October 24, 1995/Providence: We arrived in Providence and saw clumps of punk rockers roaming the streets in preparation for a Rancid show. For some reason, Chris of Purple Ivy Shadows didn't know the names of any of the streets, so we had to find the club by landmarks. There were a lot of people in downtown Providence as we drove to the club. A few streets over from the punk rockers, their parents were all lined up for 'Phantom of the Opera.' We met up with P.I.S. (they're now calling themselves 'piss') and went out to eat at some Thai/Vietnamese place that was not the greatest, but cheap. The P.I.S. are in the middle of negotiating a deal with Zero Hour. Zero Hour's initial offer was for seven records, and PIS has countered with a one-record/option offer. The show was structured in two tiers: first PIS/Saturnine, and then two prog-rock bands called Vehicle/Sleestack. Purple Ivy Shadows have some interesting things going on, but they could definitely use a little more power. Typical for Zero Hour, I guess. Right before we started we got a request for 'Then Again,' which we ended up playing after a furious debate because we hadn't played it in a while. We almost played it perfectly, but Jim went into the final ending a measure too soon, which was kind of disappointing. Jim forgot his drum sticks in Burlington, along with his address book, so we're sort of up in the air about who should pay for them. We (except for Jennifer) stayed at Chris and Eric's house, which was very close to Brown, and was built in the early 1800s. Two more things about the show: 1) 3 kids drove 45 minutes to see it, and they all bought t-shirts, 2) Chris from Sleepyhead came to the show because he brought his guitar to Providence to be repaired. His friend Pete is going to play w/Sleepyhead next spring. Pete is supposedly some trust-fund kid who was touring with Cell post-Ian. He lives in the same house w/Combustible Edison, who are on tour, and Jennifer was excited because she got to sleep in the Millionaire's bed.
October 26, 1995: En route to Northampton. Last night, we stayed at Mike's parents' house in Connecticut. Despite displaying a sense of confusion about our career trajectory, they seem genuinely supportive and bought $100 worth of t-shirts. I slept in a bed with a canopy and about 100 dolls surrounding it. I had to sleep in the same room as Jim, which I sometimes find annoying because he always seems to wake up at the exact same second I do. So when I got up at 7:30 am to go to the bathroom, Jim was like 'HEY' in his deep voice: Jim, we found out, doesn't like to whisper for reasons that remain unknown. Then, when I got out of bed at 9:30, the first thing he said was: 'I had a dream about Grace last night,' which was annoying because I hate hearing about other people's dreams (except Scott F___'s), especially when it's about one of Jim's ex-girlfriends. So I just didn't say anything. Later, Jim told Mike's mom about his dream, which was: 'I was in a room with Grace, and then Samantha came in.' Just now, Jim was like: 'I'm not even that hungry, which is an unusual state of being for a Harwood.' Duh. On to Northampton.
October 26/Northampton: We arrived in Northampton and went to a record store in the basement of the mall where of course they didn't have any of our records, which was somewhat depressing because it was the third time we've played here, and the past two times it seemed like we were developing a little fan base. At least the best record store, where we went next, had the record (along with a single), but they didn't have our ep, which we've yet to see in any store outside of New York. We came to the conclusion that Angela really needs to hire someone to do retail if our records are ever going to be in any stores. By contrast, we've seen the Space Needle record in every store we've been in. This was an afternoon where I really felt like we were going nowhere, which set the tone for the rest of the night. After meeting Jim's friend Kirk and eating Mexican, we went to the Bay State, only to discover that there were four bands on the bill. The first was a singer named Linda Husik, who Mal Thursday put on as a favor to someone, probably at Caroline Records, which is her label. Then there was a little tension because Mal asked Jim if he would let the first three bands use his drum set, but everything was resolved and we finally played. The club is really a restaurant -- no stage and the bands play in a big bay window that overlooks the parking lot. It took us a long time to set up because there was only one outlet and the soundguy left the extension cord in a box somewhere. It was pretty crowded when we played, but not as crowded as last fall when we played with the Ass Ponys, so that was sort of disappointing. I was also annoyed because of the various entourages of Linda Husik and Harvey Sid Fisher. This one guy walked up to me and said: 'Do you want me to move my stuff?" He was actually wearing a badge on a chain around his neck. So I said, 'Who are you?' because I had no idea which entourage he belonged to. He seemed slightly taken aback that I didn't know and he said, 'I'm with Harvey Sid Fisher.' So I said, 'I don't care what you do with it,' because we weren't playing first, and because I really didn't care. Our set was sort of flat -- I was annoyed about playing with a joke like HSF and Mike was tired from running down to New York to see Kelly the night before. HSF was as bad as I expected him to be; it disgusts me how such a big hype can develop over some sort of washed-up lounge singer, like it's an inside joke that scenesters everywhere can laugh about. It's just like Tony Bennett on a smaller scale. It was even more annoying because my friend Marjo came and her stupid boyfriend Joseph was totally into HSF. (He even bought a t-shirt.) It was nice to see Marjo, though, and we talked throughout HSF's agonizingly long set as he worked his way through each of his songs about the astrological signs. The set was even longer because the final band, The Martinis (with the drummer and guitarist from the Pixies) never showed up. I saw Jennifer get into a painful transaction with one of her old acquaintances who plays in this band Cordelia's Dad. I think he wanted Jennifer to give him a disc, but she made him buy it, which was cool until he showed up with his stuff, which she in turn felt obligated to buy. Finally Jim and his friend decided to get high in the van, so the whole thing smells like old party now.
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