Tour Diary — part 9 — U.S.

Best signage on the way to LA: Space Is Limited


Orrin shows up at the El Rey theater with a new joke template. It is addictive. It gets stuck in your head like a melody ‘til you can’t think about anything without trying to fit it into the template. It goes something like this:

“I used to work in (blank), but I was (blank), so they (blanked) me.”

For example: “I used to work in ceramics, but I was always getting baked, so they fired me.” Or: “I used to work in lingerie, but I was barely there, so they gave me the pink slip.” Or Wyatt’s: “I used to be an ice cream man’s apprentice, but I was tired of playing second banana, so I split.”

This goes on all afternoon.

During the McCarricks’ set, Jonathan and Dav Dolorean and I get stuck backstage, unable to get to the dressing rooms (to the beer) without crossing the stage. We play out various scenarios in which we are able to sneak past the musicians and the projector and the screen and the equipment, while remaining invisible to the audience, but Jonathan is jumpy, having just the night before, leapt onto the stage during Martin and Kim’s set and spilled Jack Daniels all over the cello.

At one point, he hisses, “Cover me!” and crawls on stage between the screen and the projector, shimmying past amps and drums, only to come back dejected a minute later. “It’s no use,” he pants, “the projector is blocking the stairs to both dressing rooms.” This information sobers us in more ways than one. Dav escapes to the bar, but I’m afraid of being talked to out there and Jonathan is too nice to leave me alone.

So we sit. And hum the word “beer”. He tells me that his girlfriend is Kaitlyn from the High Violets, not only a superior Portland person and great musician, but one of the best ladies ever. This makes me so happy, I give him a big hug. A good couple makes a great person.

Tonight’s show is intense. We play hard, like 50FootWave covering KH material. I guess we’re nervous; this is a hometown show for us (one of our hometowns, anyway). Afterward, we load out with the El Rey staff who are so lovey-dovey that we get hugs at the end of the night. Honestly, New York and LA are the warmest, fuzziest cities.



The next day, Billy gets prickly as we enter Monterey. “This is a good place,” he says. “I can feel it.”

It is extraordinarily beautiful. Mountain air, misty beaches and Dr. Suess trees. We park on a lovely little side street around the corner from the club. The Family Bus is so tacky next to these quaint homes, though, that it looks seriously incongruous—embarrassed, even. Poor old dumpy bus in fancy-ass Monterey. It’s like taking your children to a rich kid’s birthday party.

After the show, the bus refuses to start. It won’t leave Monterey. It won’t even go back to the club for the equipment, so we have to leave our stuff there overnight (so embarrassing). Billy actually dons grease monkey coveralls (Bernie: “You look pretty cute in those”) and works into the night. After standing around and handing him tools helpfully, we begin to fade and hand him tools lamely, then I send the band to a hotel in a cab and watch Billy work in the cold (he does look cute in the coveralls). Then Ryder takes over and the little kids and I crash on the couch.

With the help of our LA friend Colin on the cell phone (he speaks engine and doesn’t go to bed ‘til 3 in the morning), Billy convinces the bus to cooperate and it begins coughing back to life. When it sounds almost normal, we sneak out of town, drive to the nicest RV park in the world and wake up to sunshine and horny toads.



Santa Cruz...hippies, hippies and more hippies....sigh. But hippies don't come to the show. Hippies don't like me.

We play food frisbee backstage until people start showing up, then we sneak out with dip on our clothes. The Attic is a great club; 50FootWave played here when it first opened. It's a nice, grown up room, but it doesn't feel cold.

After the show, Bernie gets stuck in the elevator with a bunch of gear. It's not between floors or anything, it just won't open, so we stare at him through the window and he stares back. Eventually, we pry the door open, but he refuses to get back in, so Martin gets in with the next load. Then he gets stuck. We pry the door open again and I take the cello from him but let the door go. It locks and the elevator goes away with Martin on it. He smashes his face against the window as he disappears.



Mothers Day in San Francisco. I am treated like royalty. We're invited to a friend's ranch in Carmel for brunch; the boys are on their best behavior. Doony, the boy who isn't here, calls during soundcheck. I'm sitting on the stage at the Great American Music Hall, taking a screwdriver to my guitar, when B carries my cell phone over, "It's the big baby," he says.

I grab the phone. "Doony?"

"Happy Mothers Day. I was gonna send you flowers, but then I didn't."

"Flowers are boring."

"That's why I didn't."

Such a good boy.



Jim Brunberg of Mississippi Studios fame, records the Portland show, at the Aladdin Theater. He hovers behind us with his headphones on all night; whenever I turn around, I get a big thumbs-up from Super Jim. This is such a nice boost, I consider taking him on the road as a permanent member of the bus family.

Portland loved ones fill the dressing room, bring us Thai food and road coffee, Virtuous news, baby pictures, music, homemade cookies...then we gotta say goodbye again. Seems like we're always saying goodbye. Ryder and his girlfriend get one evening together before we take off for who knows how long; many tears on the family bus tonight.



We are all itching to play when we get to Seattle. After soundcheck, Bernie and Rob and I are still itchy, so we do a handful of 50Foot songs, but it isn't enough. Dolorean feels the same way.

We have to say goodbye to them tonight; this is their last show of the tour. They have turned out to be brilliant, special, hilarious and kind; I haven't had this much fun on a tour in a long time. All four Doloreans hang out on the bus before the show to pass around a bottle of champagne and be happy and sad with us. They talk about the day jobs they’re going back to and they have gifts for my children: beautiful books, thoughtfully chosen with each child's interests in mind. We’re going to miss them.

I put another bottle of champagne on the stage during their set and this proves to be Al's undoing. As our champagne buzz wears off, he stays happy and sad, then gets very happy and very sad (and very unsteady) and ends the night passed out in the dressing room on my little pink sweater. I try to pull it out from under him without waking him up (Barton: "I don't think waking him up is what you should be worried about"), but then I feel bad and give up. He looks like a little drunk angel.

Al does wake up during load out--he sways down the ramp and pukes behind a dumpster, comes out triumphant, with his fists in the air. People cheer and blow kisses but nobody wants to touch him.

Everybody’s laughing; even Al’s laughing, but I just can’t. We all do our own version of dumpster puking when music stops. I walk back to the dressing room to retrieve my sweater.

Tour Diary - part 8 - U.S.

On the way to Austin, we get the band rooms in a Day’s Inn on the highway and park the bus in the empty lot behind it. That night we are all too tired to notice much about the place other than the fact that they have two empty rooms and they’ll give them to us for less than $50. In the morning, though, I look out the bus window and see that the swimming pool is full of mud, the parking lot is full of garbage and our bus is surrounded by the rotting carcasses of former vehicles. Pieces of dead cars, trucks and buses are stacked all around us; the effect is creepy. “What’s the matter?” Billy calls from the back bedroom, seeing me peering out the window suspiciously.

“This place looks stab-stab.” A stab-stab motel is one you’ll probably die in. We’ve stayed in lots of them, but we like to think we’ve outgrown them.

“Is there a body floating in the pool?” he asks.

“No.”

“Then it’s just shitty.”

“There could be a body in the pool; I just don’t think anything would float in there.”

Billy sighs. “Why don’t you go out and look for snakes?”

I do this because it does look like good snake hunting and, it being the south, I have high hopes for pretty ones, but all I see are some robins poking around in the dirt and my dogs scare those away. I wander back to the bus to make coffee and see Martin and Kim walking out of the hotel carrying pillows. They are both walking crooked, their heads tilted to one side.

“We have stiff necks,” Martin declares, stepping onto the bus and tossing a pillow on the couch. “We didn’t sleep. Good night.” He lies down and folds his arms across his chest. Kim does the same on the opposite couch.

“You want some coffee?” I ask, but neither one answers. Then Bernie and Rob appear, armed with cell phone pictures of their room. “Evidence,” Rob calls it. There is a shot of crumbling plaster, half a bathtub (“Where’s the other half?” “We don’t know!”) and best of all -- the bloodstained carpet. “Ew!” I squeal appreciatively.

“Yeah!” says Rob, “That was cool.”

Bernie looks angry. “I couldn’t sleep, there were so many bugs walking around.”

“You can’t hear bugs walking.”

“I can.”

Billy takes the evidence to Roy and Dale at the front desk and tells them he was “disappointed” because, as a business traveler, half a bathtub isn’t what he’s come to expect from Day’s Inn. This approach never fails. Roy and Dale begin writhing in professional hara-kiri. They will do anything to make good on this deal, but all Billy asks is that they not disappoint him again. Oh and also comp him the rooms. His will is done (as usual) and he somehow makes friends in the process (as usual). Martin and Kim wake up just long enough to cheer as we pull out of the parking lot.


We meet up with Dolorean again in Austin where a beautiful, beautiful rain is dumping. Hippie chicks dance in the fountain outside the Cactus Café, but the rest of us just stand under the eaves and watch. Then the club bartendress makes me my first Texas margarita in a year. I decide I never want to leave Austin.

The stage is picturesque: small and well-lit. The Dolorean guys look great, like they’re shooting a video. Of course, my band barely fits on the stage. Bernie isn’t even technically on the stage. Before the first song, I lean over to ask Martin how he’s doing. The McCarricks are squished into the corner, Martin’s cello shoved up under his chin. “I feel like a peanut,” says Martin.

“What the hell does that mean?” I ask Kim. She shrugs and smiles, her violin crushed against her chest, her tiny feet jammed under my amp.


Best signage on the way to Albuquerque: "Jesus Is Gay".

Neil, the Albuquerque promoter, just bought a house and inherited an apiary with it. This interests me -- I’ve wanted to be a Bee Guy ever since our New Orleans Bee Guy showed up to deliver honey and bee pollen in the full suit (the mask was under his arm, but he modeled it for me), so I pummel poor Neil with questions about bee care. He is somewhat taken aback though, and doesn’t seem to really know anything about bees. “The guy I bought my house from just left them behind the garage and they won’t leave. I was scared to go back there, ‘cause, well, it’s full of bees.”

“You’re not a Bee Guy?” I ask, disappointed.

“Well, I am now…I’ve got bees.”

“But you got honey from ‘em, right? Did you buy a bee suit?”

“No, I just wore long sleeves. They got really mad and stung me. I’m gonna have to get a hockey mask or something.”

“Wow. They stung your face?”

“Oh yeah. They’re not pet bees, they’re just regular bees.”

Then he thrusts 3 honey bears into my hands to take back to the kids. Bernie walks up as he’s doing this. “Look at this!” I say, showing Bernie the bears. “Neil’s a Bee Guy!” Bernie spins on his heels and leaves the room. He had a bad experience with bee pollen once in New Orleans. In fact, I almost killed him by giving him a few grains as he was heading out for a run. I was living on the stuff and loving it, but it made Bernie’s head blow up. So he keeps his distance from Neil for the rest of the night, waving politely from across the room, and retreating when approached. Nothing scares Bernie more than bee pollen.


There is a dusting of snow on the way to Phoenix. This whole tour’s been hot, so we all get out of the bus and run around with the dogs and kids by the side of the highway, taking pictures of snow on cactus. I used to love waking up to snow in Pioneertown -- silver rock piles and frozen cactus flowers. This is similar, but flatter. Scrub desert. The dogs run and run, we run and run. We play for so long that we’re all frozen by the time we get back on the bus.

The show tonight is at Modified, an art space rather than a club. It feels clean and civilized. The promoter is a woman named Kimber who teaches a music business class to young adults. In this class, she plays hit songs from the 60’s and 70’s and shows the students pictures of the artists who performed them. She then plays music from this year’s Billboard Top 40 charts and shows the class pictures of the people who made that music. Apparently, it’s obvious to even the most brain washed junior high schooler that what is being marketed today in the music business is bimbo bodies, not music.

I tend to think this has always been true, but the music they sell these days *is* decidedly awful, the bimbo bodies awfully offensive. It’s about time somebody thought to point this out to the people who are being marketed to. By the time we leave Phoenix, Kimber is our new hero.


Tucson! I love Tucson. Our beloved Howe Gelb is away on tour, but his family takes us in. We park our fat-ass bus outside their house and play and eat and drink amazing coffee for 2 days. It feels like the old Kingsway studio in New Orleans, only here it cools off at night. Sophie Gelb even supplies my children and me with hand-me-downs. She knows it’s been a tough year for our family, but there’s no pity in the offering, only kindness.

It’s hard to leave for San Diego after all this coffee and love. We promise to come back again when Howe’s around, then we check out the Tucson night sky one last time and take off. Bodhi waves goodbye to his friend Tallulah out the bus window, then turns to me and asks, "Why do we live on a bus that always drives away?"

Tour Diary - part 7 - U.S.

Week Two - In Philly -- is saying "Philly" as lame as saying "'Frisco"? -- in Phillydelphia, we play World Café Live, a European style multi-purpose facility that includes a radio station, 2 venues and a restaurant. After sound check, I take Bernie and Rob to the radio station to show them the lovely studio space where I recorded an interview and session earlier this year.

They study a "collage de rock" on the wall at the entrance which includes a picture of me looking particularly goofy. "Not goofy, just friendly," says Rob.

"Friendly and goofy," says Bernie helpfully.

I take a cell phone picture of the two of them, secretly hoping it turns out goofy. It doesn't. It turns out dark. They do look friendly, though.

For some reason there's a huge barrel of ice water in the dressing room. We challenge each other to submerge various body parts in the ice water for as long as possible. Some Doloreans play, too, as their dressing room only holds two people at a time and they were bored anyway. Billy and Bernie win (they win everything) in a dramatic test of endurance, the rest of us hooting, cheering and writhing. Their skin turns upsettingly wacky colors afterwards.

We then play another show without the McCarricks, wondering how it sounds. People claim not to miss them, but, really, what are they gonna say? Sure wish you guys sounded better? Rob thinks we sound like an adorable indie band. I agree. The music sounds smaller and sweeter, maybe even more stylized, but without the string parts, the songs lack drama.



Success! The McCarricks get the call they were waiting for -- from the USA of America! Fuckin' A! -- and race to the airport. They will actually make the New York show.

The next morning, we pick Martin and Kim up at an airport hotel in our Family Bus. They've never seen the Family Bus before, even though they're in the Bus Family. They ooh and aah over our luscious faux maple paneling, stained carpets and torn seat covers. "It's a comfortable bus," they decide.

Martin is carefully led around all the parts of the Family Bus that might fall on him or break if he breaks them. Kim says over and over again, "Just let me do that for you, Martin."

It rains during load-in at the Bowery Ballroom and my wet hands and face lead to a couple of pretty bad shocks during sound check. At one point, I'm thrown back from the mic and -- I'm pretty sure -- my lips fly across the stage. It felt like that happened, anyway. I'm the only person who laughs. The sound man (the same sweetheart guy who did the 50Foot/Muses show here last year) looks ill. "Did you want a towel?" he asks.

The show feels great. No better audience than a jam packed and hungry New York one. People sing along with the new songs! And Martin plays that goddamn cello like a rock star…so nice to have the strings back.



Our D.C. play is Iota in Arlington, VA. They have amazing food there; Bernie and I begin rhapsodizing over the grilled salmon salad long before we pull into town. By the time we get there, we're starved. Unfortunately, they do still have amazing food, but only for real people. Now, one of the menu items is "Band Pasta", which means if you're in the band, they order for you and it's pasta. This happens a lot. I never really understood why clubs had to feed musicians in the first place, but Band Pasta always makes me sad anyway.

Bernie walks out for something better and I go on a protein hunt for the kids, looking for a Vietnamese place where Ian McKaye took Vic Chesnutt and me once but I can't find it. So I end up at Whole Foods, which I can't afford, but I figure it'll keep the kids from getting sick, which I also can't afford, and sick hurts them.

Rob gets Band Pasta. "What's wrong with it?" he asks, his fork in the air.



On the way to Chapel Hill, we put the band up in a (bizarre) hotel while my family sleeps on the bus, outside. The hotel looks like it was planned as a vacation getaway but then no one showed up. There are party patios and miniature golf courses and barbecue pits, theme rooms and tiki bars and jungle gyms. But it all looks empty and post-apocalyptic in the morning drizzle.

I do an interview on my cell phone for the Tucson show while the kids watch cops get driving lessons in Starsky and Hutch tactics. This is so wonderful to watch. The cop cars race through a huge, empty parking lot, screech their tires, skid across the wet pavement and spin around and around, then do it again. My children cheer. So do I. I keep interrupting the journalist to yell, "Yes!" and "Holy shit!".

The best is when the cop loses his or her nerve, though, and just stops and sits while the driving instructor watches from afar. Sad cops.



The morning of the Chapel Hill show, Bodhi gets his first ever earache. My kids don't get sick very often, so I don't have the purse full of painkillers, fever reducers and kleenex I've seen so many other mothers carry. To be honest, I don't even have a purse. And I'm not good in a crisis -- not when the crisis concerns one of the kids. If they cry, I usually cry, too. This time, I panic.

So does Billy. We put Ryder in charge of the two little boys and Billy races off in one direction, looking for a drug store, while I race off in another. We run and run in the North Carolina heat.

When I finally find a drug store, I am at a loss as to which pills to buy. I don't want to put any pills in perfect Bodhi, but then I remember him holding his ear and crying and begin to read labels. I don't like the idea of reducing a fever; I think fevers play an important role in healing, but I can't find a pain killer that isn't also a fever reducer. And they all have saccharin in them, and dyes…I grab a fistful of brightly-colored, brightly-flavored candy drugs and hope Billy found something herbal.

Then I race past Bernie on the sidewalk, holding up the pill boxes in triumph. He cheers. Billy is already back at the bus with his boxes of candy drugs when I get there. Bodhi is pain free, happily chatting and laughing with his brothers. "Wow, that's amazing," I say. "What did you give him?"

"Nothing," Billy says.



I get my first mosquito bite of the year in Atlanta. By a dumpster behind the club. It's an ankle bite and it gets angry, red and swollen and looks very pretty. I think I was blabbing about being oh so southern and the evocative thickness in the air and the heartache of spanish moss, etc…In other words, I deserved it. I decide to embrace it anyway. Mosquito bites are a part of summer, it's practically summer now and I am oh so southern.

"Hey, Gomer, " Billy yells, "quit scratching and git yer ass on stage!"

During sound check, Barton, who is also from the south, tells me about the first time he ever swore in front of his mother. She told him that he wasn't allowed to use grown up words, but that he was free to make up his own swears and use them freely. This just kills me. I laugh forever. "Razzmafrazz!" he says, grinning.

The show is hot and loud tonight, the audience is hot and loud, too. At the end of the night though, as we drive away, headed for Louisiana, we are hot and quiet. We listen to crickets, we watch the moon and the spanish moss go by, everyone but Billy falls asleep.