Hickoids / HMT 2019 Tour Tuesday/Wednesday, August 6/7

Tuesday was a fairly relaxed day before heading to the airport. I did get a bit of the "issue" resolved but not all. So, some pressure was off, but I dared not proceed with further chemical help for the time being. I did not need an emergency on an overseas flight!

After some hanging about getting food, and some walking around, and a fond farewell to Max, who took his van and greatly appreciated equipment, we headed to the Newark airport from Brooklyn in a taxi van. Our flight wasn't leaving until sometime around 9, so this was a leisurely non-hustle to the airport.

And wait we did - tacking on another 50 minutes or so, as our flight was going to be delayed some. The main issue for me with this was that Michelle was flying over to meet me there. Her flight was scheduled to land about 50 minutes before mine. Bringing her over was certainly a special treat, but I didn't want it to interfere in any way with any band activity.

But the United pilot stepped on it a bit, and we were only about 35 minutes late. Madrid's airport has two terminals for international flights, 1 and 4, and, as luck would have it, we arrived in Terminal 1 while Michelle was waiting at Terminal 4. Several confusing messages later, we figured it out. As our rental car was waiting at Terminal 1, I had her grab a shuttle over to Terminal 1, while I settled the rental car business. She got to our terminal right as I was wrapping things up at Hertz. We said our goodbyes to most of the band (Smitty was grabbing their rental vehicle at another, farther off kiosk), and we were off and running toward Benaoján, where she and I were staying for the Pueblos Blancos festival, the first part of this tour. As the festival was concentrated in a small area, this was the ideal time for Michelle to come over. We were off the first night, and then playing the next four.

But it was a fairly long haul to Benaoján from Madrid, and not an overly interesting one. And I was dead tired. Still, we made it in about six hours. I had gone the extra mile or twenty with the rental car, purchasing the separate insurance and getting a GPS on top of that. Didn't want to take any chances in a country I'd never been in before. This would pay off, it turned out - the insurance part, anyway. The GPS was problematic in the south of Spain, period. Next time, I'll stay with Google Maps.

And so, when we got to the vicinity of Benaoján, I could not find our hotel. GPS led us to an area called The Station, and I finally asked someone in my broken Spanish where the hotel was. The lady I asked had obviously been asked this a few times. She explained the general area where the hotel was, and after poking around that area a bit, we found it.

The hotel, Hotel Molino Cuatro Paradas, was definitely set off from the main road a bit. Our room was quite quaint (two "qu" words in a row!), just right for us. The area for breakfast was beside a small river, which, we found out, had risen to a full ten meters the previous October and flooded their entire first floor. They'd only become operational as a hotel again in recent months, and I believe a lot of the first floor was still unusable. All in all, it was perfect for us. The rest of the band was being housed just north of us in Montejaque, one of the festival sites. We spent the rest of Wednesday recuperating from the long drive and previous flying on little sleep. After eating dinner across the road at Venta Las Banderas, it was sleep for us.

Hickoids / HMT 2019 Tour Monday, August 5

Hey! Guess what we started the day with? That's right, leaving from Atlantic City. Although this time, it was the last time...we checked out of the hotel. And we had Max with us; he was retrieving his van after our Brooklyn show.

By this time, I was pretty much in constant discomfort from the "issue," but I tried not to let it be known. Smile and go along with things was my m.o. Still pretty much is this trip (I'm writing this on Aug. 21). But I did have a plan, and I was about to put it into action.

We got to Brooklyn early enough to check into our hotel, and grab a nap. Max decided to take a nap in our room, which was fine of course, but he lay on the side of the bed next to my already set up CPAP machine. He conked out quickly, so I went to the drug store to pick up an issue remedy. That's right, a laxative. Trouble was, I was going to have to time everything right. But at least a plan was set. Max got up from his nap, and I got a good hour and a half nap in before leaving for the club.

This evening's show was another Jonathan Toubin production at Our Wicked Lady. Someone was cooking Texas-style fare, and the people at the bar could not have been friendlier. More about that in a bit. The line-up turned out a bit overstuffed, but everything worked out in the end.

The show finally kicked off around 9 PM with a solo set from Max Jeffers. Unlike at the Baltimore brewery, a nice group of folks attentively watched Max perform his tunes. I think Max felt this and responded with intensity in kind. Great set.

Next up was a band including the Texas-bred boyfriend of a staff bartender; the band was called Lackadazies, a pretty powerful, stoney three-piece. Solid band. On the negative side, when I went to the drums following their set to begin the cymbal switch, their bass player told me "hey man, tell your bass player this rig's almost blown." After what had happened in Manhattan, I dreaded telling Rice, but I did. He shrugged.

The Harvey McLaughlin Trio squeezed into the line-up with a quick set of six songs. I felt the limited time influenced me to push the tempos a bit, but all went well and was warmly received. At least bass seemed to be coming through.

Before the HMT set, the head bartender (manager?) gave me a bottle of mezcal for the band. I told him half the band was sober, but he insisted, with the "from my heart" motion. Okay, I thought, so I stashed the bottle behind the bass rig. The key drinking members found out about the bottle soon enough. However, as the Hickoids were setting up, I noticed the bottle was gone. Then I was asked about it by one of our Drinky McDrinkingtons. Someone (I forget who) said "oh yeah, the sound man grabbed that bottle." I went to ask him about it, and he said he thought we'd brought it in. I laughed and explained how that nice bartender fellow had given it to us. He looked surprised and went to retrieve it for us, apologizing profusely. I told him I completely understood and all was well!

The Hickoids set was a helluva lot of fun. A great demonstrative audience makes it better every time. Plus, again, it was fun playing in front of my ol' pal Jonathan. Even though he's almost ten years my junior, the positive effect he had on my life is incalculable. I mean that. And I'm a much better, more relaxed drummer than I was in those days; I wanted to show him. The whole band had a good night, although yes, the bass situation could have been better.

Back to the "issue": I took a laxative right when the Hickoids began playing. I was hoping for relief sometime during the night. (Aren't you glad you're reading this?) Well....almost nothing happened. A bit of relief, let's say, but not nearly enough. This was obviously not going to be corrected until Spain. I was just going to have to grin and bear it. Not an easy task. Still, on to Spain....

Hickoids / HMT 2019 Tour Sunday, August 4

The day's journey into rockdom of course begins with a three-hour (this time) journey from Atlantic City. These drives quickly became a drag. Especially for ol' Drummer McBadleg here. Between at least 5-6 hours in the van daily, along with the crappy food one finds along I-95...I was not in a good place. That's when some, let's say "irregularity," began. It had actually begun the night before when I had quite a painful "session." Quote marks aren't going to help this, are they? This issue of non-expellation would continue into Spain. But hey, it's not all bad stuff, back to the regular rock-and-roll life...

The club in Washington D.C. was called the Black Cat, was pretty nice overall, and expertly run. There was a large room in the back of the building that we had to carry gear through (after lifting the gear up on a freight elevator), but the smaller front room was really great, and crisply air conditioned. All the staff were extremely helpful, although we did have to pretty much run our own sound.

The big bonus this night was that the Harvey McLaughlin Trio was going to play! And we ran off all 10 we had in grand fashion. Well, you've read how much I enjoy playing in this configuration. Fun, or "Ffun," as ConFunkShun would spell it.

The Hickoids set went well enough, with a nice smattering of folks there to see us. The door was being run as "donation admission," perhaps due to it being a Sunday. I don't recall anything great or awful about this show, so I'm betting it was okay.

Maybe one thing I should mention is that due to the eye procedure I had in mid-July, I've been wearing protective racquetball-style glasses when I play, although I often forget to put them on before the first song. They were recommended by the eye surgeon; I'm complying. But one side effect I'm having is that as the inside of the glasses gets sweaty, my vision becomes tripendicular, dude. Like to the point of the snare drum looking like it's flipping while I play. Kind of funny, for sure, and not as distracting as one might think. At least I'm taking it that way.

After this show, we had the additional duty of picking up Max in Annapolis, as he was taking his van and equipment back after the Monday show in Brooklyn. Max was staying with us tonight. So we picked him up, and then headed to.....(sigh).....Atlantic City.

My "trouble" continued...

Hickoids / HMT 2019 Tour Saturday, Aug 3

The second gig of the tour was at the Waverly Brewery in Baltimore, home of both John Waters and "The Wire." I like that. But of course, we had a 2.5 hour drive from Atlantic City to endure first. (I was quickly going to dislike these commutes.)

The Waverly Brewery had a pretty small area to play in, not really a stage-style setup. And some folks were having a birthday party off to the left of the playing area, which made setup somewhat difficult. Max Jeffers of Western Star opened the show solo (turns out Western Star hadn't played in about a year). He played several songs that were tolerated, maybe even politely received, by the birthday partiers and the few other folks scattered around. Then it was our turn.

I was again using Bob's drums, and Bob was there with his girlfriend. Our set went fine and entertained the smattering of folks. Also, Max brought Rice a new bass head to use that worked, making Rice notably happier. At one point, during "Stop It," Max began feeding me pizza during the story section. He got to the point of just tossing pieces of slices at me. So, I got to eat a bit. I did have a notable snafu in "Working Man's Friend," when my stick got caught on my ride cymbal twice in a row during the triplet runs toward the end. I tried to make up for it by throwing several sticks in the air as a joke on the very last crash, but even that went awry, and sticks rained down on poor Smitty! Oops!

And then we drove back to Atlantic City for more bruhs and criminally overstuffed dresses. But here was the view from the hotel room (just to brush off some of the negative):

Hickoids (and a bit o' Harvey McLaughlin Trio) 2019Tour Begins

So, off we go. Friday, August 2nd. First stop: Home Sweet Home in Manhattan, home base to my old friend Jonathan Toubin's New York Night Train dance parties.

So, the set up was this: Jeff and Patrick flew to BWI airport and went to Max Jeffers' place in Annapolis to pick up his van, along with some equipment for our dates (drums, amps, etc.). Cody had already gone up on Tuesday to hang with his girlfriend in NYC. That left Rice, Tom, and yours truly bringing up the rear, flying into La Guardia and on to the gig. Of course, as air travel is unpredictable, our connecting flight in Dallas departed late, about 45 minutes.

Still, we made it to La Guardia only about 35 minutes late, but that still meant we had to hurry to get to the gig. The music needed to be done by 11, and we were getting into the airport about 8:15. So , the only workable solution was to take some sort of Uber/taxi directly to the gig. A gentleman near the airport exit doors asked if we needed transpo, and I immediately said "yes," figuring it would be overpriced. I didn't care - let's get there. And we did. He hustled us over there quickly. I won't write here what the price was, but we got there just in time.

Luckily, our borrowed van was parked in front of the club, so our luggage could be stowed quickly. The opening band, Teenage Cave Girl, had just finished. The drummer playing with Animal Show (a two-piece this night for some reason) was struggling with setting up our borrowed kit (from Bob of Western Star), and I knew nothing of it, either. But we got the kit set up after a bit, and the makeshift Animal Show played about 30 minutes.

As we were getting set up. Rice discovered the bass rig didn't work, so he had to be patched into the soundboard directly and sharing a channel with Patrick. We couldn't hear him, he couldn't hear himself, and yet, audience members seemed to hear him fine, from what I heard later.

We didn't start until 11, but we were allowed to go 'till midnight. Crowd response was fantastic, and I thought the gig was a good start, although Rice obviously didn't think so. It was fun being able to play in front of my old friend.

Immediately after we finished, the dance party began, and people crowded every bit of the room, including the stage, making strike and load out a challenge, to say the least. Hard to complain, when everybody's dancing and in a fun mood. A couple of our folks weren't in the best frame of mind, but we got it all in the van. And then it was off to Atlantic City.

Uh, let's see....how do I put this? We were staying in the Harrah's casino in what were admittedly very nice rooms. But the clientele there is something almost unbelieveable. Take your average Jerry Springer Show guest and factorialize that by ten. Seriously. Dudes strutting around, bumping into you without a care (and almost knocking you over)....women stuffed into revealing dresses at least three sizes too small....and at 4 am, which is usually when we'd return from a gig, swarms of them. My jaw was probably open during every long walk to the hotel room. Wow. Many of these specimens probably voted, too. Jesus. I'll pick up with tomorrow's activities in the next post.