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June 13, 2000, The Casbah San Diego CA The ride out to the left coast was filled with desert and dust and heat and trees that looked like disfigured monsters against the sunset red horizon, and empty candy wrappers and empty minds attached to wandering eyes. I drove the first day, to Vegas, to the banter of the boys’ excitement: Apparently no one. The minute we got into Vegas, the lights sucked all the energy right out of us and we went to sleep. The next day, Delucchi drove and we made it to Rick Fagan’s house in San Diego by 2:30. We arrived too early for dinner, but his beautiful wife, Cindi, welcomed us in and let us play "H.O.R.S.E." (A basketball game) with their cool son, Ricky, while she finished up supper. "Got a place to stay tonight?" asked Rick as he showed us around his bright and sunny pad. "Uh, yeah, yeah I think we’re staying at the Day’s Inn." "You’re welcome to stay here with us." My eyes lit up. It’s not every day we get invited to spend the night in a real house. "You sure?" I asked realizing that most people don’t know what they’re getting into, asking a band to spend the night…. Sprawling, snoring bodies, messy bath rooms, dishes, conversations, late night arrivals, late afternoon departures… "Yeah, I means we don’t have many beds but you’re welcome to the couch and the inflatable mattresses and the kitchen…just make your selves at home." He said and thus we moved our lives from the back of the van, and into Rick Fagan’s house. Rick Fagan is the head of artist relations at Taylor Guitars (no relation to me). Taylor makes a beautiful guitar and Rick, from the VERY beginning of our incarnation as a band, has supported us and been nothing short of angelic to us. We sat out in their yard and ate chicken and rice and walnut raspberry salad and talked about LA and "the biz" until we’d found our way into a food coma. The day wore long and the sun wedged itself between the land and the clouds until it was time to go and sound check at The Casbah. After sound check we walked down to the harbor and after sitting on the sound and marveling at the mountainless water-scape, we drove into down town San Diego with the sound man, Jason, and had a drink with an old friend of Delucchi’s (Dave) from his Arizona days. It was still hot outside and the boys made fun of me saying that ‘I must be the only person in California with a down vest on.’ But I felt cold in that astringent, overly air-conditioned way. The air was wet and the people who walked by us slung their hips in front of them as though they were to heavy to carry and people called out to each other across the street: "Baby, you’re crazy, baby, baby, you’re so crazy." I got a Reeces Peanut Butter Cup and we cruised back. We parked outside of the club and on the steaming sidewalk, as the opening band played and people filed in, the boys helped me dig through my suitcase and pick out an appropriate outfit. Then I closed myself into the cage portion of the van and changed, hidden by Moby’s tinted windows. So many of my friends showed up to the show including Gregory Page, an amazing singer/songwriter who came up and played a song with us. It was an honor. The club was dark like a midnight shadow and intimate and glitter and haunted by dance bands past. We had a really fun night and back at Rick’s crib, at 3 am there was home baked coffee crumb cake and freshly cut cantaloupe and a bird that twirped as though it knew it were not night and we laughed and danced to the birds twitter and probably made too much noise, sorry Rick, but we were so grateful to be at (a) home. There weren’t enough sleeping areas to go around and so I shared a space with Delucchi. I could hear his soft breathing as we tumbled off to sleep and his dreams turning his breath into a subtle and unobtrusive snore. Good Show, Great Life. June 21, 2000 It’s a beautiful sunny day and the road curves up and down steep rock, which falls away from itself into deep crevasses. I’m finishing up the last few sweet sips of a perfect cocoa/coffee mixture I doctored at the last rest stop and I’m trying to stay out of the direct overhead, freezing blast of the AC. I caught a little chest cold night before last. As a result I’m a little worried about the upcoming 5-night stretch. The days off in the Bay Area were a much welcome rest after the overly fun, eventful and somewhat hectic LA shows. I went to the wine country with a friend, independent of the band, where the rows of grape vines wound their arms upward toward opened sky and outward toward the sharp ledges of horizon as smoke billowed from our cabin’s wood burning fire. The lushness of Sonoma is breath taking. We spent much of our time lounging near lakes, eating cheese cake and sipping wine as soft, cool, winds recommended falling in love. We played a show in Navato at an arts and wine festival where the sun shone down hard and relentlessly and little white fairy seeds floated through the air and stuck in our hair and instruments. My buddy Coors showed up from Telluride and enjoyed the rest of the sunny and intoxicating day with us. I wanted to get my face painted. We sat around watching children race each other toward rides and cotton candy and popcorn, toward first kisses, toward life, toward adulthood as their parents watched with concerned but gleeful smiles. How curious life is, how glorious! June 21, 2000 - Rogue Theater, Grant’s Pass OR Oregon was boiling when we arrived at the Rouge Theater, a beautiful old movie theater converted into a music hall. We rushed slowly through the oven-like air, in and out of the air-conditioned theater with our equipment in hand. The stage was tall and newly painted. Our sneakers made the first imprints into the black paint. We were told that we were the first act to play on the extended stage and the second band to play there ever. We were honored but nervous, knowing that it usually takes at least a year for a venue to work out all its technological glitches. But it turned out we had nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing! The place sounded like a dream. The only thing of concern was this cold that I was getting. My lungs felt like steel and my throat was swelling up pretty badly. Buffalo Bob, who’d booked us, also owned a local jewelry store. His face was covered in a white fleece-like mustache that would have made Father Christmas jealous. His round and joyous belly was tucked into purple and blue shirt and he wore a worn-in white suede hat from which his feather-like hair tumbled like milkweed. We liked him very much. He offered me some of his jewelry to wear on stage though it turned out that much of the silver spun pieces were too heavy to play guitar with and so I picked out a beautiful turquoise bracelet. We went to dinner at the Mexican joint next door where very few of the employees spoke English. To make up for it they followed everything they said with "Thank you, Thank you" "We have chicken enchilada thank you." "More water? Thank you." "You are in a band? Thank you, Senorita, thank you." I spent much of the meal on the phone with my father asking for vocal advice. "Can you get some rest?" he asked "Yeah I can sleep on the van ride tomorrow to Portland." I replied "That’s really the only thing you can do and drink more water than you think you can and rest that voice, OK?" OM, an Oregon band transplanted from New Jersey, opened up for us. They were really good. Played mostly jazz and jam and had a bunch of really cool stuff in weird time signatures like 11. Nice guys too. The owners were great, and Buffalo Bob insisted on taking many, many pictures of all of us. In fact Mr. Buffalo Bob took pictures throughout the whole show. At the end of the show, while I was playing Tomboy Bride, and the whole theater was being extra extra quiet, and you could hear a pin drop, Buffalo Bob took his last photo from back stage and said: "Aw Fuck, that was my last shot." He said it so loudly that the whole audience must have heard and the combination of the loudness, inappropriateness and the laughter I assumed the band must be having at my expense made me almost bust a lung. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried not to laugh while you were singing but it’s almost impossible. But somehow I managed to compose myself by thinking sad thoughts "world hunger, homeless kids, slavery" that sort of thing usually works. After signing CDs after the show and chatting with the OM boys I realized how sick I was. My head was aching and my body was feeling really weak. Ann, one of the owners, said she could give me a ride back to the hotel. I grabbed some stuff from the back of the van. The heat had cooled and a soft warm breeze cuddled me wetly around my exposed face and arms. Ann really 'mom'ed me. I can’t tell you how much I need that out here on the road some times, surrounded by boys, who are good moms but can mom only so much. In a place where the pavement of the road can drive me to crazy and lonely and lost without a road map to remind me who I was before I left, it’s nice to find a mom. Ann walked me into the hotel and escorted me to the check-in desk. I could have done it myself but she insisted on taking me up to my room, giving me her number and asking me to call her at any time during the night if I needed her to go get anything for me. She gave me a little bottle of Tea Tree Salve for my chest and got me some OJ. Some times I miss home from the road, sometimes the road brings home to me. Thank you Ann. Today my throat hurts a little less and I’m on vocal rest. The boys are itching to play video golf and I’m occupying the van AC adapter so I guess it’s time to sign off. June 24, 2000 Timber’s Tavern South, Bend OR Up to 3000 feet to Bend OR. My cold was causing my head to swell so badly that we had to keep stopping for decompression periods along the windy and spectacularly beautiful road to Hood Mountain. The trees bent and enveloped our route while yellow threads of light spun batik-like patterns on the pavement. I drove until my head hurt too much to see and then Kyle took over. By the time we arrived in Bend my eyes felt like they were going to come out of my head and I couldn’t hear a thing. During sound check I knew I must sound awful. "Deluch," I called out to the soundboard "Do I sound awful?" "Uh, Sal, you sound congested, I can’t lie to ya….but you still sound good." I took a antihistamine which immediately made me feel groggy and dizzy so that I had to lie down in the steaming hot van until show time. The show was a tough one for me. The audience seemed self conscious with all the lights on in the room and not too talkative but they wanted to hear an encore and seemed to really enjoy the show, despite the hazy performance I thought I gave. My buddy Ben showed up to the show and we had a short but good catch up sesh after I got done selling CDs. We’d spent some time together back in Telluride in ‘96. We were on the same broom ball team and he’d really been there for me when I broke my leg in my tellemarking accident. We’d sort of lost touch after my injury took me back east. It was so good to see him again. We opened up for Jack Ingram, a honky tonk Tennesseean. He was handsome and talented, a deadly combination, whose voice ran like honey and rust though the mic in soulful and heartfelt tones. I was sad to have to leave so soon after our show but we had to make it back to Portland (a 3 hour drive) and I was sick as a dog. The antihistamine I’d taken at 6:00 had put me into a zombie state but it still wouldn’t allow me to sleep and so I stayed awake, sharing injury stories with Kyle and Chris which now, in the dark, in the van, in the morning part of the night, we were able to look back on and laugh at. June 24th 2000, RockWindow.com, Seattle WA The difference between a hotel and a motel are not that significant, but when you’ve been on the road for a couple of months in motels, you do not turn down the Rockwindow.com promoter’s offer to be put up in the Paramount Hotel in Seattle WA. The difference between the motel and hotel room lies mostly in the expense of the room and in the complimentary amenities provided therein. In a motel, you’re lucky to get a complimentary bar of ivory. In a hotel you get shampoo, conditioner, lotion, a shower cap, q-tips, and sometimes one of those nice little sewing kits that I like so much. In a hotel you get a comfy bed, thick, almost fight proof, walls, a bath that’s probably been sanitized, and a nice lobby with classical music as opposed to the music generally played in motels. In hotels you get lights that don’t hiss when you turn them on and there’s less bolted down furniture and more cable channels. But the AC still grumbles like an old man, and the views still overlook the parking lot and the maid still enters the room at 7am despite the DO NOT DISTURB sign on your door to ask you if you want your room cleaned. Nonetheless, it was nice to be treated with so much respect by our hosts; the Rockwindow.com folks who had us up to Seattle for the launching celebration of their streaming media company (check it out by the way…very cool). By the time we’d found our hotel and checked in we only had 15 minutes before we had to be at the venue for sound check. I rifled through my bag for something to wear. I’ve lost everything this tour! I swear the boys must be playing a joke on me. So far my lost list includes: 1 left sneaker I tugged a black dress out of my bag and the last full pair of shoes I still own (besides my thongs) and ran down to the lobby full of pretty people moving in slow, graceful motions to the classical music surrounding us like water against the cold and immaculate marble walls and floors. Sound check was slow too. The theater we were playing at was called "The Big Picture" and was a new internet venue, set up specifically for filming and streaming live performance. It was a small place, 60 seats or so, but comfortable with good sound. We were playing with Edwin McCain who is a really talented, funny and cool guy. We met him outside of the back stage door strumming on a Gibson on the slanted sidewalks of downtown Seattle and immediately we were in love. He was hysterical and his sense of humor was directly up our alley. We exchanged road stories for the rest of the night, stories about friend’s bands who’d lit themselves on fire and catapulted themselves in flames to the stage knocking every thing and every one over in their paths. Stories about late night parties and guys in Hooters outfits and jail and bubbles and inappropriate nudity and we laughed and laughed and laughed. We got along so well that after the show his crew and my crew met up in the Paramount restaurant to exchange more road stories and laugh a little harder. The show kept getting pushed back. We were supposed to start at 9:15, then 9:45 and by 10:30 we were finally on "6 songs" the stage manager shouted in a whisper at me. The event was a private party. A party mostly for industry people, managers, record label execs., and people involved in the opening of the "EMP Museum." The lights stayed on in the room for the whole performance, which was a little awkward. An inebriated couple fondled one an other in the front row, people got up and left and then came back in with drinks while other people smiled and clapped. It was hard for me to figure out who was performing there, me or the audience? People really seemed to dig our act and we were praised for what I thought was only a "so so" performance. We were invited to a big mansion party which the boys ended up making it to, but after hanging with Edwin & co. for a couple of hours I was exhausted and felt like I needed to rest my cold before our 5th show in a row so Edwin and I were the only two not to make it out…. Here’s Chris Soucy’s account of the rest of the night:We had all received these little invitation cards with an art deco looking, martini sipping woman and the words "Party on the Patio" on the front. We were told it was going to be a "must do" Seattle scene party, with live music and some of the surviving members of bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden in attendance. We all bounced around the idea of going, or maybe just staying back at the hotel for a good night’s sleep for a change. For some reason, at about 1:30am going to the party seemed to be a fine idea to some of us, so Kyle, Chris Delucchi and I picked ourselves up out of our stools at the hotel bar and away we went. It was a big house overlooking the downtown area perched high upon a hill and we could hear it long before we could see it. True to Seattle style, there were few lights on inside, each room like a darker and darker chamber, deeper and deeper into the depths of the cavern. Upstairs, people dressed in black, adorned with chains, multiply pierced and covered in tattoos hung out on the balcony by the bar, lounged on the couches inside and waited in line for the bathroom. I met a woman from Norway in the bathroom line named "H" who was simultaneously smoking a clove cigarette, drinking a beer from a plastic cup, eating a huge onion and mayonnaise sandwich and holding a conversation with me. As we chatted, two couples emerged from the bathroom, red-faced and giggling. Hmmmm? "H" and some other friends from Norway were here in Seattle to get their band launched in to rock and roll stardom. One of her band mates, another woman with a name that sounded like maybe it began with a "G," but was otherwise unintelligible to me, came up to her looking very excited. Apparently there were some fellows there at the party from a Yugoslavian techno-trash-thrash-industrial-alternative-acid-hop band whom "G" had been wanting to meet for some time. She told "H" in her broken English that she had been kissing the drummer for a very long time. "H" shot back at her, "Hey, how come you are never kissing me?" "G" knocked the sandwich out of H’s hand, grabbed her hair at the back of her head and laid a very long, wet and seemingly passionate kiss all over her. "G" let her go after a while and just walked away. "H" looked in my direction and said, "She never does that to me. Really." The bathroom door was opening at that time, so I headed off toward my next adventure. Entering the bathroom I had to pass the three girls who were leaving it. I don’t know how they snuck into the bathrom in front of me or why they all needed to be in there together some sort of pack instinct women at parties seem to have. I must have been distracted by the behavior of the Norwegians. I made my visit to the bathroom as short as possible: the floor was pooled in what appeared to be vomit. I regrouped with Kyle and Chris Delucchi outside. They had found some entertainment of their own. On the patio a fully clothed couple was engaged in an activity that, had they been in public would certainly have gotten them arrested in most states. Why they couldn’t just go get a room, or how they were able to pull that off without removing their clothing were mysteries we were unable to solve. Downstairs there was indeed live music. Two unbelievably out of tune guitarists, a bassist who appeared to be playing to some other music not connected at all to the music being played around him and a drummer who struggled to push the beat along. Kyle made a remark that went something like, "Just because the guy is playing triplets, that doesn’t mean he’s actually playing a shuffle AT ALL." They were butchering some blues so bad that it was almost art. Delucchi commented that it reminded him of some early Velvet Underground records performance art of the highest order, all based on extremely poor performances. I was tempted (and in fact encouraged by my two friends) to grab the microphone and recite some beat poetry. The music was begging for it, but the only thing I could think of to shout out was the scientific names of various birds of prey. Imagine it. A dark basement, drunken dancers, awful music and some guy half singing, half chanting, "Bubo virginianus, Otis asio, Tyto alba pratincola, Falco sparverius, FALCO PEREGRINUS!!!" I think it really could have worked, but I’m a shy guy, and I didn’t do it. The musicians rotated around from time to time. A few came close to getting the guitars in tune. The Yugoslavs took over at one point, and since they were actually a band they played more or less together, albeit in some radically non-American sounding time signature and in some freakish Phrygian mode. There was at least one party-goer who was enthralled by this music however, and he sat in the corner of the room making out with an empty guitar case throughout their entire performance. Kyle and I attempted to commandeer the guitar and drums once. As he pointed out, there were a lot of girls standing around trying to dance, and when that happens he, responsible drummer that he is, feels compelled to lay down funky drum grooves for the people’s enjoyment. Delucchi even took hold of the microphone and shouted, "Kyle Comerford and Chris Soucy to the stage! Kyle and Chris to the stage please!" No one seemed to care, least of all the guys holding the intstruments, so the music remained undanceable. We tried to help. Really, we did. A faint bluish glow began to appear in the east and we realized that dawn was approaching. We had not recognized even one bonafide rock star member of any influential Seattle grunge scene band, so we decided to bail. We had to step over a man sleeping in the driveway on our way out Kyle thought it was perhaps the guy who was getting it on with the empty guitar case. Could be; he was definitely headed in that direction when we saw him. We stopped at Seattle’s famous Space Needle on the way back to the hotel to watch the sunrise. Sunrise at the Space Needle is an eerie and strangely surreal experience and it seemed just the kind of thing to finish off the kind of evening we had just had. June 25th 2000, The Ballard Firehouse, Seattle WA I thought that I might have inadvertently dropped one of my black and gray shiny new shoes out the back of the van and into the parking lot outside of the The Rogue Theater in Grant’s Pass, OR, so I called the folks up there at the theater and left a message on the answer machine: "Hey, Sally Taylor here, Uh, I think I may have left a shoe there…Uh, it might be in the dressing room, or uh, I was wondering if some one wouldn’t mind taking a look for it out in the parking lot there out in the back? Uh, uh yeah, uh thanks." Apparently I did not leave my shoe in Grants Pass. Or if I did, it’s not there now anyhow. It has probably been adopted, run over or thrown into the bushes by some punk ass kid: "Uh, hey Sally, no sign of your shoe out in the back lot or any where…caught your cold. Hope you’ll all come back and play here again." I guess it was sort of a stab in the dark. After all, we did play there over a week ago. Nyle Hensen, a really great guy affiliated with Rockwindow.com had invited me on a tour of the newly opened EMP museum after the show. He didn’t, however, take into account that I’d need to take my whole band with me. He had to scramble to find passes for all of us at 10am the next morning. He ended up treating us all to the Experience Music Project out of his own pocket and in exchange we let him have shot gun in Moby. The museum was UNBELIEVEABLE. I don’t think I even knew I liked music before I visited it. There’s no way to describe it. You MUST see it for yourself. It is the best musical event of our time. I wished we could have stayed there overnight. I didn’t want to leave. I was so inspired, more inspired than ever before, by the spirit of music. By the hum and beat and dance and strum of the lives that made music new and newer and cutting edge sharp. After the Hendrix exhibit we had to go, if we were going to get any thing to eat before sound check. It was a beautiful Seattle day. Wind ran warm and the sun shone bright against the water, etching vibrant, silver, stencils into the waves down at Pike’s Place. That’s where we ate. That’s where the men in orange plastic aprons shouted and threw fish over unsuspecting and frightened tourists heads, That’s where Delucchi got in his accident. Nothing devastating really, just a little fender bender going 5 miles per hour. But Moby, with her girth and torque can do quite a bit of damage to a smaller car even at 5 miles per hour and Delucchi felt pretty bad about the whole thing. The ride to Ballard was filled with wrong turns, lost directions and short tempers. When we arrived, the firehouse was empty, save for the barflies and a soundman who helped us load in. After sound check he suggested we hop a bite to eat down a couple of blocks at the "All you can eat Chinese buffet." A bad idea to begin with and even a worse idea right before the show. Ballard’s streets were empty and so was our show for the most part. We managed to have a good time anyway and a bunch of our friends came down. The gig that opened for us was told by the conveniently absent promoter, that we were suppose to pay them. Man, what's up with that? That just ain't right. After the show, while the boys were hanging out in the parking lot, and I was chillin with the Rockwindow.com people complaining about our draw, or rather our lack thereof, in Seattle, the night outside was hushing blind winds off of Puget Sound and day was being folded like clean, cooling, linen sheets and put away neatly beneath the horizon. Two days off…… July 14, 2000 Headed East Day 1 "You Guys wanta eat here or wait til Lincoln?" Kenny yells back from the
drivers seat over a Jimmy Smith CD that's playing louder on the left side of
the van then on the right side. "I can wait," says Kyle lifting his head momentarily from the miniature Saga golf game. "Yeah, Let's wait," chimed in Delucchi who up til that point had been passed out on the floor under the back seat next to the CD's. I haven't attempted to sleep there yet but the guys tell me it's quite comfortable. Kyle found the sleeping nook last tour on the West Coast. I thought we'd left him back at some gas station when I looked back and only saw 3 heads. I can't imagine it's very relaxing under there though, wedged next to the wheel well, in-between boxes of CD's, bags, shoes, stickers, and empty fast food bags but I'll give it a shot next time I get tired enough. Why not? "Lincoln it is." Replied Kenny as we rolled past exit 353 "Wasn't The Sod Museum around here somewhere?" asked Soucy. The House of Sod was this Museum we'd stumbled across last year around this time, in the parking lot of some gas station we stooped at for fuel. It was in this building made of dried dirt and grass with odd artifacts in it like a mammoth's tooth and a metallic buffalo made out of a mile's worth of barbed wire. We looked for signs for the museum for a while in the rear view mirrors. "Probably got mowed down," I said. "Or got smoked" Said Delucchi at which point we all laughed and stopped looking.
The sunset was remarkable on the road and Kyle videoed. Orange crush and crimson saturated the sky, reaching, but not touching, the cool blue pool the stars were straggling toward for their nightly skinny dip. I was tangled in the black ink of the last pages of my book "Memoirs of a Geisha" which I unfortunately had to finish just as we pulled up to the hotel lobby in Iowa at 1:00 am. "Sure I do." I said. "Pretty bag" has all my shampoos and nail polishes and lotions and I take it on every tour except the short ones for which I only need "Pretty Bags" little sister: "Handsome bag," a Soucy term, which is black and white and shiny and striped and charmingly cheesy. With so much extra time in the van we get around to naming almost every thing! Kyle's Hardware case is "The Coffin of Death." My guitar amenity case is "My Head Case." And the Van is obviously "Moby." We've got more names for inanimate objects but I can't think of them right now. I can't think of much of anything right now. I'm too exhausted. Tour De France is on the TV and the electric alarm clock red reads 2:00. Here's to the first night at our series of "Home-tels" across the East Coast of America. Good night. July 16th 2000, Bottle Rocket, Toledo OH When it comes down to it, "The Stupid Game" was all Kyle's fault. We
were sitting by the bar waiting for Delucchi to ring out** the monitors when
Kyle grabbed my right hand with his and attempted a wrestling match:
"Me and my brother use to fight like this, holding each others hands,
when we were little. "So if you let go now, you're a loser." I said and thus The Stupid Game was invented. It's a battle of egos and neither Kyle nor I was willing to be the loser therefore we stubbornly walked around connected at the wrist for and hour and 45 minutes. It was pretty silly I must admit: When Kyle got called up to sound check his kit, I went with him. When I had to go to the ladies room, he held my hand outside of the stall. Finally, when it was time to do a full band sound check, we made a pact that we'd both let go at the same time on the count of three. 1-2-3 and surprisingly we both released our then, overly clammy palms. The Stupid Game has since evolved to where who ever lets go first is then "the loser" until he/she clasped hands with somebody else, yells "Stupid Game" and wins the match. The name? Where does it come from? Why, you may ask --- come on you guess. It's the stupidest game in the whole entire world, fueled by ego, pride and what's worse, it's not even fun. Nonetheless I later invited the audience to participate. Stupid idea. When we arrived in Toledo, no one was there. Not just at the venue, anywhere. The streets were BARREN save for some loud seagulls overhead and a couple of street sleepers who might have done better to move into one of the thousand vacant, boarded up buildings strewn about the city. The sky was clogged with high, dark, murky clouds that moved not at all. I felt like I was in a comic strip. Some wind blew, some trash flew by and I talked to someone on the phone and did an interview for PA. Dave, the owner showed up to let us in at 6:00. He was a super nice guy with a cigarette, a look of subdued glee and a really cool, bright pair of red shoes that lit up the neighborhood like a little fire cracker. He showed us upstairs to the joint. The long room reminded me of a room in Detroit called "Inter Mezzo" that we played at last year. A cross between Inter Mezzo and Valentine's, a gig in Albany NY. 32 elevatorless steps up a narrow, rickety stairwell painted in striped pastels, we carried our gear up and to the stage. I kacked out on the black and white cowhide bench beside the bar and underneath a phone that kept ringing and ringing and ringing. At 8:30 we went down the street to the only other place open, a local watering hole called Union Station and grabbed some chef salad. The waiter at Union Station was also the chef as well as the bartender and so the food took a little longer than we had. We ended up forcing dressing-filled bites of lettuce down our throats, getting most of the ranch coating on our cheeks and chins then running back up the 32 steps and onto the stage. It wasn't a packed show by any means, but it was really fun and the people that came were really attentive and humorous. Soucy, who was standing stage right, was getting a little vertigo though, being up so high and close to the edge. I was just being silly and making fun of the guys a lot. We'd planned to play and then get out of town immediately in order to get some sleep in before the 8-hour drive to Buffalo but it's hard to leave when there's handsome people to talk to and share more than a second of eye contact with. I was flirting and swapping road stories with another musician named Andrew from a band called "Poe Ditch," While the guys flirted with the pretty bartendresses. At the end of the night we were all in the van, parked immediately outside the door, save for one of us (remaining nameless) who sauntered down the flight of 32, 20 minutes after ETD** with a sad pout on his mouth. He'd been talking with some cute little nursing student/betty with whom he would have liked to spend some more time. She produced a coin when he requested they hang out some more and told him to flip it. "Heads twice and you can come home with me. Tails twice and we exchange numbers and call it a night." "Tails!! Damn it!!!!", he said closing the door behind him and it was off
to Holland, OH for an abbreviated night of rest during which I managed to
dream. I dreamt about dark, clear, navy blue water and the quiet just below
the surface. July 18th & 19th, 2000 Styleen's, Syracuse NY We had the day off on Tuesday. Waking up in Buffalo, we decided to make a band voyage to Niagara Falls before headed east to Syracuse. I was on a vocal rest and realized over breakfast/lunch at Denny's just how much of nothing gets said sometimes - especially over meals - and how much nervous laughter and hair futzing is applied to make up for American's empty space. I also realized how hard it is to join in the band's mindless fun, when you have no voice. I realized how good science is at being a blank canvas for the colorful, past-full, paint of thought; too much thought was put to canvas that day. For example: during the morning I started feeling as though something was missing and only at the end of the day did it occur to me that maybe I was only just now beginning to miss my future. Niagara Falls was a wet and beautiful people sanctuary. I think every nationality, age group, and religious background was represented. We flew glances, like butterflies, like Frisbees, around at each other with curiosity and wonder. Our stares, we threw over the edge, into the white bottomless pool like pennies into a wishing well. My eyes pointing into the bottomless fall made me feel an odd sense of destructive lightness as though at any moment I might drift away like a helium balloon out of a child's distracted hand at a late harvest fair. The whiteness fell away as though in slow motion, down and though the stillness of a perfect rainbow until it landed with the heaviest furry on the black teeth like rocks below. As I stood gapping over the ledge the wind switched directions and rain came down, or up, I'm not sure which, with abundance and just as simply as I had been dry before, now I was wet. Delucchi and I got ice cream from a sunny umbrellaed vender. He got a crimson colored cone of Black Cherry and I got a bright Kermit green mint chocolate chip. It didn't take long before Delucchi and I were covered in our fast melting ice creams. To add insult to injury he forced his red cone in my face leaving a huge blotch of cherry smudge taking up most of my right cheek. Needless to say it was WAR and before we knew it both of us were laughing hysterically, wet and covered in green and red the way Christmas dresses on her birthday. It was a great. When we woke up in Syracuse, Soucy and I went into town to check out the venue we'd be playing at the next day. When we walked into Styleen's and I couldn't speak, I think the owners might have got worried that I wouldn't be able to sing the next day. The place was really nice and had a couple of different rooms, dark, which reminded me of video games for some reason; I can't say why. Afterward, we headed over to The Sound Garden, where our CD's were supposedly in store. However, when Soucy asked for Apt #6S (as though he were a customer) the clerk had no idea who Sally Taylor was and even less interest in trying to find out how to get her CD into Soucy's hands. Disappointedly we went to dinner at "Pastabilities" and watched Colin, a talented delta blues musician play. He'd be opening up for us the following night. Then we headed back to "home-tel." The show at Styleen's was really fun. I kept on unintentionally stepping on my guitar cord and yanking it out of the pick up which made the guitar fall silent and sent both me and the Chris's into hysterics in the middle of songs. I'd see Delucchi bend over laughing in the mini light over the sound board, realize I'd pulled my cord out again, and then try to keep as still as possible, while still playing the song as Soucy tried to doctor the cord into the bottom of my guitar. SO SILLY!! The band were being such smart asses all night, especially Kyle. I brought a Trivial Pursuits card on stage: "If anyone in the audience knows the answer to this question, they get to spank Kyle. But if you loose, then Kyle spanks you." I thought it was innocent enough. But when a brunette bombshell came to the mic and muttered her answer it was clear she had no intention of being right. When Kyle gave her a little swat with his paw, she turned to him and said "Is that all you got?!?!" And the crowd howled. Once again we saw 3:00am and once again we're now on the road. Iris May Tango is playing and the air conditioner is freezing the points that it's blowing directly onto but isn't doing much for the over all heat. On our way to lunch, we stopped at a used bookstore. I got Sophie's Choice. Kyle got Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Delucchi got some Crumb comics. Soucy got something he'll no doubt be bored with (he hasn't been able to get into any thing he's been reading lately) and Kenny got something for 50 cents, which he'll have finished, by the next rest stop. In Syracuse, Delucchi and I met up with Colin (the blues cat) and his girlfriend at The Dinosaur BBQ joint, which is a must - but not for vegetarians. It was hot and sunny and we sat outside at a red and white checkered table-clothed picnic table as the Hell's Angels flew by with leathered skin to match their clothing on rumble and toss your heart, Harley Bikes. I got BBQ coated chicken, with which I managed to marinate my fingers into a permanent red and cover much of my clothing. Another perfect day. Another perfect silent day. On to Maine! July 21, 2000 Jonathan’s, Ogunquit ME No, TV dinners are not my meal of choice, nor are they a band favorite. None the less, a TV dinner sits on the dashboard of the van. It’s my new anti theft device. I figure that if someone wanted to break into our van they’d be less likely to if they saw the yellow and blue (once frozen) package on the dash. They might think that if the van inhabiters are forced to eat TV dinners, there couldn’t possibly be any thing good to steal within. That, my friends, is the type of ridiculous thinking that goes down in my brain during long drives. Ogunquit ME was beautiful and we went with Soucy’s cousin, Fritz and his family, down to the shore. The beach was stuffed like a bag of potato chips. People were shoved right on top of each other and yet the beach wasn’t completely full. I bought a straw mat for a buck fifty and lay my self down in the not so crowded part of the beach for a nap while the boys went into the Fun-O-Rama to play video games. I could hear kids' sand castles going up and coming down, and pebbles being thrown and sea gulls swiping PB & J’s from distracted mother’s hands. My body was so drained and dry that I could almost feel it, brittle, breaking, wearing down in to pieces of sand and sea glass and dust as I lay there blowing away beneath the summer heat, beneath the clouds shaped like clowns and dinosaurs and angels. An hour of rest was all I really needed and I joined the guys in The Fun-O-Rama at 3:00. We took pictures, all of us shoved into one of those curtained off photo booths, laughing hysterically while pin ball "pings" and gladiator "gnashsh’s" infused our ear drums like cotton candy on a child’s face. Fritz, Tammy, Danielle and Elizabeth took us down to "The Lobster in the Rough," a local hang where Fritz and Tammy treated us to lobster dinner for 16, which they had earned for their bar "patronage." Thank you Fritz and Tammy you two are angels! Locals with tan and dusty muscles ripped horseshoes through the air and laughed with the bottom of the sea in their bellies. We ate lobsters! After we were done eating we turned our lobster bibs around and pretended they were super hero capes. Delucchi was "Damit Man." Soucy, "Bird man," of course. Kenny was "No man." Kyle was "Mr. Man." And I, Sally, was "Girly man." We all had special human powers too. Some one (who shall remain namelss but is not Kenny) hit relentlessly on the attractive bartender insisting she come see the show but she never did show up. The day was fantastic. The night was great too with fairy like lights on ever table and new smiling faces. Thank you Maine. Thank you Fritz and thank you, once again, Jonathan. July 27, 2000 The Point Bryn Mawr PA The morning after The House of Blues in Boston was gray and rainy and we headed back in the direction from which we'd come a day earlier after the show in NYC. It's been a whirlwind week of shows and road and not a lot of sleep. From Maine, to Martha's Vineyard, to New Bedford, to New York, to Boston, and finally to Phili last night. "Big Ben!. Parliament"** We yell out in unison as we pass, for the third time, for the last time (we hope) a familiar, landmark: a giant, blue, plastic bug atop a building just outside of Providence on I-95. We get off at an exit to take a pit stop at the same spot we stopped at yesterday and Delucchi has some phone calls to make there. The rain spits and spays misty residue into the sticky, dark, muggy air as we dash, with collars over our heads, into the gas station/food store. We know what to expect as we enter the building: fruit to the left of the door, auto trader magazines on the right, juice and soda in the back next to the bad coffee and one unisex bath room which we all must stand in line for, holding our bladders and listening urgently for the flush and running water followed by the ripping of paper towel, the unlock and swing of the door. We're all in somewhat boisterous moods and, later, while we're in line to pay for our various candies, and sodas, Soucy leans over as if to whisper something to me. Instead, he sticks his whole tongue in my ear. "Yuck Souce!", I yelp while scanning the room for revenge. My eyes scan over the front counter where a bunch of innocent looking little imitation cologne bottles are lined up neatly and I grab for one. I take the cap off and spray with relentless abandon on Soucy's body. The air, infused with the rain's muskiness and the designer imitation Drakkar now, tickles at every bodies funny bones. We are suddenly saturated in memories of grade school and first dates and pink taffeta prom dresses and all in a heap of our own teary-eyed laughter on the dirty linoleum floor of the gas station off exit one hundred and twenty something, in some state near downtown somewhere. The old guy behind the counter is wearing prescription glasses with sun visors flicked up and brown slacks which match his huge and unkempt eyebrows. He's laughing too even though he'll be stuck with the stench for the next 48 hours and Soucy, who's now doing a good impression of Peppie Le Pew, gargles between his laughter! "I don't think that's a sample Sal, You're gonna have to buy that cologne now." And I can't think of anything better to do because the brown liquid, air freshener, designer imitation Drakkar only costs me $1.50 and now I can use it on Soucy any time I want!. Like on stage at The Point for example! The show was sold out long before we got there. A bunch of old friends came: Kristen from College, Jess from the Vineyard, and Marji and Larry from The Walden school, who brought flowers and chocolates and other cool delicious gifts. The gig was so much fun. I love playing the Point and I love the crowd that shows up there and laughs with (and at) us. I drove with Eric "The Bird Man" (yes, the man who's responsible for the bubble incident in Mobile Alabama last summer). He's out visiting us on the road for a week. We were following the van back to a hotel about 20 miles away. It was late and still raining. Very few cars were on the road but the one's that were, looked like boats as they floated by in white wash puddles lit up in red from break lights. We had to keep close to the van so as not to lose them. Moby went through a yellow light, which had turned red long before we got there, but fearlessly, Eric ran through it to keep up with the band. A minute later red white and blue pulled in behind us and Eric was reaching for the rental car insurance before the cop got to the car. A young officer knocked on the window and Eric rolled it down letting the rain and the dark and the scent of forest green come pouring in, lit up by the cop's high beams behind us. "You know why I pulled you over son?" He asked. "Uh, no sar" He replied in his well mannered southern drawl. "You don't know why I'm pulling you over?" The cop repeated in a way that insisted Eric know the cause of his punishment. "Uh, no sar." "Come now, you must know why I pulled you over." I could see that Eric was beginning to break down as he said: "Was it the red light I ran?" "Did you run a red light?" "No sar." Said Eric and I almost lost it there and then it was so funny. Eric almost lost it too. But the cop was stern and crisp like a newly starched collar, so we managed to keep our cool. "Do you know that van you were following too closely behind son?" "Yeah, they're our friends. I was trying to follow them so I wun't get lost." "How much you had to drink tonight." "Nothin" said Eric. "He doesn't drink." I added and the officer warned us not to tailgate in such bad weather before letting us go. The hotel had lost our reservations when we got there so we were forced to start looking for another hotel at ten past 2 in the am. We settled into a Ramada around 3:30. Even though my eyes burned red with fatigue this morning at 10, I still managed to do some yoga with The Bird Man and shower before we headed out, had breakfast at WaWa's, and got on the road to Oakland MD. ** Vocabulary: "Big Ben, Parliament" is a line from European Vacation that Chevy Chase utters. Scenario: He's gotten himself stuck on a rotary in London and for what ever reason, can't get off and he keeps passing Big Ben & Parliament, which he'd initially, excitedly pointed out to his family when they'd first got on the rotary, but as he passes it for the 1000th time he sarcastically sputters between tears and laughter "Look kids, Big Ben!Parliament." So we use the line when we yo-yo a high way a bunch in one tour, or when we miss an exit and have to turn around to find it again. July 28th, 2000 The Little Yaugh Summer Music Festival, Oakland MD Vocal rest against a still gray sky, damp and soft from rain and silence and dusk. Once again I am quiet. My voice aches like a frozen tree that wants to bend but can't, beneath a fresh layer of ice. 6 shows in a row, each in a different place, wrung me dry like an old dishrag. A day of restless van-spent relaxation, cruising at 90 along an unfamiliar highway, was apparently just what I needed to restore my spirit. We drove all day to get to MD, arriving finally at night-ish time in a town called Cumberland for dinner (courtesy of "The Bird Man") at a New Orleans style, alligator tail, gumbo, Cajun joint, underground and empty except for us and some wisps of smoke from a waitress's skinny, lipstick imprinted cigarette, and a James Taylor CD that was stuck on repeat. We sat around drawing on my speech pad, letters, which strung together, sounded like sentences like: CDB? DBSAB-ZB "See the bee? The bee is a busy bee." AK8TLIQ12BLON "Hay Kate tell Ike you want to be alone." ICU, URAQT "I see you, you are a cutie." I NVU N8U "I envy you and hate you." Grilled chicken salad, a glass of Chardonnay, lemon cheesecake and a shot of espresso then back into the heat, into the van and into the rest of our journey. When we got to Ken's house (our promoter) in Oakland, ethereal mists were setting blue into the valleys between the distant green hills. His home was right on a lake and I couldn't help feeling that we had somehow become tiny and were now a bed of moss on the corner of some pristine jungle-like puddle. There was a party going on at Ken and Nancy's house. For us? I didn't know. I couldn't ask, seeing as I was on vocal rest. I somehow managed to stay quiet throughout the entire party, frantically scribbling things onto my little note pad to keep up with the conversations until, at last, the nighttime's darkness stole my words away from the papers and I became just another shadow sewing together the night. We stayed at Ken's pad, making full use of his hot tub with the special massage seat and the view of the moon that rose like a silver sliver etched into the dark blue promises of forever just beyond the horizon and to the left. Nancy made us coffee in the morning and sent us off to lunch and a boat ride on the lake which was superb! After showering, we drove into the town of Oakland at 4:00. We'd been told we'd be playing in a farmer's market type of hall but I guess I hadn't expected the long, thin, tin roof with the words "Fresh Produce" painted on it, next to the train tracks which stumbled through the town and escorted locomotives, with great roaring billowing "yeehawws" through the adjacent neighborhoods. A charming little town, Oakland is. Birdman and I skipped off arm in arm to go find a leather worker to cut me a piece of hide to fix my watch, which had broken in the hot tub the night before. Both of us stuck out like sore thumbs in the quaint town of antique stores and ol' time coffee shops with swivel stools and cherry cobblers which looked as Betty Crocker as the waitresses that offered them to us in slices from the beneath the glass cake domes, from behind the linoleum counters, from behind the Lucille Ball glasses, from behind a time I'd never been to but seen in the movies. The Birdman wore a shirt full of subway cars piled and painted colorfully in graffiti and I had on a shiny python printed top and dark NYC shades. A shopkeeper, standing outside her shop of wind chimes yelled after us: "You going to the concert tonight? Starts at 7:00." "We'll be there." Eric shouted back. "Hey!" She hollered "YOU ARE the concert?!" At 7:00 people started pulling up to the farmers market tent and pitching their families and lawn chairs up on the surrounding grass, while a nice young guy, his guitar and his synth. sampler opened up for us. A train ran by with high-pitched toots and kids scampered between parent's legs to get a look at one another. Polish sausages, pork sandwiches with coleslaw and baked ham stands stood in white tents in the rear of the hall; not much to eat in MD for a vegetarian. 1/2 way though our set, an Amish family pulled up on a tractor and listened to the show (that was cool). A bunch of cute kids came up on stage and danced to Happy Now and Split Decisions and some even swayed to Tomboy Bride. It was a great outdoor starry night. We sold CDs. I signed kids' shirts, and Elizabeth, Amber and Tina, 3 groovy little girls, helped me hand out stickers to customers. I was taken with the honestly of the beauty in peoples eyes. The children in particular, wearing blue, snow-cone-stained tongues and pleading gleefully for their T-shirts to be signed, enchanted me. Somewhere during the night, someone gave me a "I Love Oakland" pin to wear, and sometime after the crowd had left and the quiet of our inside jokes had made us laugh and pick up our equipment a little lighter, I looked down at that pin and realized that it was true. Oakland is great! July 29th 2000, The Performing Arts Center, Patchogue NY Opening for John Cafferty John Cafferty is one hell of a cool guy. He immediately offered us his extra dressing room when we arrived at 6 to the dramatically beautiful theater, adorned in red cushioned seats and high cartwheeling ceilings which arched echoes into the high parts of my voice making it sound less breakable, fragile and brittle. The past few days of wear-and-tear have truly done a number on my vocal cords. Even with a day off in-between shows, my larynx refuses to let sound come through the way I'm accustomed to it and now there is a sourness in the back of my throat which was not there before. John's whole band is cool. They must be familiar with what it's like being an opening band: little or no Space to change clothes Time to sound check Food to eat And usually the headliners are pompous And arrogant. Not these guys, they went out of their way to make us feel comfortable and most of them even hung out and watched our show. "Tunes" was the sax player. He had brave hands the color of music and the deepness of a 3-part harmony. He introduced himself to us and we talked a while about the music industry and his sons who play in In Sync. We sat back stage for a while eating egg rolls and drinking lemon tea with honey. "Close!" I'd yell out spontaneously and the boys instinctually would close their eyes as I changed into yet another potential outfit. "Open!. What do you think of this?" I'd ask. "Too casual" "Too dressy" "Too much" "Too little" The guys would say. "Close!" I'd call out again "still naked still naked still naked" I'd repeat like a truck backing out of a parking space ensuring no one peeked, "OK, Open" I finally decided on an orange and pink dressy little number and we went on stage. The spotlights were so bright I couldn't even make out the front row. I had my ear monitors in so I couldn't even really hear if there was an audience and so, as our 45 minute set wore on, I got the distinct, and surreal, impression that I was alone up there. I felt like I was dreaming somehow and even though I could hear my voice, it seemed not to be coming out of my mouth but from somewhere else. Somewhere like the center of the earth or a star one gadrillion* light years away. "We'll be selling CD's in the lobby," I announced at the end of our set and sure enough, there was a line waiting when the Birdman and I got out there to sell. We must have sold a record amount of CD's (no pun intended). The line just kept going and going and going until my signature had turned into an illegible Charlie Brown scribble and my vision had little blind spots all over it from disposable camera flashes. The chandeliers in the lobby finally flicked on and off twice to indicate the show was about to begin. I tried to hurry the process along but the line kept getting longer. The lights flickered again a few minutes later but still no music had begun so I kept on selling. I took a quick glance down the line to consider the amount of time I needed to finish sales when my eye stumbled upon someone I took to be a huge John Cafferty fan because he looked exactly like him, same hair cut, same white wrist bands, same look to a T and I thought how odd it must be for John to have fans that dress up like him. But when the man got up to the counter I realized it wasn't a fan at all, it was, in fact, John Cafferty himself! He'd waited in line to purchase my CDs when he was supposed to be on stage. People parted like the Red Sea around him apologizing for having pushed him or cut him in line. Some even asked him to sign his name on my CD. I told him he could take as many CDs as he needed but he modestly and supportively insisted on paying for them and asked me to sign them to his two sons. I was so taken with his genuineness and authenticity. When John left, the line diminished, the music began and a couple of guys who'd managed to buy up every last vinyl copy of Gorilla and Anticipation still in existence, were waiting for me to sign them. Don't ask me why they wanted me to sign my parents work, but they did. One guy must have had 100 records on him, the piles just kept coming out of his Mary Poppins like bag and he wanted me to sign his red bass guitar too and "the ticket stub, and here's a magazine clipping!" I wondered what he thought my scribble was worth, but hey, he can have it, don't cost me nothin. When I went out the back door, to my great joy, my friend Peter Ferraro from high school and his buddy, Chris, were waiting to see me. They'd missed the concert but wanted to treat the band and I to dinner at a brewery down the street. It was great catching up and hearing about Peter's hockey adventures over onion rings and nachos as a very loud cover band downstairs played Brown Sugar, the bass thumping through the floor like an elephant in tap shoes. The night was sticky and empty and full of empathy and as we drove off, the man with 100 Sally Taylor signatures on 100 of her parents LP's ran towards the window and yelled through the glass "Cud ya sign one last ticket?" Paige and Walt, Soucy's friends from high school put us up in their beach house. Their parents, Fred and Bunny ("like the playboy bunny" she explained to me) were at the homestead and so sweet and funny and Garrett, their son who had given me some beaded bracelets at the show, had tried to stay up until we got home but 1am was way past his bedtime so he was kacked* out already. The beach house was calm and candle lit and full of laughter, wine, food and old photo albums of Soucy when he was a teenager and had a HUGE head of fluffy beige hair. We stayed up and waded through old high school memories that no one really belonged to any more and then, when night had actually touched the morning, we fell back into our dreams the way waves fall back in to the ocean. Paige made us breakfast in the morning. They were SO good to us that it'll almost hurt to go to our own homes. Almost. None the less, today we start our adventure back. |
"You need 'Pretty bag' Sal?" Asked Kenny grabbing bags out of the back.
(Coincidentally it's Kenny's birthday tomorrow).