8/25/18

Pork Torta opened up for us last night at Hotel Congress in Tucson. Pretty great night even though we were exhausted by the eight hour drive from LA. Hotel Congress is where Dillinger got caught. it’s  a cool place and is probably the oldest building in another rapidly gentrifying downtown. 

The “Torta” had the double amp setup. A full bass and guitar rig on each side of the stage.  They set up in a line with the drummer dead in the middle. Both the guitar and bass played brown SGs and they rocked it. High energy, punchy stuff. Really fun and a lot of sound from a three piece. 

This place had a curtain that goes up at the start of the show and back down at the end.  This was perfect for our intro music. It’s a minute long and at about 45 seconds in the curtain came up. The Hickoids. Looking more professional than we ever will be. 

Marfa tomorrow. 

8/24/18

Here we go. This was the big one, LA with Pat Todd. I’ve been waiting for this show for months. 

Pat and the Outsiders are one of my favorite bands ever. No bullshit. Just straight forward rock and roll. And what a good fucking set.... they blew it away. The five of them really play as one piece and they don’t let up. Each tune backed up against the last. Bam Bam Bam. 

The crowd really ate it up. It’s the Outsiders hometown, they have that built in advantage. But they don’t cut any corners with the rock. I don’t know if they could. 

Pat does this thing (seen it more than once) where he tells the crowd three songs left, two....  At the end of the last one he even counts down the choruses, 3...2...1... It’s as if he’s saying “you only have this much time left with us. Enjoy it.”

We went up and the place was still packed. We hit them hard. Best show of the tour. My mic was right at the end of the stage and it kept falling over but two different dudes were catching it and popping it back up. Stagehands who paid cover!, I love LA!

Tucson tomorrow. 

8/23/18

Well Ventura was last night... played at a place called the Red Cove. Jackass was the lie we and they had a really nice set. I like seeing dudes like this rocking it. And it was the first upright bass I’ve seen all trip!!

We went up and hit it pretty hard. The crowd seemed to enjoy our set. When we finished up I packed up my crap , leaded it in the van and headed to the hotel. I heard what happened. They didn’t pay us...  Don’t know why and I don’t really care. The fellas went back and eventually got three-fourths of what we had guaranteed. But...

So a note me to all touring bands (and area bands that probably already know this)   Don’t play the Red Cove in Ventura. You may be wasting your time and get ripped off!

8/22/18

Last night Fang opened for us in Santa Cruz at the Blue Lagoon. It’s a joint in the strip mall section of downtown. An attempted “normalization” of the city. Bizarre that someone in the city council thought a master planned shopping area was a good move in a surf town with a boardwalk. Seems counterintuitive. 

Fang tore it up but the PA was all screwed up so you couldn’t hear the vocals at all. Not the lead or the backing...  You could kinda hear what Sam was saying between songs but even then it sounded like shit. They still whipped it.  

We went up and the crowd was still pumped after all the Fang. We gave them what they wanted. After the show I was talking to this guy who said one of the PA speakers came on when we had fifteen minutes left in our set.  He told me that was the first time he heard my vocals all night....

Ventura tomorrow. 

8/21/18

Our day off was full of driving. Left Bend around 11 am and didn’t hit San Francisco till about 10:30 that night.  And the smoke... saw a bunch of warn out firefighters at one point. Brutal job.  

Our show was at the Elbo Room. We played here with the Grannies the last time we come through. Dramatically better turnout this time. Most of the folks were there to see Sluggo’s new band REQD.  It was their first show. They did a really nice job for the first time out. Especially since it’s such an ambitious project. Two guitar, bass, drums, two back up singers, a fiddle AND a horn player. Lots of folks up there can’t be easy to keep that together. 

We kinda kicked it. The full day in SF had us all rested and feeling good. I spent my time getting lost and walking the hills. Just what I wanted. We also got to see all the Grannies, love those dudes.  

Santa Cruz tomorrow. 

8/19/18

We took off from Portland and made the drive to Bend. We’ve been rolling through smoke from the west coast fires since Boise but it got thicker than we’ve seen it on this drive. 

The openers at the Volcanic Theater were Dr Green Dreams. We saw their last two tunes when we pulled up to the donut shop the day before. This time I actually got a chance to listen to them. Good shit. I love a three piece that puts out that much sound. Sign of people who know how to rock together. 

We had a solid set for twentyish folks. They looks really happy the whole time. Really good sounding room too. Probably the best we’ve had all tour. I kinda expected that, when we set up they had a real power strip on the stage. A guaranteed improvement in sound for $30. If only more places did it. 

8/18/18

After the show at Slim’s we got some breakfast near the motel. Pulled up to a Denny’s and a load of people were outside waiting on rides. But not everyone... a couple of ladies were working the crowd and a number of other folks were tweeking, hard. 

We all took note and headed inside. Then there was this dude. He was wearing a tracksuit, backwards ball cap and he was squatting on the floor.  Then in one move he jumped up, spun around and started drumming on the bottom of a picture frame and he started laughing like a maniac.  He ran outside and disappeared. It was really surreal until Cody noticed there was a wet spot where he’d been squatting....  Slapped back to reality quick. We got back in the van and moved on.  

I slept in the freak. The motel was looking pretty methy and we would all feel better if someone took the hit. It was a noisy but uneventful night. 

...

Next morning we drove to Portland for the next two shows. First was at voodoo donut too (2?) in the parking lot. Those folks are so nice to us. And the free coffee, donuts (and secret band beer!) will keep us coming back. 

Smitty was talking about doing the one song set of “Stop it Your Killing Me”.  It’s something we’ve talked about doing on and off for a while. But while we were about to start I was looking at the forty or so faces that were so happy to see us and I just couldn’t do it to them....  I liked them happy.  

Second show was at Dante’s downtown. Surrounded by dumpy bars, strip clubs and fancy new big city, gentrifyin buildings  Portland has a ton of shit going on. We were after the Lucky 13s and they were on it. We also played after another band of Bradley’s earlier in the day. He is doubling up on killer sets. 

We went up and the crowd was decent. Hell of a time even though we were all running on fumes. At this point in he tour it’s gonna take something huge to derail us. We got nothing but momentum. 

Bend tomorrow.