TOUR DIARY

The Green Pajamas And Boatclub Tour Diary, Part 5

January 1, 2010

GreenPajamasDay5Touring the U.S. in the chill of December is always problematical, unless you’ve decided to play only in Florida and California and have access to dad’s Learjet to get from the land of orange juice to the Golden State. You’d think MAGNET’s Jud Cost, a grizzled veteran of the music wars, would have figured that out before he volunteered to accompany his old friends in the Green Pajamas and boatclub on a short Portland-to-Seattle jaunt and write about what went down. But with visions of Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey shepherding the Grateful Dead in 1965 flashing in his head, the lure may have been irresistible. Formed in 1982 by Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross when they discovered a mutual love of the Beatles’ “Rain,” the Green Pajamas have been on the scene longer than any current Seattle band. Their admirable endurance can be credited both to a steady stream of fine albums created mainly by Kelly and the fact they play out only a handful of times each year. Oakland’s boatclub features both guitarists from ’80s Paisley Underground stalwarts Rain Parade, Matt Piucci and John Thoman. They also boast an excellent third stringbender, Mark Hanley, who formerly accompanied onetime Quicksilver Messenger Service vocalist Dino Valenti, as well as drummer Stephan Junca, who (like Piucci) occasionally plays with Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot. Read Cost’s recent Green Pajamas Q&A.

The Green Pajamas’ ”Rattlesnake Kiss” (download):

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Monday, December 7
 I awoke early on getaway day to what I thought was the sound of police sirens in the distance, a highly unlikely prospect in sleepy Manzanita, all but deserted for the winter season. It was only the bitter wind, now gusting to 50 mph, blowing through the rafters. Steve had pointed out the moonlit spot last night where they had once seen an elk in the wetlands that passes for their beach-front backyard, but even the local critters were bundled up early on this frigid morning. I went upstairs to watch TV, soon joined by John Thoman, wandering the battlements like Marley’s ghost. It suddenly occurred to me that I never once saw the guy eat or sleep during the entire trip, although he did claim he’d visited a few Dairy Queens somewhere along the way. Piucci got off the best one-liner of the tour (by borrowing a quote from a recent Bizarro comic strip) when he referred to Thoman as being a previous member of famed Aussie rock band OCD/C. The unflappable Thoman decided he would wake Junca, his copilot for the drive home, before the sun came up so they could get an early start. “The irony of this is incredible, John,” barked the groggy drummer at the guy who had been late for just about every time-check so far on the tour. “You’re going to get us killed, driving on roads like these in the dark!” To return south to the S.F. Bay Area from Manzanita, you first must drive 75 miles north, over another icy pass, all the way back to Portland, then aim due south for the final 690-mile drive home. We all made the return journey in one piece, although it took me two days to complete the open-road course. Driving solo now, since Rachel had flown home the day before and we’d reshuffled the deck, I held out until Redding about 500 miles to the south, just across the California border, before I started seeing chipmunks darting across the road that weren’t there. I decided wisely to shut it down. A couple episodes of Seinfeld, a Twix bar from the candy machine (it didn’t stick) and a good night’s sleep at the first decent motel I could find was just the ticket. Then a hearty breakfast at a nearby greasy-spoon truckstop, where the good old boys were loading up on steak, eggs, grits, gravy, pancakes and biscuits, and I felt like a new man the next morning.

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The Green Pajamas And Boatclub Tour Diary, Part 4

December 31, 2009

GreenPajamasDay4Touring the U.S. in the chill of December is always problematical, unless you’ve decided to play only in Florida and California and have access to dad’s Learjet to get from the land of orange juice to the Golden State. You’d think MAGNET’s Jud Cost, a grizzled veteran of the music wars, would have figured that out before he volunteered to accompany his old friends in the Green Pajamas and boatclub on a short Portland-to-Seattle jaunt and write about what went down. But with visions of Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey shepherding the Grateful Dead in 1965 flashing in his head, the lure may have been irresistible. Formed in 1982 by Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross when they discovered a mutual love of the Beatles’ “Rain,” the Green Pajamas have been on the scene longer than any current Seattle band. Their admirable endurance can be credited both to a steady stream of fine albums created mainly by Kelly and the fact they play out only a handful of times each year. Oakland’s boatclub features both guitarists from ’80s Paisley Underground stalwarts Rain Parade, Matt Piucci and John Thoman. They also boast an excellent third stringbender, Mark Hanley, who formerly accompanied onetime Quicksilver Messenger Service vocalist Dino Valenti, as well as drummer Stephan Junca, who (like Piucci) occasionally plays with Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot. Read Cost’s recent Green Pajamas Q&A.

The Green Pajamas’ ”Looking For Heaven” (download):

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Sunday, December 6
 Up bright and early this morning to greet the Kelly daughters, first Tess, then Jane, with what I thought were can’t-miss literary salutations (”Good morning, Tess of the D’Urbervilles”; “Good morning Jane of Lantern Hill”) and received a well deserved non-reaction from each. Which just goes to show they’ve become normal teenage girls, rather than just the precocious offspring of a brilliant singer/songwriter and an equally dazzling painter (which they have always been). I pick up Hanley at the Ross guest house and serenade Joe’s infant son Lincoln with the refrain from Shirley Ellis’ 1965 hit “The Name Game” (”Lincoln, Lincoln, bo-Pincoln/Banana-fanna, fo-Fincoln/Me my mo-Mincoln: Lincoln!”) Not much reaction from this kid, either. Maybe I’m losing my touch with the youngsters. We point the Mini Cooper back toward Portland and hope for the best on the upcoming 50-mile two-lane road out to the Pacific coast. Highway 30 to Astoria has been dusted with snow this morning, and we have to be wary of black ice on the pass that crests around 1,500 feet. I slow down, no doubt pissing off locals behind me who want to go 65 in what looks like slippery conditions. We pull over halfway down the coast at a place called Bell Buoy for the best crab cocktail I’ve ever tasted (”Fresh off the boat,” says the lady behind the counter) and finally arrive at our last port of call, Manzanita, Ore. It’s the unlikely site for tonight’s show at a local watering hole called the San Dune Pub. No one knows why there’s no “d” in San Dune. The temperature has dropped into the teens and there’s a 40-mph wind beating down on us. Sure, this would be a balmy evening if you’re from Edmonton, but to a wimpy bunch of Californians who whine when it gets below 50, it’s pretty miserable. But the sandwiches are good and the show goes down surprisingly well. And the rest room is heated to about 200 degrees. Steve and Melissa have a beach house in Manzanita, and they’ve put the word out among their many friends who have shown up by the dozens. Melissa is overjoyed to find the current edition of the Cannon Beach Citizen is running my press release of tonight’s show as a page-11 feature. When he heard of our final destination, Scott McCaughey had warned earlier, “If there was a gig in Manzanita, believe me, I’d know about it.” But the boys peddled a few of their self-produced CDs tonight and got to play some stuff I’ve never heard them do, such as Hanley singing lead on “Fresh Air,” the Dino Valenti-penned 1970 West Coast AOR radio hit by Quicksilver Messenger Service. We downed a few bottles of cabernet along with a few slabs of local Tillamook cheese to celebrate mission accomplished back at Steve and Melissa’s fab two-story beach place before hitting the sack.

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The Green Pajamas And Boatclub Tour Diary, Part 3

December 30, 2009

GreenPajamasDay3Touring the U.S. in the chill of December is always problematical, unless you’ve decided to play only in Florida and California and have access to dad’s Learjet to get from the land of orange juice to the Golden State. You’d think MAGNET’s Jud Cost, a grizzled veteran of the music wars, would have figured that out before he volunteered to accompany his old friends in the Green Pajamas and boatclub on a short Portland-to-Seattle jaunt and write about what went down. But with visions of Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey shepherding the Grateful Dead in 1965 flashing in his head, the lure may have been irresistible. Formed in 1982 by Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross when they discovered a mutual love of the Beatles’ “Rain,” the Green Pajamas have been on the scene longer than any current Seattle band. Their admirable endurance can be credited both to a steady stream of fine albums created mainly by Kelly and the fact they play out only a handful of times each year. Oakland’s boatclub features both guitarists from ’80s Paisley Underground stalwarts Rain Parade, Matt Piucci and John Thoman. They also boast an excellent third stringbender, Mark Hanley, who formerly accompanied onetime Quicksilver Messenger Service vocalist Dino Valenti, as well as drummer Stephan Junca, who (like Piucci) occasionally plays with Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot. Read Cost’s recent Green Pajamas Q&A.

The Green Pajamas’ ”Wild Pony” (download):

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Saturday December 5
 Music Millennium, a wonderful two-story independent record shop and a fine example of something that’s becoming a vanishing species on the American landscape, is our next stop for a 1:00 pm instore by both bands. Playing from a second-floor stage, they turn down the volume with a pair of superb, semi-acoustic sets. The most touching moment of every boatclub performance on tour has to be when Matt asks his brother Steve to join the band on keyboards for a pair of Rain Parade chestnuts: “This Can’t Be Today” and “Blue.” It’s also good to see former Bay Area resident Tim Hinely drop by with his button-cute two-year-old daughter, Sophia, in tow. I tell Hinely (who still publishes his own mag, Dagger, as well as contributes to MAGNET and Blurt) about the time I dragged my daughter to a 1978 San Jose instore to meet the Ramones as they signed copies of Ramones Leave Home. And now it’s time for boatclub to leave the comfortable home of Steve and “Auntie Mel” and hit the bricks to Seattle, 170 miles to the north. I’m staying with the Kellys—Jeff, Susanne, Jane and Tess—out in the U District (close to the University of Washington), but the rest are booked into Joe Ross’ guest house in West Seattle. I’ve logged plenty of time in West Seattle (interviews with McCaughey, True West and Fleet Foxes) and thought I knew my way around. Hanley and I soon spot Luna Park Cafe about two blocks from Ross’ place, but due to flawed directions from air traffic control, we somehow wind up back on the West Seattle Bridge, going the wrong way. The first off-ramp, instead of sending us under the bridge back in the right direction, shoots us due north on the 99 expressway instead, and we can’t get off. As Safeco Field (home of the Mariners), Qwest Field (home of the Seahawks) and finally Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle zip by in a blur, Hanley and I start laughing so hard the tears are rolling. Elapsed time to find Ross’ guest house must be a West Seattle record of 90 minutes. I finally arrive mumbling at the Kelly’s place, normally a very sleepy neighborhood, after getting stuck in post-UW Huskies vs. California Golden Bears football traffic. Just time for two beers, a few smokes and we’re off to the gig at The Lo-Fi Performance Gallery. Having recommended the venue to Ross, Bumbershoot artistic director Chris Porter is here tonight and seems open to a possible future date by both the Pajamas and boatclub at the esteemed Seattle festival. A surprise guest is none other than Pat Thomas, erstwhile guru of S.F.’s Heyday Records, onetime home to such lauded indie rockers as Chris Cacavas, Barbara Manning, Chuck Prophet and former Rain Paraders Piucci and Steven Roback. Thomas pulled up stakes recently to get his bachelor’s degree in nearby OIympia in order to become an English teacher. In spite of a semi-obnoxious, well-oiled heckler who insists on performing tumbling routines well beyond his modest capabilities while young girls continue to bring him drinks, the show goes flawlessly tonight, wrapping up with both bands joining forces for a 20-minute version of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine staple “It’s All Too Much.” And it almost is … but not quite.

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The Green Pajamas And Boatclub Tour Diary, Part 2

December 29, 2009

greenpajamasDay2Touring the U.S. in the chill of December is always problematic, unless you’ve decided to play only in Florida and California and have access to dad’s Learjet to get from the land of orange juice to the Golden State. You’d think MAGNET’s Jud Cost, a grizzled veteran of the music wars, would have figured that out before he volunteered to accompany his old friends in the Green Pajamas and boatclub on a short Portland-to-Seattle jaunt and write about what went down. But with visions of Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey shepherding the Grateful Dead in 1965 flashing in his head, the lure may have been irresistible. Formed in 1982 by Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross when they discovered a mutual love of the Beatles’ “Rain,” the Green Pajamas have been on the scene longer than any current Seattle band. Their admirable endurance can be credited both to a steady stream of fine albums created mainly by Kelly and the fact they play out only a handful of times each year. Oakland’s boatclub features both guitarists from ’80s Paisley Underground stalwarts Rain Parade, Matt Piucci and John Thoman. They also boast an excellent third stringbender, Mark Hanley, who formerly accompanied onetime Quicksilver Messenger Service vocalist Dino Valenti, as well as drummer Stephan Junca, who (like Piucci) occasionally plays with Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot. Read Cost’s recent Green Pajamas Q&A.

The Green Pajamas’ ”All The Lost Kisses” (download):

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Friday, December 4
 We mosey down to the Portland venue tonight, a tiny joint booked by Portland scenester/record mogul Jim Huie, called Kelly’s Olympian, decked out like a vintage biker bar with collectible Indian motorcycles hanging from the rafters. We take band pix in front of ancient gasoline pumps and under a huge purple octopus dangling from a shop across the street. It’s hard to believe I haven’t seen the Pajamas play live since we all flew together from Seattle to London in 1999 to play Terrastock III. Since then, Joe Ross is still on bass, but drummer Karl Wilhelm has been replaced by Scott Vanderpool, husband of Laura Weller, now Kelly’s able-bodied vocal (and guitar) foil. Eric Lichter still plays keyboards and contributes originals to each new LP (their most recent is the excellent Poison In The Russian Room on Hidden Agenda). Kelly and Ross, who founded the GPJs in 1982, are pretty pumped about finally getting to play with Piucci, whose Rain Parade was a template for their own band. “I always wanted to sound like Rain Parade,” Kelly told me years ago in a MAGNET feature. The Pajamas pay tribute to Piucci’s Crazy Horse roots by opening with their most Rust Never Sleeps-style number. A pair of shopworn, neo-psych gems are dragged out of the steamer trunk tonight by both bands. The Pajamas play “Kim The Waitress,” their college radio hit from the ’80s, and boatclub dusts off Rain Parade’s first single, 1982’s “What She’s Done To Your Mind.” Kelly’s mild protests about having to play “Kim” one more time are brushed aside by Piucci later at the bar. “Hey, it’s not as if you’re Brian Wilson and have to play ‘Surfer Girl’ for the 10-thousandth time,” he reminds Kelly in his booming baritone. Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, Minus 5, R.E.M.), now living in Portland, shows up just in time to catch the live sounds. We yak about mutual pal Jimmy Silva (who died in 1994 after complications from chicken pox) and the Silva tribute album I’ve been working on for about two years, a set that will feature the Fellows, Minus 5, Jon Auer, Chris Eckman (Walkabouts), Dennis Diken (Smithereens), Roy Loney (Flamin’ Groovies) and Sal Valentino (Beau Brummels). Back in Steve and Melissa’s kitchen late that night, Thoman finally shows up with a couple dozen extra-large specialty items from Voodoo Doughnut. “They were about to close so they gave us some extras,” he says as he doles out chocolate-covered, glazed voodoo dolls with pretzels inserted in the chest in place of hatpins, as well as mammoth jelly donuts covered with Cap’n Crunch cereal. Blood-sugar testing is optional.

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The Green Pajamas And Boatclub Tour Diary, Part 1

December 28, 2009

greenPajamasDay1Touring the U.S. in the chill of December is always problematic, unless you’ve decided to play only in Florida and California and have access to dad’s Learjet to get from the land of orange juice to the Golden State. You’d think MAGNET’s Jud Cost, a grizzled veteran of the music wars, would have figured that out before he volunteered to accompany his old friends in the Green Pajamas and boatclub on a short Portland-to-Seattle jaunt and write about what went down. But with visions of Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey shepherding the Grateful Dead in 1965 flashing in his head, the lure may have been irresistible. Formed in 1982 by Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross when they discovered a mutual love of the Beatles’ “Rain,” the Green Pajamas have been on the scene longer than any current Seattle band. Their admirable endurance can be credited both to a steady stream of fine albums created mainly by Kelly and the fact they play out only a handful of times each year. Oakland’s boatclub features both guitarists from ’80s Paisley Underground stalwarts Rain Parade, Matt Piucci and John Thoman. They also boast an excellent third stringbender, Mark Hanley, who formerly accompanied onetime Quicksilver Messenger Service vocalist Dino Valenti, as well as drummer Stephan Junca, who (like Piucci) occasionally plays with Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot. Read Cost’s recent Green Pajamas Q&A.

The Green Pajamas’ ”Any Way The Wind Blows” (download):

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Thursday, December 3
 The weather forecast for Oregon and Washington early this morning was dismal as boatclub (no caps, no definite article, and they’re from Oakland, godammit, not San Francisco!) took off for a short tour of the great frozen Pacific Northwest to hook up with our buddies from Seattle, the Green Pajamas. Because even a rental mini-van was deemed too expensive for this budget-minded caravan, we decided to do the tour Nina, Pinta & Santa Maria-style with three of our personal vehicles. Since the jaunt was also to be a tribute to the Johnny Appleseed-like, LSD-greening of Oregon more than 40 years ago by the Merry Pranksters (writer Ken Kesey, former Jack Kerouac sidekick Neal Cassady, the peachfuzzed Grateful Dead and others) who daubed an old school bus with dayglo paint, dubbed it “FURTHUR” and aimed it north, we all assumed code names for the duration. Former Rain Parade guitarist Matt Piucci was “Jerry,” guitarist Mark Hanley was “Weir,” drummer Stephan Junca was “Bill the Drummer” and another ex-Rain Parade guitarist, John Thoman, was “Lesh.” I was “Kesey,” so I had to bring a notepad and pen and try to remain upright to make some sense of our voyage. Hanley rode shotgun with Piucci in his white Palm Beach-gangster “Big Pussy” LTD limo (limited to only 10 million); Junca and I lit out in my dark-red Mini Cooper; while Thoman and his wife Rachel lagged behind as most of the gear was stowed in his boxy little metallic green Honda Element. Junca and I tried to get the rest to pull over in Redding, 300 miles to the north, for a leisurely Thai lunch. But no, the siren’s song of fast food was too much for Piucci and Hanley who gulped something down in Weed, Calif. (”I knew you’d stop there. You’re so predictable!” I railed at Piucci on the cell.)  About 20 miles south of Portland (and 670 miles into our journey), as the temperature dipped into the low-20s, the tour was almost scuppered before it began. Stuck in the fast lane with a concrete barricade directly on my left, I attempted to pass a speeding 18-wheel juggernaut in the number-two lane. Just before I reached the midpoint of the maneuver, the trucker signaled and began to pull into my lane for reasons known only to him. With nowhere to go, we were about to be smashed like a mosquito as he inched ever closer (or worse still, swatted over the barricade like a badminton birdie into oncoming traffic). Without thinking, I slammed on my brakes, didn’t get rear-ended by the astute driver behind me and eased backward out of the danger zone just as the dimwitted trucker completed his lane change. Capt. Sully Sullenberger probably couldn’t have done it much better. We were too rattled to see if there was a “How’s My Driving?” sign with an 800 number on the back of his truck. We arrived at the beautiful, prairie-style home of Matt’s brother, Portland attorney Steve Piucci and his wife Melissa Powers, just in time to watch what was one of the biggest sporting events in Oregon history: the annual Civil War college football classic between Oregon and Oregon State, with the winner tabbed to play Ohio State in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. The Oregon Ducks, wearing one of their myriad mix ‘n’ match uniforms, finally prevailed over the black-and-orange clad Oregon State Beavers to nab the roses. As an ice rink grows overnight on the deck outside, we dream of balmy Pasadena far to the south.

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God’s Pottery Tour Diary, Part 5

December 25, 2009

7_Menomonie550

God’s Pottery is a New York-based Christian singing duo that achieved national recognition via its appearance last year on the TV show Last Comic Standing. Jeremiah Smallchild and Gideon Lamb spread their gospel through original songs such as “The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” and “Jesus I Need A Drink.” Not content to testify just with its music, God’s Pottery decided to write a teen survival guide that would speak to today’s youth, Christian or otherwise. What Would God’s Pottery Do?: The Ultimate Guide To Surviving Your Teens And/Or Being Successful! (Three Rivers Press) tackles the tough issues, including acne, deafness, evolution and the evils lurking on the Internet. Smallchild and Lamb recently toured the U.S. and kept a tour bible, er, diary for MAGNET. And remember, kids: virginity rocks!

“The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” (download):

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Menomonie, Wisc., November 22
 We drove up from Madison to Menomonie for our show at the Mabel Tainter Center For The Arts. Menomonie is a lovely old lumber town that is now home to a small university and is surrounded by fertile farmland. The Mabel Tainter is to theaters what sugar-free gum is to gum: awesome. Tim opened the show and had a great set, and then he brought us on, and we were jazzed to see a full house!!! Then we saw a bunch of old friends and family at our “afterglow” downstairs. It was a wonderful show and a perfect end to the tour. Here’s a photo with Tim and us in the front row and Adrianne, Pinckney, Susan, Jane and Bob in the back!

We flew back to NYC from the Minneapolis airport the next day, and on the way back, Jeremiah noticed something out the window and said, “Look Gideon! A rainbow!” (See photo after the jump.)

And Gideon said, “Hold on a second. Considering where we are, that’s a plane-bow!” And we had a good laugh. And then the guy in our row laughed, too, but it sounded different from our laughter. It was like he didn’t want us to see him laughing, and like he was laughing at someone rather than something.

It was a great tour, and we look forward to a whole lot more “road time” soon!

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God’s Pottery Tour Diary, Part 4

December 24, 2009

6_Rhonda

God’s Pottery is a New York-based Christian singing duo that achieved national recognition via its appearance last year on the TV show Last Comic Standing. Jeremiah Smallchild and Gideon Lamb spread their gospel through original songs such as “The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” and “Jesus I Need A Drink.” Not content to testify just with its music, God’s Pottery decided to write a teen survival guide that would speak to today’s youth, Christian or otherwise. What Would God’s Pottery Do?: The Ultimate Guide To Surviving Your Teens And/Or Being Successful! (Three Rivers Press) tackles the tough issues, including acne, deafness, evolution and the evils lurking on the Internet. Smallchild and Lamb recently toured the U.S. and kept a tour bible, er, diary for MAGNET. And remember, kids: virginity rocks!

“The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” (download):

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Madison, Wisc., November 21
 With Tim driving the car, we hit the road for Madison. We stopped in Wilmette, Ill., on our way to visit our friend Kyle, who has a huge dog. (See photo after the jump.)

Kyle calls his dog “Mr. Smith,” which shows immense respect for this immense dog. We enjoyed some soup and mini-pizzas (thanks, Kyle!), and then it was time to get moving because there’s a saying in show business: “If you’re gonnna be late, you may as well forget about coming at all, because everyone will be so mad at you.”

We rolled into Madison around 5:30 p.m. and saw the lovely capitol building right away—easy to spot because it stands proud, white and rotund, like Rush Limbaugh. We had two shows that night at a place called The Project Lodge, but they may as well have called it “The Smile Factory” when we were done! (We were also thinking they might change the name of the city from Madison to Glad-ison!) Also, we got to meet our Facebook friend, Rhonda!

We had taken a picture for Rhonda at an earlier show, but this time we got to take a picture with Rhonda, which included the picture we had taken for Rhonda from before!!! It was her birthday, and we were so happy to celebrate it with her!!!

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God’s Pottery Tour Diary, Part 3

December 23, 2009

4lakeshore

God’s Pottery is a New York-based Christian singing duo that achieved national recognition via its appearance last year on the TV show Last Comic Standing. Jeremiah Smallchild and Gideon Lamb spread their gospel through original songs such as “The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” and “Jesus I Need A Drink.” Not content to testify just with its music, God’s Pottery decided to write a teen survival guide that would speak to today’s youth, Christian or otherwise. What Would God’s Pottery Do?: The Ultimate Guide To Surviving Your Teens And/Or Being Successful! (Three Rivers Press) tackles the tough issues, including acne, deafness, evolution and the evils lurking on the Internet. Smallchild and Lamb recently toured the U.S. and kept a tour bible, er, diary for MAGNET. And remember, kids: virginity rocks!

“The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” (download):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

Chicago, November 19
 Chicago is “[our] kind of city,” as Frank Sinatra sang! Chicago is so friendly that it even says “hi” in its name! (C-hi-cago!) You might be surprised to find out that Chicago is not that windy despite its nickname, the Windy City, but it does have plenty of broad-shouldered people, which fits its other nickname, the City of the Broad-Shouldered People.

Our first stop was at the Old Navy-brand Pier by the ocean to record a segment for The Sound Of Young America! Our host, Jesse Thorn, was actually in Los Angeles, but they used “technology” to make it sound like we were in the same room! We were worried that this was dishonest and would trick listeners needlessly, but they told us that maybe we should just focus on helping the Youth and let them focus on the public-radio business. Fair enough!

After the radio “sesh,” we went to a diner and had a healthful pre-show meal—including sweet-and-sour cabbage soup (delicious!)—and then it was on to the beautiful Lakeshore Theater! We did our “sound check” (when you make sure all the equipment works and there’s enough bottled water onstage), and then our friend and opening act Tim Harmston showed up and it was time for the show! We had a fun audience and made some new friends. Here is a picture of the marquee on the theater from that night.

We were very happy to share the marquee with our good friend Glenn Wool, who was performing the next night, but not so happy about the Intergalactic Sex Rodeo. Rodeos are OK, but Sex Rodeos are just trouble-on-a-stick, and when you introduce other galaxies and probably lasers into the mix, well then it’s clearly not a good idea! (We also didn’t like the possible interpretation that God’s Pottery and Glenn Wool might combine to form an Intergalactic Sex Rodeo.)

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God’s Pottery Tour Diary, Part 2

December 22, 2009

2_PingPong

God’s Pottery is a New York-based Christian singing duo that achieved national recognition via its appearance last year on the TV show Last Comic Standing. Jeremiah Smallchild and Gideon Lamb spread their gospel through original songs such as “The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” and “Jesus I Need A Drink.” Not content to testify just with its music, God’s Pottery decided to write a teen survival guide that would speak to today’s youth, Christian or otherwise. What Would God’s Pottery Do?: The Ultimate Guide To Surviving Your Teens And/Or Being Successful! (Three Rivers Press) tackles the tough issues, including acne, deafness, evolution and the evils lurking on the Internet. Smallchild and Lamb recently toured the U.S. and kept a tour bible, er, diary for MAGNET. And remember, kids: virginity rocks!

“The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” (download):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

Bellingham, Wash., November 6
 We arrived in Bellingham on a rainy Friday afternoon. (Rainy in the Pacific Northwest?! What?!!!!) But the rain didn’t get us down because we were so excited to stay with Jeremiah’s cousin Veronica and her family! On our way up to Bellingham, Jeremiah was playing around and joking that we should call it “Hamming-Bell” and “Hemming-Ball.” And then Gideon said, “Yeah, or maybe ‘Helling-Bam!’” And then we both realized how dangerous that was because it incorporated the word “H*ll” in the name, and a H*lling-Bam would actually be quite frightening. So we stopped joking at that point and just focused on the road.

We went straight to Jeremiah’s cousin Veronica’s house, which is perched high on a bluff overlooking Bellingham Bay, which is quite picturesque. I bet the first people to settle there thought, “Yep, this looks like the place. It’s super beautiful here. Plus, we’ve got one of the ‘corner booths’ of the USA!” We rested up for our show, which was good because we needed the extra energy to interact with this crowd! We also needed the extra energy because they had ping-pong backstage. But not very many nutritious snacks. (See photo after the jump.)

We had a lovely audience at the Nightlight Lounge that seemed to embrace our message and experience a real L&L (“Laugh & Learn” ™). Everyone had a great time, including us. There is plenty of vim in Bellingham! (And also granola!)

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God’s Pottery Tour Diary, Part 1

December 21, 2009

1_ChopSueyGod’s Pottery is a New York-based Christian singing duo that achieved national recognition via its appearance last year on the TV show Last Comic Standing. Jeremiah Smallchild and Gideon Lamb spread their gospel through original songs such as “The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” and “Jesus I Need A Drink.” Not content to testify just with its music, God’s Pottery decided to write a teen survival guide that would speak to today’s youth, Christian or otherwise. What Would God’s Pottery Do?: The Ultimate Guide To Surviving Your Teens And/Or Being Successful! (Three Rivers Press) tackles the tough issues, including acne, deafness, evolution and the evils lurking on the Internet. Smallchild and Lamb recently toured the U.S. and kept a tour bible, er, diary for MAGNET. And remember, kids: virginity rocks!

“The Pants Come Off When The Ring Goes On” (download):

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Seattle, November 5
 Our tour began in Seattle. Or as we like to call it, “Our favorite city with a two-stop monorail!” Now, we’re not trying to boast, but when we travel, we often stay in hotels … and have our own beds! Such was the case in Seattle, so before heading out for the “gig,” we dropped our stuff off and made good use of the complimentary coffee machine and water fountain.

Then, it was off to Chop Suey, which sounds like either a delicious restaurant or rollicking Jackie Chan movie but is actually a music and comedy club! Of course, for our show it was a music club. (We’re not really comedians, though we do like to have fun along with our teachings.) There was a big weather system moving through Seattle that night, and we actually almost got caught in a hailstorm! This led to a fun game of other rhyming storms it might be fun to get caught in. Gideon suggested a “whalestorm,” but Jeremiah counseled him that that could actually be quite dangerous, what with all the whales falling from the sky. We decided that a “malestorm” might be the best, since it’s always great to chill with the guys and just “let it all hang out.”

We had a great show to kick off the tour and really got through to some of the Youth in attendance! Just look at this photo! Talk about making a difference!

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The Ettes Tour Diary

November 27, 2009

EttesgroupThe Ettes may be based in Nashville, but they are self-described rock ‘n’ roll gypsies. The quartet—vocalist/guitarist Coco Hames, bassist Jem Cohen, drummer Poni Silver and new guitarist Johnny (who doesn’t seem to have a last name)—recently got in the van for a month-long stint opening for Juliette Lewis in support of third album Do You Want Power (Take Root) and its contribution to the Whip It soundtrack. Hames kept a tour diary.

“No Home” (download):

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Orlando, Fla., September 26
 It is really fun to ham it up at your hometown shows, and since I was born and raised in a suburb of Orlando (which explains my suicidal teen years and complete Disney-fied distortion of reality), Orlando is a hometown show for me. I get to see all of my family and drink way too much with my old friends, and that is par for the course. Thing about us, though, as rock ‘n’ roll gypsies, we’ve got so many hometowns: New York, Lost Angeles, Asheville, N.C. Poni’s folks live down in south Florida, where we also played, and I will say, the folks down at the Culture Room totally have a guest nook for parents, since a lot of rocker parents live down there. Class act! We gave the van to a mechanic and hopped a plane to Los Angeles. But not before eating Poni’s mom’s empanadas.

Los Angeles, September 29
 We’re in Los Angeles for the premiere of Whip It, the lovely and talented Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut featuring Ellen Page, Zoe Bell and Juliette Lewis, among others. It is really fun. The premiere is held at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. I dress up like a roller-derby referee (total fashion-fart coincidence, I just choke when there’s a red carpet involved), and the movie is great! The after-party is a star-studded affair (Judd Apatow! Ed Norton! Steven Spielberg!), and I make only a moderate ass of myself running up to Andrew Wilson to say how much I like him. And he is really nice and says, “You’re not from around here, are you?” because I have a Southern accent, and the smartest thing I can come up with? “I’m from space!!” and grabbing Poni’s arm and running away. Smooooooth.

I go back to the hotel, but Poni takes a taxi to her friend’s house and notices the meter is at $50. Poni is from Queens. She says, “No, sir, I don’t think that’s correct.” It starts that simply. It ends with her getting thrown up against the wall and her purse being stolen. By the cab driver. We know where you park your car, middle-aged Armenian cab-driver man on the east side of Los Angeles. It is a matter of time before we return, stake you out and fuck you up.

To cosmically make up for that, the next morning we get word that we are to perform on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Friday, so we fly back to Orlando, get our van down from the repair rafters and drive straight up to New York City!

New York City, October 2
 On several days’ no sleep, jacked up on Dunkin Donuts coffee (mmmm most of the time, by this point it was like, “Take your medicine! Drink your energy juice!“), we roll up to NBC Studios at 7 a.m. on Friday morning. We load out, park the van and hang out in our dressing room at Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. The hallways of NBC are just what they look like on 30 Rock (or in the Simpsons’ characterization of what the offices of Mad magazine might look like), with really interesting artists and writers scooting down the hallways. In one upward glance from my seat on the couch in our dressing room, I see Andrew Shue, Lorne Michaels and A.D. Miles, about whom I am so excited and nervous, I can’t say hi! I can say hi to Lorne Michaels but not A.D. Miles? What a jerk! I am just too excited, you know. I guess you can run into a lot of celebrities in the rock ‘n’ roll business, and most people you recognize and your mind goes, “Cool out, they’re simply talented working professionals and you say, ‘Oh yes hello, how do you do,’ and you just say, ‘Oh, we’re all just working professionals.’” The grind, you know… But there you have it: Coco mega starstruck by A.D. Miles.

Trusting the engineers at NBC is a pretty easy thing to do, especially when you’re standing next to the awesome Roots, who seem very comfortable, so we knock out “Crown Of Age” live on Jimmy Fallon (you can watch it on NBC.com) and have a blast. So. Much. Fun.

Madison, Wisc., October 4
 We haul ass from New York to Wisconsin to catch up with the tour with Juliette Lewis and American Bang, and it is fun to be on the road again. By this point, we are officially zombies, which just adds to that lawless feeling you get when you’re on the road, playing rock ‘n’ roll music. So we are quite giddy, actually. The Madison roller girls come out to the show: the Reservoir Dolls, if you want to look them up. The Ettes are in such strong support of roller derby, and Poni and I would rock that shiz so hardcore if we weren’t always on the road. Not that we don’t roller skate and hit each other. Poni says her roller-derby name is Helen Of Destroy. I think I’d still be Coco Motion. Git, git, git gone. I’m fuckin’ fast on skates.

Boulder, Colo., October 6
 Boulder is one of those weird towns. Hey, college towns, do you know that you’re weird? I’m talking to you Gainesville, Fla., and Chapel Hill, N.C. And Boulder, Colo. Although, while it’s not necessarily an insult, if you enjoy the weirdness of your college town, you’re probably someone who rocks a bumper sticker that reads “Keep  Weird!” And that is OK—you be you. You are youer than you, that is truer than true, and there ain’t nobody who can be youer than you. Really cool theater in Boulder—digging that creepy bar at the end of the block with the super low ceilings. And there is a super weird (keeping with the theme) “green” motel where we stayed that has a killer breakfast with ’50s hits rocking, really pepping us up and putting us in a good mood! Thank you!

Salt Lake City, Utah, October 7
 Two facts about Salt Lake City: 1) Yes, extremely bizarre booze laws and watered-down beer (how dare you??) and 2) consistently rockin’ shows! We always have a good (or at least memorably interesting) time in Salt Lake City. Totally crazy metal venue (what is with metal venues? And I love metal! WTF … ) and really amazing crazy people. I am selling merch and this guy is like, “How much for the CD?” I am closing up, so I say, “Ohhhh whatever you want to give.” And he gives me this look and hands me a $100 bill. I’m like, “No sir! No way!” but he won’t take it back! We eat like kings! We love you, Salt Lake City! So much that Johnny hits the dance floor at the Sky Lounge Hotel bar!

Seattle, October 9
 There are few towns I love as much as Seattle for good food, nice people and awesome shows. But I can say with absolute certainty that El Corazón in Seattle is the least fun we’ve ever had at a show—ever. Do you know what that means? Of the last five years on the road, of asshole promoters stiffing us on money, of getting gear stolen, of getting punched in the face by drunks at the bar, of getting electrocuted onstage, of shitty sound and shittier beer … you suck, El Corazón. Suck. You still rule, Seattle; we don’t hold that shit venue against you. We hold our bodies against you, in deeply passionate love. We’re sending this guy after El Corazón, though.

Portland, Ore., October 10
 As much as El Corazón in Seattle sucks, Dante’s in Portland rules! And yes, we do get the doughnuts. We get all kinds of doughnuts. There’s an awesome doughnut shop across from Dante’s, and which was the group favorite? The maple frosted doughnut with bacon on top. There are some obscene sounds coming from the van when the Ettes eat that one. We hear sounds from each other that make us all uncomfortable. In that way. Speaking of doughnuts, here’s Poni stealing DJ Jelly Donut’s costume.

Vancouver, B.C., October 11
 Bronchitis/H1N1/swine/bird/SARS flu strikes the Ettes on our way into beautiful Vancouver, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying all the marvels of the city, including the delightful venue of the Commodore Ballroom. Such a great space, and the people are so awesome. Feel a bit protective of Juliette when the super excited fan keeps screaming, “Mallory! Mallory!” which, I can tell you, doesn’t happen that often on tour. She puts her feathers on and gets into the rock ‘n’ roll space machine and you better hold on tight!

San Francisco, October 13
 San Francisco has a lot of things going for it. The food is the best in the country (watch yo’ back, NYC!) and it is just so incredibly beautiful. There’s a lot of passion and madness in the air (it’s all those microclimates from the Bay!) and we feel the vibe at Slim’s: another great time. We eat Mexican food. We rock and roll. Inspired by Juliette’s mad stage moves, I do a ballet-inspired leap off the back steps into the upwardly stretched arms of a guy I don’t know. I do not fall down! Excellent!

Los Angeles, October 17
 Remember how I said we have a lot of hometowns? Los Angeles is one of them, since the Ettes met and lived there for, like, three years. Los Angeles knows a lot about us; Angelenos watched the Ettes grow up. If you can call us grown ups now … But it is always fun to come rock L.A., and the El Rey is certainly no exception. Another fun thing about L.A.: Actors you know from the movies and television come to the show! Poni and Steve (from the Sarah Silverman Program, among other illustrious productions) get very excited about each other! Then I get excited! Then I think I scare Ellen Page. Ellen, tell me if we freak you out. Well, I don’t know, we always go to the Drawing Room; it’s a scary place! But we all know the most important thing about L.A. …

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Clare And The Reasons Tour Diary

November 25, 2009

claretourThough Clare And The Reasons are decidedly European in style and sound, the group is based in Brooklyn. The band—multi-instrumentalists Clare and Olivier Manchon (pictured), Bob Hart and Benjamin Lanz—recently toured North America with the Vic Chesnutt Band, and while some artists claim to be DIY, Clare And The Reasons take the do-it-yourself spirit to a new level. For this tour, the band designed and sewed its stage outfits and brought along two hot plates to cook its own food. Hell, the band even raised the money to be able to tour at all. While out on the road supporting Arrow (Frog Stand), Clare kept a tour diary for MAGNET.

“Ooh You Hurt Me So” (download):

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Baltimore, October 29
 It was our first time playing Baltimore. We rolled into town from Philly and had hours to spare, so we saw Where The Wild Things Are. We all decided that it felt like a long music video, which makes sense. We wanted to love it, but ultimately, it didn’t stick with us. We found a health-food store in true Clare And The Reasons fashion and got some veggies, cheese and turkey for dinner. We actually brought a double stove top on tour to cook. A company called Alter Eco gave us a bunch of quinoa, rices of different kinds, olive oil, coffee, tea and loads of chocolate to wash away our troubles. It’s a great company and as fair trade as trade can be. We arrived at Ottobar for our show with plenty of time, so Ben and I went to the local Salvation Army to try to score big. We would up wandering the aisles listening to the Supremes at full volume; it felt very Baltimore somehow. Besides some potentially awesome plaid pants that Ben seriously considered, there wasn’t much. (Unless you were into Christmas-themed dishes.) We saw a pawn shop across the street with instruments in the window, so we marched over like zombies. Sad though, somehow pawn shops have become the least likely place to find good deals. Drat! Played our show, added some extra distortion to drown out a few “talkers” amongst the otherwise diligent crowd and met some lovely people after the show.

Washington, D.C., October 30
 We arrived in D.C. around noon. Wanted to leave the afternoon free to go to the National Mall, one of the best things about D.C. I recently saw Herb & Dorothy, a brilliant documentary about art collectors and supporters Herbert and Dorothy Vogel. They have been infamously collecting (loving) unknown contemporary, downtown, obscure art since the ’60s. They bought from artists like Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, Christo and many more. They were sort of like ambassadors to obscure new thinking—or mascots of sorts—and befriended many artists early on, never taking art for free, always paying for it, even though they had very little money and lived in a small, cramped, one-bedroom apartment on one income. (See the film!) We headed over to the National Gallery, where the Vogels finally donated (not sold) their entire collection, about 5,000 pieces, I believe. (The Vogels are still collecting, though, of course!) Turns out they only have room to show about five pieces of the Vogels’ collection at any one time at the National Gallery, but it was still great to see. What a fabulous museum, one thing the U.S. government is paying for that is going toward really good things. We played at the Black Cat. It reminded me of Alice In Wonderland a bit, what with the checkered floor.

Athens, Ga., November 2
 Athens was a first for us. We rolled into town at 3:30 a.m., after our Atlanta show. We had a hotel reservation in Atlanta, but when we showed up and saw that it was actually a crack house (or whore house, or a pleasant mix of both), we split and drove straight to Athens. It was one of those “gut feeling” moments. We woke up in Athens to a sunny day, in our well-groomed, green-grassed HoJo. I made an apple breakfast: sauteed apples with coconut, butter, cinnamon and agave. Amazing! Try it. Then we got on Google to find the best espresso in town. We found it. It’s called Red Eye. It was, I think, the best espresso we had on the whole tour. We then found ourselves at Agora, an awesomely overwhelming vintage shop that lures you in and doesn’t let you go. Bob got an amp, Olivier got a vintage Yves Saint Laurent blazer for super cheap that makes him look even more French than he did before, if that’s possible. We headed over to meet the Athens Soundies fellas, who wanted to video us doing a few songs. (Watch them here.) We headed to the 40 Watt Club to play and found the people to be quite lovely and open to our terminally unique sound.

Chicago, November 5
 We have only played in Chicago once before, but I’m pretty sure I have a crush on that city. That crush might fizzle if I we’re to visit in February, I bet. We arrived from Newport, Ky., where we played in a haunted venue. We arrived very hungry, so we got a tip about this amazing restaurant called Uncommon Ground, which grows all it’s own vegetables. We were in! It’s the first organic roof-top farm in America. Our waiter was fabulous and peppy. We then went to Lincoln Hall, a brand new venue run by the same people who run Schubas. They did a beautiful job with Lincoln Hall, and it’s very artist friendly; no penises on the walls in the dressing rooms, no dents or blood on the mics. Charming! What’s up with that, anyway? Every venue in America, unless it’s a beautiful theater, has penises on the wall. It’s like it’s some universal language that musicians use to communicate with each other. Hmmmmm. The show was fun. Only the soundman knew the answer to the question, “What famous piece of music did we just quote in ‘This Is The Story’?” It’s Ravel’s Boléro, of course. The soundman got a free kazoo for that.

Toronto, November 7
 Toronto was the last stop on this tour. It was also our first time playing there, and we were looking forward to it. Why are Canadians so nice? Whenever I’m at a party and there is something “off” or “strange” with someone I’m speaking to—but not in a bad way, in a good way; like, what’s up with this person, why is he so nice?—it’s always because they turn out to be Canadian. No joke. They must all be fed baby food with “nice people” nutrients in it. We had some Indian food, mostly because we had Indian food the first night of the tour and like to make bookends out of everything we can. We did soundcheck and noticed some little black flies buzzing around. Didn’t think much of it, but Olivier was complaining about them biting him. (Sadly for Olivier, it’s a bit like The Boy Who Cried Wolf.) We did our show—terribly fun audience. We had been joking for weeks that on the last night, we would drive back to Brooklyn after our Toronto show screaming, drinking Red Bull and listening to Kiss. (We had been reading an unauthorized Kiss biography in the car on this tour; amazing and horrible, but the amazing parts kept us going.) Well, for some reason we actually did this. The only difference is we drove all the way back to Brooklyn, with the Kiss and Red Bull (gross!!), but Olivier kept complaining about his fly bites from the venue. When we got home at 10 a.m., he took off his shirt and had about 50 bites the size of quarters all over him: face, arms, neck. You know what they say: “You’re not hardcore, unless you live hardcore.” We are hardcore.

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Rock Plaza Central Tour Diary, Part 5

August 28, 2009

dons-driving5502Rock Plaza Central’s 2007 album Are We Not Horses was an elaborately plotted and immaculately conceived album that brought the Toronto band’s Northern-gothic folk/rock accolades from both critics (MAGNET named it one of the year’s 10 hidden treasures) and academics (frontman Chris Eaton’s 2004 book The Inactivist was taught alongside Horses in a graduate English course at the University of South Alabama). Last month, RPC hit the road to support the release of this year’s … At The Moment Of Our Most Needing, and bassist Scott Maynard filed a tour diary for magnetmagazine.com. If you missed Rock Plaza Central this summer, catch the group on its U.S. tour with the Weakerthans in September.

Toronto, July 28
Well, wouldn’t you know, the fire alarm went off in the hotel just as I was getting back to sleep. Once I’d made sure it was, in fact, a false alarm, I stuffed the bell with a towel and tried again, but the damage had been done. I was fully awake and perhaps better off at the actual festival. So I hitched a ride down to the site, found my friends at Tent Majal and had my first beer of the day. And the music began. Reunited with our friends from Bruce Peninsula (somewhat appropriately in the rain), also Timber Timbre, Tressa Lavasseur, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Final Fantasy, Oh Bijou, etc. Hillside always puts on a good show. I was sad to have to leave it early, but we had agreed to do one more street festival in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, so off we went, early Sunday morning, to make it there by 4 p.m. Which we did, border crossing and all. Blake on the other hand, who had left the previous day and was already in Chicago, somehow got lost or misdirected and barely made it to the show on time. The poor comic they’d stuck up there to kill time between sets ran out of material pretty fast and suffered the jeers of the crowd while we set up and line-checked for what seemed an eternity, but eventually we got going. It was nice to play with Blake (Howard) again; the demands of family life on him have meant that we’ve been touring with another drummer for the past several months. In fact, Andy (Innanen) recently informed me that Hillside was his 50th show with the band. Afterward, we went out for dinner and drinks with Josh, our booking agent, and then we retired to the hotel for more drinks and some deconstruction and plotting for the future. That was it: the last show of the tour. Now I’m back in town and “real” life threatens to crash in on me. It can be difficult to adjust to coming off the road; it often involves a lot of time and depression. I call it post-tourmatic stress disorder. The garbage strike that began in Toronto as we left for this tour lingers on, and although the streets are fairly clear, the garbage receptacles are spilling over onto the sidewalks, and I can only imagine the state of the parks, which have been used as temporary dumping grounds until the dispute is resolved. I am reminded that for all the bitching and complaining I may do—this litany of annoyances about the road—I’d still much rather be doing what I do than anything else I can think of. As the old song says, “See you in September.”

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Rock Plaza Central Tour Diary, Part 4

August 27, 2009

eclectic-workshop5501

Rock Plaza Central’s 2007 album Are We Not Horses was an elaborately plotted and immaculately conceived album that brought the Toronto band’s Northern-gothic folk/rock accolades from both critics (MAGNET named it one of the year’s 10 hidden treasures) and academics (frontman Chris Eaton’s 2004 book The Inactivist was taught alongside Horses in a graduate English course at the University of South Alabama). Last month, RPC hit the road to support the release of this year’s … At The Moment Of Our Most Needing, and bassist Scott Maynard filed a tour diary for magnetmagazine.com. If you missed Rock Plaza Central this summer, catch the group on its U.S. tour with the Weakerthans in September.

Guelph, Ont., July 25
Well, we made it across the country in four days, and we didn’t kill each other—or anyone else for that matter. It doesn’t matter how much love there is; if you stick five people in an enclosed space, deprive them of sleep and decent food, there’s gonna be some fireworks at some point. But we made it to Guelph on time and met up with drummers John Whytock and Blake Howard for possibly the best show so far. That bar has been raised several times recently, especially since we started playing with two drummers, and I love that it keeps getting better.

If the Vancouver experience made up for all the driving to get out there, last night makes me want to do the whole thing over again. It was an incredible experience: maybe a thousand people crammed into the lake tent, singing and dancing, both drummers going for it, an onstage wedding … When I finally got back to the hotel in the wee hours of the a.m., I couldn’t find my bag with my stuff in it, so I called the front desk to run me up some toothpaste, a toothbrush and some mouthwash. Within minutes, there it was at my door. This morning, I feel like a rock star (maybe it’s the hangover). Of course, with a room to myself, I wake up at 6:30 a.m. and can’t sleep, so I’m currently enjoying a complimentary continental breakfast, courtesy of this rather schmancy hotel.

The band has a day off today at Hillside before we drive to Chicago tomorrow. For me, the best part of the festival scene is the workshops. Stick a bunch of musicians who may or may not know each other (or even speak the same language) on a stage, add a crowd and see what happens. Often, the results are magical: one-time-only, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants collaborations. For the most part, the musicians let down the walls and just play, for fun and for the moment. For others, it’s a chance to showcase their work in a more relaxed setting, win a few new fans. For the audience, it’s a chance to see a bunch of different acts at once, with always the possibility that something marvellous will occur. So today, with nothing specific to do, I intend to relax and enjoy all that Hillside has to offer. But first, I’m gonna try and get just a bit more sleep …

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Rock Plaza Central Tour Diary, Part 3

August 26, 2009

10000-lakes5501

Rock Plaza Central’s 2007 album Are We Not Horses was an elaborately plotted and immaculately conceived album that brought the Toronto band’s Northern-gothic folk/rock accolades from both critics (MAGNET named it one of the year’s 10 hidden treasures) and academics (frontman Chris Eaton’s 2004 book The Inactivist was taught alongside Horses in a graduate English course at the University of South Alabama). Last month, RPC hit the road to support the release of this year’s … At The Moment Of Our Most Needing, and bassist Scott Maynard filed a tour diary for magnetmagazine.com. If you missed Rock Plaza Central this summer, catch the group on its U.S. tour with the Weakerthans in September.

“Holy Rider” (download):

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Wisconsin, July 23
Currently approaching Madison, Wisc., we have driven more than 1,600 miles in the past few days in an attempt to get from Vancouver, B.C., to the Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ont., in time for our 6 p.m. workshop on Friday evening. Last night we opened the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes, Minn. We arrived from Bismarck, N.D., at about 4 p.m., set up, ate, played, hung out for about an hour, then got back in the van and drove over the Wisconsin state line to find a place to sleep. Otherwise, the past few days have been relentless driving.

There are many activities that can help to pass the time on a long drive. Chris and I are honing our Sudoku skills with the goal of finishing the most difficult ones without making any notes. (I am proud to report that I achieved this for the first time yesterday, somewhere in Minnesota. Now what?) There are several books in the van. Some of them are permanent fixtures (Songwriters On Songwriting, and a collection of Rumi’s poetry), some of them get passed around, then replaced, and some of them are in Hungarian and are therefore of only a passing interest to anyone but Fiona.

There are also four iPods in the van. We are all fans of the NPR show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, so Chris has stuffed his with past episodes. While Fiona assures us that there’s a wide variety of music on hers, it seems to favor Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits and Nick Cave. Don (Murray, mandolin/trumpet/guitar player) prefers ’80s music, so I’ve come to expect U2, Peter Gabriel and the Police from him. Having cleverly poured water on my newer iPod, I’ve had to revert back to my old 16G, which necessitated a culling of the ever growing mp3 collection. Yesterday we got through Wire, Sonic Youth, the Pixies, among others. Today, however, is a classic-rock radio day, given that we are passing Chicago, home of our favorite classic-rock station, appropriately called The Drive.

We took my old friend Dan Restivo on a trip out east one winter and played quite a bit of cribbage, but cards can be difficult to maneuver in a van, so this tour has seen an extended and somewhat lackadaisical game of “Cow Cow.” Here are the rules of Cow Cow, as taught to me by Spencer Musselhead on my very first inter-provincial road trip, way back in 1993:
•A game goes to ten points
•When you pass a field of cows, the first person to say “cow cow” gets one point
•If you see a single solitary cow, that’s a “rogue cow,” worth five points
•A cemetery is “dead cow” and everyone else loses their points
•A three-dimensional representation of a cow is “monolith,” worth 10 points and the game

Hours of entertainment, I assure you. Beautiful scenery notwithstanding, these long drives are pretty mundane. Stop every couple of hours for a pee or to get some food. Switch seats to really liven things up. Sleep. And on that note …

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Rock Plaza Central Tour Diary, Part 2

August 25, 2009
vancouver5502

Rock Plaza Central’s 2007 album Are We Not Horses was an elaborately plotted and immaculately conceived album that brought the Toronto band’s Northern-gothic folk/rock accolades from both critics (MAGNET named it one of the year’s 10 hidden treasures) and academics (frontman Chris Eaton’s 2004 book The Inactivist was taught alongside Horses in a graduate English course at the University of South Alabama). Last month, RPC hit the road to support the release of this year’s … At The Moment Of Our Most Needing, and bassist Scott Maynard filed a tour diary for magnetmagazine.com. If you missed Rock Plaza Central this summer, catch the group on its U.S. tour with the Weakerthans in September.

“Panama” (download):

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A Recap
Milwaukee, July 4: We played a street festival that day, and for once, the weather was good. In the past three months, we’ve traveled extensively through the U.S. and Canada, and it has rained almost every day—usually when we’re loading gear. Philly, for example, is a city that claims to have a very low annual rainfall, but, of course, when we show up to play another street festival there, the heavens open and the rain is torrential. Thankfully, the good people of Philadelphia stuck it out, and one of the highlights for us was the two little girls who interpretive danced with incredible grace and poise right in front of the stage through our entire set, in the pouring rain, but I digress …

The weather held in Milwaukee, and we celebrated Independence Day in some style: Belgian Trappist ale and an entire house as a green room. (The green room is the place where the band gets to hang out before and after the show, often in the basement and covered in stickers and graffitti, occasionally actually green.)

After Milwaukee we played Minneapolis, and then we headed up to Winnipeg to do five shows across the prairies with another band from Toronto: Bruce Peninsula. Over the years, we’ve played with countless bands all over North America, and we’ve been lucky enough to hear some truly great ones. It’s a rare band that I would want to listen for five nights in a row—we once did 30-odd shows in as many days all over the U.S. with O’Death, from NYC, and they were amazing every night—but even on the fifth night, Bruce Peninsula was completely compelling. In fact, that show in Canmore was probably the best show of the tour so far. Folks dancing and carrying on …

What makes for a good show?

There are several factors, ranging from how drunk and/or tired the band members are to how well they have been treated by the venue to the capability of the person responsible for the sound. But really, the main factor is the audience. I am compelled to report that attendance on this tour has generally been meager. It amazes me that folks will fork out hundreds of dollars to go see a band whose heyday was in the ’80s but won’t pay $10 to go see one of the many excellent bands trying to make a go of it today. The festivals this summer pay enough that we can afford to lose money playing our way across, but I feel for bands like Bruce Peninsula that don’t yet have that as a fallback. Come on people, independent music needs your support to survive, so pay the damn cover and buy a shirt; don’t call the promoter and try to get on the guest list, then not show up when (s)he says no. Really, though, that anyone comes to see us at all is quite amazing considering how many bands seem to be on the road these days. And the folks who do come out make up for their sometimes diminutive numbers with their enthusiasm and their incredible stories:

•The guy we met who had done two tours of duty in Afghanistan (and I thought our touring was hard); he told us that our record was what got him through it.
•The siblings who listened to Are We Not Horses over and over while trying to come to terms with the loss of their mother.
•The couple who bonded at a party over their mutual love of that same record, fell in love, quit their jobs, got in the car and drove six hours to see us play, got married and got huge Horses tattoos instead of rings.

It is meeting people with stories like these that make it all—the long drives, the bad food, the hangovers, the loneliness, the doubt, the financial strain—worthwhile.

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Rock Plaza Central Tour Diary, Part 1

August 24, 2009

rock-central-day-1Rock Plaza Central’s 2007 album Are We Not Horses was an elaborately plotted and immaculately conceived album that brought the Toronto band’s Northern-gothic folk/rock accolades from both critics (MAGNET named it one of the year’s 10 hidden treasures) and academics (frontman Chris Eaton’s 2004 book The Inactivist was taught alongside Horses in a graduate English course at the University of South Alabama). Last month, RPC hit the road to support the release of this year’s … At The Moment Of Our Most Needing, and bassist Scott Maynard filed a tour diary for magnetmagazine.com. If you missed Rock Plaza Central this summer, catch the group on its U.S. tour with the Weakerthans in September.

“(Don’t You Believe The Words Of) Handsome Men” (download):

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Vancouver, B.C., July 17
We got up fairly early (in rock ‘n’ roll terms) this morning in order to get a headstart on crossing the notorious border back into Canada between Bellingham, Wash., and Vancouver, B.C. We needed to be in Vancouver by 1 p.m. so that Chris could do an interview. As it turned out, we were through the border in 10 minutes and arrived in Vancouver with an hour to spare—so sushi. It is widely rumoured that the best sushi in Canada is in Vancouver.

This leg of the tour began in Milwaukee on Independence Day, and we’ve zig-zagged our way across the continent, playing almost every night, to get here to the Vancouver Folk Festival. We all look forward to three days of great hospitality, no driving and perhaps, most importantly, our own rooms. Yes, personal space is a rare commodity on the road. Gone are the days of sneaking five people and all the gear into one cheap motel room. These days we typically enjoy the heady luxury of two rooms, which means each of us gets our own bed, except for violinist Fiona Stewart, who we make sleep on the floor.

As a group, we are beginning to feel the strain of the last two weeks, so our little suite here on campus at UBC—complete with kitchen (did I mention the individual rooms?!)—seems like an oasis.

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From The Desk Of Joe “Shithead” Keithley: D.O.A. In China, Part 5

August 14, 2009

doa_great-wall_3350doagreatwallIn January 2008, 30 years after forming, D.O.A.—Canada’s original punk rockers and one of the world’s first hardcore groups—made history once again, becoming the first Western-based political-punk band to tour China. All this week, guest editor and D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley looks back on the historic trip and gives a fascinating and uncensored glimpse into a part of the world most of us will never see.

Day Eight
We get up early, as we have an exciting day ahead of us. (Tour manager) Abe (Deyo) has hired a driver and a car to take us up to the Great Wall. Our driver arrives; he’s a middle-aged guy with a small, beat-up old car, but what the heck, it’s only $120 (U.S.) in total. We grab some street-vendor food to go and set off. Our driver does not speak English, but he keeps telling Abe in Mandarin that if we get pulled over, we have not paid him money to drive us. He says if we get pulled over, our “story” to the cops is that “we are all friends.” So he makes up Chinese names for all of us, which, of course, we can’t quite get the handle of pronouncing correctly. He tells us his name, and we don’t understand that either, so we name him “Bob.” On the 40-mile drive, Abe is trying to sleep, but Bob keeps yakking at him. This 40 miles takes about 90 minutes, as Bob is the only slow driver we have encountered on our entire tour. We finally get to the Great Wall; it took quite a huff and a puff to climb up to the section we went to. Some of the stairs would be quite low, six inches or so, and then with no rhyme or reason, the stairs would be anywhere from 18 inches to two feet in height. At times, I was pulling myself up the stairs by arm strength, using the railing. But the effort was worth it.

We get back down to the parking lot and meet up with good old Bob. Abe wants to sleep, so he gets in the backseat to avoid Bob’s yakking. I sit up front with Bob. He starts yakking at me. I understand nothing of what he is saying, but I nod my head in agreement to keep him happy. What I do understand is that Bob is lost. (Drummer) Floor Tom thinks his eyesight is shot. I keep pointing at the green expressway signs, but he does not figure this out. After about half an hour of side roads, he finally gets on the correct highway. We pass the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium, so everything is kosher. Bob tries talking to me again, but he finally realizes I do not understand Mandarin, so he starts singing Chinese folk songs. I figure he wants a reply, so I start singing songs back at him. He smiles, so we start trading off verses back and forth of various disconnected songs.

We get to that glorious Home Inn. Time to collect our shit and head out to the Beijing airport and fly to Shanghai. Once at the airport, we again notice a ton of Chinglish (combine Chinese and English), such as signs in the washrooms that say, “Please be kindness and please be flushing” or “For your privateness please door locking.” English is very prevalent here. In fact, predictions are that there will be more people that speak English here than in the U.S.A in 20 years or so.

Day Nine
Floor Tom is off early to catch a different flight home than Dan and I. So later that morning, Abe, (bassist) Dan and I go to do some shopping. Abe tells me there is a military-surplus store that’s cool, so we head there. I try on a bunch of these Chinese-soldier long-green coats with red stars attached. Of course, we are having a great time, laughing as I am going, “How do I look?” Then I go to buy one of those peaked military hats to go with the coat. Abe realizes that there are a couple of off-duty police men in the shop while we are there and they start to bitch at the shop owner that a foreigner shouldn’t be in there buying this military gear. So Abe quickly hustles us out, as they are starting to get hostile. I mean, what the fuck were they thinking? Hey! Maybe one white guy was going to buy a uniform and covertly stage an invasion of China! Chairman Joe. Hey, it’s got a nice ring to it.

Well it’s time to say goodbye to Abe. He’s been a great host and an indispensible tour manager. We probably would have ended up in prison without him. Dan and I are first in the lineup for the airport bus; we wait a bit, and the bus finally arrives. The bus-door opens, and I have to grab all my three bags and my guitar and lug them onto the bus. This lady and her pal try to budge in front of me and my gear. Hey, bad move. I have been in China for a week, so I quickly block her entrance onto the bus with my guitar case and say to her, “It’s best to wait your turn.”

Before we left on the D.O.A. tour of China, I did not know what to expect. Now I do, and I can’t wait to get back.

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From The Desk Of Joe “Shithead” Keithley: D.O.A. In China, Part 4

August 13, 2009

doa_beijing-lama-temple2doa_shanghaIn January 2008, 30 years after forming, D.O.A.—Canada’s original punk rockers and one of the world’s first hardcore groups—made history once again, becoming the first Western-based political-punk band to tour China. All this week, guest editor and D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley looks back on the historic trip and gives a fascinating and uncensored glimpse into a part of the world most of us will never see.

Day Six
The gig in Nanjing has been cancelled. Apparently the gear was crap and nobody showed up the week before at another show (tour manager) Abe (Deyo) had promoted. So we get a day of sightseeing in Shanghai. Spectacular city; on one side of the river are the old French colonial buildings, on the other side there is the new Shanghai. The new Shanghai has skyline that almost rivals Manhattan in size; the amazing part of this is that 20 years ago, that side of the river was a sleepy fishing village. Then after the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Deng Xiaoping started China’s economic revolution. It has produced results that are far from evenhanded, but they’re amazing never the less.

In central areas of the big towns, we saw plenty of BMWs and Mercedes, women dressed in the highest fashion, men decked out in new suits and shops stacked full of as many consumer goods as we have in the west. But for everybody you saw that had a lot, there were 10 times as many that were just getting by. You would see a little weather-beaten guy riding a bike with five or six grey plastic bags full of something he might be collecting or recycling, like bottles, cloth, bits of plastic, wood, metal—nothing is wasted in this country. Or you would see a guy sitting on the sidewalk with bicycle-repair materials, and that was his shop, rain or shine or the nastily cold weather we were experiencing. You would see a little machine shop in a storefront eight-feet wide and maybe 15-feet deep; the father was working at the front of the shop, while the mother was there preparing dinner at the end of the metal lath, with their kid playing there as well. You also saw the craziest motorized contraptions everywhere, a little shitty scooter with a mini trailer attached to the back with a plastic tent erected over top of the scooter.

After the sightseeing, Abe left us at a coffee shop for a couple of hours; he had some biz to take care of. So we wandered down to a DVD store, (bassist) Dan and (drummer) Floor Tom purchased excellent copies of movies that were still in theaters back home for two bucks a pop. We went back to the coffee shop to wait for Abe. We had to catch the night train to Beijing at 7 p.m., and we couldn’t fuck up because it was the last one of the day. Abe came back about 90 minutes late; it was about 5 p.m., and we still had to collect our bags and gear from the hotel and make the train. We ran to the hotel and picked up the gear. We started looking for a cab, but there was none to be found. It was Friday at rush hour.

We started jogging at half pace toward the station carrying all of our shit. This went on for about 20 minutes or so; still no taxi, and it’s about 6:15. We finally find a cab, cram in and proceed to get into the biggest gridlock I have ever seen. It doesn’t seem to matter to the motorists what color the traffic light is—they all just jam their cars into whatever open space they can find. So nobody really moves, it’s about 6:40, and by this time, the cursing collectively emanating forth from D.O.A.’s lips would have made a sailor blush. We finally get to the station at about 6:45. We are running full speed at this point. We have to go through a bomb-detection area; when we are through, a Chinese soldier picks up one of the guitars and helps us out by running full steam through the station with us. The soldier gives us back the guitar and heads back at the escalators. Abe picks up the bass and the guitar and starts running at full speed. His Tai Kwan Do training is paying off, as we are pulling up the rear, huffing and puffing to beat the band. I have seen a lot of big train stations in New York and Europe, but Shanghai’s station dwarfs any of those. We finally find our train and our car. Shit that was a marathon! Tough, but good stuff!

The train itself is really new and really nice. I was pleasantly surprised. There was a great dining car; after dinner, we head back to our compartment. As the train is clacking along, I keep wondering if we will get involved in a modern Murder On The Orient Express-type situation; no such luck. Instead Dan and I play cribbage, and I talk him into finishing the last of the rice wine. This makes it easy to skunk him at crib. A capital maneuver, Joe old boy! Capital indeed! After the crib, it’s lights out. I listen to wheels clacking along. I sleep with one eye open on the Orient Express.

Day Seven
We get off the train at 7 a.m. and go straight to the biggest cab queue I have ever seen in my life. There is a back-and-forth gated lineup (like something at an amusement park), as there must have been 800 people lined for cabs. When we got to the front of the lineup, we could see that there were four lines of cabs, each line 10-12 cars deep and waiting. Then we saw the most important man in Beijing: the cab commandant. He would blow his whistle and the people would rush out to the four cabs at the front of the line. If you didn’t, the cab commandant would get furiously mad. Don’t mess with the cab commandant … ever … dude.

We got back to our home away from home, the Home Inn, and dropped our stuff off. Then we hailed another cab and hustled down to Tiananmen Square. Wow, this is history—the massive square, home of the famous failed protests 20 years before. On the south side of the square: Chairman Mao’s tomb. On the west side: the Communist Party headquarters. On the north side: the overwhelming Forbidden City. On the east side: Larry Ho’s Camera And Bag Check And Souvenir Shop. Wow! Well, actually it was not called Larry Ho’s, but we had to check all of our cameras there, as they were not allowed in Mao’s tomb.

We get into the hall just outside of where Mao’s body rests, and it is full of pictures and stories of the leaders of the Revolution. We enter Mao’s tomb, and the rule is that you cannot stop and look. The line must keep moving. Well, there he is. Lying on his back, surrounded by high glass. There is kind of an usher guy hanging out, and two soldiers standing at rigid attention with their bayonets fixed. I whisper to Floor Tom, “Does he look real, or is he wax?” I walk as slowly as I can, and I am the last one in our group. I finally come to a complete stop as I stare at the Chairman; in a split second, the usher has his hand on my shoulder, pushing me along. Well he wasn’t that big of a guy, so I figured I could have taken him out to stay longer, but I had to consider the guys with the bayonets. As you leave the tomb, of course, you come to the souvenir shop. We all bought a souvenir. I purchased a nice key chain. Reasonably priced, too.

We walk across the square to the Forbidden City, home of the Qing and Ming dynasties. Completely incredible, it’s about a mile wide and two miles deep. The emperors had many different ornate temples erected, each one specifically set up to consider all the problems of running China, from farming to war to concubines to weather.

The show that night was in Beijing’s university district. The club was called D-22, and it was run by an ex-New Yorker. Cool show—lots of good original bands opening. I had to use a VOX 30 amp that night, and somehow it worked. The whole Chinese punk-rock scene feels like it did back in about 1982. It’s really fun, new and urgent. It’s cool that we get to be part of it for awhile. That show was a good way to end the performance part of our trip.

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From The Desk Of Joe “Shithead” Keithley: D.O.A. In China, Part 3

August 12, 2009

16doa_wuhan-airport_2doawuhanairportbusIn January 2008, 30 years after forming, D.O.A.—Canada’s original punk rockers and one of the world’s first hardcore groups—made history once again, becoming the first Western-based political-punk band to tour China. All this week, guest editor and D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley looks back on the historic trip and gives a fascinating and uncensored glimpse into a part of the world most of us will never see.

Day Four
We are off to Wuhan today and have to take a cab to the airport. You would think one of the easiest things in the world would be catching a cab; in China, sometimes it is not. We found most of the drivers did not like Dirty Dan Sedan’s bass case; they somehow thought of it as dirtier than the rest of our shit. So after having trouble getting taxis because of this, we took to hiding the bass case behind us, then when a cab stopped, one of us would jump in and refuse to leave the cab. We would then cram the trunk as full as humanly possible; Dan, drummer Floor Tom Jones and tour promoter Abe (Deyo) would get in the back seat, I would put the bass case across their laps, I would then get in the front and stuff of duffel bag under my legs and put a huge bag of T-shirts on my lap, then I would try to push the T-shirt bag down enough so the driver could see his right sideview mirror. By the way, the tour T-shirts were great; they were white with a big, black D.O.A. on the front, with Chairman Mao’s face in the middle of the O.

We are now in the fast lane of the Beijing expressway going to the airport, driving about 70 miles an hour, the traffic heavy. Everything seems to be going smooth, when the car in front of us slams on the brakes. Our driver hits his brakes as hard as he can, and we come screeching to a halt, six inches behind the car in front. The four of us look behind at the van that has come to an abrupt halt about a foot behind us; we can see the smoke coming off of his brakes. The three guys in the back came within a foot of all losing their teeth, because if we had of been rear ended at that speed, the bass case on their laps would have have broken all three of their jaws. Our driver rapid fires a ton of curses in Mandarin at the car that stopped, then he pulls ino the right lane and gets moving again. I look at the stopped car; it is a middle-aged lady who looks confused. As we get going, I keep watching her car; she pulls a wild maneuver to get over three lanes to the right so she can get off at her exit. So, she had stomped on the brakes in the fast lane because she did not want to miss her exit … 

At the Beijing airport we find out our flight time had been changed to two hours earlier. China Airways claimed they had informed Abe the day before about this via his cellphone. He argues with them but to no avail. It seems if the airline wants to change the flight time, they can do that. So I end up sleeping on a booth in the airport restaurant.

We get into Wuhan. I had never heard of this town till recently, but it has a population of five million, so it’s bigger than Philadelphia. Abe negotiates a deal with two off-license cab drivers to save a few bucks. So we leave the airport with Dan and Floor Tom in one cab and Abe and me in the other. The cab driver Dan and Floor Tom have speaks no English, and those guys do not have the address of the club or hotel in Wuhan. Quickly, Abe gets a call on his cell. Our cab driver gets Abe’s cell, and he and the other cab driver decide that we must pay more RMB than already agreed upon, a ripoff in the making, indeed. We have heard stories where a cab driver will take you out to the countryside and 10 guys will be waiting there and they beat you up, take your money, take your passport, then strand you in the countryside. So this must be going through Floor Tom and Dan’s minds at this time.

Abe is forced into a slightly higher price. It takes more than an hour to get from to airport to central Wuhan. What a grim looking town—giant, ugly apartment buildings everywhere. Blue-and-silver 40-gallon chemical drums, containing who knows what kind of toxic crap, are piled up indiscriminately in various suburban neighborhoods. I looked up “shithole” in the dictionary when I got back and there was a picture of Wuhan. Anyway, we get to the central area, get out of the cabs with our gear, and Abe tells us on the sly where the hotel is. He then tells us to run across the street with all the gear and get out of sight. He is afraid that the cab drivers will follow us to the hotel and try and extort some more cash out of us.

That afternoon, we went for lunch at a restaurant across the street. This experience really drove home one big thing we noticed all over China: Almost every place we went there was an overabundance of employees. When we walked into the restaurant, we were greeted by eight women, and three of them showed us to our table upstairs. Then four people came and set the table and brought us lunch. Later that afternoon, Dan and I went to the local supermarket; again, there was no shortage of people to help you. Dan went to buy some wine, and three people immediately showed up to tell him what the best bargain was. There’s something to that. If people have a job, they are a lot less likely to foment revolution and change.

The gig that night was at a great club called The Vox. The opening bands were real good, the audience was cool, the equipment rocked, and so did D.O.A. After, the show’s promoter, who has a record/clothing store downstairs from the club, invited us to a party at the store. The joint is called Wuhan Prison. There were a few people there who spoke English, including one guy I did an interview with for a fanzine. After the interview, he offers to do a Mandarin translation of my book, I Shithead, A Life In Punk. “Fuckin’ cool,” I say. After a couple of hours, the kids there invite us to come out and have a party on the street. There is a tent set up there, on the side of the main street; they sell beer and Chinese BBQ. It is totally cool, figuratively and literally. The street BBQ is a great way to eat in China. They take seafood, meat and vegetables and put them on skewer and roast them. I have been buying from these from street vendors since I got here, but I never knew what kind of meat was on the skewer. So I named it “unknown animal on a stick.” Very tasty indeed. At the outdoor party, there’s Floor Tom, Abe and myself and about 20 Chinese punks. Maybe four of the punks spoke OK English, so we had a lively yak-a-thon going. One punk from Nepal, whose English was excellent, kept cracking us up with some of the worst jokes you ever heard. This party went from about 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. We finally had to pack it in, as it was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit and I felt like a frozen popsicle. But you know what? Wuhan rocks as hard as any town!

Day Five
We awake about 9 a.m. to get to the airport. Abe informs me the shower has a bunch of rat crap in it, so I decide to forego a shower that morning. We get to the Wuhan airport, only to find out flight has been delayed about four hours. Fuckin’ great! I crash on the floor of the airport, lying on top of the T-shirt bag and my shoulder bag. There is announcements going on constantly, and each new flight announcement is preceded by this awful electronic chime, so it’s pretty tough to catch some zzzzs, but somehow I do.

We arrive at the airport in Shanghai, and it’s massive and brand new, just as the Beijing airport is. We collect our gear and find out where to catch a van cab this time. We schlep our gear for a seemingly and unending amount of time and start to understand how Mao and the People’s Army felt during “The Long March” in 1934.

We eventually get a van cab driven by the best driver in China. He raced by everybody on his way into central Shanghai. We get to the Yuyintang Club at about 7 p.m. There’s a horrible Randall guitar amp for me to use (one of my last choices in the world), but the rest of the gear is passable. We head out to grab some fast food, then go to get some beer and wine from the local grocery store. In the store, I find myself in the predicament of asking the two women that ran the store, “Is this beer any good? How’s this wine?” Of course, they understood no English, and I only knew how to say “hello” and “thank you” in Mandarin. So I buy it on spec. It turns out later, the wine was OK. Great Wall brand, as I recall. But the beer was pure shite!

Back at the club, I go to use the toilet, which is outside in the garden area, and observe that the designated place for crapping is thus. There are four legs of a chair with a toilet seat welded to it, and it’s been positioned over top of one end of a 30-foot-long urinal trough with no cubicle. So I decide to use the can back at the fast-food place.

The show turned out to be great. The joint was jumpin’—half Chinese kids and half expat Americans, Australians and Brits. The opening band was Boys Climbing Ropes, who had a female Chinese singer, though the three guys in the band were Canadians who lived in Shanghai. Backstage, a journalist  brought us a gift: rice wine and spicy goose neck. Let me tell you, the goose neck was all bones, and the rice wine was one of the biggest hangover producers this side Jägermeister. We played pretty well, but Dan got zapped by some sort of electronic short onstage, and I don’t think he could hear a goddamn thing after I cranked that Randall amp up to 11.

After the show, Abe drops us off at the hotel—the craziest hotel I had seen in awhile—to get to the rooms. There’s a pedestal 10 feet away from the elevator doors that looked like it had been produced by the set decorators of Star Trek. The hotel seemed like it been designed to wow Westerners 30 years ago. Nothing in the room really worked, but still it felt like the Ritz compared to the hotel in Wuhan.

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From The Desk Of Joe “Shithead” Keithley: D.O.A. In China, Part 2

August 11, 2009

6doa_beijing_huo-hai3258doa_beijing_mao-live_113501In January 2008, 30 years after forming, D.O.A.—Canada’s original punk rockers and one of the world’s first hardcore groups—made history once again, becoming the first Western-based political-punk band to tour China. All this week, guest editor and D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley looks back on the historic trip and gives a fascinating and uncensored glimpse into a part of the world most of us will never see.

“Donnybrook” (download):

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Day Three
We get up about 9 a.m., no time to waste. D.O.A., “The Men Of Action,” don’t waste time! We must cram in as much culture, sightseeing and D.O.A. events as we can in eight days. We are off to see a magnificent Buddhist temple not far from the hotel. We get a huge bowl of noodles for breakfast. It was delicious, and the best part: two bucks a bowl, good shit! Speaking of good shits, as we walk along toward the temple, I see a sign for a public toilet down an alley/street. I go in to take a leak, and I am a little taken aback. This public bathroom is about six feet by eight feet. As I open the door, there is a guy squatted over the hole in the ground (no bowl, no seat and no divider/cubicle walls). He’s smoking a cigarette, reading the paper and producing one of the worst stenches I have ever smelled in my life! But hey, I am not the squeamish type, so I walk in and use the urinal. The guy taking the crap is about two feet from my butt. Tour promoter Abe (Deyo) told us two really useful things to remember about China. First, there is no queuing or lining up for things; it’s almost always a mad scramble to get what you need. Secondly, in China there is no sense of personal space. I guess I had just found that out.

The other truism about China, which we quickly figured out for ourselves, is that you take your life into your own hands every time you cross a street. The drivers were ruthless and would pretty well brush by your hip if there was a slight opening to keep moving their stinking cars. I stopped and stood right in front of a few cars that had almost hit me and gave them the bird.

We carry on to the temple. It’s incredible. We spin the big metal balls, which will give you good luck, but in the process, we make more noise than the other 100 people in there put together. We exit before we get kicked out; I’ve heard some of these monks are pretty tough. We set out on a walkabout around Beijing. It’s really, really cold, and the sky is really blue except for the perpetual smog, so Beijingers are out skating on this little frozen lake. They are also riding these crazy ice bicycles, pulling kids behind them. The locals are also pushing themselves around mechanical ice ducks, goats and birds. They are having a time, indeed. Then we run across the club of ice swimmers; they have smashed a hole in the ice close to the shore that goes out about 50 feet into the lake, then guys of all ages take their turn jumping in this chilly pond and swimming 50 feet and back. Abe asks me if I am game for this. I reply that normally I would, but it’s not much of a challenge. As a Canadian, I would think nothing of  swimming across Lake Superior  in January. We head up to Drum Tower, just north of the Forbidden City. It’s about 200 feet high, ancient and incredible. It has 10 massive drums at the top of tower, about six to eight feet in diameter, that they used to use to let people know what time it was. They also used to use it as a warning system should there be a gang of bandits or an army making their way to Beijing.

At about 6 p.m., we head down to the Mao live House, where the first show will be. The equipment is good, and everything works. We have only brought one guitar, one bass, some drumsticks and the kick-drum pedal, so we are at the mercy of whatever gear is supplied. The opening band is Demerit, pretty cool, like a cross between D.O.A. and Iron Maiden. They’re young guys with mohawks and spiky hair and jackets that look like they’ve been stolen from the Exploited. The next band is the Subs; they have a woman singing, they are very sharp, with an airy sound, kind of like Siouxsie & The Banshees. The audience is a real mix, 15 to 45 years old, about 400 in total. There are a few expats who know D.O.A.’s songs, but they are in the minority. Most people don’t know the songs, so it was like going back to when we started: You have to win people over with sheer power and charisma. Hey, we’re D.O.A.! So we did well on both counts. Of course, my usual activist/humor rapport between songs is understood by very few, so I minimize that and use all the Howlin’ Wolf riffs I have stolen over the years to fill in, as drummer Floor Tom Jones and bassist Dan Sedan periodically resuscitate themselves with beer. After the show, the bar won’t give us any beer, so an American steps up to the plate and buys us all a Bud. Shit. I’m in China, and I get a Bud! Oh well, it was free …

We get back to the hotel and turn on the TV. Abe has warned us there is nothing controversial on Chinese TV, mostly period pieces from China’s ancient past and the news. The news involved events happening around the world and a lot of coverage of People’s Party Congress at the Communist Party headquarters; boy, they all clapped a lot at the speeches given there—must have been profound stuff. I suppose you would go to re-education if you didn’t clap. There were no channels in English, so everything was a little hard to follow. We concluded it was 57 channels of “What the fuck did he just say?” Although the Three Stooges seemed to work pretty well in Mandarin.

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From The Desk Of Joe “Shithead” Keithley: D.O.A. In China, Part 1

August 10, 2009

doa_forbidden-city10doa_beijing_supermarketIn January 2008, 30 years after forming, D.O.A.—Canada’s original punk rockers and one of the world’s first hardcore groups—made history once again, becoming the first Western-based political-punk band to tour China. All this week, guest editor and D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley looks back on the historic trip and gives a fascinating and uncensored glimpse into a part of the world most of us will never see.

“Golden State” (download):

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Day One
I wake up at 7 a.m. in Vancouver to catch the flight to Shanghai. Holy shit! D.O.A.’s going to China. It still hasn’t sunk in. I have been traveling around the world for the last 30 years playing punk rock, I’ve seen a lot, but this promises to be way out there. At the Vancouver airport, I meet D.O.A.’s bassist Dirty Dan Sedan. Our drummer, Floor Tom Jones, is on a different flight, Vancouver to Portland to Tokyo to Shanghai. Well, that should be about 25 hours of travelling—poor sod!

We look at the departures board in the airport. First fuck-up: Our flight is delayed by a couple of hours, there’s a big snow storm in Toronto; that’s where our silver bird is coming from. I got time to kill, so I go to the money exchange to get some RMB (Chinese money). There’s a Chinese lady in front of me, about 40-ish and she is changing in large amounts of Canadian dollars into RMB. As I stare at her cash, she gives me a really deadly look. Maybe it’s drug money. At the airport, you can still change money without ID.

Dan and I get on this brand new Boeing 767, Air Canada Flight 25. The first thing we see is “the pods.” These are the new seats in first class that fold down into a bed. This section is called “Super Elite.” The stewardess is offering champagne; passing by, I say, “Yes please!” She ignores me. Dan and I go, “What the fuck! We’re not part of the super elite!” As we are ushered to the back, it is confirmed we are not.

But at least we are on our way. I pull out my phrase book and my free map of Beijing I got from the Chinese consulate in Vancouver. A couple of days ago when we were at the consulate, I thought we might not be going at all. When I arrived at the consulate, I was gabbing on my cell phone; the Consul-Nazi yelled at me, “Turn that thing off!” I did. A kid was eating a burger, and the Consul-Nazi yelled, “Put that away! What do you think this is, McDonald’s!” He then repeatedly refused to answer any questions from me or others who wanted a visa. Then he told me to line up the next day at 5 a.m. to get the visa.

Day Two
Dan and I land at the Shanghai airport after a 14-hour flight and go to clear immigration. There was a strange thing at the desk of each immigration officer: an electronic device designed for you to register your satisfaction with the job the customs officer did. It had two green buttons with smiley faces you could press and two red buttons with sour faces. I quickly pressed one of the green ones, as I sensed that pressing the first red button meant 10 guys running at you with truncheons and the more severe red button meant the truncheon guys and the rubber-glove squad. But you know what? We are in the country, pretty well the first political punk band to play in China. Woo hoo!

We met up Abe Deyo, the expat American who was promoting the tour. The handy thing was that he spoke fluent Mandarin. We then catch our flight to Beijing. On the flight, I get a copy of the China Daily News, which is the government-run English-language daily. The paper is full of wonderful stories about the economic miracle taking place all over China, There is also a great political cartoon that features Uncle Sam taking a huge crap in a toilet, and the crapper has Guantanamo Bay written on the side of it. We arrive in Beijing, but we can’t find drummer Floor Tom Jones. We try to phone him. We try to page him to no avail. We wait about two hours for him, then decide to catch a cab to the hotel. When we get near the hotel, we can see the hotel sign from the main road, but to actually get to the entrance of “Home Inn,” we turn down this dark, dingy alley. It’s looking grim; it’s about 1 a.m., and we have been traveling now for about 22 hours. We get in the hotel lobby, and it turns out it’s not too bad. It’s the Motel 6 of China. The hotel staff want copies of our passports; obviously the government likes to keep track of where you are. Our rooms are small, but it’s no biggie. We are on the ground floor, and I go to look out our window. There’s a nice little flower bed just outside the window, with a light shining on it; nice touch. As I get closer, I realize that the window is just an opening that is four feet wide, four feet deep and five feet high. It doesn’t go anywhere and the flowers are plastic. So much for the fire-escape option.

We finally get hold of Floor Tom. His flight sat on the tarmac in Tokyo for three hours due to some unknown “mechanical problem.” While we are waiting, we walk around the corner to an all-night diner and order some grub. I guess I don’t have to ask if they have any Chinese food on the menu. Floor Tom eventually catches a cab and gets to the Home Inn at about 3 a.m., after 30 hours of travel.

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Au Revoir Simone Tour Diary: Portland, OR

August 2, 2009

au_revoir-bookBrooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone recently took to the road to promote its latest pop confection, the keyboard-buzzing beauty Still Night, Still Light. Annie Hart reports:

After Austin, my favorite place in the country to visit is Portland, Ore. It is pretty much an Annie Hart nearly perfect fantasy land. Bike lanes, excellent mass transit, pretty gardens, fresh produce aplenty, coffee that makes me salivate and the ultimate bookstore, Powell’s. I have a hard time with Powell’s. Usually I get in trouble whenever I come to Portland with whatever band I happen to be playing with, because I tend to bail as soon as soundcheck is over, the kind of bailing where cymbal stands get knocked over and brief mumbles are goodbyes, all in an effort to be able to spend as much time as possible gently perusing the aisles, getting lost in every section, admiring fonts and book cover designs, reading paragraphs off every 10th random book I see and ending up with a heavy pile of books that I can only manage to carry because years ago my kindly children’s librarian consistently saw me struggling with piles of books when I was a kid and taught me how to properly stack a bunch of books in my hands—in other words, a pile unwieldy to most normal humans. However, on this particular occasion, I had planned my purchases in long daydreams through the desert and up the coast of California and ended up with a concise, easy-to-find variety:
1. Houseplant care guide
2. Interesting magazine/zine (easy to read in car when bored)
3. Serious political American history (difficult to read in the car when bored)
4. Needlepoint encyclopedia (to get ideas for projects I will never finish)
5. Quality Agatha Christie books (I hate fiction in general but stick to the classics for culture’s sake)

For the latter, I spent what felt like an hour in the “C” section of the mystery department, stalking multiple white-haired ladies, asking for advice on which book to buy. I don’t know if it is my New York accent coming out more strongly than usual these days, or maybe elderly women are not used to being accosted whilst shopping, but every one denies having read any Agatha Christie, which sends my stereotypes right out the window and leave me guessing which book to get based purely on casual familiarity with the title and the best-looking cover. In the end, I either made the right decision, or all her books are excellent. Perfect tour reading. I’ve been recommending her to all my touring band friends looking for a read in the car. More after the jump.

“Sad Song (RAC Mix)” (download):

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Au Revoir Simone Tour Diary: Farther North Of San Francisco

August 1, 2009

gasdog2

Brooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone recently took to the road to promote its latest pop confection, the keyboard-buzzing beauty Still Night, Still Light. Annie Hart reports:

At a gas station, I found some poetry on the bulletin board that I’m trying to work into a song. Heather nearly abducted this mangy dog/lion.

“Sad Song (Pacific Remix)” (download):

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Au Revoir Simone Tour Diary: North Of San Francisco

July 31, 2009

rainbow1Brooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone recently took to the road to promote its latest pop confection, the keyboard-buzzing beauty Still Night, Still Light. Annie Hart reports:

I offered to drive right before sunset, which was timed perfectly with my favorite drive in the whole country: I-5 through Northern California and past Mount Shasta and roads curving over blue lakes. And the second I took over, the sky clouded over to nearly black and sheets of rain hammered down over the car, sounding like a cavalcade of toddlers let loose with wooden spoons over piles of aluminum trays. When the sun finally came out, the sky was golden and two nearly full arcs of rainbows broke out of the air. The air was so lovely and fresh and the scenery was so picturesque I turned into a different version of myself and did the unthinkable: Next time we stopped for gas, I bought a pack of cigarettes. Those 99.9% of you who are reading this and don’t know me for the last five years or more will probably not be sufficiently shocked at that last part of the sentence. I mean, sure, when I’ve been drinking too much, I bum one off a friend from time to time, maybe about three a year, and this was the second pack of cigarettes I ever bought. And the first one ended up crumbling into a slightly wet pile of tobacco shreds at the bottom of my bag, with only two smoked out of the pack. It’s not like I think buying a pack of cigarettes is actually that weird of a thing to do, or that smoking a random cigarette made by a company that doesn’t test on animals or puts fiberglass in their recipe is really that bad. It’s more that the action is so uncharacteristic of me that I feel like a completely different person, or that I am the same person, with the same brain, and it’s observing the actions of a completely different person doing unusual things with my body. And to top it off, I have a weird guilt complex when I smoke one outside of a venue, because there will be young fans outside, and I don’t want them to get the wrong idea and think that I approve of smoking or that smoking is cool, but maybe I’m just being neurotic about things, which is likely, since being neurotic is pretty much my specialty in life. Not as much as Woody Allen, though. Heather thinks I did it because of a lack of sex, but I think the lack of sleep is getting to me.

“The Way To There (Mark Anthony Tieku Remix)” (download):

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Au Revoir Simone Tour Diary: Somewhere Between Santa Barbara And San Francisco

July 30, 2009
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Brooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone recently took to the road to promote its latest pop confection, the keyboard-buzzing beauty Still Night, Still Light. Annie Hart reports:

To put it lightly, on this tour we fell in love with our opening band, the Antlers. Evidence to prove our love:

Exhibit A: Erika and I jumping on the bed during our last night possible to party with them (above). Darby, the mister-fix-it keyboard player, forced us to jump with pillows placed on top of our heads in order to not hurt our noggins on the ceiling, which was clearly not designed with the possibility of rather tall ladies bouncing on beds beneath them without snapping their necks.

More after the jump:

“Lark (Ruff And Jam Remix)” (download):

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Au Revoir Simone Tour Diary: Van Horn, Texas

July 29, 2009

jesus300Brooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone recently took to the road to promote its latest pop confection, the keyboard-buzzing beauty Still Night, Still Light. Annie Hart reports:

At Chuy’s, John Madden’s favorite restaurant, in between scrumptious homemade veggie tamales, we discovered Erika bears a striking resemblance to Jesus.

 

 

 

“Shadows” (download):

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Au Revoir Simone Tour Diary: West Texas

July 28, 2009

au_revoir_groceryBrooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone recently took to the road to promote its latest pop confection, the keyboard-buzzing beauty Still Night, Still Light. Annie Hart reports:

They say everything is bigger in Texas, so when we stopped at the typically mega, jumbo, enormous, ginourmous Fiesta Mart in West Texas for a thousand-mile-overdue oil change, it was surprising that Caroline, our English sound engineer, and I were taken aback by the size of the cereal boxes in the store. Maybe it’s because my normal grocery store is about the size of this cereal aisle (and the store was about the size of my neighborhood), and the boxes of cereal that I do buy from time to time are smaller, more demure versions of the reasonably sized Pathmark No-Frills Corn Flakes I was used to as a kid. I’ve never seen anything like this, and it made me wonder what becomes of the impossible-to-eat portions. Are they destined to be gulped down with serving spoons in great big salad bowls by college freshmen? Or end up in forgotten, stale, slightly soggy messes in the bottom shelves of pantries? I want this whole thought process mapped out in a cartoon by Roz Chast.

“Knight Of Wands” (download):

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Au Revoir Simone Tour Diary: Austin, Texas

July 27, 2009

au_revoir_chicoBrooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone recently took to the road to promote its latest pop confection, the keyboard-buzzing beauty Still Night, Still Light. Annie Hart reports:

Austin rules. Austin is one of our favorite destinations on tour because of Mr. Natural’s Health Emporium, the best margaritas in the country, drool-worthy breakfast tacos and the best party shops ever on East Cesar Chavez. We stopped into one on the way to the show and picked up a little multi-colored burro piñata, whom I christened Chico, ’cause he’s my boy. I have a little bit of a problem with with anthropomorphizing piñatas, which admittedly is a little strange, but not as strange in my book as not anthropomorphizing piñatas. Side note: I got to talking to the sound engineer at the venue in Tucson, Ariz., about the piñata, and he said, “Oh! My dog is named Chico, too. But I found him in East Austin on Cesar Chavez, so that was no-brainer.” Look at the classic situations my Chico got into after the jump.

“All Or Nothing” (download):

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A.C. Newman Tour Diary By Jon Wurster: Part 5

June 12, 2009

van_whippy550If you think that post title is catchy, you should hear Get Guilty (Matador), the most recent solo album by New Pornographers frontman Carl “A.C.” Newman. It’ll blow your mind. Jon Wurster, drummer for indie rock’s A-list (Superchunk, Robert Pollard, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats, Whiskeytown), chronicles his recent U.K. tour with Newman this week at magnetmagazine.com:

May 24
One more to go, folks. We’re gonna close this out in the great city of Nottingham. Last time I was here, I put my foot through a club wall. It’s a long story involving a less-than-ideal rental drum kit and my near arrest the previous day for taking photographs in the vicinity of small children. If only I were joking.

Today’s afternoon show is also part of the Dot-To-Dot festival and will take place on the campus of a university I couldn’t possibly care about knowing the name of. There’s an hour to kill before we play, and Shane and I head into the city center. While he looks for sneakers, I go to a book shop and pick up a copy of the Mark E. Smith autobiography and the first season of Steve Coogan’s recent series, Saxondale. On the way back to the venue, we see an ice-cream truck with the words “Soft Whippy” painted on it. This cracks us up to no end, and for the next six hours, it’s nothing but Soft Whippy jokes, my favorite being Shane’s portrayal of an English thug placing an ice-cream order: “OK, right? Here’s how this is gonna go, right? We want ‘free whippies,’ OK? Two sof’, one ‘ard.” It’s funny because it’s true. You can totally picture the ne’er-do-well uncle of one of the Housemartins saying something like that.

Since we went over our alloted time yesterday, it’s decided we’ll cut a song from the setlist. It’s a little disconcerting that nobody’s in the cavernous hall as we set up our gear. But there’s a constant stream of folks coming in while we play our first song, and soon the place is pretty full. It turns out to be the best show of the tour. The lighting guy even provides us with several blasts of dry ice, which makes us feel like Black Sabbath, or at the very least, The Right To Rock-era Keel.

The show is over in the blink of an eye, and soon we’re back on the M1, warm Red Stripes in hand (not Alun, though!) heading to the cemetery-gates Premier Inn one final time. I get started on the Mark E. Smith book, and Alun is kind enough to put up with my constant barrage of Manchester-related questions. Although he draws a line when I ask him to rank all 38 Fall bassists according to “chops, vibe and funkiness.”

Back in Manchester, Alun and Andrew head back to Alun’s flat for some well-deserved rest. Tomorrow, Andrew is heading to London for a solo show; the rest of us will be flying back to the U.S. Carl, Miranda, Shane and I head into town for one final Indian meal. On the way back to the Premier, Carl and I talk about the tour. Despite the usual small stuff, we’re both pleased with how it all went. For me, it’s always an honor to get to play great songs, and Carl is, in my book, one of the very best songwriters going; it’s been awesome playing with and getting to know him, Shane, Miranda and Andrew. (As well as Tara Szczygielski and Shaun Brodie: the other members of our band who didn’t make the U.K. trip.) And a special thank you to Alun for bringing us over and dragging our asses around. I know it wasn’t always a barrel of laughs. Especially when I peed in the van.

Tomorrow we’ll scatter to the four winds: Miranda back to Austin, Shane to Vancouver, Andrew to Lawrence. Carl will have a few days rest before returning to New Pornographers mode. I’ll be back on the road in the fall with Bob Mould, the Mountain Goats and Superchunk. I’m sure a Premier Inn or two are in my not-so-distant future.

Back at the hotel and I can’t sleep. Oh, wait, I remember the Xanax that Tad gave me. It takes forever to kick in, and just as I’m about to say, “This stuff doesn’t work,” I’m off to a magical land filled with dreams of the softest whippies imaginable.

May 25
We’re on a Delta plane heading back to the U.S. Though there’s no English farter to contend with, there seems to be even less legroom than on the way over. Carl has the severe misfortune of being in a middle seat, the worst fate imaginable on a seven-hour flight. He spends a good portion of the journey playing trivia on the in-flight entertainment system. He’s kicking ass. I watch him play for a little while, but I start to get really sleepy. As I’m about to drift off Carl whispers, “You know, this is the worst international flight I’ve ever been on.”

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A.C. Newman Tour Diary By Jon Wurster: Part 4

June 11, 2009

longhaul_bristol550If you think that post title is catchy, you should hear Get Guilty (Matador), the most recent solo album by New Pornographers frontman Carl “A.C.” Newman. It’ll blow your mind. Jon Wurster, drummer for indie rock’s A-list (Superchunk, Robert Pollard, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats, Whiskeytown), chronicles his recent U.K. tour with Newman this week at magnetmagazine.com:

May 23
Turns out staying in was the proper thing to do, because the others didn’t get back until 4:30 in the morning. What are these kids doing nowadays, staying out all night? You know there was a video game involved. You just know it. I wake up at 8 a.m., trying to remember all the weird dreams I had. One of them had me eating Rice Krispie treats with the ghost of former Iowa senator James W. McDill. Which is odd because I rarely think about him that much anymore. When Alun comes to pick us up this morning, he parks the van in the first available non-handicapped space. Unfortunately, it’s six entire spaces from the front door, which means we have to lug all our stuff way further than we should. I know, I know, he’s just obeying the rules, but it troubles me deeply for some reason. I can understand his plight. I’m also an extreme rule follower sometimes. I once reported my older brother to the police after he stole a pack of cigarettes. It was the right thing to do. He never touched my smokes again.

We head into town hoping for our first U.K. sit-down lunch. There’s nowhere to park, so we head back to the Premier Inn. Oh, man, is this really happening? Now it’s off to Bristol, where we’ll be playing as part of the Dot-To-Dot Festival. The check-in area for the festival is located in front of a venue/boat called Thekla. Yes, you read that correctly: It’s a rock club in a boat. Superchunk played here some 16 years ago. (It wouldn’t be the last small sailing vessel we played.) The view of the river is really beautiful, and the cameras come out while we wait for Alun to secure our festival credentials. As we’re snapping away, Carl says something I will remember on my deathbed: “Bands don’t take pictures of other bands.”

After we scarf down our complimentary meat pies (yep), Alun hands me a green coupon that I’m to exchange for a case of free warm beer. When I hand a young festival worker the green coupon, he begins ripping the cellophane off a full case of beer and handing us individual cans. “Why don’t you just give us the full case so we can carry it?” asks Carl. “Because you only get half a case,” replies our man. “No, we get a full case,” I object. “No you don’t, you gave me a yellow ticket,” he retorts. “No, it was green.” “No it wasn’t.” “Yes, it was.” This exchange goes back and forth for a while. Look, I am wrong plenty of times. And when I am, I will freely admit it. But I am so not wrong in this instance that it’s not even a little funny. Our friend goes into his pocket and pulls out a wad of loose beer tickets. The one closest to his hand is yellow. “That’s the last ticket I took. Yours. And it’s yellow.” There is no way he can possibly know it’s the last ticket he took.

I reply, “I’m a thousand percent sure I gave you a green ticket.” But this guy is a brick wall. He then goes to his clipboard and asks for the name of the band. He flips through the sheets, locates “A.C. Newman” and says, “OK, I was wrong.” As Carl and I reach down to pick up a fresh case, dude mumbles, “But you did give me a yellow ticket.” More words are exchanged, but the stand-off ends as Carl and I remember England’s strict anti-strangling laws.

When you think of a U.K. festival, you think of thousands of drunk kids in Dr. Seuss hats going nuts in a pasture while the Happy Mondays play, right? That’s not the case with Dot-To-Dot. Our gig is in a very old pub in downtown Bristol called the Fleece And Firkin. I’m not positive, but I think a firkin is a pubic wig, isn’t it? Or is that a merkin? Guess I’ll just have to wait for my summer crotch-wig catalogs to show up. We’re playing with the Hold Steady tonight, and it’s good to see them. They’re quite the phenomenon over here and have been wholly embraced by several of the big U.K. music mags. But you’d never know they’re here tonight, because at 6:30 p.m., the club is pretty much empty, even though the festival is in full swing. We’re on at 8, so there’s nothing to do but sit outside and drink those warm Carlsbergs. But I can’t do it. They’ve been tainted with the douchiness of that guy back at the beer tent. I buy some wine and sit with the gang next to a picnic table that has a substantial amount of vomit under it. It totally takes me back to my seventh-grade church trip to see the Pope.

We’re only required to play for 30 minutes tonight, and this is positively thrilling to Carl. He’s almost giddy about having to play such a short set. I kind of am, too. You get to play pretty much just “the hits,” and it’s like having a half day of school or something. But the show’s kind of weird: Two songs are ended too early, and the vibe is a little off. We finish the final tune, “On The Table,” correctly, so we go out on a good note. Afterward, we join the Hold Steady on their rock bus and hang out for a while. Tad Kubler is kind enough to give me a Xanax for future use. Right before we split, I head back to the club and catch a couple THS tunes. The club is completely full now. Where did all these people come from? And can I stay with one of them instead of going to a Premier Inn? I leave through the side door while the band is rockin’ out.

Tired, we head back to tonight’s Premier Inn. This one is in Portishead. There’s a band from here, but its name escapes me.

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A.C. Newman Tour Diary By Jon Wurster: Part 3

June 10, 2009

glasgow_view550If you think that post title is catchy, you should hear Get Guilty (Matador), the most recent solo album by New Pornographers frontman Carl “A.C.” Newman. It’ll blow your mind. Jon Wurster, drummer for indie rock’s A-list (Superchunk, Robert Pollard, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats, Whiskeytown), chronicles his recent U.K. tour with Newman this week at magnetmagazine.com:

May 21
 Today we travel further north to the land that gave us haggis, golf and the Exploited. To say nothing of the many fine products in the Scotch brand tape family. It’s a beautiful drive through the English and Scottish countryside; really inspiring. At a rest stop, we meet a band from Ireland that will also be playing in Glasgow tonight. They’re at a venue called King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut. I’ve played there a few times over the years, and my main memory of it will always be sitting down to eat a club-provided pre-show meal and Mac McCaughan being presented with a “tuna potato,” which is, of course, Scottish for “a potato with a lump of tuna stuck in it.” I think he ended up just dropping it in the toilet when nobody was looking.

Later: At the ABC Glasgow, which is a great venue with nice crew and the full backstage spread; they even have my last-minute addition to the rider (six copies of the current issue of Nuts). After running through a few songs, we head out for more Indian. On the way to dinner, a woman asks us for directions. Miranda’s reply will live forever in the annals of greatest things ever said: “I’m sorry, I’m totally from America.”

There’s a small yet very enthusiastic turnout tonight. We play well, and it sounds really great onstage. Several of the Belle And Sebastian folks are here, and there’s a big hangout in the dressing room post-show. But tonight, I’m in “lone wolf” mode for some reason. Everyone seems really nice, but I’m in need of private times. After we load out, Alun and I hang in the van for a bit. He’s a little unsure of the safety of the neighborhood and doesn’t want to leave the van.

After a bit, I head down to Nice ‘N’ Sleazy, the bar where everyone’s gathered. It’s so loud and packed, I turn right around and get a drink in a quiet bar where they’re watching a soccer match. It’s kind of a toss-up between what I enjoy less: watching televised sports (specifically basketball) or listening to the blues. Thankfully, the other TV in this pub is showing the new Green Day video, which is something I could enjoy for all of eternity.

I rejoin Alun in the van and wait for the others to come back. There’s a disco happening at ABC, and we watch the kids queue up outside, carefully avoiding various small puddles of vomit. Suddenly, there’s a big commotion in the lobby. A bunch of security guards spill out onto the street. They’re restraining a guy. A weird sound cuts through the din, like a duck quacking or something. We realize it’s the fellow they’re restraining—he’s deaf. He’s hustled back into the club and held there until the police arrive about 20 minutes later. The cops shove him into their car, and it’s very weird watching his friends trying to reassure him in sign language as he sits there in the back seat. He, of course, can’t sign back because his hands are cuffed behind him.

The incident reinforces the warning we keep seeing on posters addressing the city’s growing crime problem: “Commit a felony in Glasgow and the last sound you’ll hear is the prison door slamming behind you.” (Except, of course, if you’re a deaf. But rest assured, you will hate it just as much as the normal-eared.) Now it’s off to … Hey, look at that: a Premier Inn.

May 22
 We have a day off today, and we’ll spend it at the cemetery-gates Premier Inn. Miranda, Shane and I get dinner at the adjacent pub. There’s some kind of bachelorette party going on a few tables away. They call them “hen parties” over here. You think you’ve heard cackling? You know nothing. Everyone’s going out for the night, but I’m going to continue working on some stuff. And by “working on stuff” I mean watching vintage Burger King commercials on YouTube.

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A.C. Newman Tour Diary By Jon Wurster: Part 2

June 9, 2009

manchester_london550If you think that post title is catchy, you should hear Get Guilty (Matador), the most recent solo album by New Pornographers frontman Carl “A.C.” Newman. It’ll blow your mind. Jon Wurster, drummer for indie rock’s A-list (Superchunk, Robert Pollard, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats, Whiskeytown), chronicles his recent U.K. tour with Newman this week at magnetmagazine.com:

May 19
My early-to-bed routine has served me well. I’m up at 7 a.m. and doing my ablutions while Carl sleeps the sleep of the just got in a few hours ago from drinking. Soon, Alun shows up with the van. I don’t think he’s a tour manager or a van driver by trade. And that’s OK; this is a bare bones tour, and it’ll save us all a lot of money if we don’t hire a professional tour manager. I really can’t think of a more thankless job. You have to drive everywhere, keep track of everything and people are always asking you for stuff. I really should call my parents and tell them I love them.

When we get to the gear rental place, we find the amps are too big for the van. And, of course, the seats are bolted in and can’t be removed. Surely there were vans more suited to this kind of activity? Maybe not, I dunno. Frustrated, I walk away, all grumbly. Carl and Shane assume the roles of pack masters general. We head out of Manchester to our first gig in London. This band hasn’t played a full set together since early April, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. Our fifth member will be Kansas-based singer/songwriter Andrew Morgan; he’ll play keyboards and additional guitar, as well as open the shows. When we get to the Luminaire in the Kilburn section of London, we hunker down for a marathon soundcheck/rehearsal. Andrew has really done his homework, and everything sounds good. The sound guy is American and looks just like former Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick’s older brother Bob. (I know what Bruce Kulick’s older brother Bob looks like. What does this say about me?)

I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, “It is times like these when copious amounts of wine could not be more of a help.” There’s that period between soundcheck and the show when time slows to a snail’s pace. Tonight there’s no time to get a proper dinner, so we snack on the rider (food and beverages provided by the club) and we break out the vino. I ask Alun if he’ll get us a corkscrew. “Please don’t judge me,” I ask. This is in reference to a conversation we had earlier today about a book I was reading: The Easy Way To Stop Drinking. It’s probably a typical rock ‘n’ roll story: I didn’t really drink at all until about 1996. Superchunk was on a long and dismal European tour, and I started drinking beer to pass the post-soundcheck/pre-show hours. It helped, but it kind of made me feel like a loser, like I wasn’t meeting reality on its own terms. And I guess I wasn’t. But when your reality is a dingy rock club on the outskirts of town, it’s easy to fall into this. When I look back on the last two years I’ve spent in constant tour mode, I see how I’ve sometimes gotten into the same pattern. My performances didn’t suffer, but I was definitely using that handful of drinks a night to alleviate the boredom and loneliness that goes with touring. And I know I’m coming to the end of the line of that train ride.

At this point, Andrew needs to get ready for his set. He seems a little nervous; I think he’s still a little new to this. He needs to warm up and proceeds to do just that, in front of us. He sings and plays one of his songs just as he will onstage. It is both impressive and unsettling. I need to leave the room at one point because it makes me uncomfortable; I really don’t know how to react.

Later: Now that’s what I’m talking about. A great show. The club was sold out, and we all had a good time. There were a couple small mistakes, and Carl made a big production of blaming the problems on “the new guy” (even though they may not have been his fault). It was all in fun, though, and at one point Carl apologized to Andrew on mic for “throwing you under the bus.”

Tonight we’re staying at another Premier Inn, this one’s in Didsbury, which, little known fact, is where 100 percent of the world’s plastic change purses are produced. (I just made that up.) As we park, I’m shocked to learn that Alun wants us to load all the gear into the hotel. Though I understand his not wanting to risk having the gear or van stolen, the idea seems insane to me. I’ve been doing this a long time and have never brought all the gear inside. Thankfully, he finds a secure spot to back the van into and I don’t get all crabby.

Now, let’s get some fooking sleep.

May 20
The van and the gear were stolen. Just kidding. We’re heading back to Manchester today to play a place called the Retro Bar. Sounds promising, yes? Oh, just you wait. We stop at a travel plaza that features a Marks & Spencer food shop. M&S is a cross between a convenience store and a Whole Foods; you can actually get salads and other good things there. There’s a magazine shop in the travel plaza and a cursory look at the rack reveals that “Britain loves tits.” They call them “lads’ magazines,” and there are at least five of them, like Maxim but with even more air-brushed fake breasts. One’s called Nuts, and this saddens me deeply. On the bright side, one look at the cover of the new issue of the NME has raised my spirits substantially: “The Arctic Monkeys Are Back And They Now Have Long Hair.”

Now, before we proceed, let me state that although I try my best to maintain a positive attitude on the road, I also quite enjoy bitching about things that get under my skin. I don’t know a touring musician who doesn’t. It’s a healthy and usually painless way to let off steam. That said, let’s go to the Retro Bar. Ah, yes, it’s all lining up:
Multi-flight downstairs load-in? Check.
Club so small there’s actually no need to mic guitars or drums? Check.
Tiny corner stage decorated with Jack Daniels posters? Check.
PA blasting Rage Against The Machine? Check.
No rider? Check.

There’s also the fact that the club smells like a fetid cheese made from the lining of Satan’s own running shorts. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear we were in a bar in State College, Pa., at closing time. I mean, if State College, Pa., was located in deepest Hades. This is going to be one of those “what am I doing with my life” kind of nights. We can all feel it. Thankfully, Alun rustles us up some fruit, chips and vino. And the sad fact is wine does make it better.

Post-soundcheck, Miranda, Carl, Shane and I head down the street to an Indian restaurant. It’s located next to the hotel I stayed in last May when I was here with Bob Mould. We had a night off and did the inexplicable, deciding against seeing the Jello- /Peligro-less Dead Kennedys in favor of hitting the town. We ended up in a kebab shop packed with wasted teenagers. I was mistaken for Dave Grohl and our bassist, Jason Narducy, started pretending he was my security guard. “Please, no phone cameras, people … give him some space, please.” I think I told someone we were “all going to Liam’s for a spliff or two.” Oh, the stunts you pull in your 40s.

After another winning Indian meal, we reluctantly head back to the Retro Bar. There’s maybe 35 people here tonight. It’s a real shame because I think the songs are great and so is the band. I experienced the same thing when I toured with Robert Pollard. Without the name “Guided By Voices” or “New Pornographers,” it’s unfortunately a different ball game. Even though it’s the same guy who wrote and sang the songs. Come on, people. The show is good, despite my snare-drum head literally breaking in half three-quarters through the set. Not from my Neanderthal style of bashing but from the drum’s misshapen hoop. (You guys love “drum talk,” don’t you?)

Now it’s back to the Premier Inn to watch a documentary about a 16-year-old girl trying to make her way into the totally awesome world of lads’ magazines.

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A.C. Newman Tour Diary By Jon Wurster: Part 1

June 8, 2009

cemeterygates550If you think that post title is catchy, you should hear Get Guilty (Matador), the most recent solo album by New Pornographers frontman Carl “A.C.” Newman. It’ll blow your mind. Jon Wurster, drummer for indie rock’s A-list (Superchunk, Robert Pollard, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats, Whiskeytown), chronicles his recent U.K. tour with Newman this week at magnetmagazine.com:

As a kid, I’d often fantasize about what it would be like to travel the world in a rock band. I’d imagine how much fun it would be playing every night in a different city, seeing new things and meeting interesting people. As it turned out, I got to do just that. First with Superchunk, then with folks like Robert Pollard, Whiskeytown and Marah. Things started to get crazy a couple years ago, and I’ve been on a seemingly continuous round of recording and touring with the Mountain Goats, Bob Mould, Superchunk and the focus of this tour diary: A.C. Newman (the solo project of New Pornographers singer/songwriter Carl Newman). This non-stop rock ‘n’ roll juggernaut is actually pretty close to what my 12-year-old self imagined. But I had no idea there’d be so many Premier Inns involved. Or so much warm beer. Or vomit.

May 18
This is the final leg of A.C. Newman’s Get Guilty tour. We finished the North American portion back in early March with an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman, a wonderful way to wrap up things. Now it’s time to bite the bullet and hit the U.K. for a handful of shows. I say this because it’s been my experience that in order for your record to be given a proper shot and for your overseas label to take you seriously, you must turn up on their shores to play shows. Unfortunately, much of the time those gigs are, well, not so happening. You’ll have a great one in London, but most of the other shows are losing propositions. Carl has no illusions about this trip. He says he’s not expecting much in the way of turnouts. We’ll see how it goes. At the very least, it’ll be good to play together again.

When I arrive at JFK’s Delta international terminal, I’m a little put off. I know times are tough and airlines have to scale back on expenses, but outfitting your agents in red Delta T-shirts instead of actual uniforms does not inspire confidence. What it says is, “You think this is bad, wait ’til you get on the plane.” In the middle of the flight to Manchester, Carl and I are standing in line for the lavatory. He whispers, “This is the worst international flight I’ve ever been on.” I have to agree. It’s a combination of things: The seats are so close to each other, it’s ridiculous. Carl and I are more than six feet tall, and our knees are touching the seats in front of us. What in the name of Samhain does a Kobe Bryant or a Sir William Corgan do in these situations? Yes, I know they’d be in first class, but things don’t look all that much better up there. Then there’s the English gentleman between us. He stares straight forward the entire flight, his only movement the raising of a wine-filled cup to his lips. I hardly know he’s there. Except for when he lets loose the rankest fart ever to reach my airspace. It’s positively criminal. Yet I have to give him points for the the stoic poker face he retains in the 45 seconds following his assault.

After we land in Manchester, we’re met by our tour manager/label head, Alun, and our bassist, Miranda Brown. Miranda got in a few hours earlier from Austin, Texas, and she’s on fumes from lack of sleep. Outside of being brutally murdered, there’s nothing worse than arriving at your hotel after a long journey and being told your rooms will not be ready for several hours. It hurts you to your soul. We’re given this news, and our souls hurt. So we kill time at a local cafe. Alun has a tiny car, and it’s decided that after eating, he and Carl will go to his flat to pick up some stuff, and Miranda and I will walk the mile back to the Premier Inn. She and I take no more than 10 steps before the clouds open up on us for the duration of our walk back. I picture my umbrella nestled snuggly in my suitcase, and I curse God for inventing rain, Manchester and Alun’s small car.

Manchester has a remarkable musical history. Oasis, the Buzzcocks and the Fall all hail from here, as did the Smiths. Alun informs us that the cemetery across from the Premier Inn was the inspiration for their tune “Cemetery Gates.” While Miranda and Carl sack out at the hotel, guitarist Shane Nelken and I hoof it up to the cemetery to get in touch with our inner Moz. We take a walk around the grounds, and it’s actually quite beautiful, excepting the fact that there are submerged dead bodies everywhere. Shane used to work in a funeral home, and it’s interesting hearing about the inner workings of that world. Although I’m a little disappointed to hear that the number of times he’s made love in a graveyard barely cracks double digits.

After a fabulous Indian dinner, I’m starting to fade. I elect to cab it back to the hotel while the others go out on the town. The U.K. is abuzz at the moment with news that the speaker of the House of Commons wrote off hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of expenses he was not entitled to. Seems he will be the first speaker in more than 300 years to be forced out of office. I think the last guy was tossed for wearing the wrong kind of breeches in front of Mary II. Definitely something breech-related. The Indian cabbie and I never speak until he hands me my receipt. “Here you go,” he says cheerfully. “If they can write off their houses, surely you can write off this.” Damn straight, my man.

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