October 20, 1995/Detroit: We played at Zoot's with Xebec and Windy & Carl. Michael C___, who booked the show, was a total scenester -- Buddy Holly glasses, blue-striped polyester sweater, etc. I had pictured him over the phone as being kind of crunchy, so it was kind of a shock to see him. He was very nice, though, and seemed into the show. We drove back to Toledo with two of the guys from Xebec, who again seemed very young and silent, except for Rob, who told us about Toledo. They live in a big Victorian mansion in a neighborhood surrounded by slums. As we were driving toward his house, he said: 'There's Tim throwing up outside of Jeff's house.' When we asked Xebec how long it would take to get to Buffalo, one of them said, 'I don't know -- like six hours,' and another said, 'no -- eight,' and then the bass player, who had mostly been stupefied in his chair the whole night said, 'no -- it's like twelve hours.'
October 21, Buffalo: Our worst show of the tour. The day started pretty well, we drove to Buffalo and met the program director of the SUNY Buffalo station, and she interviewed us on air. She played about five our songs in the space of 30 minutes. Apparently we were number 20 on the charts there, and she had placed us in 'heavy rotation,' which means that DJs have to play us. She couldn't come to our show, though, because she had to work 12-6 at a commercial station. She was dressed sort of goth -- long skirt, black boots, long straight hair parted in the middle -- our one fan in Buffalo. Chip O___, the guy who interviewed Mike, was also at the station, but he didn't come to the show. The club, called the Continental, didn't even open until 10:00pm and we didn't go on until 12:45, although we were the second band. The upstairs section of the club consisted of an early-80s dance floor with flashing rectangles, and the downstairs was a big room with a bar and the stage. Everyone there was a strange mix of goth/industrial/punk walking around with bad haircuts and leather jackets. The sound on stage was the worst -- I couldn't hear any vocals, and I could barely hear my guitar. Jennifer's amp was feeding back and she broke a string. When we started the first song, someone hurled a cigarette at the stage which landed about 3 feet in front of me and smoldered most of the set. We played a very short set because we wanted to get the hell out of there and because the third band, State of Being, had thought they were playing second, and they sort of gave us a hard time at first. The best thing about the show was that we loaded out and were on the road about ten minutes after we finished, and we were paid $100. Upcoming bands at the Continental: Nine-Inch-Nose and Alcoholism.
October 23/Burlington. We left Syracuse on Sunday and wound our way to Burlington through the dark forests and lakes. We stayed at Zak W___'s mother's farm, where Guppy Boy was recording their first record. The house was incredible -- wooden beams, cathedral ceilings, cats and dogs (including Otto, a giant Rottweiler and a little dog named Brewster). We stopped in Burlington on the way out to the farm and picked up free pizza from Mike's friend Brian, and bought a case of beer for everyone. We woke up in the morning to find the house nestled in a valley with horses running around in the distant fields, surrounded by woods on either side. I went running down Route 108 and then came back for a hike up to Smuggler's Notch, which was nice. We hiked up to a lake at the top of the mountain and hung out for a while. Here's an annoying habit of Jim's: whenever there is a stranger we're talking to, he'll make some reference to the band, e.g., when Jennifer was taking a picture of the lake, Jim said really loudly, 'nice cover art, huh Jen?' Or we'll be hanging out with someone we sort of know and Jim will refer to some dumb inside joke that makes no sense unless explained, at which point of course it's no longer funny. Most of the jokes in the band are built around some sort of pun or small situation and then extended through a million variations, e.g., in Portland, somehow I mentioned echanasia (the homeopathic remedy), and then I said: 'Once I was in China and I really hurt myself: I broke my neck in Asia.' Jim never tires of these games once he gets started. Another example: we were talking about Babe the Blue Ox, or 'BOX' as they call themselves, or used to be called, and I said how dumb it was to use the word 'box' because there were already so many bands with box in their names, like Pearl Box, the Box Boys, Box Box King, Parliament Boxadelic, etc. Anyway, we were interviewed by this strange little kid named Glen from Johnson State College that afternoon. He seemed to want to disassociate himself from Vermont at every moment. He kept saying how he was from New Jersey and he didn't know anything about Burlington bands. That night, Jennifer tried to introduce him to this kid Jason from the UVM station and Glen mumbled something about not knowing anything about Vermont, and then walked away after saying he would see Jennifer in New York. The show itself was well attended, but the Palace Brothers were terrible; they transformed most of Will Oldham's songs into a bad sort of basement blues sound -- totally unrehearsed. He kept giving the finger to the audience for no particular reason (he wasn't being heckled), and about half the audience had left by the time they finished. He didn't say a word to any of us, and acted like a total rock star/scenester, with low-riding red pants, tight jacket with a sleeve pocket for his aviator shades. Jennifer ran out in tears at one point because they wrecked 'Blockbuster' so badly and Jeff left because he was bored. The Palace Brothers had a $500 guarantee and the door was $520, but Dennis paid us $100 anyway. Angela told me that she has to send a fruitcake to some station in California so the music director will chart us.
Comments