of some stairs leading to a cathedral. It seemed like the logical place to start, so wait, we did. At one point, we thought perhaps the tour might start at the top of some other stairs leading to the front of the cathedral, but that was about 1/4 mile of stairs. We looked up there, walked maybe halfway. No tour up there. Hmmh. So, we went back to the original place we'd been waiting. Finally, as we realized there was either no tour or we somehow weren't in the right place (and we had no way to contact them), we just bought tickets and went in. The line wasn't long, so we got to see what we wanted. There weren't that many people in the museums, and we never ran into what would have been our tour group.
[After we returned, Michelle contacted the company she bought the tour tickets from. They insisted the tour had taken place, and that we were listed as "no-shows." I find this hard to believe. We didn't have any problem with any other tours. It's pretty obvious where and when tour groups are coming together, and we saw some in the plaza, just not ours. Also, our directions were pretty specific about where we were meeting. Plus, I think we would have run into the tour sporting the "Mea" flag at some point while we were in the museums, and that didn't happen. I suspect some bad communication here somewhere, but at least Michelle got her money back, after some waffling on their part.]
For our last night in Rome, we went back to the restaurant we had the desserts at Friday night. I was going to miss this food.
Tuesday morning, it was up and out and to the train station. We took a cab the short distance to the Termini station, as our suitcases were a pain on these sidewalks. Off to Florence it was....arrivederci, Roma. I like.
We arrived in Firenze around 11:45 and got to the De Rose Palace hotel shortly after that. We were able to check in right away. We were three for three on that. No stashing our luggage while we wandered around. Nice. I think I liked this hotel room the most of all. Probably the oldest of the three, but very nice. And there were more electrical outlets in it! It had kind of an odd layout, with there being sort of a separate entrance chamber, with the bathroom to the left, and a coat closet to the right. Oh, Lance, don't leave your jacket in there when checking out!
Florence is more of a "walking town" than either Rome or Naples. The biggest challenge to that was that our hotel was set off a bit from the city center, so it was a case of walking some to get to anything of import, but once you were there, everything else was relatively close. I later learned that our hotel's area was a popular place for tourists to stay. My knee brace was treating my right leg great, but our feets was a-achin' at the end of every day.
We took a stroll toward the city center after checking into the hotel. We went to the Santa Maria Novella, which was near the train station we'd just come into. From there, it was a relatively easy walk to the Duomo and other sites. We had lunch at a great sidewalk cafe (but really, did we have bad food in Italy?). Michelle wanted to find something called The Pharmacy, which was the oldest pharmacy (in the world?); she'd found it on Atlas Obscura. After purchasing my buddy Charles' requisite town magnet, I inquired about this "Pharmacy." The proprietor of the magnet place told me where it was, but I wasn't sure she had understood what I was talking about. We headed her directions' way, but I lost faith a little too quickly. More on that later.
That night, we had a Bistecca Firenze, or a Florence steak, which is a big deal there. It was on odd experience, as the steak was flayed open, mostly in halves, and my half was quite delicious. For some strange reason, Michelle's half was much fattier and tougher than mine. There was not a steak equilibrium. Sort of disconcerting, but we met a nice, older American couple. The woman needed a nail fixed and discussed that issue with Michelle.
The next day was a more structured day. The only tour Michelle had scheduled in Florence was at the Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery, and it was a two-part tour. The Accademia, which is largely centered around Michelangelo's David statue, was in the morning, and we were done with that one fairly quickly. We did another walk around the town, waiting for the second part of the tour to begin. One thing became apparent after a couple of days in the town: there was a level of aggression amongst people selling things on the street that was not present in the mostly-immigrant street salespeople in Rome. If one of these folks focused on you, they weren't taking "no" for an answer for a good while. I was pretty amazed at it, frankly. It only happened four or five times, but each time was like dodging a spider shooting web material out to snare you.
But we did go back to find The Pharmacy and found it on the same street we'd walked down the first time...we just hadn't walked far enough. Nice place, full of perfumes and remedies, and nice statuary and paintings as well. A bit "perfumy," if you're the sort who starts sneezing when you're around too much of that penetrating smell, but still nice. It had a cafe in it as well, but we didn't partake of it.
The Uffizi Gallery was.....the Uffizi Gallery. Exquisite paintings and statuary (I'm liking that word) everywhere. One highlight was the Caravaggio Medusa painting, which is on what looks to be a concave-shaped disc, and the whole thing is encased in a glass cube. I was a little surprised at how small it was; for some reason, I thought it was larger. Still mind-bogglingly impressive. After all these tours over many days, I felt completely full in the "art" department. A good kind of full.
Thursday included more walking around the town, and there was another trip to The Pharmacy (Michelle had still been planning her purchases). We went north in the town toward the old town's fort and found some really cool shops. One was a mask shop that had some interesting doodads I purchased. The people who ran the shop were sitting there making masks as we shopped. Later, when we were heading to find a restaurant for dinner, we ran into the older couple from Monday evening, and the woman showed Michelle her new nails. Her husband was getting around in an electric chair, and apparently doing pretty well. I was impressed that he was maneuvering those uneven, cobblestone streets.
It feels like the Florence days blur together (I'm writing this too late, I'm afraid) more so than the Rome or Naples ones. We visited and re-visited a lot of the same shops in downtown Florence. The whole area is not that large, and as we only had the Uffizi Gallery to visit tour-wise, our three days there felt freer than the others.
Friday, it was "waaaaah," time to leave. We had a really early flight out of Florence, leaving at 6:30 am. After a particularly speedy cab ride to the airport, we got to the ticket counter and noticed only one person working and some people in line. After a few minutes of no movement, a rather nervous guy walked up and informed us all that there was a strike (of some workers, but I was never sure whom), but that help was on the way. As we had to get to our connecting flight in Amsterdam rather quickly, I was concerned. But after ten minutes or so, some folks showed up, took positions at the counter, and began checking us in and our bags, etc.
On through security and to the gate. After getting to the gate, the aforementioned nervous guy appeared at the door to the gate and stated that there was a strike (of....somebody, or somebodies), but that they would get us to the plane as quickly as they good. I was still concerned. In a few minutes, though, they started processing boarding passes and letting us on the tram to get to the plane. We got to the plane and began our flight maybe ten minutes late at most. I never knew what all the "strike" hubbub was about.
We got to Amsterdam on time and got onto the next flight without incident, but with the usual long line for international flights. This time we were seated in the middle of one of those large plane middle rows. I only had one person to the right of me, though, and so getting up occasionally wasn't a problem. Smooth flight.
We landed in Detroit and had to claim our baggage to recheck for the flight to Austin. When I got my suitcase, it looked like someone had deliberately smashed it into a rock, or something really heavy had fallen on it. There was a hole in one side, the wire frame was protruding, bent in an especially crazy fashion. Nothing was missing from the suitcase; the way it was torn precluded things from falling out easily, thankfully. I had a little more time in Detroit to try to fix the problem. After asking a Delta representative for some sort of temporary solution, he handed me a roll of clear tape without any look of concern at all. Annoying. But I taped up the hole by wrapping the suitcase a few times and leaving it at that. The baggage handler who was taking care of rechecks was especially helpful and told me I could file a claim when I got to Austin. Even though I had a little time, I wasn't sure what else we'd have to do to get to our gate. So I thanked him, sent the taped bag on its way and moved on. Probably a good thing I waited to file the claim, as security took longer than normal. And off we went.
We landed in Austin around 7 in the evening, I filed that baggage claim, and then we grabbed an Uber home. I'm finishing this blog post two months after we left for Italy, and I miss it every day. So there's that. Buona notte.
(Note: Delta sent me $100 to cover the cost of a new suitcase, asking almost no questions. I bought a new one for $70. Not too shabby.)
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Writing This When I Should Be Writing Something Else
Well, sometimes that happens. I'm currently hands-deep in the write-up of our recent Italian trip, but I want to scribble about something else today.
I still play drums in a couple of bands, as if any of you who might be reading this well know. At times, I don't even know why I still do it, other than the cameraderie it brings, and....it gets me out of the house. I still greatly enjoy music, and playing it, but the aches and pains hauling equipment brings are greater at my age. I went through a long bout of physical limitation in playing, chronicled in this blog back in 2016, I believe, and got through it all somehow. My playing now has never been better. And yet, at times, I still ask myself "why are you doing this?" The two bands I'm in don't require much creative involvement from me, as they both have songwriters who the bands are closely identified with. And that's a good thing. In the case of Pocket FishRmen, it's a great thing.
Brant Bingamon is one of the great American songwriters, in my opinion. And yes, I'm biased, since I play in the FishRmen, but still, it's true. He has a very unconventional approach to song structure that's always interesting to play with. And over the last few years, I really like how the FishRmen have worked in coming up with new material. What happens is: Brant sends us all a demo, we individually listen to the demo, we listen to the demo at rehearsal, Brant plays the basic song for Cris and Jason to get chords and notes down, we begin arranging the song using members' ideas as fit....and voilà , a song is born.
All this leading to: last Thursday, Brant sent us a second demo of a song he'd been working on, "I Believe The Woman." We all knew full well a topical song of this nature might have a limited shelf life, so we'd better get this one in the set pronto. We set about creating our arrangement. In the initial run-throughs of the song, it was most important to just figure out how long each part went, and that took some time. Jason is the one who'll take charge during this time, getting the "number of times" each part goes, etc. And he'll work with Cris on the chordings, etc. Cris will usually suggest his own stingers during this time. This is the time I know to stay quiet and just concentrate on making sure I know the structure.
Once the structure is known (and "Believe" took awhile; at first, none of the structure really made sense to me), Cris and Jason will begin adding a little more to the arrangement, and then I'll start chiming in with things. One of the things I've done ever since playing in bands is something I'll call "forcing accents." I certainly did this in this song in the following to each chorus, to sort of build to a release of the next verse. Another contribution I made was to suggest everybody be conscious of framing the words of the song; you want this to be understandable by the audience. For instance, I suggested removing "extraneous material" before each chorus, to ensure audiences will hear Brant's "I Believe The Woman" each time. We decided to hang a bit before each chorus, and it worked like gangbusters. I also suggested a sing-along of the chorus at the end, but that still needs some work on the length of it. Still, in an hour we had a workable version of this song ready to go.
I write about this, as it's been awhile since either of my bands has had a new song ready to go; the FishRmen largely due to limitation in practice space availability, since remedied, the Hickoids...well, not enough rehearsal time, frankly. I hope that changes soon. Last Thursday was magical, and I like the feeling. It's one of the reasons I keep doing this. Let's come up with more, guys.
I still play drums in a couple of bands, as if any of you who might be reading this well know. At times, I don't even know why I still do it, other than the cameraderie it brings, and....it gets me out of the house. I still greatly enjoy music, and playing it, but the aches and pains hauling equipment brings are greater at my age. I went through a long bout of physical limitation in playing, chronicled in this blog back in 2016, I believe, and got through it all somehow. My playing now has never been better. And yet, at times, I still ask myself "why are you doing this?" The two bands I'm in don't require much creative involvement from me, as they both have songwriters who the bands are closely identified with. And that's a good thing. In the case of Pocket FishRmen, it's a great thing.
Brant Bingamon is one of the great American songwriters, in my opinion. And yes, I'm biased, since I play in the FishRmen, but still, it's true. He has a very unconventional approach to song structure that's always interesting to play with. And over the last few years, I really like how the FishRmen have worked in coming up with new material. What happens is: Brant sends us all a demo, we individually listen to the demo, we listen to the demo at rehearsal, Brant plays the basic song for Cris and Jason to get chords and notes down, we begin arranging the song using members' ideas as fit....and voilà , a song is born.
All this leading to: last Thursday, Brant sent us a second demo of a song he'd been working on, "I Believe The Woman." We all knew full well a topical song of this nature might have a limited shelf life, so we'd better get this one in the set pronto. We set about creating our arrangement. In the initial run-throughs of the song, it was most important to just figure out how long each part went, and that took some time. Jason is the one who'll take charge during this time, getting the "number of times" each part goes, etc. And he'll work with Cris on the chordings, etc. Cris will usually suggest his own stingers during this time. This is the time I know to stay quiet and just concentrate on making sure I know the structure.
Once the structure is known (and "Believe" took awhile; at first, none of the structure really made sense to me), Cris and Jason will begin adding a little more to the arrangement, and then I'll start chiming in with things. One of the things I've done ever since playing in bands is something I'll call "forcing accents." I certainly did this in this song in the following to each chorus, to sort of build to a release of the next verse. Another contribution I made was to suggest everybody be conscious of framing the words of the song; you want this to be understandable by the audience. For instance, I suggested removing "extraneous material" before each chorus, to ensure audiences will hear Brant's "I Believe The Woman" each time. We decided to hang a bit before each chorus, and it worked like gangbusters. I also suggested a sing-along of the chorus at the end, but that still needs some work on the length of it. Still, in an hour we had a workable version of this song ready to go.
I write about this, as it's been awhile since either of my bands has had a new song ready to go; the FishRmen largely due to limitation in practice space availability, since remedied, the Hickoids...well, not enough rehearsal time, frankly. I hope that changes soon. Last Thursday was magical, and I like the feeling. It's one of the reasons I keep doing this. Let's come up with more, guys.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
ACLF 2018, Round Two
(Hmm....let's see how well I remember all this. I'm writing this a couple of days after returning from an immediately-post-ACLF Italian vacation.)
So, the second set of performances for ACLF for this drummer were on a Friday and Sunday. Saturday was a day off.
Friday night was a double-duty (both Pocket FishRmen and Hickoids) night at the ABGB, one of my favorite places to play in Austin. Many of my bandmates aren't too big on it, the crowd can be very hit or miss, but it does have a bit of a built-in audience of food-and-beer patrons, and there's no admission charge. Also, the staff there is top-notch, plying you with drinks and pizza constantly. And.....there's a house drum kit. What more could I want?
The night began with Jean Caffeine, and she and her band played a great set, culminating in Jean getting behind the drum kit for a couple of songs. Harvey McLaughlin was up next, and he and his band played their usual great set. Harvey (Patrick) did not play drums, however. Hickoids were up next. We began with a few of our "regulars" and then Frontier Dan hit the stage with us. I love playing with Dan, there's no other way to put it. He's hilarious, and watching Jeff and him try to one-up each other in "frontmanship" is equally funny. I commented later that it's like backing up Costello and Costello, no straight man. Pocket FishRmen finished the night with a good set, although some people had left by then. The whole show was going up against a reunited Skatenigs show at Come and Take It, and several of our friends were either there or in bands playing that long-rostered show. I still had a great time and thought we all pulled off quality entertainment. What else can you want? (I need to stop ending paragraphs with questions.)
Saturday night, as mentioned earlier, was a night off for me, but I went to Lost Well for awhile to represent and support. I saw Z-Pocalypse (rockin' kiddos from San Antonio), the Me-Thinks (oh, god), and Texacala's new band. I bailed toward the end of Tex's set, as Michelle had stayed home....we were close to our Vacatiano Italiano.
Sunday, early evening, the Hickoids, A Pony Named Olga, and Bigfoot Chester played the Planet K parking lot in support of a Davy Jones art opening at South Pop. Our set again featured Frontier Dan, but for a shorter time this time. Great set overall, and I bought a piece of Davy's art I can't pick up until December. We said quick goodbyes to everybody before leaving, but we had to be at the airport in the morning. And I still had packing to do. Another ACLF in the can.
So, the second set of performances for ACLF for this drummer were on a Friday and Sunday. Saturday was a day off.
Friday night was a double-duty (both Pocket FishRmen and Hickoids) night at the ABGB, one of my favorite places to play in Austin. Many of my bandmates aren't too big on it, the crowd can be very hit or miss, but it does have a bit of a built-in audience of food-and-beer patrons, and there's no admission charge. Also, the staff there is top-notch, plying you with drinks and pizza constantly. And.....there's a house drum kit. What more could I want?
The night began with Jean Caffeine, and she and her band played a great set, culminating in Jean getting behind the drum kit for a couple of songs. Harvey McLaughlin was up next, and he and his band played their usual great set. Harvey (Patrick) did not play drums, however. Hickoids were up next. We began with a few of our "regulars" and then Frontier Dan hit the stage with us. I love playing with Dan, there's no other way to put it. He's hilarious, and watching Jeff and him try to one-up each other in "frontmanship" is equally funny. I commented later that it's like backing up Costello and Costello, no straight man. Pocket FishRmen finished the night with a good set, although some people had left by then. The whole show was going up against a reunited Skatenigs show at Come and Take It, and several of our friends were either there or in bands playing that long-rostered show. I still had a great time and thought we all pulled off quality entertainment. What else can you want? (I need to stop ending paragraphs with questions.)
Saturday night, as mentioned earlier, was a night off for me, but I went to Lost Well for awhile to represent and support. I saw Z-Pocalypse (rockin' kiddos from San Antonio), the Me-Thinks (oh, god), and Texacala's new band. I bailed toward the end of Tex's set, as Michelle had stayed home....we were close to our Vacatiano Italiano.
Sunday, early evening, the Hickoids, A Pony Named Olga, and Bigfoot Chester played the Planet K parking lot in support of a Davy Jones art opening at South Pop. Our set again featured Frontier Dan, but for a shorter time this time. Great set overall, and I bought a piece of Davy's art I can't pick up until December. We said quick goodbyes to everybody before leaving, but we had to be at the airport in the morning. And I still had packing to do. Another ACLF in the can.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
ACLF 2018, Round One
Last night concluded the first weekend of our annual Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta. So far, so good. At least, for me. I can't say the same for others (equipment issues), but the turnouts have been good. Let's recap:
Friday night's shindig was at Empire Control Room, on 7th between Red River and the frontage road of 35. Not a place I like to frequent anymore (parking! downtown! aaaggghh!), but I got very lucky and parked adjacent to the loading door for the club. And for, what is now in Austin, a minimal fee. Adrienne Lake, who used to book Spider House, has moved to this club during the year, and we've played here a couple of times as a result. Despite the Empire place being okay overall, I hope she finds another home soonish. One away from downtown Austin.
Eightball Aitken (from Australia) opened the show, and this is perhaps the third time we've shared a stage with him. He does the one-man show, playing guitar, singing, stomping and tambourining but is also really, really funny. The songs are good, he's hilarious, and I always enjoy his show.
We played next - I was able to set up before Eightball played, and my drum set was being used the entire night. Our set was, how should I put this, a marvel of consistent rhythms and vocals, with the top end....um....inconsistent at best. Tom was fine, but Cody was in rare form. He'd had an 11-hour drive from the panhandle that day, in addition to one eye being almost swollen shut from allergies. And he'd, and I know you'll find this hard to believe, imbibed in some alcohol beforehand. The set quickly became a bunch of the "fuck it" numbers we like to pull out - "Take it Easy," "China Grove," etc. I smelled Cody's amp frying about 2/3 of the way through the set, and he stumbled over to Tom's amp and plugged into it for awhile. Well, that's what I think happened anyway. Cody had already "taken a knee" earlier in the night. With a thud, too. But that was before the amp-burning thing happened. I was told later that the set was indeed entertaining, but not especially together at times. Still, fun.
Ed Hamell, otherwise known as Hamell on Trial, played after us and the crowd had swelled by then. I was never much of a fan of his when he played at Electric Lounge in the 90s, but I'm coming around. Or starting to get "it." Whatever it is, I'm starting to dig it. He might be the last of the beatniks. Amongst his ramblings, he added a quick "A Rapist is Going to the Supreme Court" to laughter and applause. Unfortunately, before his set began, he was using one of Jeff's amps, and that amp fried before he began. So, I think we were a couple of amps down Friday night. But take that with a grain of salt; a drummer's writing this. Whatever Ed ended up using, the sound was less than stellar.
Next up was Slobberbone, from Denton. They have been playing more shows recently after being the toast of Denton in the 90s and early 2000s. We've done a couple of gigs with them in Denton. Again, great crowd, great set. Folks were there specifically to see them and knew their songs well. One issue, though.....their drummer arrived late (not sure if he was just late to the stage or what), and it pushed their start time late, so they didn't finish until about 12:45.
And yep, Cunto! had the last slot and hit it about 1:10. They were fun as always, although Chris Hall was fairly inebriated. I had to give him drumsticks, as he'd only brought.....one. I still enjoyed their set, although the club had lost patrons by then. I felt bad for them having to go on late; this was almost a replay of another show we'd done a couple of months back where they got stuck last. I feel a make-up is in order soon.
I got my drums torn down and packed. Thanks to Evan and others, I got loaded up and was on the road by 1:57. This is important, because the club sits right by the corridor tons of people use to leave downtown at the 2:00 mark. I wanted to be gone by then, and I was. Patrick was there to help Jeff pack up, so I took advantage of that situation. I was home by maybe 2:20. Not bad.
Last night was the second salvo at the White Horse. I always like playing the White Horse, mainly due to the house drum kit. Not the greatest kit, but it's dependable. Once I'm parked, the rest is easy. This night, Michelle went with me, and we needed to eat first, so I got a spot just down the street from the club. The maximum parking I could buy took me to 11:51 in a spot metered until midnight. Would I be able to skate the remaining nine minutes? I hoped so. There was a party at Billy Bishop's Leona Gallery, on 12th street, but we were parked far enough away to where we couldn't easily stop by there, so we decided to eat and hang for the whole show. We went to Tamale House East, which was okay, but about as far removed from a classic Tamale House as you can imagine. I am not a fan of "new Austin" restaurant food. It's impossible to find unpretentious food in the city. Sometimes, when I read food listings in these places' menus, I suddenly understand Republicans. I'll just put it that way.
We headed back to the White Horse and got there just as Mean Motor Scooter was starting. They're from Fort Worth and a particular favorite of Tom's. And they're a really fun, sort of garage-y band, without too much of the whole "genre insistence" standpoint you often get with bands like that. I dug 'em. I had a good chat with the drummer later in the night. Hopefully, we'll do a few more things with them. And there was a fairly decent crowd while they played; sometimes the opening slot at the White Horse ACLF night is a bit barren.
Next up was ACLF regulars Churchwood, who always deliver. I still don't envy Eric, the drummer who replaced Julien. He's doing fine, and I suppose you could argue they have more nuance now, if they're somewhat quieter now overall. Joe always entertains the crowd. At one point, he grabbed me and other folks and had us do a round dance circle.
Western Star followed, and they were full throttle. This was the best set I've seen them play. They have a new bass player who has cemented everything. By the end of their set, everyone was really into it, up front and, well you know the jargon. In the back of my mind, though, I wonder how long until Max cuts his hair and just goes full rock idol. I may have to refer back to this blog at some point if that comes true.
We were next and were mostly a whole different animal than the previous night. Great set, although Tom's equipment started faltering at the end. And it was his birthday! Peggy brought a cake with sparklers on it. Tom reacted in his usual somewhat annoyed, dismissive way, followed by a big grin. Funny guy. I think he's 49 now. In human years, anyway. Hope his equipment's okay. I don't understand the problems, he takes such good care of his stuff. (sic) Wade Driver showed up but didn't join us on stage. Always good to see him.
A Pony Named Olga, playing as "The Prussian Pompadours" for reasons of international intrigue, followed us. What a fun band, as always. "Keko" has to be one of my favorite drummers to watch, of all time. He stands up, playing a kick drum that's behind him by stomping on a kick pedal in reverse. He has a couple of drums in front of him and a cymbal and some percussion. His snare drum has a strap on it, so he can wear it and march through the audience. You just smile the whole time. Heini is always entertaining, and Lloyd carries the good looks and can stand on his upright bass with the best of 'em. Heini fixed an amp last night, too! Thanks, Heini! On a side note, Keko's from Italy and gave Michelle and me some advice concerning our upcoming trip.
Closing out the night were the Beaumonts, who, as always, had the crowd grinning from ear to ear. They played my new favorite "Not As Cool As Jesus," and I believe it was the first time Michelle had heard it. About 1:45, we grabbed my stuff and made a beeline for the door, as again, I wanted to escape the downtown area before 2:00. We did and got home at a reasonable time. Reasonable for us, hah! Overall, a great night. Saw many, many great friends. I feel damned lucky to still be doing this. May it continue a while longer......
Until next time.....have a smoothie......I just did.
Friday night's shindig was at Empire Control Room, on 7th between Red River and the frontage road of 35. Not a place I like to frequent anymore (parking! downtown! aaaggghh!), but I got very lucky and parked adjacent to the loading door for the club. And for, what is now in Austin, a minimal fee. Adrienne Lake, who used to book Spider House, has moved to this club during the year, and we've played here a couple of times as a result. Despite the Empire place being okay overall, I hope she finds another home soonish. One away from downtown Austin.
Eightball Aitken (from Australia) opened the show, and this is perhaps the third time we've shared a stage with him. He does the one-man show, playing guitar, singing, stomping and tambourining but is also really, really funny. The songs are good, he's hilarious, and I always enjoy his show.
We played next - I was able to set up before Eightball played, and my drum set was being used the entire night. Our set was, how should I put this, a marvel of consistent rhythms and vocals, with the top end....um....inconsistent at best. Tom was fine, but Cody was in rare form. He'd had an 11-hour drive from the panhandle that day, in addition to one eye being almost swollen shut from allergies. And he'd, and I know you'll find this hard to believe, imbibed in some alcohol beforehand. The set quickly became a bunch of the "fuck it" numbers we like to pull out - "Take it Easy," "China Grove," etc. I smelled Cody's amp frying about 2/3 of the way through the set, and he stumbled over to Tom's amp and plugged into it for awhile. Well, that's what I think happened anyway. Cody had already "taken a knee" earlier in the night. With a thud, too. But that was before the amp-burning thing happened. I was told later that the set was indeed entertaining, but not especially together at times. Still, fun.
Ed Hamell, otherwise known as Hamell on Trial, played after us and the crowd had swelled by then. I was never much of a fan of his when he played at Electric Lounge in the 90s, but I'm coming around. Or starting to get "it." Whatever it is, I'm starting to dig it. He might be the last of the beatniks. Amongst his ramblings, he added a quick "A Rapist is Going to the Supreme Court" to laughter and applause. Unfortunately, before his set began, he was using one of Jeff's amps, and that amp fried before he began. So, I think we were a couple of amps down Friday night. But take that with a grain of salt; a drummer's writing this. Whatever Ed ended up using, the sound was less than stellar.
Next up was Slobberbone, from Denton. They have been playing more shows recently after being the toast of Denton in the 90s and early 2000s. We've done a couple of gigs with them in Denton. Again, great crowd, great set. Folks were there specifically to see them and knew their songs well. One issue, though.....their drummer arrived late (not sure if he was just late to the stage or what), and it pushed their start time late, so they didn't finish until about 12:45.
And yep, Cunto! had the last slot and hit it about 1:10. They were fun as always, although Chris Hall was fairly inebriated. I had to give him drumsticks, as he'd only brought.....one. I still enjoyed their set, although the club had lost patrons by then. I felt bad for them having to go on late; this was almost a replay of another show we'd done a couple of months back where they got stuck last. I feel a make-up is in order soon.
I got my drums torn down and packed. Thanks to Evan and others, I got loaded up and was on the road by 1:57. This is important, because the club sits right by the corridor tons of people use to leave downtown at the 2:00 mark. I wanted to be gone by then, and I was. Patrick was there to help Jeff pack up, so I took advantage of that situation. I was home by maybe 2:20. Not bad.
Last night was the second salvo at the White Horse. I always like playing the White Horse, mainly due to the house drum kit. Not the greatest kit, but it's dependable. Once I'm parked, the rest is easy. This night, Michelle went with me, and we needed to eat first, so I got a spot just down the street from the club. The maximum parking I could buy took me to 11:51 in a spot metered until midnight. Would I be able to skate the remaining nine minutes? I hoped so. There was a party at Billy Bishop's Leona Gallery, on 12th street, but we were parked far enough away to where we couldn't easily stop by there, so we decided to eat and hang for the whole show. We went to Tamale House East, which was okay, but about as far removed from a classic Tamale House as you can imagine. I am not a fan of "new Austin" restaurant food. It's impossible to find unpretentious food in the city. Sometimes, when I read food listings in these places' menus, I suddenly understand Republicans. I'll just put it that way.
We headed back to the White Horse and got there just as Mean Motor Scooter was starting. They're from Fort Worth and a particular favorite of Tom's. And they're a really fun, sort of garage-y band, without too much of the whole "genre insistence" standpoint you often get with bands like that. I dug 'em. I had a good chat with the drummer later in the night. Hopefully, we'll do a few more things with them. And there was a fairly decent crowd while they played; sometimes the opening slot at the White Horse ACLF night is a bit barren.
Next up was ACLF regulars Churchwood, who always deliver. I still don't envy Eric, the drummer who replaced Julien. He's doing fine, and I suppose you could argue they have more nuance now, if they're somewhat quieter now overall. Joe always entertains the crowd. At one point, he grabbed me and other folks and had us do a round dance circle.
Western Star followed, and they were full throttle. This was the best set I've seen them play. They have a new bass player who has cemented everything. By the end of their set, everyone was really into it, up front and, well you know the jargon. In the back of my mind, though, I wonder how long until Max cuts his hair and just goes full rock idol. I may have to refer back to this blog at some point if that comes true.
We were next and were mostly a whole different animal than the previous night. Great set, although Tom's equipment started faltering at the end. And it was his birthday! Peggy brought a cake with sparklers on it. Tom reacted in his usual somewhat annoyed, dismissive way, followed by a big grin. Funny guy. I think he's 49 now. In human years, anyway. Hope his equipment's okay. I don't understand the problems, he takes such good care of his stuff. (sic) Wade Driver showed up but didn't join us on stage. Always good to see him.
A Pony Named Olga, playing as "The Prussian Pompadours" for reasons of international intrigue, followed us. What a fun band, as always. "Keko" has to be one of my favorite drummers to watch, of all time. He stands up, playing a kick drum that's behind him by stomping on a kick pedal in reverse. He has a couple of drums in front of him and a cymbal and some percussion. His snare drum has a strap on it, so he can wear it and march through the audience. You just smile the whole time. Heini is always entertaining, and Lloyd carries the good looks and can stand on his upright bass with the best of 'em. Heini fixed an amp last night, too! Thanks, Heini! On a side note, Keko's from Italy and gave Michelle and me some advice concerning our upcoming trip.
Closing out the night were the Beaumonts, who, as always, had the crowd grinning from ear to ear. They played my new favorite "Not As Cool As Jesus," and I believe it was the first time Michelle had heard it. About 1:45, we grabbed my stuff and made a beeline for the door, as again, I wanted to escape the downtown area before 2:00. We did and got home at a reasonable time. Reasonable for us, hah! Overall, a great night. Saw many, many great friends. I feel damned lucky to still be doing this. May it continue a while longer......
Until next time.....have a smoothie......I just did.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Dry / "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" / "Celia, Child of Terror" / Dating Anniversary
Dry. As in.....not sure what to write today. [Edit: Well, the title was premature....]
I could write about political stuff. I could write about movie stuff. I could write about music stuff. Or all three.
I do know one thing. Yesterday morning, before Michelle awakened, I watched "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" for the first time. It's one of those movies I've meant to watch for awhile but had never had the chance....until getting some streaming services. I don't use the word "delight" often, but that's what the movie is. I believe, in the span of its 1:55 running time, it vaulted into my list of "movies I'll watch if I need a pick-me-up." I should have realized that something directed by Edgar Wright would be just that, but it took me awhile to get to it. My loss. Until now.
I also saw a movie that was another surprise, one called "Celia, Child of Terror." Terrible title, great film. I've been collecting those Katarina's Nightmare Theater DVDs for awhile, and this film was on one of those. It's an Australian film from 1988 that is definitely not a horror movie, even though it contains some horror elements. It's more of a childhood tribulation movie. And one that'll stick with me for awhile. I expected way less than I got. It's a fully rich story with a lot of very well developed supporting characters. And the ending is.....well...just see it. You won't be sorry. Not that it gives a lot away, but I wish Scorpion Releasing hadn't use that image of the title character as the DVD cover art.
Yesterday was Michelle's and my eighteenth anniversary of our first date. We went to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house in Kingsland, a favorite haunt (ha), for dinner, and we'll complete this cycle later by going to The Gas Station in Bastrop for a late barbecue lunch. Then we'll probably watch TCM tonight. The movie, not the channel. We're romantic that way.
But yes, it's been eighteen years. We've been married 15 1/2 years, but we like to celebrate two anniversaries. Why not? Our first date was a great time, and I like to think back on that night often. We went to a screening of "Labyrinth" at the Alamo Drafthouse and then took in a Fuckemos show at Emo's afterward. I remember we also stopped off at a bar Joey Ferguson worked at, one with bean bag chairs on the floor, but I forget the name. We were both kind of showing off to people, as our bonding was becoming apparent, even if we hadn't acted on it yet. It was a fun night through and through. She and I had both been working at the Red Eyed Fly in its glorious infancy, she cocktailing as she finished her second college degree and me booking the place. Within a month of our bonding, I had left the booking to Ron Suman, and she (having already begun working at the TCEQ) left as well. We're still on this adventure. It's a fun one.
In a couple of weeks, we're going to Italy for our first real vacation in almost five years. Due to Michelle's working at the Continental Club and C-Boy's, the most we've been able to muster as a team is a few days in New Orleans each year. And those have been great, but I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks abroad. With my broad. (Buh-dom-bish!) Michelle's got every day pretty well mapped out, with some down time in there, too, so we can just explore surroundings. I'm very much looking forward to this.
In other news, I've secured a new rehearsal space for my bands. Hopefully, it'll work okay. For the Pocket FishRmen, it'll be fine. For the Hickoids, I'm not so sure. It'll be tighter for the five-piece, but we should be able to smartly arrange the room to accommodate. We'll know for sure on Tuesday. The space the Hickoids have been in has undergone some transformation that isn't very friendly to a rehearsal space, precipitating this change. Fingers crossed. At least, the new place is in the same building as the old place.
ACLF, or Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta, is almost upon us. Next weekend that starts, with the first show at Empire Control Room (downtown, ugh) and the second show at the White Horse (east of downtown, only a partial "ugh," mainly because they have a house drum set). Following the White Horse show, or the next day, anyway, I'm heading to San Angelo for my mom's 89th birthday. I'll be there until Tuesday, then head back for work, etc. And then another weekend of Corn Loving, at ABGB's and the Lost Well (that show I'm not playing). The following day is a gathering at South Pop (Planet K on S. Lamar to you and me) for an art show featuring Davy Jones works, and the Hickoids are playing that. The next day, Michelle and I head to Italy. So the next couple of weeks are pretty stacked up. Might not be writing in this here blog for awhile!
So there....I figured out stuff to write today. Without even going into politics.......sheesh!
I could write about political stuff. I could write about movie stuff. I could write about music stuff. Or all three.
I do know one thing. Yesterday morning, before Michelle awakened, I watched "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" for the first time. It's one of those movies I've meant to watch for awhile but had never had the chance....until getting some streaming services. I don't use the word "delight" often, but that's what the movie is. I believe, in the span of its 1:55 running time, it vaulted into my list of "movies I'll watch if I need a pick-me-up." I should have realized that something directed by Edgar Wright would be just that, but it took me awhile to get to it. My loss. Until now.
I also saw a movie that was another surprise, one called "Celia, Child of Terror." Terrible title, great film. I've been collecting those Katarina's Nightmare Theater DVDs for awhile, and this film was on one of those. It's an Australian film from 1988 that is definitely not a horror movie, even though it contains some horror elements. It's more of a childhood tribulation movie. And one that'll stick with me for awhile. I expected way less than I got. It's a fully rich story with a lot of very well developed supporting characters. And the ending is.....well...just see it. You won't be sorry. Not that it gives a lot away, but I wish Scorpion Releasing hadn't use that image of the title character as the DVD cover art.
Yesterday was Michelle's and my eighteenth anniversary of our first date. We went to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house in Kingsland, a favorite haunt (ha), for dinner, and we'll complete this cycle later by going to The Gas Station in Bastrop for a late barbecue lunch. Then we'll probably watch TCM tonight. The movie, not the channel. We're romantic that way.
But yes, it's been eighteen years. We've been married 15 1/2 years, but we like to celebrate two anniversaries. Why not? Our first date was a great time, and I like to think back on that night often. We went to a screening of "Labyrinth" at the Alamo Drafthouse and then took in a Fuckemos show at Emo's afterward. I remember we also stopped off at a bar Joey Ferguson worked at, one with bean bag chairs on the floor, but I forget the name. We were both kind of showing off to people, as our bonding was becoming apparent, even if we hadn't acted on it yet. It was a fun night through and through. She and I had both been working at the Red Eyed Fly in its glorious infancy, she cocktailing as she finished her second college degree and me booking the place. Within a month of our bonding, I had left the booking to Ron Suman, and she (having already begun working at the TCEQ) left as well. We're still on this adventure. It's a fun one.
In a couple of weeks, we're going to Italy for our first real vacation in almost five years. Due to Michelle's working at the Continental Club and C-Boy's, the most we've been able to muster as a team is a few days in New Orleans each year. And those have been great, but I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks abroad. With my broad. (Buh-dom-bish!) Michelle's got every day pretty well mapped out, with some down time in there, too, so we can just explore surroundings. I'm very much looking forward to this.
In other news, I've secured a new rehearsal space for my bands. Hopefully, it'll work okay. For the Pocket FishRmen, it'll be fine. For the Hickoids, I'm not so sure. It'll be tighter for the five-piece, but we should be able to smartly arrange the room to accommodate. We'll know for sure on Tuesday. The space the Hickoids have been in has undergone some transformation that isn't very friendly to a rehearsal space, precipitating this change. Fingers crossed. At least, the new place is in the same building as the old place.
ACLF, or Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta, is almost upon us. Next weekend that starts, with the first show at Empire Control Room (downtown, ugh) and the second show at the White Horse (east of downtown, only a partial "ugh," mainly because they have a house drum set). Following the White Horse show, or the next day, anyway, I'm heading to San Angelo for my mom's 89th birthday. I'll be there until Tuesday, then head back for work, etc. And then another weekend of Corn Loving, at ABGB's and the Lost Well (that show I'm not playing). The following day is a gathering at South Pop (Planet K on S. Lamar to you and me) for an art show featuring Davy Jones works, and the Hickoids are playing that. The next day, Michelle and I head to Italy. So the next couple of weeks are pretty stacked up. Might not be writing in this here blog for awhile!
So there....I figured out stuff to write today. Without even going into politics.......sheesh!
Sunday, September 23, 2018
The Hickoids Go West
Hello, blog, my old friend. I've come to write in you again.
Time for a recap of the last few weeks. The Hickoids returned Monday morning, August 27th, from a western states and British Columbia tour. Of all the low-budget tours I've been on over the last 30 years or so, I have to say this was perhaps the smoothest one overall. The odds on these kinds of tours are always stacked against you, for various reasons, but we came out of this one virtually unscathed. I shall commence:
The tour began (after a couple of warm-up shows in Austin and San Antonio; see previous blog entry) in Fort Worth on Thursday, August 9th. And we hit an immediate snag. The plan was for San Antonians Jeff, Tom, and Carl (our merch and video aide) to pick up Cody in San Marcos, pick me up in Manchaca, grab Rice in Austin, and we would then head north. I got a call from Jeff about 20 minutes after the first group left San Antonio; the battery and alternator were both fried in the van, due to a loose connection. They were being towed back to San Antonio for Jeff's mechanic friend to fix up quickly. The battery was new, but apparently not installed properly. Hoo boy. In the meantime, Cody was going to be dropped off at my house, and I had to drive into Austin to get Rice, as he had no easy way to get down to my place. That way, the SA Express would only have one stop before heading north. At this point, I wasn't sure we'd make the Fort Worth show.
But we did. And with about an hour to spare. Gotta hand it to Smitty's cool driving hand. The show went well, although it was a strange bill. My old friend Henry Vasquez's band Blood of the Sun was the middle band, and Mos Generator opened it up. So, we were basically closing an otherwise heavy rock bill. After setting up, I caught some of BOTS's set, and it was pretty stellar. I hadn't seen this line-up yet. Our set was okay, but some of the crowd started to drift away at the end. Typical for a Thursday night, though. It was good to see some old friends from the Honky days there, too.
Following the show, we headed to The Old Pancake House, a place we've visited before, for some sustenance, accompanied by our buddy "Hush Puppy" (who almost never "hushes"). Rice, a devout - and we were about to find out how devout - vegetarian, ordered some sort of German pancake that has its last preparation step done at the table. Fancy. Read on.
There being no rest for the wicked, especially the Hickoids, meant an immediate overnight drive to Santa Fe. About 45 minutes into the trip, the van, driven by Jeff, suddenly pulled over. I had my earbuds in and wasn't sure what was going on. Rice bolted out of the back seat and finished hurling onto the ground from the van. He had apparently already begun purging on his shoes behind me. He claimed the foul of bacon grease in his pancake order. So, we had the first puke of the tour, and a sudden deadly seriousness to Rice's vegetarian vow (like there was any doubt).
After a good rinse of the back of the van, we headed on to Santa Fe, in order to stop and rest up at Tom's friend's Melissa's house. We were actually playing in Madrid, which is about 30-40 minutes south of Santa Fe. We arrived in the early afternoon (I drove the last leg), and I actually got my own room (only somewhat smelling of dog) to park my head for a few hours before cleaning up and heading to the gig. Melissa was certainly a gracious hostess.
My friend Jennifer drove up from Albuquerque for the show, and I'm glad we'd done all the meeting up legwork before getting to Madrid....as I had no phone service in Madrid. Madrid reminds a lot of Wimberley; it's a sort of "art town." Probably expensive as hell to live there. The show was one of the best of the tour. Enthusiastic crowd, etc. Meeting Tom's mom was a highlight. She's like the happy version of Tom. And Jennifer seemed to have a great time. That night was exceptional in all ways.
So, what do we do? Yes, another overnight drive. For good reason, though. Cody's sister, her husband, and two kids live in a nice house in Arvada, just northeast of Denver proper. They just moved into the house a couple of months prior, and it was a big one. We all had space to stretch out. There were five bathrooms in the house, but the one by my bedroom had living room access, so it became the popular one.
The Denver show was a pretty good one, although I expected more people on a Saturday. I wonder if perhaps Denver doesn't have much of a rock scene now....not sure. Old friends aplenty made it to this one, including my old room and band mate Clay Brown, Chris and Stella Hay, K.K. Felvy, and Sandra Calderon. Clay (his wife Aimee was in Austin) and Sandra had just moved to Denver recently. (Turned out Clay and Aimee lived in Arvada, where we'd been staying.) We were fed some good pizza by the venue, too. And, as the Hickoids are apparently unofficial spokesmen for Voodoo Doughnuts, there were two boxes of Voodoo Doughnuts waiting for us at the store across the street from the club. Now, that's rock star livin'!
After finally spending the night in a bed, we arose early the next morning for the trek to Salt Lake City. I should mention, especially as I drew a long part of this drive, westward through Wyoming, that the van's tires were clearly not balanced. Jeff had gotten new tires for the van before leaving, but something wasn't right. And as the battery hadn't been connected correctly, the tires being out of balance was not a huge shock, either. We were going to have get them balanced at some point, and they were clearly getting worse as we went. The shaking had been noticed all the way back on the way to Fort Worth. As I mentioned at the start of this blog, the tour was pretty smooth sailing overall, so you should already surmise nothing bad happened.
Anyway, we got to Salt Lake City, loaded into the venue, and checked into our hotel. I got an extra room for that night, just to have a little extra space. We didn't have a really long drive the next day, so I thought it'd be nice to have. Rice stayed with me that night. Generally, for each night, Jeff had booked two rooms for the six of us. My thought was, if we could stay until checkout time, I might get an extra room, provided it was affordable and available.
After resting a couple of hours, we headed back to the club. I noticed some folks in Juggalo make-up as we drove around town. Juggalos in Salt Lake City. Now I've seen everything. Turns out Insane Clown Posse was playing down the street from us....substantially "down the street." We were booked into a place called The Metro, which was a very nice place, but was also outfitted for about a 1,500 person capacity. We were in Salt Lake City on a Sunday night, so I think you know where this is going. The two other bands on the bill, despite being good bands, were just not right for our bill and didn't draw anyone outside of their girlfriends/wives. We had one "superfan" there (David) who bought merch, took pictures with us, etc. Smitty jumped down off the tall stage and attempted some mingling with the girlfriends/wives/other band members and David, so it wasn't all for naught. Still, we should have never been booked in that place. Also, we were under the impression that some metal festival was going on in SLC, and that this was the first day and a part of said festival. When I asked the sound person about this, he looked at me as if I told him I'd shot JFK. I always thought any festival beginning on Sunday would be suspect; my suspicions were confirmed. We were just in the wrong place.
We got a good night's sleep, though.
Monday morning it was off to Boise, Idaho. I'd never been to Boise before, and my only previous Idaho experience was a Honky show in Pocatello in 1997. Late afternoon, we arrived and checked into the hotel; this time I sprang for upgrades to one room, which gave Jeff, Rice, and myself lots of extra space in our room. When I saw the other room later, I almost felt bad for Cody, Tom, and Carl. Almost. I spent the evening downloading video to an external drive and getting ready for laundry the next day, etc. Rice, Cody, and Carl spent the evening at Jim's Alibi, one of the best bar names I've ever seen. And apparently Cody performed the second puke of the tour, in their hotel room, although I found out about this sometime later.
The next morning, Jeff fashioned an album mailer for me out of a box, and I mailed Chris and Stella Hay the Pocket FishRmen album I had brought for them...but left at Cody's sister's house before the Denver gig. Rice, Hungover Carl, and I went to the post office, and then went to the Walmart Auto Center to get the tires balanced. I was told to come back at 2:00. In the meantime, Jeff became Laundry Man No. 1. He folds nicely. Jeff returned to Walmart with me to get the tires balanced. I bought a decent plaidish "show shirt" at a neighboring Goodwill and then we headed back to the Center to get the van. The Center rep told me the van was ready, and so I headed outside, thinking the keys would be in the van. They were not, and I would have to go back in to get them....but while walking to the van, a mechanic of dubious merit ran in front of me with a torque wrench and hubcaps; I guess the van wasn't ready after all. He tightened all the lug nuts and pressed the hubcaps on the wheels, while occasionally flashing an inconsistently toothy grin at Jeff and me. We still lost one of the hubcaps before we got to Canada. Careful if you use Walmart's auto services. Maybe try elsewhere.
And so, by Tuesday night, we were ready to perform again, at the Shredder in Boise. While the attendance was better than SLC, and the other two bands much more to our liking, there was still a lack of audience energy in the building. Mantooth opened the show and was my favorite discovery of the entire tour. Fun, fun band. Great musicians, tight playing, and a made-up bewigged front man who "had it going on." Jeeziz, were they fun. They were followed by Jimmy Vegas and the Phobes, a well-rehearsed quartet with good tunes. I liked 'em but probably would have liked them more if the lead singer hadn't resembled Ted Cruz's even crazier brother. Really. I couldn't get that out of my head. Our set was decent, but it was probably one of the only times I've seen Smitty unable to motivate anyone in the audience. And not for a lack of trying. We might've been a bit sluggish; a day off will do that sometimes.
Next up, Canada! We headed to Vancouver the next morning, crossing into Canada east of Seattle, in an attempt to avoid a long line at the border. The immigration process didn't take too much time, despite a wait in the building while some officers went through a few things in our van's passenger area. Apparently, a look at the gear in the back convinced them that we were indeed just a low-rent band looking to play a couple of Canagigs. They let us pass.
We checked into the hotel in Vancouver and then headed to the gig at Pub 340. There's been a bar or pub in this location since 1898, according to the Pub 340 website. Great atmosphere, and a really friendly staff. Nearby is a park filled with junkies in tents and on benches. Apparently, Canada has a number of "tent cities" springing up.
A downside to the Pub 340 stage was the upstage part of the playing area had a wooden box (shelf?) hanging over it, which meant I had to be really careful when raising my arms while playing. I purposely set my cymbal stands a little lower to compensate and didn't have a problem. I didn't even bump my head on the lowered obstacle. Surprised me. A couple of acts played before us. Subverter, the first one, was pretty much straight up punk, with a singer who had "that attitude." A couple of times he snarled an apology for their set not being "country." I kept hoping he'd see us, just so he could see what we actually were. A couple of that band came back, but I think the singer left after they played. The second act was Skeeter and the Deets. Nice fellas and a good set of acoustic duo tunes. Our set was raucous and a winner all around. We debuted the "Canadian Medley" at this show, and I could not believe the reaction of the crowd. The youngish punks loved the Rush and BTO every bit as much as the Subhumans and D.O.A. Surreal! And the whole show was a great antidote to the two previous lackluster ones.
The next morning we got up to head to the ferry crossing to Vancouver Island and our destination, Victoria. The ferry ride would be approximately 1 1/2 hours and was a nice respite from being cooped up in a van all day. The ferry had some nice conveniences - food, etc. - which we took part in. It was also a nice day and pleasant to be outside in a deck area. Most of us remembered the ferry ride to Denmark from Germany in 2013....that was a cold one.
But back to pleasant weather. The venue in Victoria, The V Lounge, was adjacent to our hotel. And it looked a bit, as many of us noted, liked Caesar's Palace Lite. Columns lined the back of the stage. This was one big hotel bar. And the show was great. The Jaks folks know how to put on a party. Their band, the Keg Killers, was awesome and in a bit of a different configuration than the one we played with in San Marcos a couple of months back (might've been a different band, really....I'm a bit foggy on the details). Dustin, who had been the drummer in the San Marcos show band was the singer here. He's equally fantastic at both. Our set went off well once again, and the crowd really dug our second performance of the "Masters of Canada" medley. Joe Newman, who has recorded as the Rudy Schwartz Project for decades now made it to the show. I've been a fan of Joe's for 30+ years, and it was good to see and talk with him. For some reason, I thought he lived in Vancouver and thought about him when we were there...and then he turns up in Victoria! Just an all around great night. And it was especially nice to walk back to the hotel. That happens every so often, but not often enough for this old man.
The next morning, we said goodbye to Carl, who lives in Victoria now and was staying behind. And then, we were back on the ferry, albeit a different ferry - this one went directly into Washington and was a shorter trek. Immigration was less of a hassle getting back into the States (which actually surprised us a bit - but then the official was from Laredo...and we had our Texas plates). What took an infuriating amount of time was getting to the hotel in south Seattle. It was Friday afternoon; I probably don't need to write more. After getting checked in (after one false motel stop), we hurried to Slim's Last Chance to get ready to rock once again. I saw many friends there, including Stig Stench, Kristen Lyon, and of course, the one and only Max Brody. Max helped us out by filming our show once again. Max now works for Something Weird video. I envy him.
Joining us in Seattle was Patrick Pena, otherwise known as Harvey McLaughlin, playing piano and shooting video of us. His job was to be Carl, but a Carl who was a pianist. Patrick was texting me as he was getting to the club - after his flight landed, as he had some Uber problems, and finally when he was almost to the club....which was right as we began our set. He ran onstage after our first song (Jeff had already set up his equipment), and he began tinkling along with us. Patrick, of course, was along for the rest of the tour, and I always enjoy his company.
I had a fairly major problem with the outdoor stage at Slim's (Rice seemed to think I had this problem last time, too, but I'm fuzzy on it) - the stage is about as bouncy as they come. That's a particular problem for a drummer, when you need your equipment somewhat stable on the stage. And with the Hickoids, it's really a problem on what I call "stomp songs." Some of our songs are ones where the kick drum is stomping on one-and-three, or even every beat. The bear song here was "Petticoat Junction," which is just a fast train beat, with the kick stomping on every beat. The snare drum was wobbling all over the place, and I quickly got off track with almost no way of getting back on. I already tend to have problems with the train beat anyway, as I'm not very comfortable with country music (shh...don't tell anybody). I envy some drummers (Gary [Jimmy Ned] of the Beaumonts comes to mind) who just slip in and out of that beat easily. Not me. I have to stay right on it, or else, I might just as well break into a solo. Other than that song, though, the rest of the set went well; I think overall we did fine. We were sandwiched in between a couple of bands and The Accused; the whole night was a successful night crowd-wise.
After the show, we headed toward the hotel's direction for some food, and the night turned interesting quickly. We stopped at a Denny's, walked in after seeing some club kids and hookers outside, and were met with the sight of a young man talking to himself and darting back and forth in the waiting area, drumming on a picture frame for a bit, mumbling, etc. We noticed pants on the floor and a "mystery fluid." After a couple of minutes, we thought somewhere else might be better. So we took off for another late-night place and had better luck there, although a hooker from our first stop walked in and made her way to the bathroom while we were there. I hope she had a good night.
The next day, we had two shows in Portland: one outside of the second Portland Voodoo Doughnuts location, and a night show at Dante's. The Voodoo show was slated for 4:00. And was. It. Hot. Damn. The playing area was covered by a canopy, but other than that, blazing sun.
As I was unpacking my drums, I made an unfortunate discovery. My front kick head was pretty much destroyed. This is the "Slowpoke" head I've had on the Hickoids set's kick drum for the last six years or so. Granted, I'd been thinking about replacing the kick head with something else for awhile now, but this wasn't the time to have to make the change. I mean, it was destroyed, not just cracked or torn. It looked to me like something had been dropped on the kick drum. (A certain someone told me he thought this was the case, but no one from the band confessed to anything.) The left-middle of the head was sliced from top to bottom, and the bottom, for about a third of the total circumference, was separated from the rim. I could not patch this up. As I had to get set up as well, Jeff volunteered to go with someone at the show who said there was a music store nearby and grab a new head. Turned out it wasn't the right kind of store, but they had a 22" pedal-side head they gave Jeff. I thought I'd have to use that, but a guy whose band had just played before us offered me his front head. He even started taking it off before I could answer. It was a nice Pearl head and served the rest of the tour. He's my Portland Angel, you might say. I still slipped him some money, even though he complained.
The set was okay, although there were audio problems...lack of monitors, etc. Typical outdoors show. Still a lot of fun. And we got doughnuts!! Tres really has a thing for us. Crazy guy. He needs help.
I headed to the hotel I'd gotten for.....drum roll, please....Michelle and me! Yes, she was coming into town for the show and hanging out a couple more days with Jessie Sundvall and Janet Hammer. The hotel was not quite a mile from the place we were playing and seemed suited for anything Michelle might want to do while she was there. It was a nice, big room in an older hotel. Michelle got in about 8:30 and we Ubered over to Dante's later on.
We ended up just eating pizza at the club and just hanging there for the duration. Janet and Jessie showed up later, as did a couple of other folks Michelle knew. The show itself was just okay. There were some people there, but they were spread across the club; it's a pretty large place. Michelle opined that Portland might be a "younger place." That's probably true. My memory of the night is colored by her being there anyway, so I had a good time. There were band shenanigans after I was gone, but obviously, I can't comment on them, other than I got an earful.
The next day, I bid my lovely wife adieu, and the band headed to Bend, which was south and to the east a few hours. We stopped at Indian Head Casino (of course) along the way, and I picked up a t-shirt for my mom in a crafts store nearby. She digs the Native American-flavored stuff. I had booked a motel room tin Bend at Jeff's request, as lodging was being arranged by a member of the other band....who was Jeff's girlfriend's cousin. Jeff wasn't sure how much room there'd be. And that turned out to be a good call. The room wasn't even $100 and the motel looked to be an old Motel 6 completely redecorated with a solid Indian vibe. I dug the way the room looked. Patrick quickly jumped to room with me, so he and I stayed there. But, the show.....was surprisingly good. And it was a Sunday. There were a decent number of folks there, many being friends of the opening band.
Another equipment note: the previous night in Portland, I had been dismissed before load-out. I had packed everything up and had it together and ready. Somehow, my fan did not make it into the van. I like having a fan. So, we found a van backstage that I brought up to use. And I would need to buy something else before the SF gig. A slight annoyance, but I can't complain much as I wasn't there for that load-out. The broken kick head still had me steamed, frankly.
Monday morning, we began the trek to San Francisco. Keep in mind, this is during fire season, and one of the worst fire seasons the western part of the States has had. Much to our ultimate surprise, we didn't see much fire....I remember a small one in the distance at one point, but I don't remember exactly where it was. We did see more burned trees and some lingering smoke, but that was it. So, the drive to San Francisco ended up being much less eventful than I thought it might be. We pulled into the city around 9:00 and checked into our rooms. I bought one more room for some added comfort, even at SF prices. Not cheap, by any means. Still, we had some room, and we were near the Marina. And we were going to be there for a bit. We ate at Mel's Drive-In that night, which is not a drive-in but a diner. Still, it's fun to say you ate at Mel's. Gettin' all Tayback and shit. And later that night, I walked to the Walgreen's near us. Boom, clip-on fan for $7.50. That would last the tour, for sure.
The next morning I got my laundry to a nearby laundromat for some Wash and Fold service. Even put my ever-stinkening jacket in for a dry clean. While waiting, I took a walk into the Presidio, a place I used to go with my dad back in the early 70s. The Officers' Clubs were there, so we would stay there when visiting the city. It was interesting to see it now, and I took a special trek to the Yoda Fountain I saw on Atlas Obscura. After getting back to the room (I was rooming with Patrick), I told him about the fountain, and he was intrigued enough to make his own way there. Late in the afternoon, while hanging with Rice (and hurting), he made a comment about getting a massage, which is something I hadn't thought of. Phone out....booked one at a Thai massage place for the next hour. That was an experience. It's the type massage where someone holds onto suspended poles above you and steps on different parts of you. It was also something I needed after too much time sitting in a cramped van. My knee was really stiffening badly. The masseur, despite barely knowing any English and not really understanding my jabber, caught on quickly to what was going on with me. After the massage was over, he suggested a lot of maintenance work that my own physical therapist in Austin has been suggesting. Didn't take him long!
In the evening, it was off to the gig at the Elbo Room. We were playing with Sluggo Cawley's new project, Req'd, and our friend Bobby's band Bellyfruit. It was a Tuesday night, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but the night turned out pretty great. The crew ran everything really professionally, so there were no shrugging shoulders when you needed some help. "Professionally".....yes, I just wrote that word. Jello Biafra even showed up and stayed through our set. It was kind of funny to see him wearily sitting down near stage right by the end of our set as I thought, "yeah, we're all getting up there." The other Grannies made it to the show, and it was fun catching up with them. I can't really remember if we had any late night food. Our nice parking place in the center of the hotel parking lot was gone, so the van had to be parked on the street with someone checking on it periodically. I can't say that the hotel was especially accommodating to us band folk, but it WAS a Super 8. I had gotten charged three times for my room but got that all worked out in the end. Ugh. Still, I call San Francisco a success.
Wednesday, we began driving down Highway 1 (or PCH) to Santa Cruz. It's a nice drive I hadn't been on in years, and we stopped at one point to get out, walk down to the beach, and snap some nice shots. We got to Santa Cruz by early afternoon and checked into our rooms. We were a short walk from the Santa Cruz Beach & Boardwalk, and so Rice, Patrick and I headed down there. Someone (me, maybe?) acted like a kid all over again. I rode the Great Dipper roller coaster four times. Tom joined us, and he got in on the roller coaster action, too....which surprised me a bit! It had been many years since visiting there. When my dad had his sailboat, we would sail from Monterey to Santa Cruz. As a kid, it seemed like an interminably long trip, but when I'd see the roller coaster in the distance, I'd know we were almost there. Ah, memories. Like the corners of my mind.
And later, it was off to the club (how many times have I written that sentence now?). We played the Blue Lagoon, which seemed a misleading name. It was an interesting maze of a place, and right next to it was a record/CD/DVD store that was actually open a little later. I picked up the only two discs of the trip that night, a copy of the limited edition of "Demon Wind" and the 4 Film Favorites version of the Batman movies from the 80s/90s. Met my price point, finally. The show itself was okay. Fang played before us, and their set was good, but I suspect they were going through the motions a bit. Didn't seem as intense as when we played with them in San Antonio earlier this year. Our set was pretty good, not a great crowd, but okay for a Wednesday. There was a giant fan built into the wall behind me, sort of an exhaust fan in reverse. And it was loud. Made it a little difficult to hear what was going on, but not that difficult. And I like staying cool.
The next morning, we bid Santa Cruz adieu and headed south to Ventura. In all my California years, I don't believe I'd ever been there. We checked into a somewhat sleazy Motel 6 there and headed to the night's rock residence, the Red Cove. A funky place, for sure. Nice folks working there, but the set up was strange. The stage was really deep, which swallowed a lot of the sound. And the stage was a bit "soft," let's say. Everything sounded strange to me on stage, and it was one of my lesser moments playing. Just didn't have a good show. I think the others might have liked it more than I did. And...at the end of the night...we got stiffed. Or at least, the bar people on duty had nothing to pay us with. I was outside, jawing with Patrick while all this was going on, but there was something about the vibe of the place that....well, let's just say I wasn't terribly surprised. Jeff was going to have to go there the next morning and try to get paid. Hoo boy. And the night ended with a late night McDonald's run with a very drunk Cody mouthing off continually in the passenger seat. By the time we got back to the motel, I took my food (sic) and headed off to the opposite end of the motel to eat in peace. One thing I've started to learn more (finally, in my fifties!) is that it's better to just excuse yourself and find a corner to go to than start a bunch of shit with an otherwise likable bandmate.
Off to Los Angeles the next day. Jeff had booked rooms at a Ramada there, and I swear, it took us almost an hour to check in. There was new, fumbling, management and an upset guest in the lobby. I thought we'd never get our rooms. But we did, and then off we went, as you do (or used to, anyway), to Hollywood. As with most other cities in the U.S. of A., Hollywood has become a sort of gentrified Disneyland. It was still fun to walk amongst the stars in the pavement, and we ate at Roscoe's Chicken 'n' Waffles. It's amazing to me how many silent stars are amongst the memorialized in the pavement. And how many of them I actually know of and have seen their work!
We headed to the club, Cafe Nela, which was toward the north a bit and was an older punk rock dive that felt a bit like....home. The stage manager had everything running smoothly, with each band setting their equipment in one of four numbered spots outside the main floor. I'd never seen that sort of organization for a smallish club before. Interesting. And helpful, ultimately. The only thing I can say I didn't like about the club was their lack of water, even for the bands. You had to pay for water. Right before we went on, Pat Todd brought us all bottles of water....not sure where he got them, and I hope he didn't pay for them. Pat and his band went on before us, and before them was the Golden Rulers, a band fronted by Dave Duet, and they rocked most ferociously. Brian Stack was the drummer, and it was a lot of fun catching up with him. The last time I saw him he was throwing chairs around a club in Houston at a Honky show and was ejected. It was good to see him more in control, and he had a nice wife in tow. Our set was pretty damned sweet. (Recent development: a torrent of our set was found and just might become a live album for us. We'll see.) As a matter of fact, I might go so far as to say it was the best overall show of the tour. Cody got drunk again.
We had a late night sup at a cool Mexican joint, with some added "after hours restaurant drama" to entertain us, and then bunked in. Long drive the next day to Tucson.
Tucson. I hadn't been or played there since 2001, and it looked quite a bit different, too. A very white, gentrified, downtown area, where we played at a place called Club Congress. We were supposed to be able to stay in the adjoining hotel, but it was booked for the night. The club contact had set up rooms for us at a Ramada Inn about a mile away. No problem, really. While the rest of the band ate dinner with Rich Minus' brother, I snuck away to check into the hotel and get a little "me" time. We were on the home stretch, but I needed a little solo medicine.
The show was.....okay. Once again, we played a place where everything was well organized. I was able to fully set up before leaving for the hotel. The opening band, the Pork Torta, set up in front of us. Very entertaining band. Three-piece, with the drummer setting up in the middle, and singing the majority of the tunes. I dug 'em. Our set was all right, but a bit of a let down from the night before (as it would be, of course). Still, I thought we pulled it off well. Immediately after we finished (at 10:00!), a DJ began setting up to play dance music for the rest of the night. We hung around the downtown area for a bit before heading back to the hotel. Strange time. It was sort of like a big dance club party outside the club itself. Live music is definitely dying out in some towns. And Cody became insufferably drunk again.
We had another long drive the next day, to Marfa, so we headed out reasonably early. At some point in the trip (I don't remember where), we stopped at a casino (surprise!), and I had a truly excellent pizza there. Biggest food surprise of the tour. The waiter had recommended the steak and avocado sandwich special to everyone, and most got it. I opted for the pizza, and while the others only gave their sandwich an "okay" at best, well, I was in a bit of pizza heaven. I don't say (or write) that often.
We pulled into Marfa and had to start setting up quickly. It was a Sunday, but there were folks there waiting for a show. And we put one on. It was a strange set, and definitely not one of my best, but we entertained everyone, and that's the goal, right? I clammed something on PM, that, well, I'll just say, I hope I never do that one again. It's the type of thing I sometimes do when I'm tired, I'll put it that way. Ha! Good to see Jeffro, as always, and Todd and Bonnie Kassens happened to be there as well.
It seemed to take forever to get out of the club and on the road. And I have to admit, I was obsessed with watching the final episode of "Sharp Objects," which I did. On my phone, with an HBO app. Sad. But I enjoyed it! The drive back was pretty smooth. When we got back, Jeff asked me if we could just go to my house, and I'd take Rice home. I agreed it was best, although that meant 8:00 in the morning on a Monday, driving into Austin. I took the toll road and got back home within an hour.
That was the tour. No breakdowns (after the first day, anyway). Most of the shows were great; the only real duds were the Sunday/Tuesday of the first week. My leg cooperated more or less, although I have more ideas for the next van tour we'll do, assuming we do one. Once I got back on the exercise bike at home, I was fine after a couple of days. Damn knee. Well, I'll deal with it. And now I have a lot of video to catalog.
Time for a recap of the last few weeks. The Hickoids returned Monday morning, August 27th, from a western states and British Columbia tour. Of all the low-budget tours I've been on over the last 30 years or so, I have to say this was perhaps the smoothest one overall. The odds on these kinds of tours are always stacked against you, for various reasons, but we came out of this one virtually unscathed. I shall commence:
The tour began (after a couple of warm-up shows in Austin and San Antonio; see previous blog entry) in Fort Worth on Thursday, August 9th. And we hit an immediate snag. The plan was for San Antonians Jeff, Tom, and Carl (our merch and video aide) to pick up Cody in San Marcos, pick me up in Manchaca, grab Rice in Austin, and we would then head north. I got a call from Jeff about 20 minutes after the first group left San Antonio; the battery and alternator were both fried in the van, due to a loose connection. They were being towed back to San Antonio for Jeff's mechanic friend to fix up quickly. The battery was new, but apparently not installed properly. Hoo boy. In the meantime, Cody was going to be dropped off at my house, and I had to drive into Austin to get Rice, as he had no easy way to get down to my place. That way, the SA Express would only have one stop before heading north. At this point, I wasn't sure we'd make the Fort Worth show.
But we did. And with about an hour to spare. Gotta hand it to Smitty's cool driving hand. The show went well, although it was a strange bill. My old friend Henry Vasquez's band Blood of the Sun was the middle band, and Mos Generator opened it up. So, we were basically closing an otherwise heavy rock bill. After setting up, I caught some of BOTS's set, and it was pretty stellar. I hadn't seen this line-up yet. Our set was okay, but some of the crowd started to drift away at the end. Typical for a Thursday night, though. It was good to see some old friends from the Honky days there, too.
Following the show, we headed to The Old Pancake House, a place we've visited before, for some sustenance, accompanied by our buddy "Hush Puppy" (who almost never "hushes"). Rice, a devout - and we were about to find out how devout - vegetarian, ordered some sort of German pancake that has its last preparation step done at the table. Fancy. Read on.
There being no rest for the wicked, especially the Hickoids, meant an immediate overnight drive to Santa Fe. About 45 minutes into the trip, the van, driven by Jeff, suddenly pulled over. I had my earbuds in and wasn't sure what was going on. Rice bolted out of the back seat and finished hurling onto the ground from the van. He had apparently already begun purging on his shoes behind me. He claimed the foul of bacon grease in his pancake order. So, we had the first puke of the tour, and a sudden deadly seriousness to Rice's vegetarian vow (like there was any doubt).
After a good rinse of the back of the van, we headed on to Santa Fe, in order to stop and rest up at Tom's friend's Melissa's house. We were actually playing in Madrid, which is about 30-40 minutes south of Santa Fe. We arrived in the early afternoon (I drove the last leg), and I actually got my own room (only somewhat smelling of dog) to park my head for a few hours before cleaning up and heading to the gig. Melissa was certainly a gracious hostess.
My friend Jennifer drove up from Albuquerque for the show, and I'm glad we'd done all the meeting up legwork before getting to Madrid....as I had no phone service in Madrid. Madrid reminds a lot of Wimberley; it's a sort of "art town." Probably expensive as hell to live there. The show was one of the best of the tour. Enthusiastic crowd, etc. Meeting Tom's mom was a highlight. She's like the happy version of Tom. And Jennifer seemed to have a great time. That night was exceptional in all ways.
So, what do we do? Yes, another overnight drive. For good reason, though. Cody's sister, her husband, and two kids live in a nice house in Arvada, just northeast of Denver proper. They just moved into the house a couple of months prior, and it was a big one. We all had space to stretch out. There were five bathrooms in the house, but the one by my bedroom had living room access, so it became the popular one.
The Denver show was a pretty good one, although I expected more people on a Saturday. I wonder if perhaps Denver doesn't have much of a rock scene now....not sure. Old friends aplenty made it to this one, including my old room and band mate Clay Brown, Chris and Stella Hay, K.K. Felvy, and Sandra Calderon. Clay (his wife Aimee was in Austin) and Sandra had just moved to Denver recently. (Turned out Clay and Aimee lived in Arvada, where we'd been staying.) We were fed some good pizza by the venue, too. And, as the Hickoids are apparently unofficial spokesmen for Voodoo Doughnuts, there were two boxes of Voodoo Doughnuts waiting for us at the store across the street from the club. Now, that's rock star livin'!
After finally spending the night in a bed, we arose early the next morning for the trek to Salt Lake City. I should mention, especially as I drew a long part of this drive, westward through Wyoming, that the van's tires were clearly not balanced. Jeff had gotten new tires for the van before leaving, but something wasn't right. And as the battery hadn't been connected correctly, the tires being out of balance was not a huge shock, either. We were going to have get them balanced at some point, and they were clearly getting worse as we went. The shaking had been noticed all the way back on the way to Fort Worth. As I mentioned at the start of this blog, the tour was pretty smooth sailing overall, so you should already surmise nothing bad happened.
Anyway, we got to Salt Lake City, loaded into the venue, and checked into our hotel. I got an extra room for that night, just to have a little extra space. We didn't have a really long drive the next day, so I thought it'd be nice to have. Rice stayed with me that night. Generally, for each night, Jeff had booked two rooms for the six of us. My thought was, if we could stay until checkout time, I might get an extra room, provided it was affordable and available.
After resting a couple of hours, we headed back to the club. I noticed some folks in Juggalo make-up as we drove around town. Juggalos in Salt Lake City. Now I've seen everything. Turns out Insane Clown Posse was playing down the street from us....substantially "down the street." We were booked into a place called The Metro, which was a very nice place, but was also outfitted for about a 1,500 person capacity. We were in Salt Lake City on a Sunday night, so I think you know where this is going. The two other bands on the bill, despite being good bands, were just not right for our bill and didn't draw anyone outside of their girlfriends/wives. We had one "superfan" there (David) who bought merch, took pictures with us, etc. Smitty jumped down off the tall stage and attempted some mingling with the girlfriends/wives/other band members and David, so it wasn't all for naught. Still, we should have never been booked in that place. Also, we were under the impression that some metal festival was going on in SLC, and that this was the first day and a part of said festival. When I asked the sound person about this, he looked at me as if I told him I'd shot JFK. I always thought any festival beginning on Sunday would be suspect; my suspicions were confirmed. We were just in the wrong place.
We got a good night's sleep, though.
Monday morning it was off to Boise, Idaho. I'd never been to Boise before, and my only previous Idaho experience was a Honky show in Pocatello in 1997. Late afternoon, we arrived and checked into the hotel; this time I sprang for upgrades to one room, which gave Jeff, Rice, and myself lots of extra space in our room. When I saw the other room later, I almost felt bad for Cody, Tom, and Carl. Almost. I spent the evening downloading video to an external drive and getting ready for laundry the next day, etc. Rice, Cody, and Carl spent the evening at Jim's Alibi, one of the best bar names I've ever seen. And apparently Cody performed the second puke of the tour, in their hotel room, although I found out about this sometime later.
The next morning, Jeff fashioned an album mailer for me out of a box, and I mailed Chris and Stella Hay the Pocket FishRmen album I had brought for them...but left at Cody's sister's house before the Denver gig. Rice, Hungover Carl, and I went to the post office, and then went to the Walmart Auto Center to get the tires balanced. I was told to come back at 2:00. In the meantime, Jeff became Laundry Man No. 1. He folds nicely. Jeff returned to Walmart with me to get the tires balanced. I bought a decent plaidish "show shirt" at a neighboring Goodwill and then we headed back to the Center to get the van. The Center rep told me the van was ready, and so I headed outside, thinking the keys would be in the van. They were not, and I would have to go back in to get them....but while walking to the van, a mechanic of dubious merit ran in front of me with a torque wrench and hubcaps; I guess the van wasn't ready after all. He tightened all the lug nuts and pressed the hubcaps on the wheels, while occasionally flashing an inconsistently toothy grin at Jeff and me. We still lost one of the hubcaps before we got to Canada. Careful if you use Walmart's auto services. Maybe try elsewhere.
And so, by Tuesday night, we were ready to perform again, at the Shredder in Boise. While the attendance was better than SLC, and the other two bands much more to our liking, there was still a lack of audience energy in the building. Mantooth opened the show and was my favorite discovery of the entire tour. Fun, fun band. Great musicians, tight playing, and a made-up bewigged front man who "had it going on." Jeeziz, were they fun. They were followed by Jimmy Vegas and the Phobes, a well-rehearsed quartet with good tunes. I liked 'em but probably would have liked them more if the lead singer hadn't resembled Ted Cruz's even crazier brother. Really. I couldn't get that out of my head. Our set was decent, but it was probably one of the only times I've seen Smitty unable to motivate anyone in the audience. And not for a lack of trying. We might've been a bit sluggish; a day off will do that sometimes.
Next up, Canada! We headed to Vancouver the next morning, crossing into Canada east of Seattle, in an attempt to avoid a long line at the border. The immigration process didn't take too much time, despite a wait in the building while some officers went through a few things in our van's passenger area. Apparently, a look at the gear in the back convinced them that we were indeed just a low-rent band looking to play a couple of Canagigs. They let us pass.
We checked into the hotel in Vancouver and then headed to the gig at Pub 340. There's been a bar or pub in this location since 1898, according to the Pub 340 website. Great atmosphere, and a really friendly staff. Nearby is a park filled with junkies in tents and on benches. Apparently, Canada has a number of "tent cities" springing up.
A downside to the Pub 340 stage was the upstage part of the playing area had a wooden box (shelf?) hanging over it, which meant I had to be really careful when raising my arms while playing. I purposely set my cymbal stands a little lower to compensate and didn't have a problem. I didn't even bump my head on the lowered obstacle. Surprised me. A couple of acts played before us. Subverter, the first one, was pretty much straight up punk, with a singer who had "that attitude." A couple of times he snarled an apology for their set not being "country." I kept hoping he'd see us, just so he could see what we actually were. A couple of that band came back, but I think the singer left after they played. The second act was Skeeter and the Deets. Nice fellas and a good set of acoustic duo tunes. Our set was raucous and a winner all around. We debuted the "Canadian Medley" at this show, and I could not believe the reaction of the crowd. The youngish punks loved the Rush and BTO every bit as much as the Subhumans and D.O.A. Surreal! And the whole show was a great antidote to the two previous lackluster ones.
The next morning we got up to head to the ferry crossing to Vancouver Island and our destination, Victoria. The ferry ride would be approximately 1 1/2 hours and was a nice respite from being cooped up in a van all day. The ferry had some nice conveniences - food, etc. - which we took part in. It was also a nice day and pleasant to be outside in a deck area. Most of us remembered the ferry ride to Denmark from Germany in 2013....that was a cold one.
But back to pleasant weather. The venue in Victoria, The V Lounge, was adjacent to our hotel. And it looked a bit, as many of us noted, liked Caesar's Palace Lite. Columns lined the back of the stage. This was one big hotel bar. And the show was great. The Jaks folks know how to put on a party. Their band, the Keg Killers, was awesome and in a bit of a different configuration than the one we played with in San Marcos a couple of months back (might've been a different band, really....I'm a bit foggy on the details). Dustin, who had been the drummer in the San Marcos show band was the singer here. He's equally fantastic at both. Our set went off well once again, and the crowd really dug our second performance of the "Masters of Canada" medley. Joe Newman, who has recorded as the Rudy Schwartz Project for decades now made it to the show. I've been a fan of Joe's for 30+ years, and it was good to see and talk with him. For some reason, I thought he lived in Vancouver and thought about him when we were there...and then he turns up in Victoria! Just an all around great night. And it was especially nice to walk back to the hotel. That happens every so often, but not often enough for this old man.
The next morning, we said goodbye to Carl, who lives in Victoria now and was staying behind. And then, we were back on the ferry, albeit a different ferry - this one went directly into Washington and was a shorter trek. Immigration was less of a hassle getting back into the States (which actually surprised us a bit - but then the official was from Laredo...and we had our Texas plates). What took an infuriating amount of time was getting to the hotel in south Seattle. It was Friday afternoon; I probably don't need to write more. After getting checked in (after one false motel stop), we hurried to Slim's Last Chance to get ready to rock once again. I saw many friends there, including Stig Stench, Kristen Lyon, and of course, the one and only Max Brody. Max helped us out by filming our show once again. Max now works for Something Weird video. I envy him.
Joining us in Seattle was Patrick Pena, otherwise known as Harvey McLaughlin, playing piano and shooting video of us. His job was to be Carl, but a Carl who was a pianist. Patrick was texting me as he was getting to the club - after his flight landed, as he had some Uber problems, and finally when he was almost to the club....which was right as we began our set. He ran onstage after our first song (Jeff had already set up his equipment), and he began tinkling along with us. Patrick, of course, was along for the rest of the tour, and I always enjoy his company.
I had a fairly major problem with the outdoor stage at Slim's (Rice seemed to think I had this problem last time, too, but I'm fuzzy on it) - the stage is about as bouncy as they come. That's a particular problem for a drummer, when you need your equipment somewhat stable on the stage. And with the Hickoids, it's really a problem on what I call "stomp songs." Some of our songs are ones where the kick drum is stomping on one-and-three, or even every beat. The bear song here was "Petticoat Junction," which is just a fast train beat, with the kick stomping on every beat. The snare drum was wobbling all over the place, and I quickly got off track with almost no way of getting back on. I already tend to have problems with the train beat anyway, as I'm not very comfortable with country music (shh...don't tell anybody). I envy some drummers (Gary [Jimmy Ned] of the Beaumonts comes to mind) who just slip in and out of that beat easily. Not me. I have to stay right on it, or else, I might just as well break into a solo. Other than that song, though, the rest of the set went well; I think overall we did fine. We were sandwiched in between a couple of bands and The Accused; the whole night was a successful night crowd-wise.
After the show, we headed toward the hotel's direction for some food, and the night turned interesting quickly. We stopped at a Denny's, walked in after seeing some club kids and hookers outside, and were met with the sight of a young man talking to himself and darting back and forth in the waiting area, drumming on a picture frame for a bit, mumbling, etc. We noticed pants on the floor and a "mystery fluid." After a couple of minutes, we thought somewhere else might be better. So we took off for another late-night place and had better luck there, although a hooker from our first stop walked in and made her way to the bathroom while we were there. I hope she had a good night.
The next day, we had two shows in Portland: one outside of the second Portland Voodoo Doughnuts location, and a night show at Dante's. The Voodoo show was slated for 4:00. And was. It. Hot. Damn. The playing area was covered by a canopy, but other than that, blazing sun.
As I was unpacking my drums, I made an unfortunate discovery. My front kick head was pretty much destroyed. This is the "Slowpoke" head I've had on the Hickoids set's kick drum for the last six years or so. Granted, I'd been thinking about replacing the kick head with something else for awhile now, but this wasn't the time to have to make the change. I mean, it was destroyed, not just cracked or torn. It looked to me like something had been dropped on the kick drum. (A certain someone told me he thought this was the case, but no one from the band confessed to anything.) The left-middle of the head was sliced from top to bottom, and the bottom, for about a third of the total circumference, was separated from the rim. I could not patch this up. As I had to get set up as well, Jeff volunteered to go with someone at the show who said there was a music store nearby and grab a new head. Turned out it wasn't the right kind of store, but they had a 22" pedal-side head they gave Jeff. I thought I'd have to use that, but a guy whose band had just played before us offered me his front head. He even started taking it off before I could answer. It was a nice Pearl head and served the rest of the tour. He's my Portland Angel, you might say. I still slipped him some money, even though he complained.
The set was okay, although there were audio problems...lack of monitors, etc. Typical outdoors show. Still a lot of fun. And we got doughnuts!! Tres really has a thing for us. Crazy guy. He needs help.
I headed to the hotel I'd gotten for.....drum roll, please....Michelle and me! Yes, she was coming into town for the show and hanging out a couple more days with Jessie Sundvall and Janet Hammer. The hotel was not quite a mile from the place we were playing and seemed suited for anything Michelle might want to do while she was there. It was a nice, big room in an older hotel. Michelle got in about 8:30 and we Ubered over to Dante's later on.
We ended up just eating pizza at the club and just hanging there for the duration. Janet and Jessie showed up later, as did a couple of other folks Michelle knew. The show itself was just okay. There were some people there, but they were spread across the club; it's a pretty large place. Michelle opined that Portland might be a "younger place." That's probably true. My memory of the night is colored by her being there anyway, so I had a good time. There were band shenanigans after I was gone, but obviously, I can't comment on them, other than I got an earful.
The next day, I bid my lovely wife adieu, and the band headed to Bend, which was south and to the east a few hours. We stopped at Indian Head Casino (of course) along the way, and I picked up a t-shirt for my mom in a crafts store nearby. She digs the Native American-flavored stuff. I had booked a motel room tin Bend at Jeff's request, as lodging was being arranged by a member of the other band....who was Jeff's girlfriend's cousin. Jeff wasn't sure how much room there'd be. And that turned out to be a good call. The room wasn't even $100 and the motel looked to be an old Motel 6 completely redecorated with a solid Indian vibe. I dug the way the room looked. Patrick quickly jumped to room with me, so he and I stayed there. But, the show.....was surprisingly good. And it was a Sunday. There were a decent number of folks there, many being friends of the opening band.
Another equipment note: the previous night in Portland, I had been dismissed before load-out. I had packed everything up and had it together and ready. Somehow, my fan did not make it into the van. I like having a fan. So, we found a van backstage that I brought up to use. And I would need to buy something else before the SF gig. A slight annoyance, but I can't complain much as I wasn't there for that load-out. The broken kick head still had me steamed, frankly.
Monday morning, we began the trek to San Francisco. Keep in mind, this is during fire season, and one of the worst fire seasons the western part of the States has had. Much to our ultimate surprise, we didn't see much fire....I remember a small one in the distance at one point, but I don't remember exactly where it was. We did see more burned trees and some lingering smoke, but that was it. So, the drive to San Francisco ended up being much less eventful than I thought it might be. We pulled into the city around 9:00 and checked into our rooms. I bought one more room for some added comfort, even at SF prices. Not cheap, by any means. Still, we had some room, and we were near the Marina. And we were going to be there for a bit. We ate at Mel's Drive-In that night, which is not a drive-in but a diner. Still, it's fun to say you ate at Mel's. Gettin' all Tayback and shit. And later that night, I walked to the Walgreen's near us. Boom, clip-on fan for $7.50. That would last the tour, for sure.
The next morning I got my laundry to a nearby laundromat for some Wash and Fold service. Even put my ever-stinkening jacket in for a dry clean. While waiting, I took a walk into the Presidio, a place I used to go with my dad back in the early 70s. The Officers' Clubs were there, so we would stay there when visiting the city. It was interesting to see it now, and I took a special trek to the Yoda Fountain I saw on Atlas Obscura. After getting back to the room (I was rooming with Patrick), I told him about the fountain, and he was intrigued enough to make his own way there. Late in the afternoon, while hanging with Rice (and hurting), he made a comment about getting a massage, which is something I hadn't thought of. Phone out....booked one at a Thai massage place for the next hour. That was an experience. It's the type massage where someone holds onto suspended poles above you and steps on different parts of you. It was also something I needed after too much time sitting in a cramped van. My knee was really stiffening badly. The masseur, despite barely knowing any English and not really understanding my jabber, caught on quickly to what was going on with me. After the massage was over, he suggested a lot of maintenance work that my own physical therapist in Austin has been suggesting. Didn't take him long!
In the evening, it was off to the gig at the Elbo Room. We were playing with Sluggo Cawley's new project, Req'd, and our friend Bobby's band Bellyfruit. It was a Tuesday night, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but the night turned out pretty great. The crew ran everything really professionally, so there were no shrugging shoulders when you needed some help. "Professionally".....yes, I just wrote that word. Jello Biafra even showed up and stayed through our set. It was kind of funny to see him wearily sitting down near stage right by the end of our set as I thought, "yeah, we're all getting up there." The other Grannies made it to the show, and it was fun catching up with them. I can't really remember if we had any late night food. Our nice parking place in the center of the hotel parking lot was gone, so the van had to be parked on the street with someone checking on it periodically. I can't say that the hotel was especially accommodating to us band folk, but it WAS a Super 8. I had gotten charged three times for my room but got that all worked out in the end. Ugh. Still, I call San Francisco a success.
Wednesday, we began driving down Highway 1 (or PCH) to Santa Cruz. It's a nice drive I hadn't been on in years, and we stopped at one point to get out, walk down to the beach, and snap some nice shots. We got to Santa Cruz by early afternoon and checked into our rooms. We were a short walk from the Santa Cruz Beach & Boardwalk, and so Rice, Patrick and I headed down there. Someone (me, maybe?) acted like a kid all over again. I rode the Great Dipper roller coaster four times. Tom joined us, and he got in on the roller coaster action, too....which surprised me a bit! It had been many years since visiting there. When my dad had his sailboat, we would sail from Monterey to Santa Cruz. As a kid, it seemed like an interminably long trip, but when I'd see the roller coaster in the distance, I'd know we were almost there. Ah, memories. Like the corners of my mind.
And later, it was off to the club (how many times have I written that sentence now?). We played the Blue Lagoon, which seemed a misleading name. It was an interesting maze of a place, and right next to it was a record/CD/DVD store that was actually open a little later. I picked up the only two discs of the trip that night, a copy of the limited edition of "Demon Wind" and the 4 Film Favorites version of the Batman movies from the 80s/90s. Met my price point, finally. The show itself was okay. Fang played before us, and their set was good, but I suspect they were going through the motions a bit. Didn't seem as intense as when we played with them in San Antonio earlier this year. Our set was pretty good, not a great crowd, but okay for a Wednesday. There was a giant fan built into the wall behind me, sort of an exhaust fan in reverse. And it was loud. Made it a little difficult to hear what was going on, but not that difficult. And I like staying cool.
The next morning, we bid Santa Cruz adieu and headed south to Ventura. In all my California years, I don't believe I'd ever been there. We checked into a somewhat sleazy Motel 6 there and headed to the night's rock residence, the Red Cove. A funky place, for sure. Nice folks working there, but the set up was strange. The stage was really deep, which swallowed a lot of the sound. And the stage was a bit "soft," let's say. Everything sounded strange to me on stage, and it was one of my lesser moments playing. Just didn't have a good show. I think the others might have liked it more than I did. And...at the end of the night...we got stiffed. Or at least, the bar people on duty had nothing to pay us with. I was outside, jawing with Patrick while all this was going on, but there was something about the vibe of the place that....well, let's just say I wasn't terribly surprised. Jeff was going to have to go there the next morning and try to get paid. Hoo boy. And the night ended with a late night McDonald's run with a very drunk Cody mouthing off continually in the passenger seat. By the time we got back to the motel, I took my food (sic) and headed off to the opposite end of the motel to eat in peace. One thing I've started to learn more (finally, in my fifties!) is that it's better to just excuse yourself and find a corner to go to than start a bunch of shit with an otherwise likable bandmate.
Off to Los Angeles the next day. Jeff had booked rooms at a Ramada there, and I swear, it took us almost an hour to check in. There was new, fumbling, management and an upset guest in the lobby. I thought we'd never get our rooms. But we did, and then off we went, as you do (or used to, anyway), to Hollywood. As with most other cities in the U.S. of A., Hollywood has become a sort of gentrified Disneyland. It was still fun to walk amongst the stars in the pavement, and we ate at Roscoe's Chicken 'n' Waffles. It's amazing to me how many silent stars are amongst the memorialized in the pavement. And how many of them I actually know of and have seen their work!
We headed to the club, Cafe Nela, which was toward the north a bit and was an older punk rock dive that felt a bit like....home. The stage manager had everything running smoothly, with each band setting their equipment in one of four numbered spots outside the main floor. I'd never seen that sort of organization for a smallish club before. Interesting. And helpful, ultimately. The only thing I can say I didn't like about the club was their lack of water, even for the bands. You had to pay for water. Right before we went on, Pat Todd brought us all bottles of water....not sure where he got them, and I hope he didn't pay for them. Pat and his band went on before us, and before them was the Golden Rulers, a band fronted by Dave Duet, and they rocked most ferociously. Brian Stack was the drummer, and it was a lot of fun catching up with him. The last time I saw him he was throwing chairs around a club in Houston at a Honky show and was ejected. It was good to see him more in control, and he had a nice wife in tow. Our set was pretty damned sweet. (Recent development: a torrent of our set was found and just might become a live album for us. We'll see.) As a matter of fact, I might go so far as to say it was the best overall show of the tour. Cody got drunk again.
We had a late night sup at a cool Mexican joint, with some added "after hours restaurant drama" to entertain us, and then bunked in. Long drive the next day to Tucson.
Tucson. I hadn't been or played there since 2001, and it looked quite a bit different, too. A very white, gentrified, downtown area, where we played at a place called Club Congress. We were supposed to be able to stay in the adjoining hotel, but it was booked for the night. The club contact had set up rooms for us at a Ramada Inn about a mile away. No problem, really. While the rest of the band ate dinner with Rich Minus' brother, I snuck away to check into the hotel and get a little "me" time. We were on the home stretch, but I needed a little solo medicine.
The show was.....okay. Once again, we played a place where everything was well organized. I was able to fully set up before leaving for the hotel. The opening band, the Pork Torta, set up in front of us. Very entertaining band. Three-piece, with the drummer setting up in the middle, and singing the majority of the tunes. I dug 'em. Our set was all right, but a bit of a let down from the night before (as it would be, of course). Still, I thought we pulled it off well. Immediately after we finished (at 10:00!), a DJ began setting up to play dance music for the rest of the night. We hung around the downtown area for a bit before heading back to the hotel. Strange time. It was sort of like a big dance club party outside the club itself. Live music is definitely dying out in some towns. And Cody became insufferably drunk again.
We had another long drive the next day, to Marfa, so we headed out reasonably early. At some point in the trip (I don't remember where), we stopped at a casino (surprise!), and I had a truly excellent pizza there. Biggest food surprise of the tour. The waiter had recommended the steak and avocado sandwich special to everyone, and most got it. I opted for the pizza, and while the others only gave their sandwich an "okay" at best, well, I was in a bit of pizza heaven. I don't say (or write) that often.
We pulled into Marfa and had to start setting up quickly. It was a Sunday, but there were folks there waiting for a show. And we put one on. It was a strange set, and definitely not one of my best, but we entertained everyone, and that's the goal, right? I clammed something on PM, that, well, I'll just say, I hope I never do that one again. It's the type of thing I sometimes do when I'm tired, I'll put it that way. Ha! Good to see Jeffro, as always, and Todd and Bonnie Kassens happened to be there as well.
It seemed to take forever to get out of the club and on the road. And I have to admit, I was obsessed with watching the final episode of "Sharp Objects," which I did. On my phone, with an HBO app. Sad. But I enjoyed it! The drive back was pretty smooth. When we got back, Jeff asked me if we could just go to my house, and I'd take Rice home. I agreed it was best, although that meant 8:00 in the morning on a Monday, driving into Austin. I took the toll road and got back home within an hour.
That was the tour. No breakdowns (after the first day, anyway). Most of the shows were great; the only real duds were the Sunday/Tuesday of the first week. My leg cooperated more or less, although I have more ideas for the next van tour we'll do, assuming we do one. Once I got back on the exercise bike at home, I was fine after a couple of days. Damn knee. Well, I'll deal with it. And now I have a lot of video to catalog.
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