Friday, November 14, 2008

Tour Diary 3: Real Virginia, etc.
Hey everybody,
Your man's still sick, here. Sorry for the delay in posting. I haven't felt anything like this since fall of 2004, and that "cold" became pneumonia. Diligence, lots of Nyquil. I watched something like eleven episodes of Lost yesterday, in a semi-comatose funk. It made LOST that much more...authentic.

So:
11/5 We managed to schedule another grueling 8-hour trek from Charlotte to Baltimore. This took us across what I'd suspect is the "blue-state" part of North Carolina, right across the north-central part of the state. I read an expose about the pork industry a few years ago, and I imagine that this is the part of North Carolina experiencing the most environmental damage from that industry's growth.

We drove across what was recently labeled "real" Virginia, and it was the first time we'd seen anyone looking glum. Lots and lots of McCain/Palin ads defiantly stuck out of the ground, as far as the eye can see. A Sheetz in some small town was where the disparity between our high hopes and their trashed dreams became the most apparent.

We drove through a part of Baltimore I'd never seen before: a not-scary part. Seriously. Baltimore largely seems to still be stuck in the 1980s. There are blocks in that city I'm not comfortable DRIVING down. I was worried we'd been given the wrong address, because this was a house show, and we were driving into a seemingly affluent neighborhood. When we reached the house, a sign on the door that said, "Show in Back" set me at ease. When I opened the door and smelled the sadly familiar odor of cat piss, I knew I was at home.

The show, with the exception of one of the locals, who imagined himself in a bigger room than he was in, was a success. Our friend Kyle's band, Woodworking and the Outdoor Strings, played "minimal classical music," that was so twee it hurt: at one point, one of the members played crystal wine glasses (rubbing her fingers along the rims, to produce a tone).

NOTE TO POTENTIAL SHOW BOOKERS: I would soooooooooo rather play a show with a "minimal classical music" group than another guy with an acoustic guitar. No offense to my fellow "guy with acoustic guitar" guys, I just believe that variety is the spice of life.

We rode very high, I said a lot of inspirational stuff about the government that I never thought would come out of my cynical ass mouth. Drove down to DC after saying goodbye to a big group of kids that felt like new old friends (does that make sense?).

Later that night, Reggie and I drove around Silver Spring, trying in vain to find something decent to eat. Apparently, Silver Spring closes at midnight. Settled on a Dunkin' Donuts pizza. Weird.

11/6 Hooked up again with Crafty dAN in Washington, DC. This time was to drop off the Crafty van and pick up a rental cargo van (dAN and Reina had a crafts fair in DC). I felt a weird pang of regret, losing the Crafty van (you tend to grow actual emotional feelings for a vehicle you spend half your year in). We went and saw the walking mall. I caught the Vietnam wall, which I don't remember seeing before. Lincoln is amazing. You can see him, clear enough to tell that it's him, from the Washington monument. The Korean memorial is a little offputting: the facial features on each of the statues' are too vivid: almost like the soldiers themselves are staring at you from beyond the grave (fuck you, I'm not a hippie). I had never seen the World War II memorial (having been erected during the GW Bush administration-my last visit to the mall was in 1993). It was alright, but we all agreed that the fountains in the middle were a little TOO Vegas. Having just been there with dAN in April, maybe the stink of Las Vegas was just a little too fresh on my tongue.

We ate dinner at a BANGIN' vegan cafe near the city center. I could give up cheese if I could eat food of that caliber every day.

The show was reasonable. I had never played in DC proper before. My friend Armida came over from College Park to play the show. Costello went on first, playing to a reasonably full house of Rachel's family and college friends. The stage was amazing, it looked like something out of New Orleans (in fact, the whole place had a New Orleans theme, all voodoo and exposed wood) or my imagined high school utopia, where the arts were cool, and not just something that faggots did.

I probably didn't explain that well. In my high school, it was cool to play sports. Drama and choir and marching band were for nerds and queers. Guess which group I was in? The Red and The Black bar in DC was what my high school drama stage should have looked like, rather than an abused, overlooked corner of my high school's gym.

The Valley Cubs only played to a few people, but we played well, and we met our requisite for the night. We noticed both Wakey! Wakey! and Shilpa Ray on the juke downstairs (both are friends from New York). Packed up and drove to Philly, and Dan's brother's house.

11/7 I had great plans to get out and do stuff in Philadelphia on Friday, but comfortable couches, blankets and the fact that it was raining outside jettisoned my plans, and I spent the afternoon curled up, spacing out. I was so burnt out from travel, I watched MUPPETS FROM SPACE. That's serious dedication to veg time, folks.

The show was highly attended, only a handful of folks watched Costello, but significantly more watched the Valley Cubs. Denise and Erik (Mischief Brew/Fistolo Records) know what it's like to be on the road, and always take really good care of us. They are high on the list of great people to know. We played with this rad band called Cobra Skulls, from Reno, NV. Kind of a punk/horrorcore/surf band, if those three microgenres aren't too esoteric for you to read in a row. I wish we could have stayed and partied (not that I party, per se), but we all felt the drain of the road, and headed home.

I drove through the night, and after a long debacle returning the cargo van, finally found myself at home around noon. Slept a couple of hours, then made my way over to Williamsburg for the icing on the cake.

11/8 Now the freakin' out! (although I've mostly calmed down about it). I got to meet someone I admire very much last weekend. His name is John, and he's the lead singer of this band I like a great deal. If you know my songs, you might think they sound a little like his. It isn't a particularly amazing story, but if you want to hear it, ask me to tell you about it sometime. Stuff like this feels like redemption to me, because if I had met this guy while I was still drinking, I would have embarrassed myself horribly.

See you next time folks, hopefully with a new album in tow! Until then, check here or www.craftyrecords.net for updates.

love
brook

Monday, November 10, 2008

Hey again, Spiderfans. It's been a few hours.
Anyway,
11/2 We left Gainesville for Florence at a reasonable hour, trying in vain to say goodbye to everybody, unable to shake the feeling that I was gonna miss a lot the next day, but pressing on diligently anyway. Michael's only request for sightseeing on this tour was to see the ocean. So we pulled off the beaten path near Bristol, GA, went down the road for what seemed an eon, then found the ocean via Jekyll's Island, an unassuming beachfront community I'd driven straight past numerous times before, never the wiser that it was here. Michael and I and Dan got our feet wet, Michael made like he was gonna throw Rachel into the ocean. I played ukelele, but I don't remember what song. Pulled into Florence at the unreasonably early hour of "O'Dark Thirty," after getting pulled over by a cop and asked numerous times whether or not we were drinking, and whether or not we smoked marijuana. I finally slept and it was epic: I slept for like, fourteen hours. No lie.

I found out at the show, which was the last show ever at 511 House, that I'm far and away the record holder for number of shows played there. David and Carmen, who are days away from moving up to New York, were not at the last show at their house. They had to disappear for a private family function, leaving us in the hands of other great friends I've come to know over the last couple of years. The show was very fun, kind of sad, and really funny. This guy Phil stole Dan and Mike's beer, then spent a whole long while apologizing for it. I wish I had the nerve to talk to one girl at the party. At the end of the night, we were sitting there with one of the old roommates, Johnny, and his girlfriend Rachel, and Phil, who had procured half a pint glass of whiskey and a half goblet of Jagermeister. Just the sight of all that sauce made us want to barf, but Phil complained that the guy out back didn't give him very much.

11/3 We left on the relatively early side, so we could take a detour through the non-interstate part of the Smoky Mountains. The drive through back roads led us down a series of winding two lane roads, past numerous trading posts that were either closed for the season or only sold bullshit. I hurt my foot kind of bad taking a leap to cross this stream.

Knoxville is apparently another record breaker for me: I've played the town five times and Beastro House (formerly known as poison lawn) three. I think they normally do metal shows, but I got in good with them a couple of years ago. All kinds of old fliers from the 80s adorn the room. Usually the same kids show up to every show. This one was a little thin, but it was a Monday night, and most everyone I know in Knoxville is still in college.

We played double duty in Knoxville: After Beastro House, we shambled over to Preservation Pub, which is in the cool, artsy part of downtown Knoxville. Whoa, a legit gig space is here. I actually had no idea. This was pretty fun. Big stage, lots of dank beers on tap. Funny, provocative quotes about alcohol on the walls. The best one said, "I bet if you discover the meaning of life while drinking a beer, it makes you shoot beer out of your nose." Five sets in one night is unprecedented for even me. We stopped at Kroger on the way back to the house, a can of tomato soup not my crowning culinary achievement, but sustaining.

11/4 Made way for Charlotte. I'd asked a few people to give me text message updates on the election, but there was no news until we got to Charlotte and were keeping one eye on the screen. Then the text message flood came rolling in. The Valley Cubs were onstage when the victory came in. Like the last Indian on the plain, I cried a single tear, then about a thousand more. I remember in September of 2001, the media was touting this idea that we were finally in an age beyond irony and sarcasm, that sarcasm was dead. After hearing that, I don't think I'd said anything that WASN'T sarcastic for seven subsequent years. I feel like anything is possible, and I feel proud to be an American for the first time since I became a voting aged adult.

After the show, everybody but me and Rachel got super drunk. Some of our local friends made some pretty racist comments about the President Elect, that made me more than a little embarrassed to be there. One guy, who was not our friend, showed up and talked shit about the Democratic party, trying in vain to believe that his man had won. A TV news crew showed up and interviewed me and our not friend. I can't remember my name. I got to bed late. Our host Eric Scott Guthrie, of the excellent band The New Familiars, had this very funny smoking device, and a kind of tobacco I'd never seen before. It made me hungry, and everything was funny.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Hey Everybody.
I'm still recovering from tour. It was a quick one. A fun one. A hard one (I've never had to set up a band's worth of stuff, play two sets, then tear down and drive before). I started with a cold, lost it, regained it, now I'm sitting here, feeling like Harry Nillsson must have felt the morning after he screamed all night with Lennon and Stevie. I'm not worried, I have not blown lines recently, and I have never sung with Lennon or Stevie. There was that one jam session with Ringo, but I don't think the tape was running. Plus, I use my powers for good, and I don't think that was always the case with Harry.

10/29 We left Brooklyn for Roanoke, VA. Not one of my 'strongholds,' Roanoke is definitely a country music town. Has a little in common with Talequah, OK, in that what I do will probably never take off huge there. It doesn't help when you mail a flier to the venue and they don't put it up, and there's no local. We ended up playing to the door guy, who ended up letting us crash at his house. His name was Ralph, and he's one of this actually large, largely unaffiliated group of artists who hide out in groups of one, in little enclaves like Roanoke, VA. Meeting one of these random, weird artists is what keeps me on the road. Ralph played us these weird public access videos he'd made in the 80s. Absurdist religious propaganda films.

10/30 And to think that, two days before I left for tour, I bragged to somebody that I could get you anywhere in the country, and tell you how long it would take. We had another 8 1/2 hour drive to Atlanta from Roanoke, my nerves were beyond thin by the time we pulled into Wonderroot Arts Center. I'm always looking for the nearest Taco Bell. We had to drive to find it. You should know that, although I eat more Taco Bell than any sane person should, I don't look forward to eating it every day. It's a matter of only having a few options, and not being into most of those options. This is where you come in: healthy, veggie food for me. My bandmates are carnivores, but they can deal. No more junk food, please. The show was off the hook. Definitely the best first-time-in-a-new-city show (second maybe to Minot, ND). Witt, who had played at Sidewalk but I'd never met, hooked us up proper. Costello jammed Nillsson's "Gotta Get Up," and after the set, the DJ responded with "Jump Into the Fire." If you were wondering, yes, I talk about Harry Nillsson quite a bit these last few months. Come over to my house, and we can bicker about which Monkee was the weak link.

10/31 Another long haul. Girls in cat costumes could not keep us in Atlanta. It's unfortunate, because I don't think they dress like that all the time. But dropping off dAN and Pat the Bunny in Gainesville was paramount, and we had an early interview call in Dunedin, FL. What? I know people. So: 48 hours after leaving Brooklyn, we're in Tampa. 9AM we roll into Stick Martin's house, and I manage to stay awake til noon talking shit. Check out www.somethingplanet.com for the interview. Halloween show was off the chain. A guy sat down on the stage, dressed as a bum with a sign that said, "Will Work For Beer." By show's end, he WAS that costume, finally too drunk to accept the free beer people kept giving him. Reggie fashioned himself a pig mask, Dan Costello was a Ninja Turtle. I was a bloody fucking mess. There were a lot of barely dressed girls there. I left wishing we didn't have an early call in Gainesville.

11/1 Not a long haul, but try getting some rest in Gainesville during THE FEST, when an already bustling college town with a healthy punk scene is overflowing with 5000 more punks than normal. We played first at The Kickstand, which I'd played with Pat in April. We started early, and then Saw Wheel was a no-show, so we played an unprecedented forty minute set. It was boss as fuck. I got to say hi to a lot of friends, feel very overwhelmed, catch some good shows. Hannah Jones shouted out to me during the Ghost Mice show, and 250 kids turned around to see who she was pointing at. Favorite Fest things: The Two Funerals, Jackie O showing up in the same Art Of the Underground shirt I had been wearing, Paul Baribeau's impromptu cover of "Angel From Montgomery." Tin Armor (a pop-punk TMBG?). We left and drove through the night to Florence, SC, and uncertainty.

More (and the freakin' out) later...