The following is my complete, unedited tour diaries from two Blake Babies tours: one in 1989 and the reunion tour in 2001.
Sunday, December 3rd, 1989: Patterson, NJ
We are at Freda's brother Zirk's apartment: thirty minutes from ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Manhattan—very cozy and plenty of burnt toast for everyone. We played in NYC last night as well as the night before at CBGB and the Pyramid club. CB's was kind of rough—we followed this horrible mainstream guitar wank band who bussed fans in from Philly and played before these limey speedfreaks Birdland, who stormed offstage after only one and a half songs. The Pyramid set was really tight and we played in the disco part so a lot of the people were there to dance and had a hard time doing that to our music. I think we won some fans, tho—especially this old black guy with a green acrylic knit hat and hiking boots who kept on grabbing my foot or making a fist and saying "right on, man!!!" They had a Velvets cover band (who sucked) and transvestites dancing on various parts of the bar. By 4:00 I was pretty sick of it, so we drove here listening to Coltrane's "Crescent."
Current rotation in the van:
1. Stooges—Fun House
2. Nirvana—Bleach
3. Spacemen 3—Sound of Confusion
4. assorted Coltrane
Monday, December 4th, 1989: Driving to Raleigh
The cold is like a festering wound. It was 12 degrees last night in Philly and windy. It is still fucking cold even this far south. We just listened to "Vanna Speaks"—a book on tape that was chock full of quotable bits. "I'm a Barbie doll—and Pat Sajak is Ken—we're just Barbie and Ken." also: "I'd like to do a Woody Allen film—that's my ultimate goal."
Tuesday, December 5th, 1989
The sun is just beginning to set over interstate 85 near the South Carolina/Georgia border—it hurts my eyes to look up but I keep doing it to take in the beautiful yellow/orange glow cast over everything. North Carolina was relaxing and pleasant. Jay Faires [Mammoth president] took us out to dinner and we didn't have to talk business at all. Steve [Mammoth] showed me some of our recent press and it made me very psyched. Finally it is warm and that is too great for words to express.
Rotation:
1. Fugazi—Margin Walker
2. Bill Evans & Jim Hall—Intermodulation
3. Joni Mitchell—Clouds
Thursday, December 7th, 1989
Tuesday night we played to a good and receptive crowd at the 40 Watt. We played an hour plus two encores. It felt a little lacklustre—Juliana was getting sick (now she has a full-blown cold).
The staff at the 40 Watt were as nice as any club people I've met—the sound man kept offering Jules various cold remedies, such as spraying the mic with Lysol (to prevent infecting the opening band, five eight), and slugging brandy. Wednesday we drove to Sparta to go to a junk store and I bought some shitkicking boots and some hats. Freda got these amazing red cowboy boots she was wearin with pride.
Saturday, December 16th, 1989: Patterson NJ
The best show of the tour so far was Charlottesville, VA. Our record received heavy airplay at the UVA station and the record store pushed it like mad. Also there was no cover charge. The promoter, Thane, was a wonderful man and he treated us incredibly well—fed us, paid in advance, then got us a free room at the Holiday Inn. The club was run by this totally uptight little bearded fucker who paced around the club throughout the opening band's set and ours, muttering and bitching to the soundman to turn it down. Anyway, I'd say only about 2/3 of the people there (full club) had any idea what we were about, but everyone was very responsive and we played about 1 1/2 hours—everything we know. Washington was also nice—we supported Alex Chilton at the 9:30 club—full and very well received. It was good to meet Alex and he played well—albeit a little too long. Last night in Hoboken we were supposed to play with Bullet Lavolta and the Gibson Bros. but Lavolta canceled. Zirk came out and so did Phil from our booking agency. We played extremely well and felt that we had improved very much over the past couple of weeks. Gibson Bros. were playing with Jon Spencer and Christina from Pussy Galore and it was fun to meet them. Jon thanked me about six times for lending them my amp, but in a way that seemed like one would apologise for throwing a rock through their neighbor's window—kind of too sincere and, like, staring at the ground. I have much respect for that man. Christina can't drum worth a shit but she smiles good.
Monday, January 29th, 1990: Champaign, IL
Played Chicago last night—it was excellent. We actually have real fans there now. We did a lengthy interview with about 20 people from the U. of Chicago radio station. The show itself was rusty at best but the audience was very receptive and we played 1 1/2 hours. We hooked up with Dan Epstein from Vassar (boyfriend of Rebecca from Love Child) and slept for about four hours on his floor and then went to an interview with a woman from Rolling Stone who had a very cute 16 month old daughter who took to Freda immediately. I also visited my uncle in Winnetka, who became an instant celebrity when he insisted on jogging 3 miles with Freda and Juliana in his suit, raincoat and wingtips.
Champaign found me in quite a foul mood. The Meat Puppets canceled so instead we supported this horrible band called Breaking Up With Ginger or Riding the Fat Hog or something like that. They played awful Police-sounding fusion jazz and as I said before, they sucked. The club is just like one of those stupid clubs in Bloomington, with pictures of R.E.O. Speedwagon and Pat Travers all over the place. These guys Adam and Mark drove down from Chicago, which was cool. Weirdo Adam said our record "makes love to him." Guess he likes Juliana.
Thursday, February 1st, 1990: Bloomington
I saw a TV show last night about how Paula Abdul's album is breaking sales records worldwide, and the New Kids on the Block have three albums in the top twenty. It really upset me—I mean this is what we're up against! (I wish). The public are suckers for the most boring, mindless crap record companies can churn out.
Last night (night off) in Bloomington was like my nightmare come true—"blue brew" night at the Bluebird (nickel beers at the local frat bar). This cover band with a hideous "island" motif was playing. Now we're on the way to Milwaukee, site of the worst ever Lemonheads show (we played to the promoter and his girlfriend. Did a 20 minute "Luka," complete with instrument switching). I hope it's better tonight.
Friday, February 2nd, 1990: En Route (learning the facts of life in the Cheese State)
Last night we spent in Milwaukee—at the radio interview we insisted that they play this Facts of Life star's Christian record and the drunken promoter woman (in striped pants) wouldn't stop talking about it and trying to get Juliana to sing the theme as she had at the station. We were all walking around in a daze and had to play two sets. The audience was intimate to say the least, but they liked it okay I guess. Adam and Mark from Chicago showed up and I guess we bid adieu for the rest of the tour. F & J were getting kinda sick of Adam's pushyness, but I thought they were okay. I guess I am still and will hopefully always be at the stage where, when somebody loves our music, then that's enough unless they're REALLY annoying (like someone with striped pants who doesn't eat "oriental food" may or may not be). We occupied the honeymoon suite at the mo six last night and I slept the solidest, most dream-laden sleep of my life. I dreamt that I saw Red Wagon [local Boston band] on MTV news and Kurt Loder said "forget Eleventh Dream Day—here's a band from Boston who sound just like them but they're better looking—Red Wagon!!!"
Saturday, February 3rd, 1990: Wisconsin
Madison is 100 times cooler than Bloomington. They have enough going on to keep everyone interested. We hung out at various coffee shops today and read all approx. 1,000 local newspapers. We are now on the way to Minneapolis to play at 7th Street Entry with the Didjits. A bad match, yes, but I have a good feeling about the show. I think we might unload some shirts. My last Minn. experience was short and very weird. We [Lemonheads] drove all night from Iowa and I woke up in the Garage D'or Records parking lot. We played with Grant Hart from Husker Du, and much Night Train wine was consumed. We left town at 4:00 a.m. with Grant and good lord what a nightmare that turned into.
Sunday, February 4th, 1990: Minneapolis
The highlight was dinner at the Sri Lanka Curry House. Their food is supposedly the hottest on earth. We ordered medium and it was so hot some of us were breaking into sweats and collapsing and becoming delirious. We picked up some schwag from Twin Tone and I'm listening to the Magnolias right now. It's not too bad.
Wednesday, February 7th, 1990: St. Louis
St. Louis is a pain in my ass. I ate some bad pizza and it made my tummy ache last night. The opening band sucked worse than you could imagine. The meatball lead singer was wearing a skinny tie and sang R.E.M. songs real bad with his face all contorted. I hated them so much I couldn't make eye contact with them after they played. We're coming into Mark Twain's home town now. It's a perfect day, not typical in early Feb. I remember thinking Iowa is gonna suck dick in February. Supposedly we're selling some records in Iowa City. We'll see.
Thursday, February 8th, 1990: Iowa
Yes, Iowa City did live up, but first let me tell you this. I just talked to Steve at Mammoth and he said the dj at the St. Louis radio station said I was a dick! I think it's cuz I went into the bathroom to shave and some guy walked in on me. When I came out I said to the dj, "he acts like he hasn't ever seen anyone shoot up before!" I guess he took me seriously. Some folks you just can't joke with.
We had a really good crowd last night. They were very nice and a lot of people came up, but amazingly we sold no shirts. Even at shitty shows like St. Louis we sold more. From here on out it's all new places and only four days til California!!!
Saturday, February 10th, 1990: finally leaving Kansas
Missouri/Kansas was kind of a down phase. We played with a band called Psychowelders, who are into this real '80's kind of post-Joy Division, white magic kind of shit. Sitting through that was a little rough. This guy Mike Wolf, who we met in Minneapolis, is now traveling with us as far as San Francisco. He is really funny and he takes away some of the tension which has started to fester between the three of us (close proximity).
Friday, February 23rd, 1990
Sorry I haven't written for so long! Being in California was so exciting that I couldn't waste a minute of my precious time writing in my journal!
Delirious from three days non-stop in the van as we arrived in the Bay Area we were pulled over at 4:00 a.m. by some pigs who just wanted to hassle us—they kept asking if we played that satanic heavy metal (do we look like we do?) The van is breaking down, one nightmare after another.
We spent the next day just walking around S.F., checking out whatever shit was going on. Jake's [my brother] neighborhood is cool—right at the cross of the Mission and the Castro. We met up with the guys from Mammoth to talk about what to do about the van, and had dinner at my favorite restaurant in the world—Henry Chung's Hunan in Chinatown. Our show at the I Beam was great, but Nirvana was playing across town and we were bummed we had to miss that. They are all of our favorite band at this point; un-fucking-believable.
We rented a U-Haul truck in case our van didn't make it, which I drove. Freda and I made up an opera on the way down, or I should say we only communicated by singing opera style. Juliana wouldn't have stood for that for one minute. We arrived at Club Lingerie in L.A., missed our soundcheck and were treated like shit. We met Henry Rollins—with whom Juliana has been corresponding—who is really nice. The first band featured Harry Dean Stanton and we missed their set, but he and Dennis Hopper hung out all night. I felt too stupid to meet them, even though they are my two favorite actors. All our friends from Indiana were flipping out because Charlie [Black] from the Pixies was there also. A lot of A & R people were there, which is too bad cuz we sucked worse than ever.
We went home with Rollins and stayed up late drinking herbal tea and getting acquainted. The next day we spent in Venice at Henry's house and he went crazy playing us records and telling stories and being an amazing host. We met with David Kahne [Bangles producer] from Columbia for lunch to discuss our upcoming demo session for him.
Stuff I taped at Henry's house/current top rotation:
1. Charles Manson's demo tape for SST
2. Tons of Albert Ayler shit (he is God)
3. Amazing early demo for Public Enemy's "Yo, Bum Rush the Show"
4. Lightnin' Hopkins singing about the Armageddon.
5. Some awesome live Stooges with Ron Ashton on guitar
Wednesday, February 28th, 1990: Freda has started learning how to play guitar
I know my writings have been few and far between lately, but it's because I've been having fun, not because I'm burned out. I've got a great new guitar (if I can get it back from F) —a '68 Les Paul Custom, and I'm reading a great book (Maltese Falcon by Dashell Hammett). We're in southern Georgia now, very green and beautiful. In an hour we'll be in Tallahassee. Did Billie Joe McCalester jump off the Tallahassee bridge? That song still confuses me. What really happened on that bridge? Does anyone really know? I just read an article in Rolling Stone about how hip '70's schlock hits are. Well, I guess we can kiss that fun time goodbye.
I'm kind of getting to like this absence of any real human interaction outside of my bandmates. My usual conversations with people go like this: "Nice show." "Thanks." "Where are you from?" "Boston." "Austin?" "No, Boston, with a 'B.'" "Oh, right." About a hundred times a day.
Wednesday, March 7th, 1990
We were stuck in a traffic jam in Georgia and the entire bottom of the van fell onto the highway. We tried to re-attatch it ourselves to no avail, then we walked for a mile in the traffic and the rain with these awful little gnats everywhere. We almost missed the show in Columbia, S.C. The frat crowd didn't seem to mind us too much, to our amazement. The next night we played with the Connells in Chapel Hill to a huge crowd in a big auditorium. We handled it well I thought—it's more fun playing big places than clubs.
David Kahne flew out to see us and we had breakfast. He told us we had two choices: to stay indie and keep touring and building it up that way, or we could sign with him and do what he wants, to make a "hit" record. His offer is going to come next week. I hope we get other offers, because I'm convinced we shouldn't work with him. I don't think he'd listen to what we had to say—I think he'd just make the record he wants to make.
Later that night we had an acoustic jam with the band Big Wheel from Kentucky (featuring Peter Searcy from Squirrel Bait). I played guitar while Peter sang on the Squirrel Bait classix "Sun God" and "Kid Dynamite"—definite high point. We are coming into Athens now to play at the Georgia Theatre with the Feelies.
Back in Boston
The van died its final death last night outside the Kiev restaurant in the East Village. We had played with Tiny Lights—it was awesome. Our buddy Phil from the booking agency managed to find us another van, which he borrowed from Das Damen. We had to get home because we had a show opening for Sonic Youth—my real favorite band. When we got to Boston the guys in Sonic Youth were looking intently at the van, kinda puzzled. Turns out it was theirs and they sold it to Das Damen! Weird fuckin world. Anyway they were good as usual. Yo La Tengo played as well and they were pretty good too. Fun show, too bad about the van. I guess we'll just leave it for the homeless to pick over.
Saturday, March 10, 2001
Traveling from Boston to New York feels very familiar. All of us (except Daniel, the red clay rambler) cut our teeth on this Eastern Seaboard circuit. The familiarity of it paradoxically decreases and increases the weirdness of it at the same time. On the subject of weirdness…we played our Boston show last night. Time sped up exponentially from the moment I stepped off the plane. Thank God for boring van rides or I wouldn't have time to reflect on how much fun this is, let alone write about it.
Under threat of a second blizzard in a week, the good people at Geronimo Management talked me into taking a 5:00 a.m. flight from Birmingham. I went to bed at 1:00 after a desperately disorganized packing melee, only to wake up in a panic ten minutes before my alarm went off (set for 3:30). Good thing, because Heather slept through the chaos of me lugging tons of heavy gear in a sleep-deprived daze. Adrenaline, strong tea, and sheer panic carried me through the rest of the day.
I don't remember much from the show except that it felt good to finally play, especially on a nice-sized stage to an appreciative audience. Before the set, when I was setting up my pedals and stuff, this guy named Jorma came up and greeted me. Jorma is a sort of Grateful Dead ethic, free-spirited music fan who likes to archive concerts by an eclectic array of artists, including Hatfield and the Blakes. He needed me to tell Mark that it was cool for him to tape the show. I guess I bumped into this woman down in front of the stage, because she said, "Hey, watch it, you asshole!" Welcome to Boston. Other than that, I felt nothing but pure love from the audience, which made it easier to take the songs to the next level when necessary.
By the end of the show I felt completely delirious, but I enjoyed the cocktail party ambience of the after-show scene. Many old friends made their way backstage, in addition to a wide variety of well wishers. The guys from the band Wheat came back (having been very cordially invited by Yrs. Truly) and I have to admit I found myself a bit tongue-tied and star-struck. Their album Hope and Adams is easily my favorite of 1999. Juliana and I each independently invited them to come on our tour this summer, but they said they had to find their drummer. Who knows what that's all about? Anyway I hope that works out. I also met the people from Rounder Records and found them very pleasant. They're the kind of smart, ideological music biz types that I would actually choose to hang out with. That might have been common ten years ago, but most of the people who got into this business for the right reasons have been driven out by the insidious corporate influence of recent years. I'm not going to try to argue that that's a new thing in the music business, but there were a few years there when "alternative" music existed almost completely outside of the corporate world. You can trace the corporate takeover almost to the day: just try to remember the first time you heard the phrase "alternative rock."
We're on the Merrit Parkway now, listening to Ryan Adams. Freda's freaking out; she's hearing it for the first time. There's still nothing better than hearing that life-changing record for the first time. That's still what keeps us all doing this—the striving to someday make that perfect song or album. And I'll tell ya one thing kids: it ain't the money.
Monday, March 12, 2001
Good God, NYC was a mess. Both shows at the Knitting Factory sold out and the crowds were obviously well prepared to like us. The problem wasn't the shows—we acquitted ourselves admirably. The problem was our friends.
New York shows always seem to degenerate into chaos backstage, and this one proved no exception. We all invited our friends (heavy on the B'ham contingent) and they all chose to hang out backstage for most of the night (several parking their asses in the comfy chairs for literally hours). Evan showed up with his wife and mother, both of whom had that "I'm sorry" look in their eyes. Ev was on a bit of a drunken tear, apparently not typical behavior these days. He immediately seized the center of attention and held onto it for dear life. At one point he was standing on a table in the little 10' X 10' room singing Styx and Kansas songs at the top of his voice. At some point we abandoned the room completely and hung out with the Starlight Mints on the empty stage. We really like them, by the way, as a band and as people.
We drove after the show—good move. We made Philly by 5:00 a.m. and had a nice, guilt-free sleep until 1:00 or so.
Philly is a legendarily tough town for anyone connected to this band. Things were lookin' grim as I checked all the indie stores on South Street and none of them had the new CD. Despite the grim signs, the crowd was very friendly and decent-sized for a Sunday night. I ended up on the band shit list for being partially responsible for Daniel's bag being left in the dressing room after the club was locked up. Oh well, if we managed to completely avoid conflict it wouldn't be a rock n' roll tour.
Daniel is working out wonderfully as our bass player. I wanted to get him in the band mainly because he's so mellow and easy to get along with, but he's also been playing really well and understands what we're doing. This tour feels very familial already, with soundman/tour manager Mark Maher rounding things out nicely with his quiet competence and subtle humor. We're already in Washington—this tour's going by too quickly. That's the best way to leave 'em (and ourselves): wanting more.
Tuesday, March 13, 2001: Stuck in a rainstorm in Richmond
I wish I had some more tales of debauchery for you today, but…we actually all partied down last night for the first time. The 9:30 Club gave us a bottle of Cuervo so we had a nice 2:00 a.m. cocktail hour at the Fredericksburg, VA Holiday Inn. We watched some stripper show on HBO and had a good laugh. It reminded me of something funny: When Evan, Juliana, Freda and I toured together in 1988, we had a ritual where we would pass around a copy of Penthouse and we'd all read the Forum letters out loud. Juliana would usually do the reading, and it was so funny to hear her girlish voice with its hint of a lisp saying things like "my girlfriend is a beautiful redhead with huge, 36 double-D tits and I'm a good-looking, muscular guy with a massive package," or whatever they say. The only problem was that Freda and Juliana refused to buy the magazines themselves (although they were the ones who most enjoyed the ritual), so they'd make me go buy it. I had to play the pathetic loner going into the Starvin' Marvin to buy a pack of Camel lights, a Gatorade, some beer nuts, a comb, some pork rinds, and, ummm…why don't you throw in one of those Penthouse magazines while you're at it?
The Washington show exceeded all expectations. The club is huge—1,200 capacity—so we sort of expected to play to a mostly empty room. When we got there, though, they had pushed the stage forward about twenty feet so the 400–500 people looked like a packed house. Not bad for a rainy Monday. Our crowds are so friendly—it's almost overwhelming. The DC crowd seemed especially hip and smart—like people who have real jobs, but make an effort to keep a foot in the door of the indie rock culture. I met some guys in their 30s after the show who wanted me to sign some CD's and one of them was sort of gloating to another because he'd gotten to see the Blakes "back in the day." I said, "Dude, that's nothing to gloat about. We're at least ten times better now than we've ever been." He remained unconvinced. I'll tell ya, buddy, back then we could barely make it through a song—I have the videotapes to prove it (and no, I won't make copies).
We're heading to Chapel Hill, NC now. We just stopped for hot water for our green tea (how rock is that?) and we ran into the Avail/Propaghandi tour! They all immediately descended on our van, recognizing us as fellow rock tourists. There was some all-female punk band with them and one of them said, "hey, rock stars!" with an undeterminable amount of sarcasm. They seemed to be reattaching the door to their van—a bit odd for the biggest punk tour this side of Blink 182 (if you're generous enough to call them punk). They seemed cool enough—seemed to have some idea who we are. They said they'd come to the Atlanta show after their show at the Masquerade. Maybe they'll start up a mosh pit.
Wednesday, March 14, 2001: 85 South between Greenville, SC and Atlanta
We just passed the Mints on the Interstate—most of them seemed to be asleep. Maybe they had a bit of fun last night after we split. Another funny, coincidental thing happened on this drive. This guy was passing us in a Range Rover and he was looking really intently into the van while he talked on his cell phone. We all took note of it, but no one commented. Then a few minutes later he passed us again on the right. He honked his horn and held up a copy of God Bless the Blake Babies in the window and gave us the devil horns. We all felt like supastars for a passing instant.
The Chapel Hill show sucked on many levels, but we got through it. It was the middle of spring break so attendance was a bit off—maybe 250 or 300. Also, we couldn't quite get connected musically. We did have a nice dinner, though, at Crook's Corner, our favorite old CH haunt. The audience was about 95 percent dudes, many of whom seemed to particularly favor my songs, which was totally weird. They kept shouting out for Antenna songs, and one guy kept screaming "Mysteries of Life!" Anyway, I'm sure the show went fine. I really like the Cat's Cradle and Frank Heath, the booking agent. But I think we might still suffer from the Mammoth curse there in Chapel Hill. Mammoth is so universally hated in CH that any band associated with the label is held in contempt by the cool indie rock scene. This may have been reflected in the lousy press coverage of the show as well. I read an incredibly condescending, assholish piece about us in one of the arts papers written by some turd named Mark Slagle. If you're reading this, Mark—and I hope you are—no, we're not doing this for the money. We happen to enjoy what we do. The other arts paper didn't even mention the show. First stop of the tour without awesome press.
Speaking of Mammoth, Steve did come to the show and he stayed to chat afterwards. I don't think he was made to feel all that welcome across the board, but I did my best. After we left, Freda and I went to a bar called Local 506 down the street to say hi to our old friend Jack Whitebread. He's a guy we've known since our high school days and he's now the doorman as well as a legendary Neil Diamond impersonator. When we got there a guy had just lunged over the bar at him and attacked him with a knife. He was waiting for the cops as a posse of local musician types held the guy down. I guess we need to get away from the clubs where we're actually playing to find any real excitement or drama. Eventually we ended up staying at a Red Roof Inn in Charlotte that seemed to double as a brothel. I felt dirtier coming out of the shower than I did going it. Despite the fact that we all want this tour to end up in the black, we're going to graduate to the next level of motels for the rest of this tour. >From now on it's going to be Holiday Inn Express all the way.
March 15, 2001: I-20 en route to Birmingham
Weird things first: Yesterday we were at a truck stop in South Carolina and Freda left her wallet in a rest room. She didn't figure out that it was missing until we arrived at the Echo Lounge and, of course, she totally went into a panic. After attempting to reach her husband to cancel her credit and ATM cards to no avail, Mark J Maher swung into action. He went online and found the truck stop and Freda gave them a call. A woman had found her wallet and turned it in. The woman working there wouldn't even take any cash out of the wallet to pay for shipping the wallet to Austin. Yes, kids, I said cash. Our faith in human nature has been restored, not that it ever really went away.
There's a mother of a rainstorm following us about, and we connected with it big time in Atlanta last night. Heather, my wife, just happened to be working in Atlanta yesterday so she had a really nice hotel room at the downtown Courtyard. Of course, when it came out that I was going to be staying in the luxury hotel, everyone became completely jealous and had to stay there as well. Okay, they didn't really get jealous, but we did all end up staying there. We'll probably hear about that one from management, but I feel that we deserved it after the hellish Red Roof of the night before. We all needed a proper sleep, not that we all got one or anything…
I love the Echo Lounge in Atlanta. The guy that books it, Cole Skinner, is a real swell guy, a true independent music fan and supporter. Cole gave us a bottle of Silver Patron tequila, 100% agave. You'd think, given that, that we would be the ones tying one on last night, but in fact the shitfaced band crown of the night goes to our beloved Starlight Mints. Except for their TM, every member of the band seemed to be having trouble staying prone after a short while. Mark J Maher claims to have had to help Charlie carry his acoustic guitar downstairs because he couldn't stand up when he tried to hold it. Javier, the camcorder-wielding bassist, gave me a T-shirt from his high school cross-country team (Edmond, Oklahoma, population ?). I was touched. I'll miss that lot.
Our set may well have been the best of the tour so far. We played every song a little bit faster than normal and that seemed to pump up the energy a notch or two. After the somewhat disappointing show in Chapel Hill it was a nice surprise. After the show, we encountered a bit more fanaticism than any previous stop, with many people bum-rushing backstage. I did meet some nice folks, though. I'm reminded of the fact that this band has never had much of a female fan base. It's a sea of dudes out there, night after night. At least they don't show up with bouquets of flowers for J & F anymore. That was annoying, especially since the object of their desire was frequently my girlfriend. Anyway, it's a good thing I'm married now or I might be a tad disappointed by the conspicuous lack of women. C'mon, girls, these songs are meant for you!
We had a nice Birmingham contingent last night, because I pulled a few strings to get my homeys 13 Ghosts on the bill (they're playing tonight as well). They did really well. Their music is a sort of potent blend of 60s psych with 70s power pop, with strong vocals and melodies. Their drummer Mikey, a B'ham legend to be sure, can be a bit excitable. He flailed away so full-on behind his kit that he looked like a cross between Keith Moon and Animal from the Muppets. Rock me, Amadeus.
We're coming into the 'Ham now (as we like to call it). Touring becomes especially surreal when you end up sleeping in your own bed for a night, which is something that's not going to happen this time, unfortunately. We'll be driving on to Austin tonight so we can catch Ryan Adams and Lucinda Williams at the Austin Music Hall. I'm trying to think if there are any more interesting tales to tell, but I'm afraid that's it. I can only promise, my faithful readers, that I will have some shit to report tomorrow after the quasi-hometown show tonight. Birmingham is the sort of city where crazy shit happens, so we'll do our level best. If the example of the Lemonheads' last few stops is any indication, I'll need a few pages (of course there's no Dando in this band, so don't get yr hopes up).
March 16, 2001: Somewhere in rural Louisiana
I guess I'll have to face up to the fact that no one is ever going to get really shitfaced and show his or her ass on this tour. We're all too old and mature for that. Maybe I'll make up a story to keep this interesting.
Last night I took the van to the projects to score some crack cocaine and some dude sold me some soap so I cold-smoked his ass with my nine then I drank a forty and got arrested and killed a guy in jail who tried to mess with me. Then I got a good night of sleep at the Four Seasons and woke up to a lovely eggs benedict served to me in bed. Wait a minute, I'm slipping back into the realm of fantasy.
One sort of funny thing did happen in Birmingham. We had a bunch of cash money that we had to unload (almost all of it will end up paying salaries, credit card bills, etc., btw). Anyway, banks require you to have an account if you want to do a wire transfer, so we went to my local branch of my bank. We walked in about ten minutes before they closed and I told the woman that we wanted to do a transfer. She told Mark J Maher and me to wait in the lobby and we immediately started counting the cash into bundles of $1,000. She came in and saw these two dirtass looking guys just off a long van ride literally surrounded by loose cash. One can easily imagine what she must have thought. They let us know what a pain in their ass we were, and of course they found a reason not to be able to do the wire transfer.
I think by the time we pulled into Birmingham we had all become a bit crispy from the solid week of shows. I was so tired at the show that I was having trouble remembering people's names who I see practically every day. That's the first thing that seems to go away for me when I get tired, my memory. You really need a good memory on tour! One constantly finds oneself in that nightmarish situation where you're standing there with two people you know but can't remember either of their names and the time comes when proper etiquette requires for you to introduce the two. "Um…so…this, uh, is umm…yeah. Frank? Oh, sorry. Fred. This is, uh…Bob? Oh, sorry Bill. I know we all graduated high school together and I was best man in your wedding but, um, it's all that soap I've been smoking lately."
The odd thing about the show last night was that it was just a typical night out at Zydeco. Zydeco is Daniel's and my local hang, where we know everyone who works there and always get in for free. The show lacked that element of fanaticism that has followed us about on this tour. Everyone seemed attentive, responsive, but oddly a bit blasé. There were a few true keeners in front, but mostly the crowd consisted of all the Birmingham barflies and n'er-do-wells that I have come to know and love. While I am somewhat well known in town from my music, Daniel is a true local celebrity. In addition to Verbena, he's been in countless local bands, and he's just simply that guy who is everybody's good pal. He and I have a band together called Cutgrass and the shows always pack out with Daniel's massive local fan club. Daniel went up to the mic for the first time last night and introduced us all. It was probably the best response we got all night.
We left after the show and drove deep into the Mississippi night. We stopped in Vicksburg for a four-hour kip and now we're getting close to New Orleans. Heather is with us now, taking a day's vacation from work for South by Southwest. We're planning to make it to Austin in time to catch a show or two. We're torn between the Black Crows/David Garza show and the Ryan Adams/Lucinda Williams bill, but we have to get there first. Part of me hopes that we just go to the hotel and get a good night's rest before the sick day that awaits us tomorrow. That must be the lame assed, too-old-to-rock part of my personality. Fuck it, we're hittin' the town tonight, baby!
March 18, 2001: Homeward bound
My dear friends, it's been so long I don't know where to begin. Did you ever hear that Misfits song that goes "Texas is the reason that the President's dead (ride, ride, ride Jackie-O!)? Cuz it's been in my head this whole weekend. Tons of hilarious shit has happened, I think I'll begin with Freda's litany of misfortunes (not that misfortune is, in and of itself, funny—but let's be honest—all humor has an element of tragedy in it).
First of all, Freda never got her wallet back. The woman at the gas station supposedly sent it, but it never made it to the Red Roof Inn in Austin (yep, can't get away from the eternally dodgy Red Roofs). Secondly, before the Birmingham show Freda fell on some steps and injured her leg (nothing funny about that, but it'll figure into the story later). Finally, when we got into Austin we went to this wonderful restaurant called Manuel's, where the good folks at Rounder picked up our tab (God bless 'em). We all had a couple of margaritas and we were relaxing and having a nice, post-dinner chat when all of a sudden I noticed that Freda's neck was getting red. I pointed it out, and Heather said yeah, she'd better go have a look. By the time she got to the bathroom, she had these large, slightly raised red areas all over her neck and face, obviously some weird sort of allergic reaction.
After Manuel's, we piled into the van to go to the Ryan Adams show, all of us strongly encouraging Freda to do something about her increasingly bizarre skin condition. She said that she thought she was all right, so we parked and headed off towards the Austin Music Hall. All of a sudden Freda became aware of the hilarity of her state, and she said "Jesus, look at me. I don't have any money or ID, I'm limping around, I'm covered in some weird rash, and I don't even have a cute outfit on!" She jumped into the first cab she saw and headed straight back to the Red Roof. The truth is, Freda has had fantastically bad luck on this tour, but she's also remained in an excellent mood throughout, unlike some of us (myself included). Freda simply loves to play drums, and that really comes across night after night. She beams and glows, and lays down some fat, funky shit, God bless her. By the way, she quickly recovered from her rash, her leg is better, and she caught her flight home without her driver's license; but she still doesn't have her wallet.
The Ryan Adams show is a whole other story. First, a quick lesson in SXSW logistics: At the showcases the people with laminates (