Almost threw up onstage last night but will get to that.

The Mother Truckers West Coast tour was GREAT!!! So many good shows, so many good people I saw or met along the way. Will try to start my recap today (maybe), never had consistent enough internet access on my laptop (or the TIME) to write it blow by blow so I'll have to go by my journals, pictures and what few intact memories I still have, heh.

Got back Sunday night. Being on tour is akin to time traveling. Like if astronauts flew around at the speed of light, time on Earth would have passed much more quickly than it would for those in the ship. Time passes different on the road, so many distractions: long drives, shows, loadins/loadouts, soundchecks, hotels, being in a different city or state every day. Sensory overload. Doesn't seem like you're gone that long, then BAM you come home and almost an entire month has passed. The angle of the sun is noticeably different, the yard is a jungle, the plants that are still alive are almost unrecognizeable. Crazy.

So got back into town and had to play the next night with ETB @ Friends. Good to be back. Only felt like I'd missed a weekend of playing with them rather than almost a month. Fell right back into place, tho did drop a few clams here and there, heh. Had a decent crowd after a slow start. Thought we were done after the second set, looking forward to going home as I was exhausted. Eric:"The club wants us to play a few more." Me: "Is that going to be reflected in our payout end-of-night? If not, I am going home." Eric: "Yes." Me: "Okay..." Played a few more and was pretty much on auto-pilot. So tired.

Photo courtesy Triniti Young



Tuesday went out to Valhalla (former Room 710) with Triniti Young, Tank from Ironclad/MOD/Mastery and his girl Lexi. Good times, and lots of good people out for a change. Last time I was there it was inexplicably all plaid shorts and Polo shirts. WTF?!? This time Jason (ex-710 soundman, Pong, etc) was working the door, Gian Ortiz (Amplified Heat), JT Drunk (Dixie Witch) and many other friends/family walking by or stopping in. Glad Red River hasn't completely gone away... yet, at least.

Myeself, Gian and Tank. Photo courtesy Triniti Young




So last night my near-vomiting incident:

ETB at Maggie Mae's. Arrive to set up around 8pm, rest of band onstage, sound guy not there yet. Set up, and turns out we will now be starting at 9:30 instead of 9 on Wednesdays. No big deal, wish I would have known that so I could have gotten there at 8:30, heh. Not sure when the soundguy showed up but he finally did. Start set at new later time, sounding good. Feeling strong.

Now there is this big industrial fan pointed at the stage so we don't sweat like women of ill-repute in a house of worship. Genius idea, especially since Maggie's is half-open air. Yeah, HOT. So playing and smoking a cig during "Green Diamond II", hair blowing around like Medusa. Find a point during the song to drop my ash, take another drag and feel a hair in my mouth. Can't tell which corner of my mouth it came in from, but I could feel it between my back molars (both pairs) and draped across the back of my tongue. Oh shit. Let's just say I have a finely tuned gag reflex. Turn towards my amp and paw at my face trying to find the hair, meanwhile I can still feel it grinding in my teeth and on my tongue. Start dry heaving, and finally spit a mouthful of saliva which thank the Gods of Rock contained the hair. Was able to continue the set without having covered my amp (or myself) in used Dos Equis.

So beginning second set, we start playing and realize the PA is not on. Nor is the soundguy present. Michael was able to run off stage and get most of the levels up before end of tune, but no monitors til the end of the set. Which is when that jackass of a soundman finally decided to return to his fucking post, for the last 2 songs. "Where the hell was he 45 minutes ago?!?" I asked all of my bandmates. So he did manage to finally get the monitors up, but then was doing all this horrible delay shit on Eric's voice and on Richard's rimshots on "Green Diamond II". What the fucking FUCK?!? Gestured to him to cut that shit out, which he did.

In 10 years of playing music in this city this new guy has been the worst soundman I've ever come across. Good thing he promptly disappeared after the show, as he would have gotten an earful from me at the least. Evidently Eric and the band have had to complain to him and about him 2 other times while I was gone. And that was maybe three shows total. So yeah. Still fuming about it. And I'm not being on a rockstar entitlement trip. If I disappeared for most of the second set, would I still get paid in full? Fuck no, yet I'm sure he did.

Bah. Mother Truckers tour recap coming soon.