Dated Saturday April 25, 2009 11AM
Greenwich Village, New York City
I guess the first thing I should say is that we’re playing Good Morning America on ABC Monday AND Tuesday mornings, which is pretty cool. But, then again, they’ve always been very cool to us. It seems like we’ve played there at least once every year for the past six or seven years, which is strange because we haven’t exactly released a lot of records in that span.
They’ll be interesting performances too because Augustana’s going to come on and play with us. They’re playing down in Baltimore on Sunday afternoon but they’re gonna catch a train up, crash at my place that night, then get up early the next morning to go on TV and play some semi-conscious rock ‘n’ roll with me and the boys.
And then they’re going to get on a plane and go play their next gig in North Dakota.
Or maybe it’s South Dakota.
Look, I know it involves the word “Dakota”. I called Dan Layus, their singer. He’ll probably call back while I’m writing this. We’re having them come along because, along with Michael Franti & Spearhead, they’re coming along with us this summer so I wanted to show a little of what we’re going to be doing on this tour because it ain’t like anything else you’ve seen before unless you’ve been at one of “The Devil & The Bunny Show“ shows. I wish Michael and his band could be here too but we were lucky enough to have Augustana “in the neighborhood”, so to speak.
Ok, Dan called. They’re playing at South Dakota State Tuesday night.
This summer’s tour is NOT going to be your usual opening band, set change, middle band, set change, headline band, go home. There’s just gonna be 1 set and we’re all just kinda gonna be 1 band. It’s going to be called:
“The Saturday Night Rebel Rocker Traveling Circus & Medicine Show”
I mean it when I say there isn’t going to be any opening band. We’re going to start EVERY show with EVERYONE onstage playing together. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next but I think we‘ll probably play a set on our own after that so we’ll actually be the opening band in a way, although guys from the other bands will probably be bouncing on & offstage helping out on different songs like the guys from Augustana did last Summer. I want to do all sorts of duets and trios and quartets of guys from all the bands on songs after that and throughout the show. Then maybe Augustan will play a bit by themselves with some more mash-ups after that and maybe we’ll close the 1st Act of the show with a Spearhead set, but one in which we all eventually join them so that the Act ends with all of us playing something together. I don’t know what that’ll be, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did, but I know there’s a Spearhead song I REALLY want to sing on and that might be the perfect Act 1 closer.
Then there’s probably going to be an intermission.
Can you tell we’re still in the “winging it/what-the-fuck-are-we-going-to-do” stage of the planning process?
Well, it ain’t really any different from every other Counting Crows show for the past 18 years.
Then we’re all going to come back onstage and do it again. Sort of. Hell, I don’t know. What I DO know is that, no matter which band you come to see, you’re not going to see less of them than you want. NOBODY is getting ripped off this summer. We’re all going to be on and off the stage all night. You’ll get more Counting Crows than you have in the past and you’re also going to get lots of us playing with our friends in the other bands.
And I do mean friends by the way. You all know we’ve played with Augustana before but…I have to do some math for a second…I think I’ve known Michael Franti for about 20yrs now. We used to run pickup fullcourt on the Upper Hearst outdoor hoops in Berkeley every day and into the evening in the summertime. Me and Marty Jones and Michael and whoever else showed up. It was just open hoops. You picked teams and winner stayed on. The more people that showed up, the more teams there were, and there were never perfect groups of five so you always ended up switching teams and playing with everyone eventually.
Before anybody accuses me of tooting my own horn, I fully cop to the fact that Michael kicked the shit out of all of us. I mean everybody could “play” but Michael could PLAY. There’s a difference. And it’s a BIG difference if he ended up guarding you. Then, to put it as mildly and politely as possible…
…you were fucked.
It was funny because we could be playing ball in the daylight and then, six or even hours later, we’d be in some club watching each other’s bands play. I can remember one b’day where I just told everyone “I’m not having any fucking party this year and don’t try throwing one yourselves. If you want to find me on my birthday, I’ll be at the I-Beam watching The Beatnigs and The Ophelias. Those were Michael’s and Immy’s bands respectively, by the way. I can’t remember if many of my friends showed up but I DO remember that I was pretty freaking surprised when my dad walked in the door. The Beatnigs were this wild Industrial Funk Rap thing and the Ophelias were just plain strange (awesome and inspired but strange…much like Immy himself, now that I think about it) so I don’t know if Pops dug the music that night but he showed up and he stayed til the show was over. I’m sure my mom would’ve drug her crazy ass down there too if she hadn’t been off finishing her medical training in Chicago back then.
I got lucky that way. My mom and dad were always very cool. That hasn’t changed. The only difference is that Pops gets Spearhead. He was struggling with Rono playing his chainsaw on that concrete block and throwing chains against tin in The Beatnigs show. I thought it was cool as hell but, you know, to each his own.
So I have these killer very vivid memories of sparks flying across Michael from Rono’s chainsaw as he called out “Television! The drug of a nation!” and also the awesome feeling of driving the lane, stopping on a dime, and rising up for a perfect fadeaway jumper…
…followed immediately by the far less enjoyable image of Michael rising up a good deal higher and smacking my weak-ass jumper halfway to San Francisco, or at least halfway downcourt where one of his teammates would scoop it up and walk in an easy layup.
There’s a reason you never saw me in the NBA.
Wow. I got waaaaaaaaaaaaay off the subject there.
Well, like I said, it’s tour with a bunch of friends. Friends have memories.
But back to the tour. It’s going to be a show. One show. Not three bands playing separate sets, although everyone will play sets on their own. This is going to be one big circus of a show with an intermission in the middle and lots of collaboration on either side of that. I don’t think anyone’s done anything like this in a long time. It’s going to be difficult and it’s going to be thrilling for all of US.
For you…I have no idea. It could be great and it could be a train wreck and it could be a little or a lot of both. You’ll have to come out and see for yourself. Whatever it is, it’s going to be a whole night of it, not just 75 minutes. I think you’re going to get a whole lot more than your money’s worth THIS summer.
So step right up! Come one! Come all! Come see…
The Saturday Night Rebel Rockers Traveling Circus & Medicine Show
STARRING
COUNTING CROWS
MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD
AUGUSTANA
Coming soon to a Big Top near you!