i awoke in the all too familiar surroundings of a nondescript hotel in some random nowhere town between tour stops. it was hella early but true to his mysterious form, Type was already awake, showered and silly. i don't know how he does it. he's the last guy to crash but the first up, no matter what kind of fun he had the night before.

it's a long drive from Washington to Bozeman, and since there's no good reason to stick around a spooky little town like Spokane, we scooted after the show and crashed a couple hours closer to our Montana diggs. i was pretty pumped for this particular tour stop cause MT is a comfort zone for me. thanks to my good friends Black Mask, i've been back to Bozeman at least 4 times. i'm practically a local. Well, not exactly.

Jotorcycle

I reached out to Joe, Black Mask’s keys player, and made plans to link. We had a tradition of staying up all night after the show and playing his beautiful Steinway. Yes, Joe has a real Steinway. It’s amazing. Unlike me though, he deserves it! He’s fantastic and the stuff I aspire to be.

A few tank refills and restroom pit-stops and we reached Bozeman. The venue we were playing at was creepy as fuck, which is to say, it looked like a barn, or maybe even a garage where they repair snowmobiles and farm equipment, and as it happened, it was surrounded by barns. I felt like Eddie Murphy in 48hrs when he walks into the cowboy bar in a suit and picks a fight, only I didn’t have a gun or a well-warn Nick Nolte to back me up. By my estimation, Type was just as likely to get a beating in this place simply on the grounds that he’s a fairly strange looking character.

We crept by the bar full of scary daytime drinkers and mounted animal heads without notice. So far, so good. The sound tech for the evening turned out to be a guy name Luke that I’ve met and worked with several times so things were looking up. I set up my merchandise and stage rig. Then it was time to figure out how we were going to manifest a crashpad and a place to shower before show time. Ordinarily this wouldn’t have proven to be a problem, but Black Mask was playing 2 shows that day: One with us and one with fantastically dorky rock rap hybrids, Schwayze. Fortunately, joe picked up his cell just before the teen frenzy and gave us instructions to get to the house, the greenlight to make ourselves at home and the name of their ultra friendly, large and hairy mascot Tango. Joe pretty much rules.

Tango turned out to be just as friendly as Joe promised and in a couple hours we were showered and filled with our 2^nd dose of Subway $5 footlongs this tour. Eat fresh. Back at the venue, the old MT friends were abound. There was of course the customary awkward run in with Laura who is tough to take your eyes off of, but this time it was worse. She had a new man-friend and what’s worse, he was in the band! Then as if I wasn’t in enough trouble, she had in tow, her rascally friend Leah who was magically delicious. I hate attractive women on tour. They just remind you of how lonely the tour experience can be, so far away from the creature comforts of home. Well, that’s how it is when you’re a good boy anyway. These day’s I’m practically a monk, less the chanting, drab style and silly haircut. Alright, well less the silly haircut anyway.

Showtime was fairly typical fare. To begin, Tulsi performed another set for himself. In other words, he paced around the stage making no eye contact and in his own zone as if it was rehearsal with no crowd. I planned to try giving him the old “draw in the crowd” pep talk/consult but hadn’t seen my window or shown him enough of my own experience and ability to justify opening my mouth. He’s actually a very adept mc. I just thought it was obvious that he didn’t have much stage experience and that it was a bad way to start our tour every night by having the first act on our lineup display a glaring disparity between ability and practical know how. Still, it’s not like he was awful, he just wasn’t connecting. I’ll get to that later though cause things turned around in a major way for Tulsi.

The Let Go had a bit of a goofy night. Type was having monitor mix issues and because he couldn’t hear himself, one of the three bits of durable tour slang coined was born. After a few frustrating songs, he announced with his characteristic mania that he was “taking a knee” and commenced to exchange auditory exhibition for spectacle. It was actually kind of funny to watch, but if you know anything about Type than that probably wouldn’t surprise you. Anyway, by the last day of tour we’d used the expression “taking a knee” for just about any and every activity one might imagine. You gonna eat that? I’m taking a knee. I can’t get this fuckin’ thing to work. I’m taking a knee. So, what happened? Did you get laid? I took a knee. You get the idea.

I performed a succinct set because in this town I actually prefer to open for my openers! I love Black Mask as people and performers. They’re really fun guys on all levels and they’ve got a devoted following in the area so I banged out a tight trip through my catalogue right up to present and then danced the night away front and center for the Black Mask set. I even got serenaded while clutching joe’s stuffed turtle (was it a turtle? I don’t remember) by way of piano solo.

A few more awkward hugs goodnight than necessary with my friends Laura and Leah and I was off to bang my real MT jumpoff… Joe’s fantastic Steinway. We played and shot the shit till the sun came up. I probably should have slept some more, but it’s not every day I get to put my hands all over such a finely designed piece of machinery. Well, there are those long showers. I disgust myself. Alright. I’ll talk to you guys soon and share my musings about my first visit to the hole: Jackson, WY.