Sunday, August 19
Great Scott
Boston, MA
With Oppenheimer and the Snow Cones.
The big kickoff, our first show since May in our hometown, did not seem promising. A phone call to Sean Drinkwater confirmed that he had been up drinking until past dawn and was feeling like he had been dropped from a helicopter. His attempts to make things better by donning the personality of an oldies DJ (Heyyyyyyyy..its Seanny D. Rockin Allston Rock Ci-tay!) only made the evening seem more foreboding.
What was worse, we had gotten wind that Oppenheimer was having trouble with its paperwork and that the Canadian shows might be cancelled. the main guy from the opening band, whom I will call The Snow Cones, was a first class prick. This is the sort of thing one hopes not to be warned about, as these things have a tendency to self-fulfill.
Oppenheimer arrive after three hours sleep and seem to be a pair of fine young lads. Rocky and Shaun vaguely resemble Jack Black and Todd Louiso from High Fidelity. Their soundman, Gerry, a barnacled veteran of the road, is a bit surly and all seem put off by the amount of faux Irish bars in this town. Why the fuk do Irishmen pay 750 quid to come over here and spend all their time in Irish bars, Gerry wondered.
The Snow Cones arrive, and Booth Navy immediately pinpoints the prick, whom I will call Ivor. Ivor is actually friendly enough, and the rest of the band is super nice. He is sad that he hasnt heard a full blown Boston accent yet. I tell him it is essentially because misfits do not pick up the local accent, and he seems to buy this.
Sean, remarkably enough, sang his ass off and was sufficiently personable that no would suspect that he poisoned himself that night. Nevertheless, I find the audacity to actually give him a tongue lashing, even though I myself poisoned that particular high horse ages ago.
Oppenheimer are excellent and have filled Great Scott with nerdy girls. One is singing a long to every word, so I suggest to Rocky that he may want to do something about this, but alas, he has a girlfriend back in Belfast, and he is a good boy.
At the end of the night, as predicted, Ivor gives our lovely manager a hard time about the money. I stay out of it, and Sean offers to kick in some of our money but Ivor is not having any of it and they argue for a solid 20 minutes.
August 20
Pianos
New York, New York
With Oppenheimer and the Snow Cones
We do not have a van and cannot afford to rent one, so we are traveling in two of the most rock and roll vehicles known to manthe blue station wagon. I am bummed out that we are not all together, but it this method of travel proves to be as fun as Cannonball Run. Alex and I in one car, Seth and Sean in the other.
We arrive at Pianos early, to find out that Ivors argument with Jen was the last straw, as far as Oppenheimer was concerned, and the Snow Cones have been kicked off the bus, which essentially means they have been kicked off the tour. I apologize to Oppenheimer for our part in all of it but they swear this is the first good day theyve had in three weeks, and thanked us for confirming that it was not them who, in fact, were crazy.
I expect a gaudy time of it, tension-wise, but the Snow Cones remain cordial and we play a picture perfect New York show, filled with friends and some industry-types who seem interested in us.
August 22
DC9
Washington, DC
I am greeted that morning by a $45 dollar street cleaning ticket. Just to rub my nose in it, they paste a yellow sticker that covers my entire back right window telling me how they couldnt clean the street properly because of me, as if Im too stupid to understand why I got the fucking ticket. Then I forget to put the emergency break on as I am readjusting the luggage and, for five seconds, live out John Foxxs nightmare where there is no one driving as I scramble back in the car to just barely avoid rear ending a construction worker. (Rear ending a construction worker? Hmmmm.)
I am skittish. Alex gives the sticker a cursory read and tries to placate me by telling me that my car doesnt look that dirty.
DC feels better without the Snow Cones, but we are starting to worry about Seths health. He collapses in a booth at DC9 and will not even get up to walk three doors down to the Subway for some dinner. We go to a Mexican place. Sean and I order the Patron marguerite which proves to be the best marguerita ever tasted by man. Alex, who has by now sealed his reputation as the Davy Jones of this band, has fallen in love with the waitress.
Back at DC9, we are treated to a rarity on touras soundcheck. Sound check goes seamlessly and the owner already wants to book us again. In the next fifteen minutes, however, the patron marguerite has made its way to my fingers and head and I play the most disastrous forty-five minutes of guitar ever heard by man. I apologize to Sean and he consoles me by saying, At least you didnt do that in New York. I write to Jen and ask her to kick me out of the band. She writes back that I should stop whining and go find a BJ and prepare myself to kick ass tomorrow night. Strangely enough, I am soothed by this tough love and come down off the ledge.
Oppenheimer play a beautiful set. We know all the words by now. We sing along. We will miss them. Rocky and I argue over money (this time with each band trying to take less than what the other is offering.) We all part ways and promise to meet up again in the fall.
As we are loading out, a homeless man tries to sell me porn. I haggle with him and get two dodgy magazines for $6.56. He demands that Seth and Alex kick in 22 cents each to make it an even $7.00 and we suggest he wait it out and try to get a better offer. Everyone seems pleased with my haggling skills but no one will touch the magazines.
We go out for more alcohol with my cousin Gilbert, his friend Marco and Seths friend Laura and Shannon. On the drive back to Gilberts, Marco nearly gives us the gift of a tragic rock and roll death crash, but we make it back home safe.
To my horror, I find out that Gilberts house is also that of my aunt Sylvia, whom I have not seen in 25 years.
I sleep outside. I go back in the basement where everyone else is and it is pitch black and there is scary jazz playing. I find out the next day that the whole band was up half the night terrified by the jazz music and expecting to me murdered.
August 23
Garfield Artspace
Pittsburgh, PA
We wake up and everyone is visibly shaken by the murder jazz basement. Seth, to our horror, cracks open a luke warm beer and drinks it. Part of his morning ablutions includes rubbing some sort of roll on hair product over the entirety of his pate. We come up with the idea of marketing a line of hair products specifically for widows peaks.
I meet my Aunt Sylvia for the first time in 25 years. She does not seem all that happy to see me so I am thinking she might have caught an eye/earful of my revelry in her back yard the night before.
On the way to Pittsburgh, I ask Alex to stow my soda cup. This is problematic as it is filled with ice. I tell him that, if there is no one behind us, he can throw the ice out the window. Alex mishears and throws the whole cup out the window. Alex seems strangely pleased with himself about this and later says he found the experience empowering. I feel naughty and complain to Sean, who vows to find the image of the crying Indian on Youtube.
Once again, we are playing the dodgy side of town. There is a woman on the sidewalk wrapped in an 8 foot live python, which is sniffing her ass.
It is fairly unfathomable to us that we do not get to play with Oppenheimer tonight. The opening band, The Fireballs that Shoot Fire from Mount Lebanon, I think, are very young but very promising. The pianist, in particular, is very good. The band on after them disturbs us with a Weezer cover, but the singer is very good. By the time they get off, there are five, very sweet, very enthusiastic, very nerdy young people there to see us. Manny the Manager, amazingly, comes up with money to pay us. This is my favorite show of the trip.
Our bartender at the hotel looks like Henry Gibson, and is entirely humorless, so Seth tries to get a reaction out of him by trying out his lexicon of sexual terms, which includes choice phrases such as helmet bath, and dick splint. We cannot budge a smile so we go back to the room and Sean rents an on demand movie called First Timers, which features hot Eastern European women being defiled by Neanderthals. One of them sounds like Darth Vader. This is the sound I fall asleep to.
August 24
Home
At breakfast I decide to undo all the crappy food I have eaten by ordering a salad. Bafflingly enough, I decide to wash it down with a Frosty. My straw proves entirely ineffective and Sean tries to explain to me several times that a Frosty is not a drink. The fourth time he does this, I explain to him that when I go back to Massachusetts, I am going to visit my mother and that, furthermore, until such time, I do not wish to hear from her, thank you very much. He sternly gets up from the table and we decide that, based on the success of me getting Alex to litter, we are going to see if we can get him to jack off as I drive past a school bus.
We are noticing that Sean is gone an awfully long time, when he finally returns with a coke for me to wash my salad down with, and a brand new Frosty with a spoon, a serving suggestion, apparently. Before I know what I am doing, I have finished the second Frosty, which has robbed me of my will to live.
We pass a turned over truck on the way home, which only slows down traffic a bit for us. And are home by midnight. First band trip Ive been on that I was sorry to see end so soon.