Municipal Waste / Napalm Death / Exhumed tour diary
October
26, 2012
We drove up to Richmond, VA from Bud’s
pad in Charlotte, North Carolina and arrived there around one in the afternoon,
after picking up our token-Canadian tour manager / merch guy / internationally
published journalist, Kevin Stewart-Panko. It was good formally meet
a couple of guys in the ND / MW crews that I hadn’t had a chance to hang out with just yet. We bought some
new merch racks from Home Depot, picked up a slug of new shirts from indiemerch
that had arrived at the local FedEx location, and were underway. Vektor got there at the last possible minute, and all proved to be
awesome guys. I have to admit, when I heard their first album, I wasn’t into
it, but seeing them live really changed my mind. The band was tight,
interesting and had a lot of dynamics and stage presence. The show was a lot of
fun, with Municipal Waste closing this date out. We kept the party rocking at a hotel room
with some old friends. Apparently we all got uber wasted, because we were
awakened in the wee hours of the morning by Bud, utterly blacked out, pissing
all over my shoes.
October
27, 2012
The
next morning, I managed to take a quick shower and find my flip-flops before we
said our goodbyes and headed to the Big Apple. My first order of business was
to find some new shoes. Once we loaded in for a sold-out show at the Gramercy
Theater, I headed to Union Square to pick up some new kicks. I have worn the
same shoes, Vans “Off The Wall” Skate Hi-Tops for the last 15 or so years, so I
knew exactly what I was looking for. The only store I could find within quick
walking distance didn’t have them in plain black (my first choice), blue, or
checkerboard. They didn’t have the Bad Brains, Maiden, or Slayer hi-tops in my size.
The only cool shoe I could find in my size (12 isn’t that unusual, right?!?)
was the Spicoli-style checkerboard slip-ons. I have been toying with the idea
of getting a pair of these shoes forever, and I needed something pronto, so I
took ‘em. It was a little weird not playing in hi-tops, but I persevered like
a champ. Oh yeah, and there was a storm coming. The day was played in NYC, it
was very much business as usual, tons of people on the streets doing their
thing. My mom, avid Fox-News watcher that she is, was deeply concerned for our
safety. Like any dutiful son, I called her to assuage her worries and assure
her that the storm was probably not going to be that bad anyway. The show at
Gramercy was awesome, albeit a little early. We had a huge stage to work with,
which allowed us maximum opportunities to ham it up and do our best Steve
Harris impressions. After we wrapped up, got everything in the van, and skarfed
down some extremely mediocre pizza, we hung out with friends at the show for a
bit before heading over to Brooklyn to catch the Tombs show at St. Vitus. We
fought NY traffic to get there just as they were starting. The band sounded
awesome, and soon alcohol of all types was flowing fast and furious. After the
show, they had a karaoke DJ come out. Exhumed + drunk + karaoke = extreme
stupidity. The next day someone reminded me of my presumably awesome rendition
of Ratt’s “Lay It Down”. Much after that is hazy, people started thinning out,
I puked up a couple of shots, lost a flannel shirt, and four AM rolled around
before I really knew it.
"Necrotized" live in the big apple
October
28, 2012
I
woke up in Connecticut, not too terribly hung over, but I soon discovered that
I had, blacked-out, pissed all over my phone, ruining it. Two days, two
urine-related accidents. Yikes. From the beginning of the day, my thoughts were
on one thing: Game Four of the world series. After loading in, we grabbed lunch
at a local sports bar a few blocks away and it was nice to see the Raiders
actually winning on Sunday for a change. The local opener for this date was a
power violence band called David Carradine, who were killer. The crowd that
night was basically a hardcore crowd, but our set went over pretty decently,
regardless. As soon as we were loaded out, Dr. Philthy and I headed off to a
bar to watch baseball. Most of the town was shut down due to Hurricane Sandy,
and it was getting windy and drizzly, but not too bad. Unfortunately that meant
the first bar we went to closed at 11:45 instead of 2 AM. Undaunted, we trudged
the mean streets of New London Connecticut until we came upon an Irish pub with
the stones to stay open in the face of impending disaster. Needless to say, the
night on a personal high for me, as my team won their second World Series in
three years. But I digress.
October
29, 2012
We
all passed out in the van and got up pretty early to make the drive to Boston.
This is when it started to hit me that the storm was for real. Half the town
was closed, including the UPS outlet where Mike had some new cymbals shipped to
him. While it was nice to be able to find parking in Cambridge pretty easily,
we had to do a bit more walking than usual to find someplace to eat. Lunch was
an Indian buffet, such a welcome change from the usual fast food crap that we
often subject our bodies to on the road. I was pleasantly surprised that the
show was even happening in the wake of the storm, but dubious as to how the
turnout would be. I needn’t have worried, the show turned out really well, and
a good time was had by all. The Napalm and Waste dudes headed straight
to Canada, while ourselves and Vektor went to Burlington, Vermont for an off
day show.
October
30, 2012
We
drove overnight, just to get away from the storm, which by now I was starting
to realice was actually a pretty big deal. It was good to have a day to run
errands and do little shit that we often don’t have time for. I got a new phone
(yay!), and we started to plan our Halloween costumes. Phil from Waste assured
me that their costumes were hilarious and insisted that we participate. After
many ideas were tossed around and rejected, we decided to do something subtle
and classy. Dress as Motley Crue. After eating some rad gourmet-ish
tacos at Gordijo’s, we killed some time hunting down leopard print spandex,
black and red lipstick, wigs for Mike and Bud, and bananas to stuff our pants
with. Then we headed to the venue, a tiny bar in the Burlington suburb of
Winooski. The guy putting the show on, Jake (of Vaporizer, who were killer that
night) was a stand up dude, who actually read our rider and had fresh fruit,
veggies and hummus waiting for us on arrival. That was awesome! Then we found
out that Vektor was still two and half hours out getting their
transmission replaced and might not make the show – not that awesome. Like I
said, Jake was good people, and he headed out in his band’s van to pick them
up. We re-shuffled the line-up since they were running late, and we ended up
playing second of four. I was just stoked they were going to make it out and be
able to continue the tour with everybody. I wasn’t too terribly sure how well
the Vermont show would end up going, as we had just played there recently with Cannibal Corpse, Abysmal Dawn, and Arkaik, but the crowd was
killer, the room was packed, and people were crowd surfing inches from the
ceiling. Because the turnout was killer, everyone ended up making a little bit
more money that we had planned on, which was especially cool since it allowed
us to donate some money to the Vektor dudes to get their van fixed up. We
stayed at a house down the street with a super sweet couple who were at the show.
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| Bud and Mike decided to start a two-piece Bluegrass band on the side to help make ends meet on tour. |
October
31, 2012
So
far this blog has been yet another chronicle of our seemingly endless heavy
metal triumphs and wacky anecdotes, but here’s where the story takes a turn,
dear readers. So… here goes. We woke up and grabbed quick showers before heading
to cross the dreaded Canadian border. It’s always a nerve-racking experience,
simply because they can choose to tax you on every piece of merchandise you’re
carrying. Not to mention, if you have a DUI, like four out of six people in our
tour party do, they charge you $200 per person to obtain a “temporary resident
permit” to be in the country, or if they feel like being dicks, they can
arbitrarily decide to just not let you in. Now, most Canadians I know are not
dicks. In fact, they’re some of the nicest folks out there. We’ve never had an
issue getting in, and had already been there on the Summer Slaughter tour for
Heavy MTL and Heavy TO, as well as on the Black Dahlia Murder tour, which was mostly
in Canada. Ironically, our tour manager Kevin (one of those extremely nice
Canadians I was referring to earlier) is writing a book about the travails of
various bands crossing over from the states to Canada. Given the lead in to
this paragraph, it should be obvious that we were denied entry into the great
white north. This was extremely disheartening, since the Montreal show was
already sold out, and our headlining show at the same venue had been insane, so we were looking
forward to a night of seriously intense mayhem. The woman we spoke to at
customs informed us that we had received too many TRPs in too short of a time,
and had been taking advantage of the largesse of the Canadian government long
enough. She stated that we would not be able to apply for any further TRPs until we had all
completed their extremely convoluted rehabilitation process. To give you an
idea how complicated it is, our drummer Mike Hamilton has been trying to
complete it for over seven months. In short, she was a fucking bitch. We had to
sign documents that legally bound us to leave the country immediately, and
stated that if we were found in Canada after being denied entry, we would be
arrested. Gnarly. The US border folks (you have to go through customs if you
get denied entry into Canada) told us that they see this sort of thing all the
time. Then they searched our van anyway, but at least they weren’t dicks about
it. After informing the necessary parties (MW’s tour manager Cartel, our label,
our agent, etc.) we drove to a McDonald’s to use the free wifi and start making
alternate plans.
So
it was a totally rip-roaring Halloween party. Or something. Anyway, we decided
to hit the Canadian consulate in Buffalo the next day to try to make the four
remaining Canadian dates. Our intrepid agent, dauntless Dan Rozenblum, threw a
show together for us in Buffalo the next night at a DIY venue called the
Funeral Home, which was located in an old… wait for it… Funeral Home. Trying to
not think about all the money we had just lost from losing these dates (not to
mention missing the opportunity to embarass ourselves in our Halloween
costumes), packed into the van and headed for Buffalo.
November
1, 2012
We
finished the (not particularly long) drive to Buffalo, dropped Kevin off at the
airport so he could go cover Fun-Fun-Fun fest for Terrorizer Magazine (where MW
and ND would both be appearing). We quickly learned that the Canadian Consulate
in Buffalo was closed this summer. So we planned to hit the consulate in
Chicago, where we would be arriving Saturday. Of course, the consulate is… wait
for it… closed on Saturday and Sunday. So we realized pretty quickly that there
would be no more Canadian dates for us in 2012. Then we went to a Napa Auto
Parts to test our van battery, as it had been failing to start sporadically. We
had just gotten a jump, so our battery tested fine, as did our alternator.
There was another part that might have been causing the problem, the neutral
safety switch, which was had replaced just to leave no stone unturned. After
all that fun stuff, we grabbed a big ol’ bowl of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup)
to stave off the upstate NY cold and headed to the venue. There were already
some folks milling about and the place was pretty cool looking. Clint, the guy
that set up the show, was super cool and helpful, we loaded in and set up merch.
The night actually ended up being awesome. The bands Cain and Avulsion were
both killer and great guys and the crowd was killer. Given that the show had
been booked the previous day, it was a total triumph. We ran through some songs
that aren’t in our normal set list like “Vacant Grave”, “Open The Abscess” and
“In The Name Of Gore” with varying degrees of tightness and had a great time
with everyone. It turned out to be a great night.
Here's the entire set from Buffalo. If you have an hour to kill or whatever.
November
2, 2012
One
of the cool things about heading to Buffalo was that it enabled us to do some
banking. Nothing worries me more than having a bunch of cash floating around.
Plus, once we have money in the bank, we can actually pay some bills, which is
a good feeling. So on the 1st, we had deposited all the money we had on hand. I
went to the bank before we left town to deposit money from the Funeral Home
show, which ended up being way better than we had anticipated (thanks again,
Clint!). I was profoundly concerned to see our band account balance at zero.
Turns out, unbeknonst to your truly, I owe the state of California back taxes.
I also had no idea that the state can simply remove money from your bank
account at will. No notification, no nothing. They may have tried to notify me,
but probably don’t have my current address, and I’m not home anyway, so… Long
story short - because of me being an idiot somewhere down the line, we had a
lot
less money than we thought we did. Between the storm, Canada, the van not
starting without a jump again that morning (even after replacing the switch
thingamajiggie the previous day), The tour had already been a doozy. We dusted ourselves off and headed for Kent, Ohio - famous for being the place where National Guardsmen shot and killed four Viet Nam War protestors. We got to play with some old penpals of ours, Drogheda for the first time, and hang out with some friends from Hell's Headbangers and JakPrints. The show was not bad either. The people at the bar were awesome and let us keep drinking there until four am or so - serving up various shots of anything and everything.
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| Custom Merch for the kids in Ohio. Grind Bloody Gore - get it?!? Pretty clever, huh? |
November 3, 2012
We re-joined the Napalm Death and Vektor guys on the 3rd for a sold-out show at Reggie's Rock Club which was awesome. Loads of old friends were there, the Cardiac Arrest crew, the Macabre crew, Bruce LaMont, and lots more I'm sure I'm forgetting at the moment. Not too much to say about the show except that it totally ruled and was super fun. After Napalm left the stage, we headed to the bar attached to the venue and checked out a cool redneck rock / country outfit called the God Damned Gallows who were excellent and a lot of fun to drink with. Then it was a relatively short drive to St. Paul where Municipal Waste would re-join the package.
November 3, 2012
We rolled into St. Paul without incident and headed, of course... straight for the Mall of America. The largest mall in the country. It's frankly a little scary. Packed with disciples of consumerism with every damn store you could possibly imagine. We headed to Buffalo Wild Wings to catch some football. I was a bit too hungover to deal with all of the bright lights, crowds, screaming children, etc. But a couple of beers and some food softened the blow. The show that night was excellent with friends from Bodies Lay Broken and Black Market Fetus in attendance. From there, we had a day off before we hit a last minute show in Denver that Reed from Speedwolf set up for us. Good times were imminent.
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| You can build some crazy shit with legos. |
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| Dr. Philthy meets his dream girl at the Lego Store in the Mall of America |
November 4, 2012
Driving out to Denver through the "fly-over" section of America. We did stop in North Platte, Nebraska and some some cool Wild Bill Cody stuff before hitting Applebee's for dinner and football. IN a weird turn of events, one of the busboys actually recognized us from the show we'd done in Lincoln earlier in the year with Cannibal Corpse. It was flattering, but it did not score us any free drinks. We decided to skip Monday Night Football and charge straight into Denver to hang out with Steven and Brian from Cephalic Carnage and inflict some serious brain and liver damage. We hit a bar called 3 Kings and proceeded to get intensely intoxicated. They let us stay after hours for some ski shots and insanity before the cab ride back to Steve's, where we kept drinking until 5 or 6 AM or something ridiculous like that.
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| Bud cares about the dental hygiene of our furry friends in North Platte NE |
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| For some reason, I love those old-timey dioramas. And apparently, Wild Bill Cody agrees. |
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| 'Merica. North Platte, NE |
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| If the van breaks down, there's always covered wagon. North Platte, NE |
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| Dr. Philthy makes new friends, North Platte, NE |
November 5, 2012
By the time we were in a state resembling human, it was late afternoon. Luckily, Mike Hamilton is the ultimate breakfast maker. His staple of fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, chorizo (sometimes soyrizo), and tortillas have cured thousands of hangovers. We ran some errands and putzed around Denver for a minute before heading to the show that evening. The show was in a glorified jam space, but it turned out awesome. The place was packed, we sold a lot of shirts, and had a lot of fun running through songs like "Vacant Grave" and "Waxwork" that we rarely ever play. That night, we picked up a show for the next day in Cheyenne Wyoming at Ernie November - a record store I'd been wanting to go to for years. After the show wrapped up, we hit Chubby's, an infamously greasy Denver burrito spot that I highly recommend and then headed back to 3 Kings, where we once again stayed after hours riding the shot ski into brain dead oblivion. Great times.
November 6, 2012
The drive from Denver to Cheyenne is a mere hour and a half, so we had time for another epic Hamilton afternoon breakfast before we headed north. The store was smack in the middle of downtown Wyoming, and full of killer vinyl, CDs and shirts. Of course, I nabbed a few things. The turnout was actually really cool and everyone loaded up on shirts and whatnot, making it a pretty damn successful night, especially since the show had been booked the previous day. We headed across the street to (surprise!) a bar where we grubbed on all manner of deep fried appetizers and even some Rocky Mountain Oysters. Hey, you only live once, right? We all passed out in the van for the trip to Salt Lake City for the show with Havok and Skeletonwitch the following day, as well as reuniting with our intrepid merch guy / babysitter / token Canadian, Kevin Stewart-Panko. But that, as they say, is a tale for another day.
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| Vinyl score in Wyoming!!! Yes! |
More triumphs, trials, tribulations, trephanations, truffles, and trundle beds to follow when we pick this up.
