You know the old
saying when it rains, it pours? Well as
a somewhat relatively new resident to the Northwest, specifically ....Portland...., I had no idea
how ironically true a statement could be.
In fact truer words have never been spoken, and you’d think I would have
maybe just a little bit listened to all the stories from the locals….Maybe just
a little bit. Now pair that with the
trials and tribulations of being in a band, on the road, (which I’d like to say
I have some experience with), and an infamous fellow by the name of Murphy, and
you’ve got yourselves one hell of a combination for disaster and/or one crazy
whacked out adventure. That is depending
on how adventurous you are. At any rate
when all is said and done, we’ll have one heckuva VH1 story, which probably
constitutes what would be considered the “norm”
for the life of a bunch of up and coming rock stars.
.. ..
This is but one of
many such adventures…..
.. ..
The setting: The middle of winter on our way from ....Portland.. ..Oregon....
to Everett and Port Townsend Washington.
Pretty Standard I would say. A
Three hour trip followed by a two hour trip the next day and then home the
next. Easy considering we have friends
and family in the greater ....Seattle....
area and on the Northwest peninsula.
.. ..
So here’s where we
met this guy Murphy. Luggage-check, band
gear in trailer-check, truck gassed up-check, crew-check, everything was hunky
dory, OH YEAH, everything was going our way…smooth as a banana peel on Ex lax. Aaaaaaaaaaaand BLAMMO! Ahhhh crud, there goes the engine. Off to the side of the road we go. Now it’s kind of funny because this isn’t the
first time this has happened to us… nor the second, or third. The only difference is that today we’re
immobilized on an extremely scary and treacherous curve of the I-5 Northbound
where it’s low visibility and almost no shoulder. Did I mention that it’s winter…ah yes, and
cold-near freezing.
Hey look out for that big rig. Smoke comes billowing out from the inside if
its enormous 18 wheels. The brakes are
on and he speeds by our stranded vehicle and trailer with maybe a foot to
spare. That was close…too close. Meanwhile Wes, our bass player and resident
mechanic is on his back under our truck trying to figure out what was
wrong. This goes on, luckily without
further incident for about a half-hour until AAA shows up. Wee unhitch the trailer and get ready for the
truck to be hitched-WRONG! Because
there’s no shoulder, he has to call back up to direct traffic away from our
lane. Two flag trucks come and away goes
the tow truck, leaving the trailer with all of our gear and luggage and the six
remaining passengers on the side of the freeway. Well the flag truck seeing our most dire
situation happens to have a tow ball and decides to pull us off of the freeway
at the next exit. Luckily our Buddies
came with another truck and got us to the gig.
We made other sleeping arrangements and got through the show.
.. ..
The next morning we rented a U-HAUL and a rental car to
carry us and our gear across the Peugeot Sound via ferry, made it to the show
and had to make more accommodation arrangements to keep the rising costs of our
illustrious trip to a minimum. To make a
longer story short, we ended up in ....Edmonds....
that night. The next morning we packed
our stuff and returned the rentals, got our truck back and started home. Woops!
A band member forgot his cell phone in ....Edmonds.....
OK turn around. Hey has anyone
seen my beanie? No’s all around-it’s
gone. We finally made the trip home and
none worse for the ware-maybe even stronger because of such. Whew!
.. ..
That night I got an E-mail from a guy named Murphy. It read…hey I had a great time. See ya on the next one
-..Ravi..