The Saturnine Tour Diaries Project: 1995

November 15/Columbia: Just remembered this story about A__ S__ that Pat from Derivative told us: apparently when Sports Guitar agreed to do a single with her, she pitched it to about four different labels, including Derivative, and even though Patty from Derivative wasn't that into it, AS was persistent to the point of sending the DAT tape with finished artwork. AS is a real schmoozer and really pushy. When she was in England with Jeff Baron, apparently she tried to introduce herself to Courtney Love, who put her cigarette out on AS's hand. Then AS tried to kick her boyfriend out of the van on some country road in England, but it didn't work because Jeff and the rest of the band said they would leave with her boyfriend. Right now we're driving toward Raleigh because our show in Wilmington was canceled. Last night was Rockafella's in Columbia: we played first to 15-20 people, which was pretty good, because some of them were scenesters from around, and a few had come early to see us. I was happy when I was talking to this one girl Erin and I overheard her talking to one of her friends saying "did you see the first band Saturnine? They were really cool -- you know how most bands play all fast songs and one slow song? They played all slow songs and one fast one." The headliner was Ben Folds Five, which is basically destined to be the next Billy Joel. It's amazing what they market with punk-rock trimmings these days (I'm thinking of the poster with him kind of up in the air pounding on the piano, so you can see the bottom of his shoes.) Today we drove to Augusta to do a radio interview with this guy Steve Bingham, who does a specialty show on a big commercial alternative station. It was fun because he was very professional and enthusiastic at the same time. We ended up spending the afternoon with him and his girlfriend Jennifer. We went to a deli for an early dinner and I got the catfish. November 17/Chapel Hill: We spent Friday looking around Raleigh and then Chapel Hill, but neither one of the good record stores, which are called 'School Kids' had any of our stuff. Angela said that the buyer had just ordered it direct from her and she had Federal Expressed it down the day before. Whatever the story, it was there too late to do us any good. As if that weren't bad enough, we weren't even listed in either of the local papers. We saw posters for Roger Manning and the Bellbats with an empty rectangle where we wrote our name in on one of them. Overall it was fairly depressing to be playing in a vacuum in what is obviously a huge college area. Still, it was good to check out the various clubs, and it seems like we shouldn't have much trouble setting up something at the Duke Coffee House, or at the club in Raleigh. RG goes to NC State, and he knows the people who book in Raleigh, and he has also started promoting an art/music show called 'Culture Shock.' We stayed with RG, who lives with a couple of other students and one post-grad who was in the process of getting kicked out of his ex-girlfriend's apartment. All of his roommates seem to smoke a lot of pot and are very into the hip-hop thing, right down to the puffy black jacket in one case. Dan is also a DJ at the NC State station and told us how he once got in trouble for saying that he had to take a dump on the air. He said he walked into the station, went on air, and said, 'I'm going to play an 18-minute song because I need to take a dump and I didn't get the chance before I left this morning," and then he put on 'Alice's Restaurant' by Arlo Guthrie. Our show was not a total disaster, in large part because this guy Norwood Cheek who Jennifer met in New York came to the show with a bunch of his friends. He's a filmmaker who made some movie about all the bands from Chapel Hill and he does videos for groups like Superchunk and Archers of Loaf. RG and Dan showed up just before the last song, but they said it was the best. They were so late because one of RG's roommates said he wanted to go but made them wait a long time and then ending up not coming. Dan tried to sell one of our t-shirts to Roger Manning, which was pretty funny. The second band was really bad, and pretentious to boot, so it was really funny when after one of their songs, in the moment before the applause, RG as he picked up our merch suitcase said really loudly 'hey, this thing doesn't have any handles!' It was like that one time at Maxwell's when Mike was talking in the back to Karin C, who was giving him directions, and he said: 'Holland or Lincoln Tunnel (music stops) it doesn't matter to me!' and Richard from Versus said over the microphone, 'it doesn't matter to me, either,' which gave everyone a big laugh. Roger Manning was totally freaky, annoying anti-folk, and he goes on tour by himself, which probably only adds to his eccentricity. Side note: We were driving past a paper mill (one of many) in Alabama and the smell was so bad that Mike and Jennifer were convinced that there was a rotting vegetable in the van, to the point that they were opening up the cooler and searching through the garbage.Nov 18/Richmond: The last stop of the tour. I think we would have been sadder except we have a lot of things to look forward to -- recording with Gary, touring with Bedhead, etc. At the moment the sky is low, gray and rumbling -- a winter sky. The show last night was pretty good. When we got there, it seemed like it was going to be a disaster because the promoter Tim told us that there was a huge alternative rock benefit being held for the independent movie theater down the street. Kids were basically flooding down the street for that thing. Incredibly enough, though, a group of people showed up for the second band, Hovel, and we probably had 30-40 people (compared to like 300-400 down the street). Hovel was really good, very mellow and it was cool because they wanted to play with us after seeing us in September. This guy 'Alan' also came to see us, and he's a fan: he works in the shipyard and his obsession is music. He drives to shows all the time and goes to Europe on vacation to see bands. He told me about 'twee' which is a type of music that is sort of indie-rock light. I'm really not that into it, so I was happy when he assured me that we were not 'twee.' Also, a carload of people drove up from Old Dominion, and after the show, one of them interviewed us for his zine, 'My Brightest Summer.' It was a great interview because the guy, Walt, really liked us and was very analytical. By the time we got on the road and drove back to DC, it was probably 3:30 am, so we didn't get to bed until 6:00 am. We stayed with Bill and Kim from Jawbox, which was nice because they have a big office. Well, the afternoon is closing, although I can see patches of blue behind the the banks of clouds. Some are illuminated white about the gray blanket. The sun has fallen below that line in the west, and although the sky is cold, it is familiar, as if it has been following me for years.