SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5th - CAFE NINE - NEW HAVEN, CT

I woke up on Randy Herman's floor.  It was another beautiful morning, and I was well rested.  Joe and Sam woke up around the same time.  Randy Herman had left for work already, but had given me walking directions to a nearby Dunkin Donuts during the previous evening.  Sam, Joe and I decided to head out in search of coffee.

Randy's place is in a condo village.  It's the kind of place where all the houses look the same.  We made our way down the hill, out of the condo village, and a half-mile or so down the highway to the Dunkin Donuts.  After an unhealthy breakfast, we headed back towards Randy's place.  We had not been very observant when we left, and on our way back, we walked right by our turn and continued up the hill, venturing further into the condo village.  The whole time, we suspected that we may have gone too far, or that we somehow missed our turn, but for some reason, we didn't turn around.  Finally, the road ended.  There was a dirt path that cut through the woods.  Sam suggested that it could be a shortcut, and so we reasoned that venturing down the winding dirt path was a logical solution to our problem, (I know, in hindsight it doesn't make much sense).  We followed the path through multiple twists and turns as it snaked through the woods.  We finally came to a privacy gate.  We quickly hopped it, and were spit out in someone's driveway.  We had exited the condo village, and since the path had so many twists and turns, we had completely lost our way.  We made our way through a residential neighborhood, down a hill towards what we thought might be the highway we had previously been on.  Once we reached the highway, we started heading back towards the condo village.  We found the village, made the same trek back up the hill, and Joe noticed the turn that we had wandered past before.  After roughly an hour, we finally made it back to Randy's place. 

We were exhausted, (the temperature had climbed to an uncomfortable level).  Thankfully, New Haven was not far from Mt. Kisco so we had the rest of the afternoon to chill out.  We ate fruit, hung out on the patio, and chatted it up with Randy.  Sam, Joe and I ran through some songs together in preperation for Joe's upcoming daytrotter.com recording session.  Randy has a grand piano in his living room, and we all took turns playing songs on it. 

We headed out at around 6pm.  Upon arriving in New Haven, I was pleased to discover that the Mathematicians had already arrived.  Have you seen The Mathematicians before?  They are an amazing three-piece band from upstate New York.  I caught one of their shows last spring at SxSW, and asked them if they'd be available to do any dates with us on this tour.  As such, they played with us in New Haven and Northampton.  Their live shows are very high energy, and quite engaging.  If you get a chance, check them out.

We all loaded in.  Cafe Nine is a small venue, and between the four acts, (Sam, Joe, myself and Mathematicians), our gear nearly filled the room.  The promoter, Paul, was a bit taken aback by the sheer volume of our gear.  However, he was very cool about the whole deal.  We strategically stacked the backline of the stage, which was literally covered from floor to celing with the Mathematicians gear.  Somehow, we made everything fit.  After we were all set up, I headed to a nearby Italian place and picked up some pizza slices.

I returned to the venue as local hero Larry Loud was taking the stage.  Larry used to play in a band called The Cadavers.  He had a small following of friends and fans there to see him.  He got up to the mic, gave a short speech about how he was going to, "Take us back in time a little bit," then proceeded to hit the first chord of a song on his guitar.  As he sang the opening line, "Quaaludes," his amp blew out and the whole room fell silent.  Sam and I both chuckled a bit, then sat through several painful minutes of silence as Larry Loud struggled to get his gear working again.  After a few more minutes, Sam asked "Do you think I should let him use my amp?"  I concluded that that would be the decent thing to do, and so Sam offered up his amp.  Larry accepted, and proceeded to crank Sam's amp up to eleven.  After his set, Sam noticed that his amp was crackling, which it had not done previously.  A couple days later, it totally died.  I guess that's what happens when Larry Loud uses your amp.  They don't call him Larry Loud for nothing.  As an aside, Larry never thanked Sam for letting him use his amp, nor did he stick around for any of the other acts.  Poor show Larry Loud.

Sam and Darren played next, then myself, then Joe, then The Mathematicians.  The turnout to this gig was pretty poor, which was likely a result of it being the Saturday before Labor Day in a college town, (Yale is in New Haven).  Nonetheless, Paul, the promoter, was super cool about the whole deal.  Thanks Paul for being such a class-act.  Hopefully next time, we'll come on a night when folks are actually in town. 
There were a few hardcore Dead Milkmen fans in the house.  One fellow, (Michael), came out to both the New Haven and Northampton shows.  Another fellow had a promo-flat from "Soul Rotation" that he had just picked up online.  I didn't realize such a thing could still be purchased online.  Joe played a great set, and was well received.

Then, The Mathematicians tore through a short set.  Some super drunk dude arrived as they were kicking things off, and he was completely enthralled.  He started jumping around wildly, grabbing people from the crowd, (myself and Joe included), and made us jump around with him.  The Mathematicians set was amazing, and the drunk guy was quite a treat to watch.  I read that he was arrested a few days later on charges of murder in the strangulation of a Yale grad student... (Okay, I'm not certain it was the same guy, but they do look similar, and the drunk guy at the show seemed completely insane, so I guess it's entirely possible that it was the same guy).

After asking around, and securing a place for The Mathematicians to stay, we loaded up and headed back to Mt. Kisco.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th - THE ELEVENS - NORTHAMPTON, MA

Once again, I woke up on the floor.  It was another amazing morning, and I wasn't hung over.  Randy was at work, and Joe and Darren had ventured off in search of coffee and groceries, (seperately).  Again, we had a lot of time to kill before the gig, so once again we spent the day lounging around Randy's place, eating, talking and running through songs.

We headed out for the gig around 5:30pm.  On the way, we stopped off and got some dinner at a Subway sandwich shop.  The drive from Mt. Kisco to Northampton was beautiful.  I took a few pictures out the windows of the van, (see FALL TOUR 2009 photos in my pics). 

We rolled up to The Elevens in Northampton around 8pm.  Once again, The Mathematicians had beat us to town.  We scored a good parking spot, (something we'd been able to do every night), and loaded in. 

The Elevens is a cool space.  The stage is big, the sound system is loud, and the sound guy knows his shit, (which seems to be rare in this day and age).  Once again, it took some time to consolodate the large amount of gear that we had.  As we were setting up, Sam and Joe played some pool. 

Sam and Darren opened the night.  The set sounded amazing, and Joe's pal Chris had driven up from New York to record the show for us.  Chris was a super nice dude, and his recordings all turned out great!  Thanks again man.  The Mathematicians played next, and man, they were on fire.  I was dreading going on after their set.  Talk about a hard act to follow.  Despite being nervous as shit, I soldiered on, and was well received.  Next up, local favorites Evil Bill played.  They were a two-piece, and played a great set.  As they were finishing up, I decided to load out some of my gear in order to save time at the end of the night.  While I was outside packing the van, Sam ran out in a panic and said, "Hey Dan, some dude just smashed the merch table."  I ran inside to find the whole merch table covered in beer, and in a sad state of dissarray.  Then, to my complete horror, I realized that beer had been spilled in the box where all of my handmade vinyl artwork was stored.  I quickly took the artwork out of the box, laid it on the floor, and began asking around to see if anyone had seen who was responsible.  The first guy I asked said he hadn't seen anything.  Then Albert, (from The Mathematicians), told me that he'd seen the whole thing, and pointed out the guy to me, (which was the same guy that had told me he hadn't seen anything).  I was absolutely infuriated.  I grabbed the dude, pulled him over to the merch booth, and proceeded to scold him as I cleaned beer off of all of the artwork.  The guy was very drunk, and quite combative, which didn't help calm my mood.  I continued to clean my artwork, (with the help of a very nice gentleman whose wife runs a quarterly literary magazine called "Meat for Tea"), as Joe played.  Somehow, despite beer having been spilled on every single piece of artwork, the plastic sleeves that stored the artwork saved all but six or seven pieces from being ruined.  I joked that those plastic sleeves were the best investment I've ever made.

After Joe's set, I pulled the drunk dude aside and explained that he owed me money for the damage he had done to my artwork.  He became combative, and started threatening me.  Although he was bigger than me, (much bigger), he was also wasted, and I was stone sober, so I was pretty certain I would have been able to take him if it came down to that.  I had heard through the grapevine, (from a sympathetic local), that the dude was likely holding som cocaine, so I played my hand.  I told the guy that if he touched me, I'd file an assault charge, and that if he took one step outside of the venue before paying me what he owed, I'd call the cops and have him arrested from public intoxication, (and likely felony possession of a controlled substance).  At that point, he took off his hat and glasses and started threatening me.  He had a couple of friends nearby that overheard what was going on.  Realizing that their pal was in the wrong, and was likely gong to get arrested, they dug deep and payed me for the damages.  They were very nice about the whole thing, (thank you), and drug their drunk friend out as he continued to threaten me, (yelling, "One day you'll be back, and I'll find you and kill you!").  All the while, they were assuring me that he was actually a very sweet and caring guy.  Maybe so, but man, I was ready to kill that fucker.

After saying our goodbyes to Chris, Micheal and The Mathematicians, we loaded up the van and drove through the night to Cambridge.  Sam and I have an old friend named Todd who lived near the venue where we were playing the following night.  We arrived very late at night, and somehow got totally lost.  Todd rode his bike to where we were, (in his pajamas), and we followed him back to his place.  Upon arriving, we all quickly crashed.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7th - THE MIDDLE EAST - CAMBRIDGE, MA

It was Labor Day.  I woke up around noon, took a shower, and checked my email.  We then headed into Cambridge to try and hit up some local record stores.  It was another amazing afternoon.  After eating some Indian food, Sam, Joe and I walked around and checked out a couple of local record stores.  Weirdo Records is one of the best record stores I've ever seen.  It reminded me a bit of Aquarius Records in SF, except the lady working the counter wasn't a total snob.  In fact, she enthusiastically answered all of my ridiculous questions about obscure titles that she may have on hand.  After spending some time, and money there, we headed back towards the van.  It was around this time that some dude walked by us on the street, and Sam said, "Hey, that's Mike White!"  He had already passed us, and we weren't 100 percent certain it was him, but I ran after him anyway, cd in hand, and eventually caught up to him.  I said something like, "Hey man, I don't normally do shit like this, but are you Mike White?"  He smiled and said he was.  I said that I enjoyed his work, and would like to give him a cd.  He said he dug the album artwork, (a take on Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album), and thanked me for the disc.  I invited him to our show, and then bid him farewell.  He seemed geniunely surprised by the interaction, and although our conversation was brief, he seemed like a very nice guy. 

We wound up spending the rest of the afternoon hanging out on benches in Cambridge.  We loaded in to the venue early, and each got a chance to do a proper soundcheck.  The soundperson was incredibly nice, and was clearly a huge music fan, which was great.  We talked for a while about bands he'd seen recently, and then he offered up some tools that I needed to fix one of the pieces of my light show.  We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling at the venue.  We were given a meal voucher as part of the deal, so at around dusk, we all ordered some food.  I had the lentil stew with onions.  It was hands down one of the best meals I had during the whole tour.  After dinner, we made our way back into the venue.  There was a local opener on the bill called The Country Doctors.  They played first, and were oddly mismatched with everyone else on the bill.  Darren jokingly referred to them as 38 Special, which I thought was both hilarious and apt.  They played a decent set, but I sensed that they were not happy about having to open the bill.  As they were loading out, I overheard an argument between a couple of the band members.  Oh, sweet, sweet band drama.

My old friend Dave Big, who I hadn't seen in years, showed up.  We spent some time catching up, and since I'd been given and obscene amount of drink tickets, I shared one with Dave, who wasted it on a Rolling Rock.  This place had UFO on tap, and Dave orders a Rolling Rock in a bottle with a drink ticket.  After having a good laugh about this, Sam and Darren took the stage.  They played a great set, and the crowd seemed to dig it, (with the exception of one dude that I witnessed storming out of the room, shaking his head). 

After Sam and Darren, I played.  As usual, I asked the sound guy to kill the stage lights.  He one-upped me and killed all the lights in the room, which made my homemade light show that much cooler.  Again, I don't remember a lot of specifics from this show, except that the crowd seemed very attentive and receptive.  It sticks out as one of the funner gigs of the tour. 

Joe wrapped things up with a great set.  He played "Labor Day," since it was Labor Day.  After he was done, we hung out for a bit, talking to locals and selling merch.  Everyone at this place was very nice, and I can honestly say that Cambridge has a very cool vibe about it.  I hope to someday return.

After a short drive back to Todd's place, Sam and Todd both fired up their laptops and began playing "World of Warcraft," (Okay, that's not what they were actually doing, but it looked like it to me).  Sam and Darren had purchased a recording of their set from the venue, and Sam listened to a bit of the cd.  It sounded pretty badass, and it made me wish I had forked out the cash for a recording of my set as well.  I drifted off to sleep to the sound of Sam typing on his computer.

more soon...