North American tour recap, part the third, in which our heroes return to their native soil, none the wiser from their extensive trials and travails...
Well,
after much procrastination, I realized that I need to finish the tale
of our last tour, because we're about to start our next one. This has
been a really busy year for Exhumed, which is great, but
touring really cuts into my time to catch up on my pet projects,
like updating the blog, posting old live bootlegs from my VHS tapes
on Youtube, organizing my urine and hair into jars labeled with the
time and date of collection, reading comic books, hanging out with
friends and family, and learning macrame. But alas and alack, that
is, as we say, a rockupational hazard. At any rate, where we? That's
right, our intrepid sextet of loveable misfits was traversing the
wild and unforgiving northern wasteland that is Canada... So, without
further introductory fluff, let's dive headfirst into the third and
final chapter of this crepitous chronicle- and I promise that, as far
as third chapters go, it will be at least as much of a
let-down as Return Of The Jedi.
We
were headed west from Calgary to Kelowna, British Columbia, through
some of the most beautiful forests and mountains in the world. So of
course, I slept through it all, hung over and totally exhausted after
our two days in Alberta. By the time I was coherent, we were
practically there. Since we drove straight through, we arrived in
Kelowna about noon or so. If you haven't heard of Kelowna, BC, don't
feel bad. I've been all over Canada, and I'd never heard of it
either. That said, it is a beautiful spot, nestled in the gorgeous
Canadian Rockies with an abundance of lakes. We grabbed breakfast /
lunch at McDonald's (sorry, punk rockers!) and then hit the grocery
store for picnicking supplies. We rolled up at a nearby lake whose
name totally escapes me, laid out some blankets, waded in the chilly
mountain-water, ate some snacks, and dozed off under a shady tree.
After killing a few hours that way, we headed over to the venue,
which was literally a Knights Of Columbus Hall in town. Now, you may
ask yourself, what the hell are we doing playing a Knights Of
Columbus hall in a small town in eastern British Columbia that no one
has ever heard of? Aren't we a “proper heavy metal band with a
record label and all that stuff”? Well, the answer is simple. When
criss-crossing the globe, you're inevitably going to run into areas
where there is a lot of ground between major cities (aka “primary
markets” in the parlance of our booking agent and record label) and
you end up playing some pretty random spots in between. The
alternative is a day off, and for us, a day we don't play is a day
without pay – see how I did that rhyming bit? Pretty neat, huh? And
a day without pay is to be avoided whenever possible. About one day
off per 2/3 weeks is what we try to shoot for to avoid killing
ourselves on the one hand and going broke on the other. At any rate,
we arrived at the venue about five or six in the evening, and were
greeted by the hospitality of the very nice Kristina, who had
promoted a show of ours a decade earlier in Penticton, another, even
smaller town in eastern British Columbia that you've never heard of.
Like a lot of small-market promoters, she is really enthusiastic to
get bands to come through and puts a lot of personal work into the
shows. She and her family had whipped up a big ol' buffet of burgers,
dogs, potato salad, veggies, soft drinks, water, and of course, beer.
After eating and napping a bit more, the other bands began to arrive,
and after load-in, Rob, Deedee and I headed over to Kristina's house
to grab showers before showtime.
The
turnout was definitely better than I expected, considering the
remoteness of the show. Brandon, an old friend of Wes' actually lives
in Penticton (about 70 miles away from Kelowna if I remember
correctly) and came out, which was cool. The last time we were in
Canada (in '05), we ended crashing at his place and I stayed up
really late drinking beer and recording a terrible Sunset-Strip style
cock-rock song called “Hollywood Ninja”. We never recorded any
vocals for it, but we all thought it was hilarious at the time. At
any rate, back to the more-recent-past... That night in Kelowna, we
played on the floor, with no monitors, triggers, or anything remotely
fancy. It's fun to do shows like this every once in a while, really
raw and primitive, right there with the kids. We all had a good time,
and headed back to Kristina's to crash out before heading to
Vancouver the following day. The next day was the Monday of a
three-day weekend, which made playing in Vancouver (one of those
“primary markets” I mentioned earlier) on a Monday slightly more
logical, but what we non-Canadian types failed to take into
consideration was that everyone vacations near Kelowna and would all
be heading back to Vancouver that day. Needless to say, progress was
excruciatingly slow. We planned to be at the venue around 5 or so
(somehow we always end up leaving at least an hour later than we plan
to), but with traffic we didn't make it there until 8. This of course
is the height of unprofessionalism, but at least we had been in
communication with the club and the other bands (who were also late,
but not as late as us) while en route, so everything was basically
cool. We totally missed soundcheck and of course loading in our gear
and merch was a bit of a clusterfuck, but as Dismember once said,
“and so is life”... or something like that.
The
dressing room at the club was about the size of a walk-in closet, so
Rob, Dylan and I headed into the Vancouver-y night for a walk to
check out the town. Of course, the club we played, the Rickshaw Stop,
is in the absolute worst part of Vancouver – right next to the
needle exchange for heroin users. In fact, that may be the grossest,
most ghetto part of the whole country of Canada. But it does have
character. Luckily,
the club had security near our van the whole night, so we felt pretty
good about taking off. Within a half a mile, we were out of
junkie-town and into Chinatown, which was much nicer. I remembered
eating at a really good noodle house in the area where Leon sharted
his pants back in '05. Another mile and we were near the harbor, in a
pretty nice part of town. After taking in the maritime sights and
making fun of the D&D nerds fencing at the nearby sword fighting
academy (as a D&D nerd myself, I feel totally justified mocking
those dudes – and I took fencing in high school, so there ya go),
we cruised back to the club. We saw a bar with a sign that said
“Vancouver's Favourite Country and Western Bar” and Rob and I
couldn't resist nipping in for a minute for a drink. We had a beer at
one of the most depressing, down-and-out bars I have ever seen. I can
confidently say that Rob and I were the best-looking people in the
whole place- including the women (and the transvestive hookers) which
should give you an idea of just what a bummer the vibe was that was
happening there. But it was an appropriate, endearing, bummer vibe.
The guys playing guitar and singing Hank and Cash songs with a drum
machine were actually pretty good and the beer was relatively cheap,
so all in all, it was 15 minutes well spent.
We
made it back to the venue as the night was getting underway, and the
turnout was pretty good, which always makes doing a good show easier.
Another thing that made the night memorable was that someone had
overflowed the toilet in the backstage area, so the whole floor was
wet, and it didn't really smell that great while were getting dressed
for the show. We were a bit over-tired that night, but after meeting
up with some old friends like Justin from 3 Inches Of Blood,
who we played with years ago when he was in Allfather, we were
ready to rock- soggy, urine-smelling shoes notwithstanding. The show
went over well, but we were anxious to get into Washington and a) get
the border crossing over with (believe me, it can be a hassle getting
back into America too) and, b) get the three-hour drive out of the
way so we could get some serious rest- in a motel, in an actual bed.
We hit the border at the Peace Bridge and had literally the quickest,
easiest border crossing in North America I've ever experienced, and
drove most of the way to Seattle before stopping at a Denny's and
Motel 6.
Canadian money is adorable. And, bizarrely valuable in today's failing first-world economy.
We
piled into the hotel and proceeded to crash the fuck out, exhausted
and happy to be back in the good ol' US of A. We woke up the next
day, hit a Bank Of America to deposit the meager amount of adorable
Canadian money we had accumulated (I love the Canadian $5 bill, it
has a picture of kids playing ice hockey on it) and get going into
Seattle. Mike wanted to check out Pike's fish market, so we headed
out to the touristy part of town. It was a gorgeous, clear, warm day
in Seattle- perfect weather to watch a couple of dicks throw
oversized fish at each other while a throng of families from the
Midwest watched and took pictures. Elsewhere at the fish market, we
ended up randomly meeting up with a dude from Scorched Earth
who worked at a non-throwing oriented fish stand there. He
recommended a good restaurant nearby (I think it was called Athena?)
that wasn't totally exorbitant, and we had an amazing lunch.
Something about incredibly fresh seafood and Pacific Northwest
Microbrews seemed to revitalize us. There was also an amazing comic
book store nearby where I found a few back issues of Jack Kirby's run
on “Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen” that I didn't have yet (I'm still
missing 2 Kirby issues) and we all left happy campers. We already
had confirmation from the other bands that their border crossing was
similarly simple and we had all re-emerged in the US without
incident. Macabre would also be reunited with their tour manager,
Eric at last, which would help things move more smoothly and
punctually, so it was shaping up to be a good day.
This is the kind of crap I spend my very limited disposable income on. And amazingly, I'm single. Who would've thought?!?
I
was excited because we were back in the states, we had a huge
shipment of merch to pick up at the venue, and our intrepid booking
agent, Dan Rozenblum of the highly reputable Pantheon agency would be
coming out to the show to celebrate his birthday that night. We were
playing Studio 7, which is kind of near the Mariners' stadium, and a
pretty big venue for us. I was a little nervous about being able to
fill the room, to be honest. It's never good when the one show of
your tour attended by your booking agent tanks. We got settled in and
unloaded, and Wes and I headed off to the Pyramid Brewing company
with the Cephalic Carnage guys, where we ran into Luke
(World Under Blood, Sleep Terror)
who had played guitar with Vile when we toured with them and
Cannibal years ago. I totally didn't recognize him at first,
not only because it had been a long time and I wasn't expecting to
see him there, but also because the dude is fucking yoked these days!
It was great catching up with him for a bit, watching some baseball
and enjoying some of Pyramid's Hefeweizen. When it was getting close
to show time, we headed back and I was pleasantly surprised to see
the place filling up nicely. I got to hang out with Terry from
Scorched Earth which is always a pleasure, and old
friends Renae and Joe from Skarp (Joe is also in Theories,
Book of Black Earth, Splatter House, and
probably about 10 other bands I can't remember right now). I also did
a double take when I saw Renae – last time I saw her she was a
drunk crust-punk chick, but now she's a mom and really looked like a
proper, adult, lady! Always good to see friends doing well. At any
rate, the show was awesome, great vibe, loud kids (even the folks
upstairs were making a lot of noise) and a lot of fun.
You
know it's a good night when everyone is happy. Not just the
audience, not just the bands because people showed up and we got a
lot of beer, but even the promoter of the show and the bartenders at
the club were stoked with how things went. When the guy paid me, he
was totally psyched (that never happens). He was so happy, I
should probably have hit him up for more money. The staff
ended up letting us stay in the bar and party really, really hard.
Wes was the first to crash out, at around 2am. I went out to the van
to sleep at about 5am, and I think Mike and Rob finally made it out
at 7:30am or so. Rob in particular was over-Jagermeistered. He passed
out practically on top of Wes, and despite me trying feebly to pick
him up, he wasn't budging. Wes wasn't exactly pleased with this
development, and finally shoved him off, before leaving to get some
food as people around the neighborhood (the club is near a lot of
industrial type businesses) were arriving at work. As soon as Wes
returned, we headed for Portland. Like I said last time, I am so
incredibly thankful we had Dylan to drive on this tour, because we
had all been reduced to oblithereens the night before. After we got
on the freeway, out of nowhere, Rob stood up in the van, obviously
still blackout drunk, and began to mutter incomprehensibly. It looked
like he was about to blow chunks all over the interior of the van, so
we pulled over on the side of I-5 to let him do his thing. He got
out, stumbled onto the grassy shoulder and proceeded to conspicuously
piss in the general direction of heavy traffic. Then he turned
around, walked a few paces the other way, and promptly laid down in
the grass to sleep. Needless to say, this turn of events was not to
our liking. We started yelling and throwing empty cups at him, Mike
went out and nudged him with his foot, but he remained laying there
like a giant, impassive sack of shit (and I mean that in the most
affectionate way possible) on the side of the freeway, totally wasted
at about 9:30 in the morning. Finally, Mike suggested that I pour a
bottle of water on his face. This finally roused him, and we got him
back in the van where he passed out immediately, with his face on the
seat and his body on the Dorito and hair coated floor. Classy, but
hilarious. The rest of the brief drive passed without incident,
thankfully.
Once
in Portland, we headed to the Relapse Portland office, and had lunch
with Orion Landau, Relapse's amazing graphic designer (who painted
the Dekapitator cover for us that I totally love) at a nearby
bar that served literally the best Pastrami sandwich I have ever
tasted. Holy shit, I wish I had ordered the Pastrami sandwich! At any
rate, we were all drained and in pretty bad shape at this point. Rob
was still a bit drunk, but finally losing steam, and the rest of us
were quite the worse for wear. Really we just needed to sleep. It was
uncharacteristically hot in Portland that day, in the 80s for sure,
so sleeping in the van was impossible. We headed to the club in the
hopes that they had a backstage area or someplace we could crash out
or at least lay down. When we arrived there, it was still too early
to get in, so we dejectedly headed back in the van and headed to a
surplus store for some shopping. I found a cool pair of Ferris
Bueller-style shades, but not much else. We headed back to the club,
which was still closed, and finally passed out for about an hour and
a half across the street in the parking lot of some office building.
In hindsight, we should have just broken down and got a hotel, even
though we couldn't stay in town long due to the 11-hour drive from
Portland to San Francisco the following day. We all needed some
sleep, myself in particular. When we finally got into the club, I was
crestfallen to find that there was no real backstage area (just
enough room for gear), no couches, and no AC. The floor was concrete,
and the whole interior looked like it had just been purchased from
home depot – all unfinished 2x4s. Ugh. There was a second bar area
upstairs with a couple of couches, but the dudes running the club
wouldn't let us sleep there, which was total bullshit. Luckily, we
have a lot of friends in town (who were all at work during the day)
who cheered us up. Ryan, Cole, Jason, and a bunch of other old
friends were there, as well as Matt, Orion, John and Erica from
Relapse. By the time we played, I was beyond fatigued and running on
fumes. We got up and started playing, and after Mike made a weird
flub in one of the songs (keep in mind, he stayed up even later than
I did, so I'm sure his brain/body/psyche were totally fried too), I
got unreasonably, super pissed off about it, and started strumming
way too hard in petulant anger. I broke a string, which of course
pissed me off even more. I grabbed my backup guitar, glared at Mike
and yelled something shitty at him while the music was playing (which
I honestly haven't done since high school) and continued the set.
There was another flub in the next song, and I got really
pissed off, strummed too hard again, and broke a string on my
backup guitar. Wes Caley also doubles as our guitar tech, and
obviously he was right there with me onstage, so it wasn't like my
guitar was getting fixed while we were playing. I flipped out, threw
my backup guitar into the stand and screamed at Rob and Mike on my
way offstage, acting totally unprofessionally and just straight-up
rude. I fixed the string hastily and angrily, and came out and
finished the set. Of course, in my sleep-deprived, hungover for the
past week mind, I thought everything was fucked and the band sounded
awful, but people were stage-diving pretty much the whole show and
the whole front of the room was a mass of pitting madness, so it
couldn't have been that bad. Everyone I talked to after the
show seemed to think it was killer, so hopefully they're right, haha!
As soon as we wrapped up the last song, I apologized to Mike and the
guys for being such an asshole and letting things get to me. I really
just needed some rest. We loaded out and headed to Sizzle Pie, an
awesome pizza place that's actually owned by Matt Jacobson, the
president of Relapse. He hooked us up with a slew of killer metal and
rock-themed specialty slices and pies and a great beer selection. By
the end of the night, I was buzzed, full of pizza and contrite for my
tantrum. At that point, sleeping in the van would be simple. I was so
tired I could have slept standing up in the middle of a tambourine
factory that was on fire.
By
the time I woke up, we were well into California, and we stopped and
got breakfast and filled up the tank. I was texting pretty much
nonstop all day with former bandmates and old friends, and our guest
list was filling up rapidly. Exhumed has always been identified as a
bay area band, since we started out in San Jose (aka the Silicon
Valley for you non-NHL fans) way back in 1991, when I was but a wee
lad of 15. San Francisco was pretty much as close to a true hometown
show as we get. That said, we've had many different incarnations of
the band with different members from different areas, and no one in
Exhumed even lives in the bay area at this point. I haven't lived
there for about three years, and I haven't lived in San Jose for
about seven. However, Mike and I are both originally from there, and
I will always consider it my hometown. I miss the food, the culture,
the bars, the proliferation of hot Asian chicks in the south bay, and
of course my friends and family. To me, this show felt like there was
a lot at stake, as my good friend Mike Sage would say. We would be
playing and everyone that recorded “Gore Metal” would be there,
and we had already planned to have ex-members Ross Sewage and Mike
Beams join us on vocals and guitar respectively for the show closer,
“Open The Abscess”. I really wanted the show to be a good one, I
felt like kicking ass in our hometown would be a big piece of the
“comeback” thing that we'd been doing throughout this year.
Here's the last song of the evening in San Francisco, where we were joined by Ross and Mike for Open The Abscess. For those of you wondering, yes, Mike Beams was super hammered here. Ross' "Rasputin the mad monk" look / vibe is also pretty awesome.
We
cruised into town, picked up a bunch of much-needed gear at guitar
center on Van Ness street (right down the street from my old work),
grabbed an AMAZING burrito at Taqueria Cancun (one of my three
favorite places to get the rightfully much-ballyhooed “Mission-style
Burrito” that you should have heard heralded as the THE BEST
FUCKING FOOD IN THE WORLD) and headed to Slim's. I was stoked to not
only pick up more “All Guts, No Glory” CDs, but also to do a
really fun radio interview with Ami Lawless of Voetsek (who
are a great fucking band you should all check out) before the show.
To give even a partial list of the old friends that showed up would
be ridiculous, but the first thing Col Jones (our drummer from
'91-'03, now drumming with Repulsion, Mortuous, and
Cretin) remarked when he saw me that night was that he was
irritated about “the long line trying to get in to see my own dumb
band”. We had 20 guest list spots, used them all, as well as most
of the empty spots on Macabre, Cephalic Carnage,
and Withered's lists as well. San Francisco might have been
the biggest show of the tour, with over 400 folks piled in. We were
all feeling much, much better after Portland- rested, happy to be in
our hometown (well, at least two of us), and excited about the last
weekend of the tour. The show was one of the absolute highlights of
the whole three-week excursion and it seemed like the kids really dug
it. I got to catch up briefly with Will from Death Angel
and talk about finally recording the slew of Scarecrow songs
we'd written together, and Adi from Uphill Battle was
in town on business and hung out with us for a little bit after the
show. We decided to head to Reno that night as accommodations there
would be waaaaaaay cheaper than in San Francisco, and it was a pretty
long drive anyway. The night passed uneventfully and I woke up around
9:30 to find ourselves in beautiful Sparks, Nevada. *Editor's
note- Since type can't convey tone of voice, I'll just chime in here
and clarify that the word “beautiful” in the previous sentence
was used facetiously. Thank you for your time* We checked into a
Motel 6 that was indeed very affordable and headed into Reno itself
to hit a buffet. The buffet was actually pretty decent and we were
able to get some rest and clean up at the hotel. Of course, it was
incredibly hot in Reno. The highlight of our morning was seeing a
dude riding in a minivan with his family drinking a Steel Reserve 40
at about 11am. What can I say, Reno is a classy town.
I'm
going to digress here for a minute. Planning a tour is a tough
endeavor. Our original plan was to play Portland on Wednesday, take
Thursday off, and hit San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Orange County
on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. For whatever reason,
the show in OC never materialized, and we lost both the Friday and
Saturday slots at the clubs in LA and San Francisco. Now, anyone that
has ever been to a concert knows that Friday and Saturday are the
absolutely most desirable nights for concerts (probably why the
venues in SF and LA passed on our shows those nights in favor of
something more lucrative / glamourous / sexy / quality / etc.) so
having both of those nights as off nights would be ridiculous (see
above on why we avoid having days off on tour). Hence adding Friday
and Saturday shows in Sparks (which is basically Reno) and Las Vegas.
We'd played Vegas a couple of times before, and it had always been at
least decent, so I wasn't too worried about that show. Sparks,
however, I didn't anticipate being that great of a gig. The only time
we had played Reno (back in '97 I think?) a fight had broken out
during our set and all 20 or so of the attendees had followed the
fight outside, leaving us to finish the show in a literally empty
room. Even the bartender was outside watching the fight. Ah, good
times.
We
relaxed next door to the venue at the Irish pub, watched some
baseball, and halfheartedly flirted back at the waitress there. There
were definitely a lot more than 30 people at the show, but it still
felt underwhelming, especially after the energy of the previous
night. The promoter ended up being a cool guy, but the folks at the
club were kind of dicks. One of the bands on the tour, maybe
Withered, I can't remember, ended up being really late to the
show and he was flipping out about it. He also was complaining about
our stage volume and wouldn't give us any bar privileges, which was
totally weak. The promoter bought us some beer and we resigned
ourselves to drinking outside in the van. Yeesh. Anyway, the show
itself was pretty fun, low-key and more like a party than anything.
The kids that showed up were appreciative, and we headed back to the
motel feeling good.
The
next day, it began to sink in that the drive from Sparks to Vegas was
a bit more intense than we'd bargained for, especially with the heat.
It was long, dry and boring. We got to the venue on the edge of town
around 5pm, incredibly early for Vegas standards. The sound guy here
was a bit uptight as well. He complained that we had our own sound
guys for the tour, complained that we had too much gear for the
stage, etc. etc. The bar owner wasn't much cooler, doling out an
incredibly meager beer allotment for the night. Drinking would have
been cheaper if we had just played nickel slots next to a blue-haired
septuagenarian from Florida and waited for a tired, leather-skinned,
was-probably-hot-in-1991 waitress named Jodi who was originally from
Montana to eventually come around and bring us beers in some
off-the-strip casino. On a more positive note, I was stoked to see
Spun In Darkness, and Rhett (aka Thorgrimm of
Gravehill fame) and his lovely lady, my “big sister” Lili
were going to be in town as well, so we were gearing up for a fun
night. There was a Savers in the same strip mall, and I bought a
sweet blue denim jacket, which I figured I'd save for fall / winter,
as Vegas in August was fucking roasting. The turnout was pretty
decent, and kids were telling me how much better-attended our show
was than other Death Metal tours that have rolled through have been,
so we felt good about shit by the time we hit the stage. The show
went over well, and as I am known to do, I went on a drunken tirade
on stage about how disgustingly fake Vegas is (it's honestly one of
my least favorite places in America) and how the underground should
be diametrically opposed to all that Vegas represents. When I'm drunk
and tired and in incredibly hot weather, I sometimes get a bit
diatribe-y, which is undoubtedly annoying. So, sorry about that.
After the show we went out for Mexican food and birthday cake with
Rhett and Lili, but somehow I got a really gnarly stomachache (the
food was actually delicious before I doubled over in pain) and went
and passed out in the van flatulent and uncomfortable, without saying
good night or anything to anyone.
The
next day we were back in Los Angeles, which is pretty much our second
hometown at this point. Wes, Danny, Leon, and Rob all call Southern
California home (even though Wes doesn't live there anymore, he's
still from there), and Mike and I are sort of in the middle of SF and
LA, living in the San Luis Obispo area. At this point, I spend way
more time in LA than I do in the bay area (in fact, the last time I
went up to San Jose to visit friends and family, I got a DUI –
thanks a lot, jerks!) so I've slowly, begrudingly come to feel quite
at home there. I still enjoy detesting the Dodgers and Angels and
continually finding things about the bay area that are better than LA
(food, public transportation, air quality, weather, sports that
aren't basketball, I could go on, but do I really need to?), but I
honestly do love it there and feel truly at home in LA and Orange
County. I was excited to finally headline the Key Club, where we had
played a few different times as a support act. Again, this show felt
like a lot was riding on it, not only because it was the last show of
the tour, but because we had gotten a few different offers to play
down there, and after playing numerous shows in the area with
Gravehill, a lot of kids had approached me about wanting to
see us play. If the show tanked, then my perception of the band was
way off. Honestly, we had traditionally had better shows in LA than
in the Bay Area for years before we broke up, so I was anticipating a
good night. I know I should try and just keep an open mind and not
expect anything in particular, but hey, I'm only human.
Ramblings from a sleep-deprived man in desperate need of a shower outside the Key Club in Los Angeles.
We
picked up Dylan's friend from Delaware, Deanna, at LAX, dropped Wes
off at his visiting girlfriend's hotel, and headed to Hollywood. I
think we were the only band on the tour familiar enough with traffic
from Vegas to LA, especially on a Sunday, to understand how fucked it
can get. Why do I think that? Because we were the only band (aside
from the locals, Enthraller) who were at the venue even close
to on-time. In fact, not only did everyone else miss load-in and
sound-check, we were the only band that was there when dinner was
served later that afternoon. Everyone has a day when they run behind,
but to my thinking, LA was going to be one of the bigger shows of the
whole thing and having played at the Key Club before, I was well
aware of what a tight, professional ship they run there, so I knew we
needed to be on top of shit for the last show. To be fair, we totally
blew it getting to Vancouver on time, so like Mike Abominator always
says, shit happens when you party naked. I didn't even really watch
the bands that night, I was busy socializing with everybody, knocking
out a couple of interviews before the show, and just hanging out. The
last night of tour is always bittersweet, kind of like the end of
your junior year in high school. You're glad to get a break, but
you're bummed to not see a lot of people for a while that you've
worked together and bonded with. Over the three weeks, we had a blast
getting to know all of our tour mates (except for Steve and Lenzig
from Cephalic, we knew those dicks already) and playing,
partying and puking together. We all agreed to meet up at the Rainbow
to grab a drink to celebrate / say goodbye after the show and ran
into even more old friends there. The show went over really well, we
all had a blast, but of course, by the time we finished loading out
and getting everything squared away, we got to the rainbow at last
call. So the after-party, such as it was, ended up being a little
anti-climactic. Luckily, we had already grabbed some beer from the
store for later that night. Deedee's boyfriend Jerry came and picked
her up, Rob took off, Wes headed off with his lady, leaving myself,
Mike, Dylan and Deanna to head off to Rob's pad in Anaheim for a
couple of beers and some well-earned rest.
"Through Cadaver Eyes" from the new album, like at the Key Club.
In case you thought the last video was too melodic, here's some old shit for ya- Slaughtercult and Torso.
Of
course... the next day, Monday, all of us except Rob and Wes headed
back up to San Luis Obispo, stopping in Ventura for Del Taco and to
pay for the van rental. I was dropped off at my pad in Arroyo Grande
at about 6pm to do some laundry, clean myself up, catch up with
family, and get packed for our
four-festivals-in-four-countries-in-four-days trip to Europe that
weekend. And did I mention that we were leaving for this insane
European trip the next day at 7am from Los Angeles? Mike
dropped off the gear in San Luis at our rehearsal room, and took
Dylan and Deanna to Dylan's pad. By midnight Tuesday morning (a mere
six hours after we got home), Mike and I were back on the road in the
van and Mike's truck, headed for LA. We dropped the van off at last
in Ventura and continued south for our excruciatingly early flight to
Prague where w would rendezvous with the always entertaining Leon del
Muerte, who would be reassuming bass duties for these four shows,
But that, my friends, is a blog for another day.
Thanks
for reading, true believers!
Excelsior!
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots
Excelsior!
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots
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