Musicians Boycott!

Duran Ad Infinitum

2012-01-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

Well, another week on the road has come and gone, and each week, each gig, is its own little universe of idiosyncrasies and oddities. Otherwise, why else would I tell you about them?

I'm pretty sure that this current trip is the longest one I've been on since the six-week run that included those two miserable weeks in Shreveport. A week here at John Ascuaga's Nugget, Two weeks at Carson Station, followed by a week off, then a weekender at Casino Fandango. And this trip's doldrums are beaten back by Joy's warm embrace, though seeing to her needs adds a whole new level of difficulty to the trip, albeit one I'm used to now. My birthday falls during this run, as does that of our eldest grandchild Cody, and Joy would not be denied the opportunity to be there for both birthdays.

So we left a day early on this trip, Tuesday afternoon. Our first stop along the way was in Browns Point, where my old bandleader Calvin waited anxiously. When I told him that I was heading south, he tasked me with an errand. Y'see, liquor is a lot cheaper in Nevada than it is in Washington, so he staked me with some money to buy him some booze. A lot of booze. About $250 worth of Bacardi rum and the cheapest vodka I can find, to be precise. To be totally honest, I needed the money. I only had about $90 to my name, and that wasn't enough for my gas expenses, so Calvin's grubstake came at just about the most opportune of moments. From there we headed south to Olympia for some excellent teriyaki.

Night was falling as we entered Vancouver, looking for a place to crash for the night. My Uncle Skip and Aunt Suzi live there, and although we had an open invitation to stay there whenever we needed, I wasn't able to get a hold of them, so I fell on plan B. I knew of a motel alongside I-5 that advertised rooms for as little as $21 a night, but their night-clerk told me those rooms were unavailable. I wound up paying just over $50 for a tiny room with the luxury(!) of a private bathroom. If that was a 'luxury', we really had no desire to find out just what those $21 rooms were like. And did I mention that it was raining buckets, cats, dogs, and other small mammals that night? I got passed on I-5 by an ark near Castle Rock. In so many words, we were soaked, our things were soaked, and we just shut our mouths and took the room. Here's the review from the Musicians Boycott! Travel Service – if you're in Vancouver, WA and have the options of sleeping in your car and the Value Motel, recline the driver's seat, homey – you'll sleep better. That said, the night-clerk was a nice lady, and we'll probably be seeing her next week at the Carson Station, as she's taking a week's vacation to visit her mother in the Reno area, and would love to see me play.

Ironic, no?

Wednesday morning rose clear and calm, and we broke fast on a combination of Sausage McMuffins and Bacon Maple Bars from Portland's rightly famous Voodoo Doughnut (another reason why I love Portland – despite the Timbers!), and we were on our way south and east. The heavy snows that had hit the Oregon Cascades had been tamed by the Oregon Department of Transportation, and climbing Willamette Pass was a piece of cake, and we scarcely saw snow after that. I slaked Joy's craving for Taco Time's Crispy Beef Burritos in Klamath Falls, then made the remainder of the trip as uneventful as possible as we pulled into Sparks.

And did I mention that Steppen Stonz were going to have company onstage this weekend? Well, it just so happens that a major convention was going on in the Nugget's convention-center space, and the convention had booked a band for that Thursday night, a Duran Duran tribute band called (wait for it) Duran Duran Duran. My sources have told me that they were invited to play a few sets in the cabaret on Saturday night in addition to the corporate gig. Fortunately for all parties involved, I knew of this a week in advance, as the Nugget's best soundman had called me while I was still in Port Angeles to ask me if D3's drummer could borrow my drums for that night. I told him that I had no problem with it, that I was glad that he'd called me in advance to let me know this, and just how the fuck did he have my phone number, anyway? (Mikey gave it to him). J.R. (that badass soundman who looks a little like Stephen King, just better looking) gave me their drummer's phone number, but he never did answer the message I left him. This didn't bother me much, because it said two things to me – that he'd probably use his own gear in the end, and that I still had time to get a hold of him up until the night of their show in the cabaret if he didn't.

Joy and I wound up meeting D3's singers (Brey and Noelle) on Friday afternoon at the Nugget's pool. Brey's totally 80's frosted hairstyle was a dead giveaway – to be honest, he reminded me of my old marching band chum Zach Barnhart to an almost alarming degree – but he and Noelle were as nice as could be. They'd actually come down to the cabaret the night before to see the tail end of our set after they'd finished their gig upstairs, and were quite impressed with our show. We talked shop for a while, then I let them go enjoy the pool by themselves – I know full well how much a musician appreciates his space, and while talking shop is always fun, sometimes you just want to be left alone.

Our shows on Thursday and Friday were uneventful enough, and we came to the decision that I'd just push the riser my drums were on back out of the way to give D3 enough space to set up their gear. Their show turned out to be really fucking good, despite the vocal mix being kind of muddy. Good thing I knew the words to damn near every song they played. I've always kept a place in my heart for Duran Duran – they were pretty much the last band I was into before I discovered metal – and D3 didn't mess around much with the songs that everyone knew. They also threw in some other 80's chestnuts, like David Bowie's “Let's Dance” and “One Thing Leads To Another” by The Fixx, and I just loved the fuck out of that. And I found the rest of the band to be really nice guys, though I did have to give their drummer just a tiny amount of shit for never calling me back. I'm sure that by the time you read this, you can go to D3's website (which is actually just a link to their Facebook page) and find pictures of the two bands together. The remainder of the night went without incident, and Sunday was actually pretty good, despite playing to a nearly empty cabaret.

I've actually walked away from this gig feeling pretty damn good. I figured out something I should've done a long time ago. Y'see, while I'm playing, I can barely hear my drums – the sounds my Simmons Hybrid drum module creates, that is – over the rest of the band. And to think, the answer had been staring me in the face ever since I'd started to trigger my drums. What I did was to use the Hybrid's unused right-channel output (the left-channel output is the mono output, and that goes to Cliff's mixing board) as a monitor channel, and plugged that into the small mixer I use as a monitor mixer for the headphones I wear onstage. It actually took me a minute to get used to be able to hear my drums clearly for the first time in a couple of years. And it was good.

And with our contract with the Nugget allowing us an extra day's stay in the hotel, I can pack up my gear at a leisurely rate today, then do laundry and pack up our household things before making our way up to Carson City on Tuesday. All my friends at the Station are looking forward to seeing Joy, and I'm looking forward to actually being able to unpack, and stay unpacked for a couple of weeks.

Up And Down, Part Two: Why Don't You Talk About Them Any More?

2012-01-15T19:01:00.001-08:00

After an emotionally draining morning that had been capped off by the winter's first snow, I needed a little time to collect myself. During those hours, I got phone calls from my band. Not Mike and Arthur, but Ron and John.

Things haven't been well with Dirty Joe lately. Our last gig back in November had been a disaster in my opinion. Roger looked disinterested, Ron seemed in pain, and Joy was convinced that John was stoned on something, though I wasn't seeing what she was. A few days later, as I was leaving the stage at John Ascuaga's Nugget, I found a voicemail from Roger on my phone telling me that Ron had been taken in for emergency surgery after tests had found a mass on his colon. Absolutely freaked out, I called Roger back, only to get his voicemail. I haven't spoken to him since.

Roger is no longer a part of things, I've since discovered. While I was on my most recent run in Nevada, he'd gotten into an argument with the couple whose property he was staying on in his trailer, as well as with the president of his motorcycle club. The end result of which was his expulsion from the club and from the property, though some have tried to tell me that he 'retired' from the club. He has failed to respond to my calls asking for his side of the story, so I've come to the conclusion that he is no longer able to continue with the band. And that's fine with me. He's been on a massive downward spiral for quite some time now, and I've only been a part of roughly the last half of the ride to date. I hope Roger is able to right his ship, and soon.

And Ron is the next domino to fall. The mass removed from his colon was cancerous, and he was given roughly a year to live, and that depended on how well chemotherapy went. The signs so far have been encouraging, but I have a hard time believing anyone who would tell me they felt great getting chemo - maybe all the weed Ron's smoked has messed up his system to the point where chemotherapy actually feels good.

But he's called me a few times in the last few days, telling me that we could get together to rehearse during the day at RBar downtown, and that my old friend Dave Garner (sound-tech extraordinaire) would be willing to run sound and otherwise set up rehearsals for us, as well as offer his connections to us for jams and/or gigs in the Seattle - Tacoma area. I'd like to believe that to be true, despite my distrustful nature. I don't think anyone would offer up promises like that to a dying man, and I just can't picture Dave doing anything that low - it's just not in his nature, and I've known the guy for twenty-plus years, so I have to think this is at least partly true. And John has been calling me about bringing a new singer (well, new to me at least) in to take some of the workload off of me, as well as the guitar player he'd mentioned to me before in conjunction with a side project of his to possibly replace Roger.

Truth is, while I'd love to get Dirty Joe (or whatever I'd prefer to call it) moving forward again, if for no other reason than to provide some comfort to Ron in what will be his most trying times, I almost don't want to. The downward spiral the band and the guys have been on has been hard for me to handle. I don't like dealing with rumors of hard drug use. I don't like people trying to get me to hook up with the band's hangers-on - even if I like them as people, I'm still not interested, though hell, I'll flirt with anything if I think I can get a laugh out of it. Anyone who's ever seen me flirt knows it's only for laughs - I grew up watching way too much Pepe LePew as a child for me to be all that good (or serious) at it. I just don't want to deal with the interpersonal drama between the band and their respective circles, something blessedly absent from Steppen Stonz.

But as it stands now, the weather will likely have final say over the proceedings. That first snow of the season has friends coming, likely in the next day or so. And by the time it clears up, it'll be time for me to get back on the road again, spending the next several weeks in Nevada, this time with Joy in tow. It'll be nice, but we'll be back in the trailer again for at least a week, her first time back since we left Reno for Port Angeles two years ago.

As usual, we'll just have to see things go - knowing that they never go as planned.

But the snow let up after noon, and I worked up the stones to bundle Joy into the truck to drive down to Seven Cedars to see my old homey Curtis Seals and his current band, Gruvbox. Curtis and I go back to my earlier days in Powerlight, and it's always nice to see him in whatever band he's playing in (of which there are currently at least three). It's good to reminisce with him about this and that, long drives back and forth from gigs, bandhouses, his prodigious snoring. It was enough to drive away the funk in my my mind and allow me to relax psychologically as well as physically.

And talking about it with you is always good for flushing the negativity from my psyche. That, and making a nice big pot of boeuf bourguingon (albeit with pork, but still plenty tasty) for the family to feast upon helps mightily. Now pardon me while I digest......

Up And Down, Part One: Saying Goodbye

2012-01-15T04:35:00.000-08:00

I look in the rear view mirror, and I see the day just past. And I'm glad it's gone.

It didn't start in a way I wanted it to at all - with a funeral. Joy's best friend's daughter died while I was playing at Boomtown. She could be a sweet girl when she wanted to be, but her demons led her to a lot of dark places, and eventually to oblivion. I could say a lot more, but I choose not to. To be totally honest, the service wasn't what was bothering me - where it was being held was. Allow me to explain.

It's 1994. Joy and I are madly in love, happily engaged and planning a wedding for April Fools' Day. And believe it or not, Joy was actually a Christian at the time. When we got together, she was attending this small Baptist church here in town. Joy's first marriage had been a civil service in the County - City Building in Tacoma, and she wanted a church wedding this time around. I was fine with that, so long as she registered to vote. So we went to to the church's pastor and asked if he would marry us. He asked us a few questions, then went back to his office to meditate and pray on it. Five minutes later, we had our answer:

No.

Joy was crushed, and almost immediately in tears. I was gobsmacked - why would he possibly say no? Well, he explained. In his little weltanschauung (that's 'world view' in German, FYI), because Joy had left her first husband - never mind that at the time, he'd done some pretty bad things which I shall not mention, enough that Joy left him for all the right reasons - she was no longer fit for marriage in the eyes of God.

I vaguely remember him offering to be our witness at a civil ceremony, but I was too busy pushing Joy to her car while keeping us both from tearing that smug redneck bastard into bite-size chunks. The next day, I called my best man Adrian, and he suggested his church, a Foursquare church in the Sequim valley. After meeting with his pastor, and kid and gentle behemoth of a man who moonlighted as the offensive-line coach for the high-school football team (and someone my mother knew and respected, even though she's the next best thing to an atheist), he not only offered himself and his church to us, but offered us a bargain-basement rate for renting the church on one condition: that we submitted to be the guinea pigs for a marriage-counseling program that the Foursquares were developing.

Allow me a brief departure. If you know me, you know I despise organized religion. It was instilled in me at a very early age, watching my dad turn off my cartoons to laugh mercilessly at Jerry Falwell and Ernest Angley. This distrust served me well in the era of the cartoonish televangelists of the 80's. Yet the Foursquares' gentle, kind, and understanding guidance in those months not only helped us learn more about each other, it helped me to learn a little something about myself, something I know is there, but I still can't quite put my finger on. I do know that the program certainly saved our marriage a few times. Despite my distrust, the Foursquares helped us immensely, and to this day still hold a certain fond place in my memory. And had it not been for the combination of distance and shitty cars, we could very well have remained in the Foursquares - I was that okay with them.

So here we were, the counseling program going great guns, and the wedding plans moving on pace for that First of April date. When we sent out the invitations, there was some debate on whether or not to invite Pastor A and his family. I wasn't thrilled about it, but we sent it - forgive and forget, and all that bullshit. Bad move. The Sunday after they got their invite, friends of ours that still attended the church told us that Pastor A spent his entire sermon bitch-slapping us for our crime of wanting a church wedding, calling us - and I'm quoting here - 'godless heathen sinners', and calling Pastor B a 'fake Christian who only wanted to get butts in the seats' (meaning: make money off of suckers). Remember how I described Pastor B? While Pastor A was a small, wiry guy at the time, B was an ex-jock - and I don't think he would've taken being called a 'fake' very well. I'm glad I never told that to B.

And the final insult came months after the wedding, when against my advice, Joy fairly dragged her kids and I back to Church A. A made nice, but after the service, couldn't be bothered to drop the hammer on us himself, and delegated his wife to inform us that we were no longer welcome there, accusing us of talking badly about Church A. So long as I live, I'll never forget that stiff-legged walk of Joy's as she grabbed me by the first available appendage and yelled at the kids to get in the car, telling me we'd never see the inside of that church again as she explained what had happened out of my sight and earshot.

Back to 2012. Back to the funeral. Joy was dead-set on going and supporting her best friend. I suggested that a red-hot poker in the ass would be preferable to entering that vipers' nest. But I went, if only to make sure that if Pastor A or his wife gave either of us the stinkeye, that their asses were grass, and I ran the lawnmower. It turns out I needn't have bothered. The best friend's son, himself a pagan like Joy, and with his own issues with A, laid down the law before we'd even left the house. That said, I still sat quietly through the entire service, eyes closed, with my mp3 player blasting nothing but the angriest, most hateful, blatantly Satanic music in my collection (tips of the proverbial hat go to Dimmu Borgir, Behemoth, and Old Man's Child). But nobody noticed us, no stinkeyes were detected, though my heart nearly jumped out of its box when A's wife came right up to Joy and chatted amiably with her for several moments, before Joy's bad hip began to flare up and we quietly took our leave. We'd scarcely been there an hour - though to me it felt like the longest hour of my life.

And there were many hours left in my day, more than I care to talk about right this minute. Let me get some sleep, I'll explain the rest of my Saturday to you then.

"So, What Is Your Day Like When You're On The Road?"

2012-01-06T18:02:00.000-08:00

That's what someone asked me today while I was out shopping. So I figured I might as well give you a blow-by-blow description of what a show day is like for me. Here it is, warts and all:

11:30am

It may seem late to you, but getting up at that hour is actually kinda early by my standards - hell, it's early by the standards of just about any working musician. The room at Boomtown's South Tower isn't exactly five-star luxury, but it's more than sufficient for my needs, and a damn sight better than my pop-up trailer (see previous post). A mini-fridge in my room is an added bonus, as it keeps my half-rack of Coke and stuff for snacks and sandwiches cold. A recent addition to Boomtown's roster of restaurants is a pan-Asian noodle shop that served a pretty good take on Korean short ribs, though I'm a bit disappointed that it's only open on weekdays - tomorrow would be a good day for a steaming bowl of pho. But I can make soups and sandwiches with what I have, so no big deal.

1:30pm

After dragging my ass out of bed, checking my Facebook, showering, and making myself a bowl of rice and pork with Super Lunch Jar TAKERU!!!!!, I grabbed my laptop and headed into town to see a computer tech Mikey recommended me to about what I could do to upgrade Beelzebubba (my new old laptop). The verdict: Nada. It can't be upgraded to a newer Version of Windows, and why bother searching for a larger internal hard-drive when I can just get an external one cheaper? While I wasn't terribly happy to hear that, at least they didn't try to blow smoke up my ass. They told me that Beelzebubba should work just fine for the foreseeable future.

From there, I went to the Legends supermall in Sparks to pick up a few things at Leather Works, and within fifteen minutes I had acquired a nice leather attache case for Beelzebubba, and two new heavy-duty duffel bags that I use for my drum rack and stands for a little under US$65. After that, I rolled over to a nearby Big Lots! to get a mouse for Beelzebubba, and some stationery and pens for the case. Some batteries and a half-rack of Coke picked up at Walmart, and my expedition was complete.

5:30pm

It's ninety minutes before showtime, so I'd better start getting ready. Iron out a shirt and pants, shave and lacquer my hair back into a ponytail with enough hair goop to glue a small child to a wall.

6:30pm

Finish preparing, get dressed and grab my big ol' mug. I need to stay hydrated while under hot stage lights, but I need to sleep sometime, so my last caffeinated beverage was finished off a few minutes ago, and the mug is full of ice water. Time to hit the stage soon, and I'll update things on my breaks, and again after the show is over.

12:15am - Post-gig

We had a good show, insofar as the four of us on stage. Beyond that? I don't think I actually saw more than six or seven people sit down and listen to us. Which wasn't terribly surprising to me. Y'see, Boomtown is in Verdi, about ten miles west of downtown Reno, forty or so from Carson City, and our regular audience is probably not all that inclined to drive out to see us every night. Which means we pretty much have to start from scratch and build an audience. And this time of year that means skiers. And with this incredibly mild winter so far, many of the Tahoe Basin's ski areas are still closed, with only the largest and wealthiest resorts (as in, 'those who have their own snow-making equipment') open at all. But regardless, a lot of families were checking in tonight, as the registration desk is all of about fifty feet from my throne. It wasn't an unpleasant night, but we could've used our regular crowd to come support us.

But now that the night is over, it means that there's just one night left before I can put this trip to bed and head home for a few weeks' worth of well-earned rest and relaxation.

Dude, I Got A Dell!

2012-01-05T16:06:00.000-08:00

And it's about fucking time.

First off, please allow me to apologize for the long time since my last post. What has it been, six or seven weeks? As usual, things have just been weird for me. And every time that I thought I was getting close to getting the laptop I really needed (hey, you schlep around a desktop in a big ol' plastic container from gig to gig and find out how much fun it is), only for circumstances to change and something more important to come along, something that needed to be paid for right there and now.

And for this last trip I've been on, It had seemed to me that I was on the same old road. Three nights at the CVI, then a few days with my friends Jeremy and Alison. Then a week at Carson Station, followed by a week staying at the Nugget in Sparks, starting with Christmas Day, while playing New Year's Eve at Casino Fandango in Carson City. Then I found myself a sudden lack of options all of a sudden. My father had been calling me, telling me that he wanted to come down to Reno for a visit after New Year's Eve, and that he wanted me to stay with him while he was there. Then he got the urge to replace the futon in his living room with a proper couch, and I was left out in the cold - literally.

My only other option was to call my stepdaughter Michelle, and set up my old pop-up trailer, which had been sitting behind her house in Sun Valley. I had propane for a small heater, and was able to string along enough cords to be able to run some electricity into the trailer for a TV and my Xbox 360. And it turned out to not be such a bad idea. It never really got that cold - it's been a very, very mild winter in Reno, so much so that I actually found myself sweating in my trailer during the days.

And then there was the hunt for a laptop. Michelle recommended to me a place called New2U Computers in Sparks. My first visit there was only productive in that I found out what day they normally got laptops in, which was today. So this morning, I got up early, broke down the trailer as fast as I could, then got over to Sparks ASAFP to see what New2U had. Five minutes and $115 later, I had a Dell Inspiron 6100 laptop in my possession. It's nowhere near new (it runs XP Pro, for fuck's sake), but it actually has more horsepower than Joy's laptop (2GB vs. 1GB on Joy's), though the 80GB hard-drive is positively dinky these days. But it's what I needed, and I'm more than happy with it so far.

And now the trip is officially winding down. As I write this, I'm ensconced in my hotel room at Boomtown in the town of Verdi, just west of Reno by a few miles. It's not on the California border, but I can see it from my window. And there's a Cabela's just down the street from here, which is always good for a visit, and maybe a purchase or two, depending on what kind of outdoorsy stuff I might need. Boomtown is just a weekender, and it's my first time playing here. I'll be giving it my best, and hopefully they'll want us back again, and hopefully for more than just two nights....

Playing With Takeru

2011-11-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

And who is Takeru, you ask?

A band?

A person?

Well, Takeru is about about a foot tall, eight inches in diameter, plasticky, and gets hot vey quickly.

Okay, it's a rice cooker. Well, the full name of the thing is "Super Lunch Jar TAKERU" - say it really fast, as if you were some sort of deranged Japanese game-show host. It's labeled as a 'travel kitchen', with a nonstick metal bowl in a heating unit, kept in place by a locking lid that presses the bowl down on its heating element. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I've been thinking about downsizing my foodbox for some time. I carry a full-sized electric skillet with me in said box whenever I'm on the road, but I probably haven't used it in close to a year. Damn, still getting ahead of myself.....

One of the main problems with being a musician on the road is finding a decent meal, or to be more precise, what to do when one is not freely available. Most of the places I play will comp bands a meal a day, though some don't comp anything at all - not even rooms for bands coming in from out of town. Though on the other end of the spectrum, when I played at Sam's Town in Shreveport, they comped us for three meals a day. Damn shame I really didn't get much chance to enjoy that, between the kidney stone and..... well, go read that adventure, it's in the archive.

But the problem is what to do when comped meals are relatively few and far between. I try to be able to adapt to any situation, and until about a year or so the big skillet, purchased at the Wal-Mart in Bullhead City, AZ while I played on the other side of the Colorado River in Laughlin, had been my jack-of-all trades cooking device. If I wasn't cooking something directly upon its surface, I used it as a kinda-sorta heating element for a small saucepan for soups and such. But using it for something other than grilling a sandwich, or cooking something that required that much space to cook in, got to be kind of unwieldy after a while. It's gotten to the point where I just don't use the damn thing anymore, though I still carry it for reasons still unexplained. Nowadays I just heat up water for Cup Of Noodles soups in my travel coffeemaker and eat cold sandwiches. Not a lot of variety there.

But Takeru changes things. Joy and I met Takeru a few months ago while perusing the household-goods section of Uwajimaya in Seattle. We were both intrigued by the little fella's claims of versatility, its relatively small size, and reasonable price (US$35), and we agreed that it might be a good fit for me in the future, and that I should get Takeru as soon as I had the chance. And after my attempts at buying a laptop during Black Friday failed miserably (though Joy is fully enjoying the Android OS tablet that I bought her), buying Takeru suddenly became an possibility?

But how? I'd never seen the thing at any other place than Uwajimaya. Then I remembered that there was an Uwajimaya in Beaverton, in Portland's western suburbs. It turned out that getting to the Beaverton Uwajimaya was a breeze, just off the OR217 freeway that runs from the Sunset Highway (US26) to I-5 in Portland's southern suburbs of Tigard and Tualatin. The store itself is in a nice enough neighborhood, right across the street from an Azteca and a Hawaiian Plate Lunch restaurant, with a strip club and porno shop just down the street....

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Portland is a very porny town. Or at least very open-minded to the adult-entertainment industry. I remember reading a article in the Seattle sunday paper about how there were 54 strip clubs in the Portland-metro, compared to only six or seven in the much larger Seattle-Tacoma metro. Hell, now there's only three or four Deja Vu titty-bars in the SeaTac metro, and maybe another half-dozen or so clubs in the rest of the state. And they're full-nude bars, not topless like they are in Washington, or even in Reno. And then on top that, Portland is the home of SuicideGirls. Maybe that's why I like Portland so much. Now if only SG could get a sponsorship deal to get their logo on Timbers uniforms. That'd be fucking epic.....

But I digress. Back to the lecture at hand.

Beaverton's Uwajimaya was nice enough, though it only had an 'Authentic Japanese Restaurant' (not a dig, that's just what place described itself as) on the premises in lieu of the flagship store's pan-Asian food court - not enough space on the premises for a big food court like that. I had Joy on the phone the whole time I was in the store, and the first thing I told her was that it smelled like Uwajimaya to me. Not a bad smell, not funky, nor was it some sort of overpowering scent of foods and/or spices. I couldn't really tell you what the smell itself was, just that the Beaverton Uwajimaya smelled just like the flagship store in Seattle, and that I liked it. After finding the housewares, I had to flag down an employee to find a Takeru for me in the back. I also picked up some green tea for my mother, then got back on the road, taking the 217 up to the Sunset Highway to get back to I-5 downtown. Got all that? Jeez, fire up Google Earth already if I've lost you.

I've been playing with Takeru ever since I got home, making myself lunch with it, and progressively trying out different things with it. Takeru takes about twenty minutes to make a decent serving of rice, and Takeru heats up enough to cook proteins in it if I desired. Last night I purchased a small steak for experimentation, and this morning I diced up half of it and briefly browned it before adding rice and water to the pot, and then at the last minute adding in some powdered pho (Vietnamese beef-noodle soup) base to the pot before locking the lid in place and letting Takeru do its thing. Twenty minutes later, the rice was very tasty, but the steak was overcooked. I kinda thought that would happen, so I think I'll have to use fattier cuts of beef or pork instead, or even chicken breast, instead of steak.

The irony is that I'll probably still need to take a skillet with me on the road. The only difference will be that said skillet will not be the one I currently carry. Instead, It'll be one of those mini-skillets with a surface area about the size of your hand. But that - plus Takeru - will still take up less space and weight than the skillet that sits alone and unloved in my foodbox. I think it'll be a good addition to my arsenal.

UPDATE: Takeru works much better with pork than with beef. A small pork sirloin chop, diced and par-cooked the same way as the steak was before, turned out very nicely, though a fattier cut of pork would still be better than the relatively lean sirloin chop. Sliced pork belly might be the ticket, and relatively cheap to boot.

UPDATE #2: Takeru now has a new playmate, as Joy and I picked up the mini-skillet I'd talked about before. We got it at the Big Lots! in University Place (suburban Tacoma), while doing grocery shopping that spanned most of our favorite grocery outlets - Trader Joe's (right next door to the Big Lots!), WinCo Foods in South Tacoma, and the Central Market in Poulsbo on the way home. I pulled the big skillet out of my foodbox today and replaced it with Takeru and the mini-skillet, and they take up a fair bit less room than the big'un did by itself, though I had to take Takeru out of its box to insure the foodbox's lid would close properly.

An Honest Mistake

2011-10-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

Seems like an eternity since I've felt motivated to write. It takes certain circumstances to get me into that specific mood, and despite several gigs of varying qualities with both bands, nothing has really gotten me into the mood to talk about it. But the last twelve hours or so finally managed to remove the logjam from my mind. So let's discuss, shall we?

On more than a few occasions, I've talked about how I'm ready to recast Dirty Joe into something better. Well, that time has pretty much come around. In the last few weeks, we've found that all the insulating that Roger has done to our practice space has done absolutely squadouche to our problems with neighbors complaining about the noise. But at least the Clallam County Sheriff's deputies appreciated the effort he'd put into it. And our most recent pair of gigs wound up being underpaid, underappreciated messes, with Ron really putting himself on the outs with us by fucking up Roger's guitar when he restrung it and messing up the axe's bridge pieces to the point that the guitar just wouldn't stay in tune. John and I have decided that it's time to go. The only question left to us is whether or not Roger will be a part of our future plans. I'm leaning towards 'no'. He just isn't leading a healthy life right now. He's made a lot of people mad at him for the things he's done recently, though I won't bore you with the details - he's just in a bad place right now, and has been for quite some time. He needs to get is life back in order to be able to resume both work and music, and I'm not really sure I want to babysit any longer.

And then things got worse today - sort of. Y'see, Joy and I have been getting ready to play a weekender at the Circus Circus in Reno, and we'd been planning on leaving a few days early to get to Reno in time for Joy's birthday, and to visit with her daughter and her kids. But Joy's health really kept me from wanting to leave when we'd originally planned, and my car insurance payment being pulled from my bank account with my permission (again, long story) put a kibosh on any early departure, though we had been thinking about staying an extra day or two to enjoy Halloween with Michelle and the grandbabies.

It turns out that not leaving when we'd planned was the smartest move we could've made without our even really knowing it. Mikey called me around noon today and told me that our gig at the Circus had been cancelled. Not for anything we'd done or said, but because of an accidental double-booking. Some other band was already in place for that weekend, though oddly enough, the Circus' website (www.circusreno.com/entertainment/cabaret_schedule.aspx) lists us playing this weekend, and not another band. That said, the Circus apologized to us for their mistake, and promised to make it up us in the future. They made an honest mistake, recognized it, and did the best they could to alleviate the situation. I have no problem with that. Hell, I'm quite sure that's the first time a venue has apologized to a band I've been in, when they made a mistake that cost us money. I can accept that apology quite easily.

To be quite honest, while I may have lost a gig, I'm not too broken up about it. Y'see, it was only a two-night gig. With my travel expenses, two-night gigs do not pay for themselves at all. And my expenses would've been even higher with Joy in tow. And it would've been even more expensive for Mikey, because since the Circus doesn't pay for accommodations for out-of-town-bands, he was paying for our hotel rooms out of his own pocket. So in the long run, we'll actually wind up saving money by not doing the gig. And with the Circus actually apologizing to us over the snafu, we know that we're on their good side. Hopefully this will translate into a better (read: longer) gig in the future. And I've always liked playing at the Circus, so that future gig oughta be pretty good.

But for now, I'll enjoy this unexpected week off. I can relax, knowing that I've got a three-week, eleven-show run coming up in two weeks. And while I'll miss Thanksgiving with my family - as usual - I'll have money in my pockets for Black Friday. Perhaps this will be the time that I can finally get myself a laptop of my own, so I don't have to lug around my entire desktop to gigs. At bare minimum, I should be able to buy Joy something nice for Christmas.

"Do You Ever Forget, Happens To Me...."

2011-09-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite lines from Ron White is the title of this post for a very good reason. Allow me to explain:

I'd just finished a reasonably good gig with Dirty Joe at a tavern in Sequim a few days before, playing for a wedding reception, and I was in a good mood as I climbed into my truck for the long drive down to Minden for a gig at the CVI. Well, I always seem to forget something a few minutes after I pull away from my house, so I invariably have to make a U-turn shortly after I get on my way. And this night was no exception, as I'd left a bottle of B-complex vitamins on the kitchen counter. I grumbled a bit, went back home, and got the vitamins, then headed back out on the road. About an hour down the road, I was listening to Dimmu Borgir's "Gateways" when it hit me that I'd forgotten something much more important than a piddling bottle of vitamins.

I nearly punched a hole through my truck's windshield when I realized that I'd left back in Port Angeles the small blue suitcase that contains my monitor mixer, microphones, cables, and the whiteboard I use to write down song lists, requests, dedications, all that stuff. And I was in Poulsbo, about sixty miles away from Port Angeles. Needless to say, it was a long hour back to PA to get the suitcase. But it could could've been worse - I could've made the discovery as I pulled into the CVI parking lot instead of only an hour away from home. Yeah, it could've been a lot worse.

But the trip continued without event, and I made it in to Minden about twenty-four hours ago. Now I'm surrounded by Model T enthusiasts and students of a private military special-ops school, but I could care less who I'm playing for, so long as I'm playing - and getting paid to do so. This is going to be a busy week for me, because as soon as this gig is done I have to drive straight back to PA to take Joy to her SS/D hearing in Seattle - wish us luck - then drive straight back to Nevada to play at Casino Fandango, then make a triumphant return to the Carson Station the next week.

I think things are finally looking up for me. But then again, I hope I didn't just jinx myself for saying that.......

Hot, Bothered, And Not All That Special

2011-08-18T02:23:00.000-07:00

Well loyal readers, I just got back from my latest sojourn down to Nevada. Want to hear all about it? Want an explanation for such a weird title for the entry?

Okay.

Last week was Hot August Nights down in Reno, a week-long celebration of classic-car culture and generally the busiest week in town for just about everyone, including the bands. Steppen Stonz was camped out at John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks for the third year in a row (at least that's how many it's been for me), and ready to entertain. But like last year, we were not alone. This time around our early-shift support came from The Sterling Silver Band, a crew of nice older gentlemen from around Modesto, CA - sorry, no link for them, all I could find was a band by the same name down in Alabama. Mikey called me up a few days before Joy and I came down and asked me to call the other band's leader so I could contact their drummer about kit-sharing. For those who don't know, in a situation where two bands share a stage for a week, the late-shift drummer is the one who provides the kit both drummers use, since it would make no sense for the early-shift drummer to do so - he'd wind up having to sit around and wait for me to finish before he could tear down, and that's no fun at all. And while he was amenable to the idea at first, he decided to bring his gear along anyway, and wound up using it, setting his kit up to my left. This turned out to be no problem at all, since they preferred to use an off-set formation with the drums in the back-left corner in the first place. I did my best to help them get through their load-in and set-up Tuesday evening, and I think they did rather well.

Our five-night run went rather well. It could've been longer, like it had been before. Last year we played seven days, and ten the year before that, though that was probably more a fluke of scheduling than anything else. But with the economy in the toilet, who am I to complain? A gig's a gig, after all. Almost all of our regular friends showed up, and by Friday and Saturday, so many people were coming to see us, Nugget employees were actually setting up chairs on the casino floor beyond the cabaret to accommodate the overflow crowd. In so many words, we killed it. I would sincerely hope that this will lead to more and longer gigs there.

And Joy was with me this time around, and that made life a little more bearable. We took Michelle and the grandbabies swimming several times, drove up to Virginia City for a little while on our last day in Nevada, and generally drove each other crazy with all our little idiosyncrasies, the little things we do at home that don't seem to translate so well to a small hotel room. We were also able to visit Joy's Social Security/Disability attorneys in Reno, who seemed quite confident that Joy would finally get approved for SS/D, probably soon after her hearing with a judge next month in Seattle. While we were quite happy to hear that, Joy still was stressed out about the visit - so much so that she threw up while speaking to their medical-records representative. Hopefully, that will work itself out soon.

Now I'll bet you're still wondering to yourself, "what the hell was Joe talking about with that 'special' crack?" Well, Steppen Stonz just seem to be a magnet for the more..... interesting people. I don't really have a problem with dealing with the (let's be correct now) challenged people coming to shows. Most of the time, they're nice enough. Our friends Krissy and Josh were always coming to the Carson Station, and we still see them from time to time at other shows. But this week, I came across three new ones, and each one got weirder and weirder.

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Names have not been changed to protect the innocent - I just don't know them.)

First off, there were Shuffle and Spinner. Shuffle, well that's all she did for the entire time - just stand directly in front of the stage and move from one foot to the other. Spinner, she was a different breed of cat altogether. I'd go so far as to say she wasn't 'challenged' at all - more like augmented. Y'see, she would just find a chair in the middle of the floor, sit down, and spin - for hours. All the time with a sweet, innocent smile. Then out of nowhere, she'd just stop spinning, get up and walk away without the slightest sign of dizziness. It was like she was born with an internal gyroscope or something! It was getting to the point that Mike and Arthur couldn't even bear to look this woman's direction, for fear of getting dizzy themselves from watching her spin around. But they never bothered anyone, so I can't really bag on them.

But then there's the guy I call, well I really don't want to tell you what I call him. It's not nice. This guy is higher-functioning, but I don't think he has a good handle on how to be polite. I posted on Facebook a few days ago that being 'special' is no excuse for being a prick, and this kid is unconscionably rude to us. Y'see, here's how he rolls: he sees us playing, and he runs to the stage. And I mean run. I've actually seen him push people out of his way to come talk to us. While we're in the middle of a song. And this is what he says:

"AH-TA AH-TA PAY LADY NIGHT!"

I can impersonate this guy almost perfectly - and Arthur hates it.

He doesn't refer to us by our names at all, other than Arthur, though I know we've all introduced ourselves to him before. Mikey was genuinely surprised when kid actually said his name earlier this week. He wants to hear Kool & The Gang's "Ladies' Night", and he wants it right now, even if we'd just played it while he was already there. Problem is, he just doesn't seem to have an understanding of how to ask us nicely. If we're out talking to the crowd on a break, he'll just walk right up to any of us and interrupt whatever conversation we're having with "TELL AH-TA PAY LADY NIGHT!" and he won't leave us alone until we acknowledge him. Funny thing is, dude usually walks away midway through the song after he requests it, and we don't see him again for the rest of the night.

As you might have guessed by now, I tend to have rather mixed feelings about dealing with the challenged/disabled/whatever while I'm onstage. Usually they're not a problem at all. Our friends Krissy and Josh are usually quite good company. But here's a worst-case scenario for you. Let's say that you're playing a private gig, a gig for someone who's got a lot of money, and has offered you a good chunk of change to play for their backyard cookout. Now let's just say that during this gig, the mentally-challenged child of the person paying you to be entertain their guests decides to climb up onstage and demands to sing along with you. And since you have no desire to lose face with your employer, let alone your paycheck, you spend the entire gig having to deal with someone singing nonsense words and worse melodies along with your music, and singing loud enough that you have to turn the child's microphone almost completely off so they don't throw off the band.

And here's the worst part of it all: what I just described for you was absolutely true. It was for a doctor's summer cookout (I think it was a Fourth-of-July cookout, but I'm not totally sure) in Gig Harbor, Washington, about seven or eight years ago. I was playing in a three-piece called Backstreet Romance. While I'm still friends with the group's singer, her then-husband guitarist is a total piece of shit who remains on my permanent shitlist to this day for some very shitty things he said to me, trying to blame a disastrous New Year's Eve gig at the Tacoma Sportsman's Club on me. Maybe the dumbass should've listened to me and bought the sequence for No Doubt's 'Hella Good' from my friend the professional sequence-builder instead of using a karaoke disc, not rehearsing to it, and then flubbing the introduction and completely blowing the song to pieces. And on that summer day in Gig Harbor, we pretty much just had to take this girl's horrible screeching - for about three hours. I begged and pleaded with my bandmates to do something, find some reason to get the girl off the stage, but they told me that we'd probably wind up working for free if we did that. Ever since then, it's been my personal preference to keep anyone with any sort of difficulties like that at as far a distance from the stage as possible, and to not engage them at all when I'm offstage. I know that this probably makes me look like a dick, but you'd probably feel the same way if you went through what I did.

Truth be told, as long as you're not a total asshole to me, I just don't care. You're having a good time, be my guest. If you're nice to me, I'll be nice back. Most of the time, challenged people are far better-behaved than most of the drunks I deal with on a nightly basis. And like everyone else, it's only the total asshole who gets called out for boorish behavior.

Sorry about the rant. Maybe I'll have something more positive to say next time......

Wasted Day

2011-08-05T02:58:00.000-07:00

Did you ever have one of those days, the kind that when all was said and done you'd wished that you'd have just hit the snooze button instead of getting out of bed? Yes, I know you have, I know we all have. But this is MY blog, so I have the right to be a little whiny once in a while.

So anyway, where were we? Well, when last we talked I was making my mind up to quit Dirty Joe. The afternoon after I wrote that, I gave them a rather stern yelling at. And much to my surprise, they admitted to their faults and agreed to try harder to be on time, be ready to go, to lay off the weed and actually work on things once in a while instead of just jam for thirty minutes, then take a thirty-minute weed break.

So I informed them that we'd be picking up some new material at tonight's practice. But not before I found out that I'd totally forgotten about a doctor's appointment this afternoon. Allow me to explain. Eleven years ago, I'd been diagnosed with a small umbilical hernia which was surgically repaired in September of that year. Well, about five weeks ago I felt a sudden 'pop' and a sharp burning sensation in my lower abdomen, just a little below and to the left (my left) of the small semicircular incision scar below my navel that's courtesy of said surgery. The pain only lasted for about thirty seconds, and then I moved on with my life. And what did I do to deserve this pain? Rolled over to get out of bed, that's all. And it gets worse, or at least more embarrassing. A few days later, it flared up again while I was trying to be........ intimate with Joy. Needless to say, that was a show-stopper. The next morning we called the local Volunteers In Medicine clinic and scheduled an appointment, which we both promptly forgot even though I was still occasionally having little flares of not even pain, just sudden discomfort.

So yesterday, I get a voicemail reminding me of a 5:30pm appointment at the clinic, and practice was at 6pm. So I texted the guys and told them I was going to be a few minutes late. Turns out I probably should've skipped the appointment altogether. The only good news I got was that I was losing weight, down to 229 pounds with only my shoes off. After being poked and prodded by the clinic's doc, she told me that it was quite possible that I had an incisional hernia (where the intestines poke through the scar tissue left from the original hernia repair), but she couldn't find anything. She gave me a form to fill out that would (given my current state of poverty) allow me to be seen by doctors and surgeons at Olympic Medical Center for pretty much nothing. She also told me that she'd look through the hospital's files to see if she could find records of my original surgery. I guess not knowing that something is wrong is better than knowing and not really being able to do anything meaningful about it.

So after leaving the clinic, I get to practice only to find that Roger was still quite busy working on the Amigos' clubhouse - so much so that we didn't actually start playing until almost 7:30pm, and we could only play until 9pm because John had to get back to Carlsborg. And even then, we shut off at 8:30pm when a friend called us and told us that the shithead tourists at the RV park down the road were complaining again. And thus we got another visit from the Sheriff's Department, advising us that we really needed to cut down the volume. Which is something I already know, but when the lead guitar claims that he can't hear himself unless his amp is absolutely screaming inside a not-quite-fully-enclosed garage, you know trouble is only a phone call away. We did manage to start to learn a new song - a song I'd already known for years, and one that John picked up in about fifteen minutes. But Ron and Roger, jeez. It was like pulling teeth. I think we only managed about 20 minutes or so of quality learning time where there should've been three hours. It makes me quite irritated.

Add on getting yelled at by sheriff's deputies, and I was quietly cranky. Then add on being stuck in a road-construction zone for over half an hour trying to get home, and I was in full-on don't-give-a-fuck mode. Thank the deity of your choice that I have a wife who knows how to get me to calm down. But right now the only thing that will make me happy is to shut my eyes and go to sleep. I know I'm depressed right about now - I have been for a long time, I know the signs - but I guess the eternal optimist in me is what keeps me going. But this was a waste of a perfectly good day. I could've gone for a walk instead of this shit. I think I will take a walk on Dirty Joe - and soon. It's fun practicing at Mike and Sunny's garage, and I like playing with these guys. But I don't think they all understand that there's a lot of work that needs to be done to make this band what they want it to be. Or maybe they do know, but they'd rather just party instead.

A band can be a lot of fun, but it's still work. And I don't think they get that. I'd rather go for a walk than waste my time like that.

Dirty Joe Is Dead

2011-08-01T04:11:00.000-07:00

Well, at least that's what the plan is......

Since I got back from Carson City, I've been trying to get the Dirty Joe guys together in one place at one time so we can rehearse. Roger's arranged a kinda/sorta gig for this coming Saturday, really nothing more than an Amigos MC party (after all, our practice space is actually in the process of becoming their chapter's clubhouse) with us providing some live music.

One problem, though: nobody wants to be there. Well, actually two of us want to be there. Roger lives there, and is helping the place's owner remodel the garage into a clubhouse. And then there's me. So where are Ron and John? It turns out that John is working pretty much six days a week doing landscaping work, and well, doing that for 50 - 60 hours a week is pretty draining. But where-oh-where the fuck is Ron? He bought a prepaid cellphone recently, but really doesn't understand that those minutes he buys have to last him the whole month. He's been bumming money off of everyone he can think of, and probably not spending it on much other than weed. It's all well-and-good that he's a legal medical-marijuana patient, but enough is enough. Not bothering to show up for practice makes me angry, and it makes Roger just as angry.

So after Ron and John no-showed for the second time in three days, Roger and I decided that enough was finally enough. To the best of my knowledge he hasn't told them yet, but we've decided that Ron has to go, and that John will most likely go with him. It just needs to be done. That way, we can get people into the group that really want to be there, that really want to learn new material. I want John to be a part of things, but his plate is already full enough that I just don't think he has time for us. He still doesn't have reliable transportation to get from Carlsborg and back, but at least he's trying to improve his own situation. But I don't think there's much hope for Ron. I like the guy, I like playing with him. But when getting him to learn Ramones songs is like pulling teeth while bashing your head against the wall, that's just too much to deal with. Really? Learning Johhny Ramone's licks - if that's what you want to call them - is that hard? I could probably do it myself in a few minutes - after being lobotomized!

Oh well. Maybe new blood is what Roger and I need. Maybe this way I can finally get my friend Jenn to front the group. Now if I can just find a shit-hot lead guitarist and a bassist to match.

And finally get rid of that damn name. I hated it from the minute I heard it, now I can fix that problem once and for all......

Missed It By That Much

2011-07-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

Nothing is ever easy in my world - I know that all too well. So I've learned to just roll with things, and never let things get to me that much. But I'm getting tired of the roller coaster. Here's a recap of my latest ride.

I thought that in the week leading up to my most recent trip to Nevada, Dirty Joe would have a pair of one-night gigs that would give me enough money for that trip. But then they both fell through. Desperately in need of money, I called up my father.

I need to digress here for a minute. My relationship with my father has never been all that great. He left my mother when I was ten or eleven years old (it's not really so bad that I don't remember when), scarcely paid the child-support payments the divorce demanded (walking away from it on my eighteenth birthday still owing my mother over US$30,000), then often used my sister and I to get back at our mother for whatever slights he felt had occurred - never mind that he was the one who'd done wrong in the first place. My mother still hates him. In fact, when Joy and I got married, it was the first time they'd been in the same room at the same time since the divorce. Trust me on this, the pictures they were in, the tension was so thick, a chainsaw couldn't cut it.

Well, he recently retired from a career as a bus driver - a career he took after getting fired from the job his father had gotten for him (for trying to undermine his boss) - and he took it upon himself to offer me whatever help I needed. Sometimes, it was surprising me in Reno or Las Vegas and tossing a little money my way, or offering to buy a canopy for my truck (which I declined - why buy a $850 canopy for a $200 truck?), always without asking if I actually needed it. Sometimes it was just asking for a little help on the boat he'd bought, which I'd always agreed to with vigor. But this last time, which I'll admit was a last-minute crash-job brought about by the cancelled gigs, his mood was very different. He decided to give me an addict-intervention speech!

WTF?

Yes, your dear author is apparently some sort of addict - addicted to what, pray tell? Driving all night? Shitty food? No sex? Yes, driving back and forth to gigs eats up all my money, I know that full well. But I didn't necessarily move back to Washington for myself, folks. I did it for Joy - her health, her well-being. I knew that I'd have to deal with the consequences of the move as it pertained to my career, but still this wasn't quite what I expected. He told me that he felt that I 'hadn't quite hit rock-bottom yet', which almost got him punched out. Do you really want to know what 'rock-bottom' is for me? It'll be the day of Joy's funeral, that's what it'll be for me. I was deeply offended, but eventually given the money I needed. I guess Mom's still right - my dad is still an ass. The recovering alcoholic (still recovering, too - what about the beer you had with lunch with me and Cousin Eddy in Carson City? Hmmmm?) basically calling the de facto straightedge guy the addict? He can keep his fucking money, and his fucking boat, and his stupid, useless fucking AA meetings (swapping one addiction for another, IMHO), and stick them up his ass sideways. I need a father, not a father-confessor tut-tutting me from on high about my questionable career choices. I'm sure he wants what's best for me, but telling me that I can turn my life around and the whole 'I-know-you're-smart-enough-to-do-whatever-you-want' speech doesn't have the effect it used to. To the teenage me, it was 'tough love'. To the 42 year-old me, it's condescension.

Sorry about the sidetrack, back on topic. The thing is, there's just as many ups as there are downs with this roller coaster that I'm on. Now that I had the gas money, I ran Joy to Tacoma, so she could go with her mother to her family's campout on the Bumping River, about 20 miles east of Chinook Pass. More on that later. As I was driving down to Tacoma, and Joy was napping, I got a call from a friend of mine that shall remain anonymous. This friend had heard through Mike and Arthur about my situation, and called me out of the blue with an offer: since I had a few days to kill between dropping Joy off in Tacoma and my gig in Minden, and I was having such a rough time of it, this person was willing to put me up in a hotel in Carson City for the days in between, just so I could decompress - no strings attached, no questions asked. Well, Mom always told me never to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I took my friend up on the offer, and quietly decompressed for two nights at an undisclosed location in Carson City. The only people who knew where I was were people I trusted. And boy howdy, did I need that time to myself. Things were only going to get weirder from there.

After decompressing, I played my three nights at the CVI without serious incident, and from there headed back to Carson City to spend a few days with my amigo Jeremy Orris, his wife Alison, and their adorable little boy Logan. But now there were a few new guests there as well: Jeremy's sister Dream, and her two boys Aiden and Joshua. This meant that I was couch-surfing in the living room, but I was able to look on the bright side: long nights alone with Jeremy and Alison's giant-ass HDTV and equally giant-ass DVD collection. I cooked and cleaned for them when allowed to, helped take care of Logan here and there, and got to know Dream and her boys. She'd just moved to Nevada from St. Louis with her fiancee and their boys (UPDATE: that's ex-fiancee now - apparently people don't like it when you gamble their food money away when not buying meth and crack with it, get fired from two jobs in a month, and threaten to kill the people who took you in - all of this happening shortly after I left for the gig at the Fandango), and was looking for just about any kind of job. I was able to throw a little help her way - hope something comes of it. Otherwise, I just did my best to be invisible.

And then, another phone call. Mike calls me one day, tells me that I can check in at the Carson Station. I'd learned by now to just take what people give me, so I grabbed my duffel bag and said my goodbyes to the Orris clan. I had no problem with staying at the Station - hell, there I could plug in my Xbox360 to their wall-socket modems and actually get the thing online for once. Not to mention that I new damn near everyone there, and that they were all glad to see me, eager to hear what was new with Joy and I.

As it turns out, I was also kinda eager to find out. Y'see, while I was chilling with Jeremy and Alison, I'd been getting messages from some of Joy's family members as they were returning from that family campout. And they weren't exactly positive-sounding, either: one message suggested that Joy wanted to go home as soon as I got back from Nevada, rather than stay in Tacoma for a week at her mother's then go to Yakima for a memorial service for a recently-passed uncle of Joy's. Then a message came from a niece saying that I wouldn't be going to that service - not that I had a problem with that. Then Joy sent me a text-message telling me that we needed to talk about something, but only after her mother had gone to bed later that night.

It turns out that the campout had been spectacularly bad for Joy. Upon hearing the news that her kidneys were failing, the response from her family - especially from three of her four brothers - was a collective snort of derision. Things got so ugly, Joy actually got into a fight with those same brothers, then attempted to walk home from the campground in a blind rage. Given Joy's illnesses, and how they affect her mobility, it's amazing what blind rage can do - she made it the better part of a mile before realizing she didn't even have her cane with her, let alone her clothes, her wallet, etc.. And to add insult to injury, when Joy started getting sick after the campout, coughing up a lung every ten minutes or so, her mother refused - refused! - to take her to an urgent-care clinic or an ER in Tacoma, trying to tell Joy that she wasn't sick, quit pretending to be sick! At one point, I tried calling in just about every favor I had with anyone I knew to go get her from Tacoma and take her back to Port Angeles. I guess that in the end, I'm glad I missed the campout - I probably would've gone on a murder-spree had I been there to witness what my wife endured from those idiots.

And in the midst of all this, I still had a gig to play. This was our first trip to Casino Fandango in the south end of Carson City, so we had to be at our best. And we pretty much were. Our friends from Reno, Carson and Minden all came out to support us, and we didn't let them down. I have to give big kudos to Merrell, our soundman at the Fandango who also happens to be the casino's Entertainment Director. He did a great job with our sound and set-up. And did I mention that he brought us food? Two trays of sandwich-fixings, meats, cheeses, veggies and bread? Craft-service! What a nice touch!

God, this is weird. I've spent all but about two paragraphs talking about personal drama - and I'm not done yet! After getting Joy home Sunday evening (and avoiding any sort of confrontation with her mother whatsoever - I still want to kill the old bat, though), we were finally able to get her some medical attention for that nagging cough. It turns out that she has pneumonia. I have such a wonderful mother-in-law. A wonderful, caring old biddy who apparently thinks that her daughter is faking being sick to get attention. Yeah, the doctor telling her she has pneumonia, that's totally fake - just a ploy to get attention. And that chest X-ray she took yesterday, that's not a new spot on her lung, that just Joy attacking the X-ray with a Sharpie, right? I bet she'd even tell Joy to quit faking it and get out of that coffin.....

Yes, the Rage is strong with this one. And it ain't going away any time soon. Either that, or I've got to quit blogging at 5am.....

The More I Play In Port Angeles.....

2011-07-03T20:35:00.001-07:00

The more I miss Nevada.

Case in point - just finished practice about an hour ago, and then moved our gear to our new practice space. Our new lead singer, Mark Connolly, decided not to join us. These guys aren't great with their punctuality - it's something I've been working on with them for some time now - but Mark just didn't seem to be interested in showing up. So I drove halfway out to Joyce to go check on him. Where he announced to me that he was no longer interested in the group because in his words, we were 'unreliable'. "How so?", I asked. Well, nobody told him that there was a practice scheduled for today. I told him that I'd tried on several occasions to call and text him, only for calls to not even go to voicemail, and text messages be rejected! He claimed to have 'texted us until he was blue in the face' and claimed not to even have my number - which was an outright lie, because I'd given it to him at practice last Sunday. I chose not to argue the point and walked away, rather than tear him a new asshole right then and there. I'll have my revenge on him shortly.

Y'see, Mark is a methamphetamine addict. He told me so, when he originally lobbied us for the gig. Since I was already busy refuting rumors that Dirty Joe was a 'meth band', I really didn't want to let him into the group for obvious reasons. But Ron and Roger's insistence on giving him a shot because of his ability as a singer, plus his insistent claims that his meth use wouldn't affect the band won out - for all of one practice, it turns out. Well now the whole world knows, motherfucker. Good luck ever getting another gig again. Fred Phelps Award winners like you don't deserve the charity or pity.

That said, practice went pretty good without him. Tom Swinford is settling back in to being our bassist for as long as John Eddy is unavailable due to health issues within his family. But getting the next practice scheduled made Ron a very sullen boy, not at all interested in the process. But he's got his own issues - moving again - so I guess I could give him a pass. But not when he decided not to bother helping us pile our stuff into Roger's van so we could move to the new practice space, then basically started badgering our friend (and occasional videographer) Bev to get her to cook dinner for him - which she was not interested in whatsoever.

After today, I just can't wait to get back down to Nevada and gig with Steppen Stonz. Three nights next weekend at the CVI, followed by a weekender at Casino Fandango in Carson City, with Hot August Nights at the Nugget in Sparks looming on the horizon. And I keep hearing rumors from friends that new gigs are on their way, but rumors don't pay my bills. But I can look on the bright side of all this. With rehearsals in Washington and gigs in Nevada, at least I'm not camping at my various family campouts this summer.

I fucking hate camping.

Getting Back On The Horse

2011-06-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

In about ten hours, I'll be rolling over to Roger's garage to set up for the first Dirty Joe practice in some time. I'm nervous, as Roger has told me that they might finally have a singer to fill the void at frontman. Oh wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of myself. Did I tell you how their gig went, the one that I had to bail on because I went to Nevada instead? It didn't go all that well.

First off, I had to scramble to find replacments. Jay Reid never showed up, despite reassuring me that he would cover for me. So it's the Fred Phelps Award for ya, bucko - and ne'er to be trusted again. And Britton backed out as well, so I went 0-fer for the night's replacement's. But Roger was able to find a replacement drummer - oddly enough the same person who'd gone around spreading rumors that we were meth addicts - so let's just say that I'm glad I wasn't there. Probably would've killed the bastard right there and then. And this new singer..... all I know about him is that he's another transplant from Hawai'i, and he's more of a 60's rock guy. Well, we can adapt if he's talented enough. And I'll still be singing a lot of songs a night anyway, so why go into this without an open mind?

Here's hoping for the best. And here's hoping I can get some sleep tonight. It's been a busy weekend so far - first running out to 7 Cedars Casino in Blyn to visit my old homey Curtis Seals, who was in town playing with his band Gruvbox. Then earlier tonight Joy and I made a quick visit to what until recently was the Veela Cafe downtown - though now it was called The Caffeinated Clothier due to new owners - to see an old friend of my stepdaughter's, who was playing the bodhran (a traditional Irish frame drum) along with a fiddler, both in pirate garb. It was a nice change of pace, being in the crowd rather than in front of it, but I'd rather be playing any day of the week.

I'd rather be paid to be there than pay to be there.

The Strangest Weather Is Always In June

2011-06-09T01:48:00.000-07:00

And I'm not kidding. This last trip down to Minden was strange, and not in a good way. In fact, this last trip sucked balls. And it did so right from the very start. Y'see, Joy wanted to come with. I do love her with all my heart, but it changes the way I travel. I have to accommodate her needs, and while I'll do so happily, it costs time and money to do so, and with my money as tight as it is, Joy traveling with me makes things that much harder. So we take the detour to Bend to visit with her sister's family. That wasn't so bad, it's just out of my way. Little did I suspect that 'out of my way' was going to be the least of my problems.

First off, my truck was acting up. I may have mentioned it previously that my heater core sprung a leak a few weeks back. I put some liquid-copper sealant in my radiator to fix the problem, and while it was holding, there was still enough of a leak that I dared not use my heater for the trip. So it was a pretty cold trip. And while passing through the eastern foothills of the Sierras above Susanville, CA, it started snowing. Hard. I mean big, fat-ass flakes that covered the road in a matter of minutes. In a space of about ten minutes I went from clear skies to near-whiteout conditions. And on top of that, our freaking out was causing our windshield to fog up. Remember what I said about not using the heater? Well, since I absolutely needed to see where I was going, I made a command decision and turned on the defogger full-blast and full-hot. And within a few seconds we were moving easier, and the blizzard (yes, blizzard - I would not use that term lightly) mercifully abated as we reached the southeastern edge of Eagle Lake. Thankfully the rest of the trip went without incident, and we pulled into the CVI's motor lodge a little after midnight.

The gig itself didn't get off to a good start. Thursday was dead quiet. And it didn't help that Joy seemed a little grumpy with me going off to get my free meal in the employee's commissary in the bowels of the CVI, either. She seemed downright jealous of me because she couldn't go, so I wound up going only once in three nights - and y'all know me, I never turn down free food. Friday night was better, and Saturday more so, but friends of ours weren't coming to the shows, or at least not as many as usual. But enough people came to fill up the cabaret. And after Saturday's gig was finished, my old friends Dean and Shelly Brownell came by the CVI to get breakfast, and surprised me while I was tearing down my equipment, and invited Joy and I to join them. I had to run back over to the motor lodge to go get her, but we did eventually join them for what I will (much to my surprise) call a business meal....

Now if only the weather would've been nicer. It was cold, windy, and threatening to snow almost the whole weekend - and it did snow a few miles away up at Lake Tahoe, and snow a lot. Funny thing was, it was warmer in Port Angeles than it was in Minden, where the temperatures were running nearly 20 degrees Fahrenheit below normal for the beginning of June. I was actually looking forward to going home to warm up for once! And sure enough, by the time my poor little truck descended down Willamette Pass into Eugene, it was much warmer than when we left Minden.

But I have to look on the bright side - all the drama and travel was better than what I'd had to pass up. Y'see, Dirty Joe was already booked for that Saturday, to play for Roger's motorcycle club. Mikey called me to remind me of the previously booked gig (that I swear I didn't remember), so I made arrangements to have Jay Reid cover for me on the drums, and Britton and Roger's friend Jana to cover vocals while I was away. And to look even further on the bright side, Mikey paid me in cash - Roger told me that I was only going to get cash after he sold my share of......

Eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww...........

Oh well. Now I'm home, and I (for the moment) have about four weeks to kill. So now it's time to get Dirty Joe up and running smoothly. We have a July 4th gig lined up, and that money will be much needed, if only so I can get back down to Minden the following week. August will have us back in Sparks for Hot August Nights, and hopefully other gigs for both bands will fill out my summer schedule.

Here's hoping I'm busy soon.....

POSTSCRIPT: I just found out earlier today that one of our regulars passed away, just after we left Minden. Nan (that's all I knew her by) passed in her sleep, Mikey called to inform me of it today. Joy was stunned, they'd just been talking about TENS units - Joy wanted to make pads for her when she got her unit. She and her grandson Josh were always at our gigs, and she will be missed. RIP

Chaos Is Not A Theory

2011-05-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

No, it most certainly isn't. Let's just say that the last say, 36 hours have been eventful.

After finally getting things squared away with the Dirty Joe crew to renew practices, I schlepped my gear over to the garage below Roger's house...... oh, waitaminute... it's not his house, after all. Turns out that it was his parents' house, and their return from Hawai'i is our loss - and Roger's as well. Turns out that he's the one looking for a new place now. But the garage is still available for us to practice in for the time being. So we got together, and much to my surprise, my friend Britton was coming up for practice. Well, we never really did give him a proper audition, so this might as well be it. he's a good singer, but his main flaw is his range. He's a baritone, whereas I'm a tenor. In layman's terms, his voice is lower than mine. He has a good voice, but we don't play a lot of songs that suit his range. But I'm willing to make a few adjustments if necessary. He also plays a little guitar, which might eventually give him a more permanent role in the group as a front and rhythm guitarist, which could relegate Roger to the keyboards full-time. I have no problem with that.

Practice came to a rather abrupt end though, when Roger's mother came down the hill and basically ordered practice to stop. I wasn't happy about it, but Roger would later tell me that they were fine us practicing so long as we stopped by 9pm or so. Once enlightened, I didn't have a problem with that, either. I've been trying to get practices started earlier in the afternoon anyway, so I can see this as a positive reinforcement.

And we had a gig ready to go for this weekend, playing for a party held by Amigos MC, a low-key motorcycle club that Roger has been a part of for years. Two hours of music at a site just west of Lake Crescent for $100 per person. I could've used that money. But I won't be going. Y'see, the situation has kinda...... changed.

Earlier today, I logged on to my Facebook page, and I had a message waiting for me. It was from Mikey, telling me that 'I could check into the hotel on Wednesday." Huh? At first I figured that it was a misfire of sorts from Facebook, a message from long ago somehow re-sent. So I called Mikey to ask what was going on, and I got a reply that I've been hearing a lot of lately:

"I thought you knew."

Well, I'll be heading off to Minden in about thirty hours or so to play a three-nighter at the CVI. Apparently, Mikey had already told me about this. Apparently, I forgot. So it's off we go, and I do mean "we." Joy wants to go, fairly guilt-tripped me into allowing it. Last time we went she fell off a toilet seat in Sandy. But I'm not letting that happen this time around. And the pain shouldn't be so bad for her this trip, now that she has a medical-grade TENS unit for the trip (Big ups to our friends at E-Z Pawn in Port Angeles - they had three of them on sale for $150 a piece - a real bargain). And I got my satellite-radio unit turned back on for the trip.

Chaos is not a theory, my friends. It is a fact. And to be totally honest, I probably enjoy chaos. I guess that when the shit hits the fan, that's when I finally get off my ass and get shit done. Well, wish me luck getting there - my heater core sprung a leak over the weekend, and I hope the leak-sealer I poured in holds.

Later, taters!

I Know Jack Squat

2011-05-28T00:57:00.000-07:00

Seriously.

I Feel Like..... Branching Out

2011-05-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

I've talked to you about my life and the events therein, but everything to date has all in the same little narrow-ass spectrum of music. I do know so much more about so many other things - or so I'd like you to think. So while I'll continue to post about my musical adventures here, I think I'll come up with a second blog about my other interests. Sports, news, politics, cooking, anything that I've been able to wrap my mind around over the course of my years. I'll give you an update when I've come up with a name and address.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

2011-05-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

You know you're a lousy blogger when it seems that half your posts start with 'sorry I've been away so long.'

The thing that sucks the most about being a working musician is the waiting. Waiting to find out about gigs, waiting to leave for them, waiting to set up, waiting to play, waiting to tear down, waiting to leave from them. Well, I'm just waiting, period. My life has been caught in some hellish sort of limbo as of late, but let me catch you up on things.

Drugs and Slugs

When last I left you, I was mulling over the idea of drug testing the members of Dirty Joe over allegations of methamphetamine use. I eventually worked up the nerve to confront Ron and Roger over it, and they were surprisingly up-front about their drug-use histories, and confronting the rumors that have been dogging them. I proposed purchasing testing kits and having the guys test themselves on-camera with the results going on this blog for all to see. That way, my concurring course of action would be completely justified - either quitting the band, or looking for the rumor-spreaders and dealing with them (you two consider yourselves marked). I also declared the band to be an official Sam Stevens-free zone, and Ron and Roger really appreciated that idea. Nobody wants to deal with his shit. Things got even weirder when Joy bumped into the person who sparked the rumor at Wal-Mart - a daughter of her former boss at the Port Angeles DOT who'd dated Ron, then the drummer in the band at the time - who openly admitted to starting the rumor after her boyfriend got axed. I asked Joy why she didn't slap the shit out of the bitch right then and there, and where was she so I could do the job myself. Joy took the higher road and fairly dragged out of the store with her scooter.

We practiced that following Sunday, but I haven't heard from them since. It seems that Roger's parents have moved to the Peninsula from Hawai'i (why?), and we'd have to suspend practice while they stayed with him as they looked to move into their own place. It's been two weeks since, and I'm beginning to get a little nervous. Some people like taking their own sweet time getting things done. I'm not one of those people.

Because of this, I'm continuing to court the services of Jenn Smith for a band of my own, and Joy and I are budgeting some of her eventual SS/D back payment towards the purchase of a PA system. Thank the Maker for Carvin (www.carvin.com). Love their stuff, and I can get good systems from them directly and dirt-cheap. Joy wanted to budget US$5,000 for a system, and after checking the Carvin website, I told her that we could get PA and monitors from them, and have enough left over for an old van to schlep it around in.

And Then There Were Three

Things haven't been much better for Steppen Stonz. We were scheduled to play The Nugget in Sparks over Memorial Day weekend, but we suddenly found that gig cancelled, and our upcoming gig there for Hot August Nights in question. A quick check of their cabaret schedule found the slate packed with country and rock bands. Mikey isn't sure who could've done this, especially after all the good vibes the Ascuaga family gave us personally while we were there last. I have a suspect. Let's just leave it at that.

And because of the lack of gigs, we've lost Cliff. He just couldn't survive the waiting, and went and got himself a real job. I knew it was coming months ago, and now I'm in Cliff's place of hanging on by my fingernails, waiting for that next gig. Mikey told me that he can be replaced, will be replaced. But I could hear the worry in his voice when he told me about what was going on. I told him who my suspect was - we both know him, and he told me not to make such rash statements. I told him nothing else fits, and that this was the modus operandi of my suspect - I knew of others that have had the exact same thing happen to them, and that they had come to the same conclusion. I just hope I didn't make him any more depressed than he probably already is.

Right now I'm in pure survival mode, looking for temp and part-time jobs just to get some money, any money in my pockets. I just hope I can hold on long enough to get to the next gig. I guess Tom Petty was right - the waiting is the hardest part.

.....And It Gets Worse

2011-04-10T20:51:00.000-07:00

Well, the gig went well enough. But none of it matters any longer, because I have bigger fish to fry. Two of them to be exact. The first one came out when Sam Stevens' wife let it slip to Joy that Roger and Ron were only letting me think that I ran the band, and that they'd be hiring Sam to take over the group. This could just be Sam trying to rattle our cages, but it does fit in with his general egomania. And it could also just be a ploy to get me to quit. Which might succeed because I have no desire to work with Sam on a full-time basis whatsoever. But the second problem is far, far worse.

It started innocuously enough, when one of the guys I'd offered an audition to came up to me and told me that he wouldn't be able to take up the offer. Why? Because for one, he was probably going to be leaving town soon. The other reason was far worse. His exact words:

"Joe, people have been telling me to avoid Dirty Joe because they're a meth band."

What the fuck? I don't use drugs at all, and I never have and never will! The rest of the guys smoke weed - and I have no problem with that - but methamphetamine is a whole other kettle of fish, and one that I want nothing to do with. I may not have the greatest rep in the world, but I've worked hard, done what's required of me, and most importantly did it all stone cold sober. And that's not as in "I used to do drugs, but now I'm sober," it's as in "I never started, and I'm not about to start!" Asking a few questions around a few people who knew the guys got - for the most part - the same, rather startling response:

"I thought you knew."

After dropping off John at his place in Carlsborg, the drive home was pretty much silent. And not just because Joy had made arrangements to get another ride home so I could get John back to Carlsborg. She was just as upset as I was when I told her the news. We're already making plans to start our own band once her SSD money comes in, but I have to confront Roger and Ron on this, and soon. I want to give them the chance to come clean, admit to using meth and offer to stop using to save the group. But I have my suspicions that they won't come clean. And I have to get up to Roger's place soon anyway.

I still have a few things of mine up there, so I better go get them if I'm going to bail out on them.

Dredging Up Bad Memories

2011-04-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from my last run to Nevada for a while, so now I can turn my full attention to Dirty Joe. And I'm glad that trip is over. What I'd originally planned to be a nice trip with Joy to play and publicly celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary turned into a minor nightmare, almost before it really started.

Y'see, after a Monday trip to Seattle to take Joy to the University of Washington's Medical Center about her thyroid problems (which turned out to be almost a total waste of everyone's time), we headed south to stay with her mother in Tacoma before actually starting the trip to the CVI in Minden. On the way south we stopped in Sandy, just east of Portland, to fill the gas tank and refill my giant mug o' Coke. So while the pump chump filled the tank, I went inside with my mug while Joy excused herself to the ladies' room. And that's where all hell broke loose. Unbeknownst to us, the toilet in the ladies' room at the Mt. Hood Arco was broken - well, usable but unstable, to more precise. And when Joy sat down upon it, it lurched to one side and sent Joy to the ground, wrenching her back and leaving her bumped, bruised, contused and confused while by now I'd returned to the truck wondering what the hell was taking her so long. She flagged down the pump chump and told her what happened, and he told her to tell the clerk inside. When she did so, the clerk told her that they knew that the toilet was broken - and chose not to post any warning! She finally struggled back to the truck and told me what was going on, even saying that she'd tried to get my attention, but I'd never seen her behind me, with all the stuff in the back of the truck blocking my view. She concluded by stating that we needed to get her to a hospital because she was in a great deal of pain.

So began a very long night of driving back to Washington, where the nice folks at Vancouver's Southwest Washington Medical Center took good care of her, followed by driving all night to get to Bend, where we stayed at our niece Megan's place. Another day of driving got us to Minden, and while the gig itself went smoothly enough, Joy was scarcely present, spending most of the time in bed in pain while deciding what to do about legal action against Mt. Hood Arco. We're in the opening stages of hiring a lawyer to sue Mt. Hood Arco to recover the medical expenses, and for damages caused by their negligence and incompetence. And as part and parcel of that, I encourage all you loyal readers out there to boycott Mt. Hood Arco until they are brought to justice for their crime. The irony is that the place is temporarily closed while new gasoline tanks are installed. But in my world, boycotts are forever. I won't go there ever again, and neither should you.

On to happier news. Sort of.

On the way home from Minden, I got a call from Roger. It turns out that they've hired a temporary lead singer for our gig coming up this Friday, and wanted me to either confirm or veto their decision. And who is our singer-for-a-night? A guy we all know and don't really love named Sam Stevens. The guys played with him in a previous incarnation of DJ, back when it was called Thin Ice. I played with him further back, in a band originally called Rooster, then In Ten City. He's a good player, and does perhaps the best Bon Scott impersonation that I've ever heard. Problem is, he's got quite an ego, thinks he knows better than you, and usually isn't afraid to tell you so. Plus, he owes us money for a PA system he bought from us and never finished paying us for. Nobody in the group really likes him all that much, but he supposedly just showed up Sunday at Roger's place and jammed with the guys, and they liked it enough to ask him to sit in with us Friday night, and only afterwards did they decide to inform me of this.

While I can see the positives of this, as well as that this is only a one-night-only thing, I'm still pissed off that the guys went behind my back and did this with out my initial consent. I am in charge of this band supposedly, so I think I should have been informed of this a whole fuck of a lot sooner. But it's only one night, what's it gonna hurt?

But something is still gnawing at me. John and I have been talking a lot lately, mostly because I have to drive him from Roger's place down to the Transit Center in downtown PA so he can take the bus home to Carlsborg. He's just as frustrated with Roger and Ron as I am, upset that they won't learn new material, won't even bother to try to learn anything new to them no matter how simple it was - even Ramones songs look like Chinese algebra to them. John has all but invited me to join his original side-project, and band he describes as a cross between Rush and Megadeth. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested, but I'm really just a cover-band guy. Joy would say that I limit myself, saying something like that, but I've known my limitations for a long time now. I know what I'm capable of, and what I'm not so good at. But I look at this band, and I see a band that says that they want to go places, but doesn't really have the desire to actually put the work into it. And while I know that having an absentee drummer/bandleader doesn't help, you'd think that if they wanted to go out and learn new material and break out of playing one night a month at some bar, they'd actually put some effort into bettering themselves instead of kissing the bong, dreaming about entering talent contests, and otherwise talking a good game and not backing it up with actions.

I'm a frustrated man right about now. But I won't let it get to me. I have a gig on Friday, and I'm a professional, goddammit. So come on down to RBar (132 E. Front Street, Port Angeles, WA) this Friday night and see if I can hold myself together for the night, let alone four other guys onstage and a crowd down below. I think I'll manage. After all, I have a saying:

"I don't need therapy to work out my problems. That's what my drums are for."

And..... The Anticlimax

2011-03-27T13:07:00.001-07:00

After how worked up I was over what was supposed to go down today, to behonest I was relieved when Roger called me about an hour ago to inform me that John wouldn't be able to practice today. So after calling Britton, texting Jenn, and putting Pete in the dustbin of history, now I can focus on getting my shit together for the trip to Minden. I'm actually pretty happy right now.

And Apparently....

2011-03-27T03:48:00.000-07:00

......Blogger has forgotten how to make a paragraph.......

I'm A Little Nervous Right Now......

2011-03-27T03:06:00.000-07:00

Because I have at least two or three auditions set up for Sunday afternoon, but only the last of them matters to me. A guy named Pete is supposed to be coming in today, and he used to sing with the guys when they were playing under another name. But he's already blown off one audition, and there's no guarantee that he'll show in about thirteen hours or so.

Next up is a guy named Britton. I've heard him at karaoke shows around town, a good singer, but perhaps a bit limited in terms of vocal range - more of a baritone than a tenor. Of the three, he might actually be the easiest to fit into the band, because he seems like a pretty relaxed dude to me. But I have been proven wrong far too often to take a first impression as gospel.

But those guys are just the appetizer. Jenn will come in last tonight, around 7pm or so. And this is why I'm nervous. It turns out that Roger and Ron have had a CD of material she wanted to sing for some time, and haven't done a damn thing with it. Come to think of it, sounds familiar.... as in they haven't done a goddamned thing with the CD I gave them. I tried to run them through a few songs from it, and results were not up to snuff. The only song that we could even get through was Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition', and that took some work. Trying to get them to learn Journey's 'Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)' was like pulling teeth while herding cats. John was getting things rather easily, but Roger and Ron couldn't figure out anything, and then when John and I taught them their parts, they forgot them almost immediately. What I found amazing was that they'd never, ever, played 'Mony Mony' in their lives. How hard is that?

Of the fourteen songs on the CD she'd given them, I'd played ten of them in one band or another, and only one of the four I would've considered a song that I'd actually need to practice - another Journey song, 'Don't Stop Believin''. All the time, I'm thinking to myself, what the hell have I got myself into? I just hope that Ron and Roger don't fuck things up too badly when Jenn shows up. If she walks, I won't be able to forgive them for half-assing this. They're the ones that told me that they want to move up from playing one or two nights a month at one bar or another and go out onto the tribal-casino circuit. They gave me control of the group to get them to that point, and I don't think they really understand what it will take from them to actually accomplish that goal. Well, they'll know in about seventeen hours or so.

Thankfully, after Sunday I can take a break - sort of. The UW Medical Center called us Thursday and told us that the appointment Joy would have with their Endocrinology department could be moved to Monday from an original date in early May. And after a quick phone call to ParaTransit, they'll cover gas (a full tank for my pickup!) for the trip, and reimburse me for the cost of taking the ferry over from Bainbridge Island to the Colman Dock in downtown Seattle. From UWMC it's a short distance but a long drive (gotta love rush-hour) to Joy's mother's house in Tacoma. From there we can start our trip to Minden, and enjoy the company of our friends and family in Nevada while I'm gigging at the Carson Valley Inn, and doing so over our anniversary. For once, I'm beginning to think that Monday can't come fast enough......

Auditions and Transitions

2011-03-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

Well dear reader, back for more of my tales of musical meh? Okay, I shouldn't act like I don't care about what I do - it is my livelihood after all. But sometimes it gets a little...... tedious. But juggling two bands and two schedules, all while caring for an ailing wife, can be a pretty impressive feat of prestidigitation.

So where do I begin? Well, Steppen Stonz is struggling along, trying to find more and longer gigs to make it worth the expense of driving to Northern Nevada. But while Mike and Arthur's drives up from Las Vegas are no picnic, my travel expenses are more than theirs combined. But our good and noble steed of an agent, Stew Stewart (enough ass-kissing?), is turning stuff up for us. My last run down consisted of playing two nights midweek at the Nugget in Sparks for a dairy cattleman's convention - and the first night just happened to land on Mardi Gras. But the cattlemen didn't seem all that interested, and the hotel had no actual Mardi Gras event planned. But we still went out onstage and did our best.

That was followed by seven days off. And with not enough money to be able to drive home and back, I wound up staying in Carson City with my friends Jeremy and Alison, going to an Idekay show only a few blocks away from the Nugget with Jeremy (it's his band, after all) while pulling out some of my best recipes in the kitchen for Ali. And they'd just moved into a condo on the east side of Carson City, and actually had a guest room available for yours truly to hibernate in. Not a bad week off at all by my standards.

After that came another three nights at the Nugget, a standard Thursday/Friday/Saturday run that coincided with St. Patrick's Day, which also happened to be the birthday of the casino itself. And while we've had pleasant interactions in the past with Stephen Ascuaga, the owner's son, this time around we got to meet and greet all three Ascuagas - Stephen, Michonne, and old John Ascuaga himself. While he's getting up there in years, nothing gets past him. Seriously. He's a nice old fella, but I'm sure he'd have me wearing my balls for a bowtie if I crossed him. We talked with them backstage at the ceremony commemorating the Nugget's 56th birthday, and they were quite effusive in their praise for us both privately and on the mic for the crowd gathered in the cabaret for the birthday party itself. And it kicked off a pretty good weekend for us, with good crowds all three nights and virtually no glitches of any kind - aside from having to do an encore without my headphones because I'd accidentally pulled out the headphone cord from its socket while getting back onto my throne, and I had no time to plug them back in.

But all that has pretty much paled in comparison with what's been going on at home. I only have about a week in Port Angeles before I have to return to Nevada, this time for a three-nighter at the CVI in Minden, and this time with Joy to celebrate our 17th anniversary. Dirty Joe needs work, and I've been trying to arrange auditions for our lead-singer position, as I've mentioned previously. Well, I now have four interested candidates. I've already auditioned one, a Filipina from Sequim who's played in many of the same places I have in Nevada, though she may not be all that compatible with my guys. A karaoke buddy of mine has expressed interest in the gig, and a singer from a previous incarnation from the band as also thrown his hat into the ring. But they're all over shadowed by another karaoke friend of mine, with talent of phenomenal proportions, and nothing to hold her back. Jenn is so very talented, even with a cold her voice puts most others to shame. Ron and Roger have pursued her for some time, and she actually did sing with them for a few months, but she found their lack of professionalism and drive to be a bit disturbing back then. I was able to sit down with her at karaoke last night at the Coo Coo's Nest, and told her that I was pushing them a lot harder, and making them a more professional unit. I went to the mat to convince her to give them another chance. And talking to her and getting to know her, I came to the realization that she's too damn good for this town. She wants to sing, but doesn't want to be famous. She wants to sing in a cover band, and play the kind of gigs that I play. And while she has a healthy-enough ego regarding her ability (as well she should), her desire to pursue the same career path I chose and to avoid stardom showed her to have really not that much of an ego after all. Listening to her, I could clearly hear some of my favorite ladies on the Reno circuit in her words, good friends like Tracy Bing and Tina Fink. And I told her so. I actually told her that she needed to get off the Peninsula and come with me to Reno - or just get her own ass there herself. She's got the talent - the voice, the personality, the ability to engage the crowd - I just hope my minions will change their ways enough to make her want to actually work with us, though I told her that if they pissed her off to the point of bailing on us, that I might just go with her.

Yeah. She's that talented, folks.

But Roger, Ron, and John (Tom is out of the band for the foreseeable future due to health concerns - but we'll keep his seat open for him to come back whenever he's right) agreed to work more and kiss the bong less, and apply themselves to music more suited to Jenn's powerhouse voice. And if she sticks around, I'll finally have the three-part harmonies I've been wanting ever since I joined the band, plus a true lead singer who can peel the paint off the walls with her voice. And if it doesn't work out? Well then, I might have a passenger on a future trip to Reno......

We shall see, my friends.....

What's Old Is New Again

2011-02-27T02:03:00.000-08:00

Remember that gig I thought I had coming up in my last post? Never happened. It turns out that the bar we were supposed to be playing was having problems. Or at least that's what I was told. They weren't alone. Remember that new drummer I was talking about? He's out, too - showing up for practice 90 minutes late - twice - and not responding to our phone calls is generally grounds for a rapid dismissal. But as usual, there's more to it than that. And because of that, I'm going back behind my drums again.

Y'see, while ol' Phife wasn't the best drummer in the world, let alone the best person, he could sing fairly well. And with his departure, there was no one left in the band to sing backing vocals behind me. And then Roger strays from the CD of new songs I wanted the band to learn and starts noodling his way through a handful of Styx songs. I advised him that we could only tackle material like that with not one singer, but three - and I didn't see anyone else stepping up to the mic. And with the new drummer not panning out, I made the decision to go from being merely a singer to being a singing drummer again, and hire a new lead vocalist.

And on top of all this, our bassist was ailing as well. I won't go into details about - it ain't pretty folks, that's all I'll say - but he was unable to play. And while we were able to drum up a replacement for Tom, this guy wasn't going to be available full-time due to family. And he also had issues with the new drummer, so it behooved me even more to get back behind the kit. But Tom's health is improving, but how much so is still somewhat of a mystery to me. So for the moment, we have two bass players, with Tom playing on the weekends, and the backup coming in to rehearse during the week.

So we got together last night for my first rehearsal as drummer/vocalist, and it went remarkably well, though getting there was quite a challenge. With the recent snowstorm, the roads can be a bit...... dicey. And Roger's place isn't on a paved road. I picked up John (the backup bassist) at the Transit Center in downtown PA and headed up to Roger's place, only to find that not only was the road impassable, but Roger and Ron weren't even there - helping a friend move at the last minute, apparently. They showed up soon enough though, and we got on to business. None of them had ever really heard me play before, and well....... let's just say they were happily surprised. At one point Ron actually got down on all fours and bowed to me. I guess their drummers had been of rather inconsistent quality as of late.

It felt good to just rock out, I must say. This was more the style of drumming I had back when I first started gigging around PA 15 or so years ago, made all the more better by years of experience and understanding. But now I've wound up leading them into an even bigger pickle - who do they call to replace me when I'm out of town? I don't even want to know any more.

And a quick side note for you. My Carson City homegirl Jazmyn posted to her Facebook page about going to see the Stonz. I almost had a heart attack thinking 'did they fire me without even bothering to tell me?' before I remembered that they were playing at the Atlantis. So I'd assume that Alan Zukor is keeping my seat warm for me until the next good gig comes along. Whenever that will be. I'm starting to get a little worried.....

Breathe Joe, breathe. Just be patient.......

Minden Your Business

2011-02-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

I deeply apologize for not having posted for so long. I must do better. Now where was I?

When last I left you, I was looking at the possibility of losing my gig with Steppen Stonz due to a lack of work. My new band, Dirty Joe, had just played our first gig to a crowd of about thirty or so at a local artist's studio. So what's been happening lately? Well, a three-day run at the Nugget in Sparks was nice, but barely able to pay for the gas to get there and back. But it led to some good news - we'd gotten a four-night gig at the Carson Valley Inn in Minden, about 10 miles south of Carson City, over the Super Bowl weekend now just past. This was a chance to showcase Steppen Stonz to a new audience and a new management, so we needed to be on our best behavior for the gig.

It'd been a while since I'd been there last, and even longer since I'd last played there. I played there two or three times with Powerlight, the last time being in '03 or '04. I used to go there five nights a week as a part of my courier route, but that was just to duck in and out as quickly as possible. Since Joy and I had left Reno, Carson Valley Inn had been sold to the family that owns the Eldorado in Reno, but I guess they'd sold CVI (and the smaller Bodine's Casino in Carson City) to another guy, who we were briefly introduced to after we'd set up - he was busy fiddling with a lighting fixture. I saw that as a good sign - a guy who's hands-on with the businesses he owns is always a good thing, win or lose. Our agent had talked us up to the CVI pretty good, saying that we'd likely become their number-one band once they hired us. I'd like to think we delivered on his promise, but more on that later.

As usual, we started filtering into the CVI the night before the gig started, or the day before in my case. Due to the Inn itself being booked solid for the weekend, we were farmed out to rooms at CVI's nearby motor-lodge a few hundred yards away, with their RV resort and mini-mart in between. Upon checking in it was plainly obvious that the new regime was pouring a lot of money into refurbishing the place - the old cabaret above and behind a bar (similar to cabarets at the Atlantis, Peppermill, and Carson Station) was gone, replace with a stage just a few inches above a small dancefloor, with the bar now off to the stage-left. Rooms in the inn and motor-lodge were refurbished as well, and the smell of paint and carpet glue was strong enough to suggest that the refurbishing was done quite recently. I was glad Joy wasn't with me - those fumes would've put her in the hospital.

I'd pulled an all-nighter to get to Minden, leaving directly from a Dirty Joe practice that actually became a scouting trip for a new drummer in Sequim to drive straight through to Minden, so the extra-comfy bed was a godsend. After a nap, I wandered over to the Inn to see my homegirl Tina Fink play with her band's new gig, doing live-band karaoke. They've managed to work it into a pretty stable set of one-nighters during the week while still playing standard cabaret shows on the weekends. After they finished their show and cleared out, I set my kit up so that I wouldn't waste the Stonz' time the next morning when they'd set up. Our agent actually gave us a pep-talk after we set up, and assured us that we'd get good crowds that weekend because of the Super Bowl while telling us how he'd sung our praises to the CVI brass. So we were pretty optimistic heading into the first show on Thursday night.

That optimism didn't last for very long, though. We played to a pretty empty house that first night, with only a few regulars from Carson there to support us. We did our best to shrug it off and figured that the real fun would start the next night. For once our predictions came true, and the next three nights were played to full houses, all night long. Even including Sunday, after the game was over. And boy were those people enthusiastic. I don't think I've ever played to such a lively crowd in Nevada. All our friends from Carson, Dayton, and Lake Tahoe came to visit at least once. We were getting a good crowd to work with, and we hit it for all we were worth. In my honest opinion, I think that this may have been the best set of shows we've done since I joined the Stonz. No problems, no bugaboos, no brainfarts. Even with a cold wrecking my voice, I was putting out as good an effort as I could manage. Our agent was there for a little while each night, and I think even he was impressed. He even jumped onstage a few times to sing along with us.

And the staff at CVI were so good to us. When I checked in, I'd found that there was a slight miscalculation on somebody's part, and that we weren't scheduled to check in until the next night. They fixed that error quickly enough though, and Mike and Arthur checked in a few hours after I did. We were given access to the employee cafeteria for a meal a day (bonus!), and treated well by the staff in general. It even turned out that a few CVI employees had seen us play before, presumably up in Carson, and were quite happy to have us playing on their home turf.

And that positive vibe was a welcome change. Y'see, in the past CVI didn't have all that good of a reputation with the bands because some of their employees seemed a little, well........ obsessed with enforcing noise-limit rules on the bands. They'd wave around sound meters and threaten bands with firing for being even the slightest bit over the 85-decibel limit that federal regulations demanded, and do other things to embarass and humiliate bands. But all of that was gone now. But while we still had to keep things somewhat quiet (having my drums muffled and triggered certainly helped), there would be no hassles from anyone, as any issues would be solved quietly and quickly, lest a quick phone call to our agent would be placed to chew out the offending party.

But negativity was nowhere to be found. In so many words, things went great. We killed it. Knocked it out of the park. We received nothing but praise from all sides. I even got a $50 bonus, which certainly helped pay for gas getting home. We figure that it's only a matter of time before we're working there steadily, filling the void left by the Station's cancellation. Even a few Station employees showed up, telling us they were convinced the place would be going under any minute now, while other friends of ours claimed that the place had been sold to new owners, and that we'd be back onstage there within a few months. That would be nice, I'll admit. Playing two-week gigs in Carson and Minden would be awesome, and certainly help boost my bottom line. But I'll take what I can get for the time being.

And now that I'm back in Port Angeles, I have to put on my lead-singer hat and front Dirty Joe for its first serious gig this weekend. I'm looking forward to putting these guys through their paces, and seeing how Port Angeles accepts me as a singer instead of a drummer. With a new drummer in tow, we've got one rehearsal before Friday comes. So let's hope for the best, okay?

Happy thoughts, people!

Closings, Openings, And Sides, or "Where Has Joe Been For The Last Six Weeks?"

2011-01-09T02:24:00.000-08:00

Well, as usual, it's been kinda weird. Is anything ever normal with me?

Let's start off with the beginning, of course. I started off December in Sparks, playing at John Ascuaga's Nugget. For a nice surprise, we were given rooms in the Nugget's West Tower instead of the neighboring Courtyard hotel. My ninth-floor room had a panoramic view of Reno, Sparks and the Sierras. I also found out that I could get free wi-fi at the Starbucks in the hotel, but the original blog post I'd written in my hotel room wouldn't copy-and-paste from MS Word onto this blog, and I didn't have enough battery life on the laptop to just transcribe it, so it's still languishing on the laptop's hard drive, likely never to be seen by the public - all two of you. It was a good enough gig, though the particular acoustics of the room were bothering Mikey to the point that I offered to muffle and trigger my drums in order to help lower the noise level onstage. He said that'd help. So I'll be muffled and triggering when I play there again next week.

After playing The Nugget for the weekend, I had a week to kill before settling for another two weeks at the Carson Station, so I drove up to Carson and stayed with my friends Jazmyn (Jazzy) and Sara. Jazzy's mother Michelle was also staying there, and her little brother joined the party in time for the holidays as well. It was a bit cramped, with four adults (later five) and two small children sharing a two-bedroom apartment, but I handled it well. I couch-surfed, and slept on Michelle's air-mattress when Jazzy and her boys went to California to pick up her brother - Michelle took her daughter's room for herself. I had no real problem with that. I cooked for them, made my famous pot-roast for the whole crew, and my tater-tot casserole for Michelle and Sara while Jazzy was away (Sara called it 'the perfect stoner food'), endured the lack of internet access and even the lack of TV. I bought a hard drive for my Xbox 360, read my books, and bided my time, and did my best to be of as little inconvenience to everyone as I could.

And the Station was a welcome relief, with comfortable beds (though I found it quite odd that I didn't sleep all that well while I was there, compared to the week before and it's air-mattress and lumpy couch), cable-TV and free internet access. The first week of the gig went well enough, learning new material to slot into our show, and playing to happy - no, grateful - audiences.

Then everything pretty much went to hell.

The night before we started our second week, Mikey stopped rehearsal to tell us all something - that this week would be our last. Why? Because The Station was cancelling all live entertainment after the New Year.

Oh, shit.

No official reason was given as to why, and in the absence of such, rumors abounded. There was talk to the positive side, that new owners would be coming in and sprucing up the place before bringing live music back. The more cynical side of my nature listened more carefully to rumors saying that it was only a matter of time that cost-cutting measures would be of no more help, and The Station would close its doors for good shortly. No matter what, we did our best to put on a brave face, and accept the decision as gracefully and humbly as possible. Our fans were not as inclined to follow in our footsteps, however. During an exceptionally busy New Year's Eve, I was pulled aside by a fan of ours (who shall remain nameless) who told us that they'd established a petition with over a hundred names on it, all agreeing to boycott The Station until live entertainment was re-established.

Author's Note: While the name of this blog is "Musicians Boycott!", I hereby declare that in no way whatsoever did I or any of my bandmates have anything to do with this petition. To be completely honest, I never even saw the thing, so I still question whether such a petition ever actually existed.....

Though if it did, it was almost immediately effective. The next night we were informed by The Station that what they'd actually been planning was just a temporary closure, that things would be redone, the stage itself possibly remodeled in the interval, and live music would return in a few months' time when business picked up again. I could live with that decision, even if it meant taking a few months off. Now if only another gig would turn up.....

That took all of about three days. After coming home on Monday night, the following Wednesday, Joy and I were just curling up for a night of My Big Fat Greek Wedding on DVD when I got a phone call from a guy I'd been hearing from on-and-off for several months. He'd been looking for a drummer and vocalist when I saw his ad at the Albertson's supermarket just down the street from my mother's house in April, and I've been playing phone tag with him pretty much ever since. Well, this phone call at 11:30 at night was about an audition - right there and then, and as just a frontman this time. I figured "why the hell not?" and got us both out of bed to go take this audition on. An hour-and-a-half later, I was the new lead singer of a band called.......

.....wait for it.....

Dirty Joe.

According to Roger and Ron, the band's two guitarists, the name was taken from the movie Joe Dirt, and they'd been playing under this name for some time now. To be honest, I have seen the name before in the Thursday entertainment section of the local paper, but that's quite a coincidence there. But after that audition and one practice, there I was, fronting a band that was supremely grateful to have me - even going so far as to actually listen to my suggestions in rehearsal, try them, and like them! - for a well-known local monthly party at a warehouse on the western edge of downtown Port Angeles.

It was quite a difference, compared to playing with Steppen Stonz, or Powerlight, or even with Rick and Dana Cowen's band Kick. Live music, no sequences, no bullshit. Just a singer, two guitarists (though Roger also plays keyboards), a bassist and a drummer. The drummer, an old friend of mine named Rob Phifer, handles backing vocals as well, though that's going to change soon - we need more than that. It's not that I want stacked three- or four-part harmonies at all times, but I know from experience that drumming and singing at the same time takes a lot out of a body, so Rob could use some help from the other guys in the band. The music itself - hard-rock standards from the 60's, 70's and 80's - is easy enough in itself for me to learn. Hell, I've played nearly all of those songs at one time or another in my career, and sang several of them as well. The catch is that I've only sang them from the drummer's chair. I'd never fronted a band before.

Ever.

Was I nervous? Fuck yeah! But I've seen enough bar bands to know all the moves frontmen make. In simpler terms, I acted like a fucking maniac onstage, and sang my ass off for the length of the show. Afterwards, I was congratulated for my performance by my new bandmates and generally showered with praise. Mission fucking accomplished. So what do I make of this? Where does this go from here? Where do I go from here? Which band do you think I'm going to choose?

Why make me choose? Right now, this new band is something I can't take terribly seriously. I just can't. It's too fun right now. The work will come later, that's for sure. But they're bascially giving me the keys to the car in this band, and asking me for suggestions as to what material I want to bring into the group. I hope they're ready to learn 311's version of The Cure's Love Song, or Down's Ghosts Along The Mississippi, for starters. I'll come up with a list of songs in the next few days, and burn a CD for them to listen to while I'm gone next week.

And that's because I ain't leaving Steppen Stonz. Things are difficult for them right now, and they don't need things to be made worse by me bailing on them. They took the chance on me, after all. I think that they'll only be out of work for a little while, and then they'll be back with a vengeance. So why would I leave them when I'm convinced that while things suck now, they'll get better and better soon?

So I'll do both bands for the time being. I have my concerns about Dirty Joe, and those will only be answered with time. Mike and Arthur have weathered far worse times than this, so I know that they'll still be around. I think Mike and Arthur would be tickled to know that I'm a lead singer now myself. They'd probably laugh at my act, but not out of spite - I hope. But even if they did, I don't think I'd care that much. I have a saying, after all:

"I don't care if you're laughing with me or at me, so long as I've made you laugh."

Mission..... Accomplished?

2010-11-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

I recently came across a picture that sent me into full-on hindsight mode. I wasn't in it, but an old friend of mine was. His name is Zach Barnhart, and it was a pic of him and another guy I knew from my lost year at Washington State University, Brian Akesson, playing in the drumline of WSU (pronounced as 'wazoo' by Washingtonians and others in the know) marching band. It got me to thinking about that year of my life, what went wrong with it, and what may have actually gone right in the long run.

I'd always known that I'd wanted to go to college. I was far too smart (and smartassed) for a blue-collar existence in Port Angeles, working in a mill, or somebody's shop, and I knew it. But my grades in high school were never good enough because I just didn't give a fuck about class. I was only interested in hiding from bullies and indifferent teachers. Only my final semester of my senior year did I have grades that actually mirrored what everyone but myself thought was capable of. So I knew that going to the University of Washington (U-Dub) or Wazoo was out of the question. Even the smaller state schools like Central or Eastern Washington were beyond my reach. So I applied for Pell Grants and signed on to get my Associates Degree up at Peninsula College instead. I actually enjoyed studying there, because I was among people that were actually there to study instead of enjoy the social cliques of high school that I had always been denied access to. I sang in choir, played dixieland jazz with my music instructor's band, wrote for the college's newspaper, even managed to find a girlfriend or two - sort of. It was a pretty good time for me, and being turned down for university after earning my Associates degree wasn't a total bummer for me - I just took a third year at PC, knocking out some courses that I'd probably need further down the line, and waited for an opening to come my way.

I'd told people that I'd wanted a degree in Music Education, because the only teachers that ever gave a shit about me (in my opinion) were my music teachers, and I wanted to go into that field if only to be able to reach someone like myself somewhere down the road and help them find their way in the world. In hindsight, I know now that I was fooling myself. I just wanted to play, that was all. But I'd lost that urge I'd had in marching band to practice relentlessly, and what skills I had then eroded away after three years at PC. But after my third year, my prospects were still kind of cloudy. By university standards my grade-point average, just a hair below honor-roll level, weren't great. But Central Washington University in Ellensburg was willing to take me on in the winter semester, which meant a six-month wait which could possibly dampen any enthusiasm I'd had to go. Then during the summer I was accepted at WSU, albeit with no real chance at getting any financial aid, because their entire allotment for the year had already been distributed. And my while my parents were barely scraping along, they made too much money for me to qualify for financial assistance set aside for kids from low-income households. But a hastily arranged bank loan got me on the bus to Pullman, just about as far away from Port Angeles as you could be and still be in the state of Washington. How was I to know that this was about as good as it was going to get?

I'd already been to Pullman, though. After my loan was secured, my dad and I took a weekend road trip to get a lay of the land, so I knew the place reasonably well. But that long bus trip was a nightmare. It almost didn't even start. Already in my seat on the bus waiting to leave the Greyhound terminal in Seattle, I was just beginning to get angry about the bus being delayed when I saw police in bomb-squad gear approach the bus' cargo hold, and pull out my luggage box! I practically had to throw the bus driver aside to ask the cops what was going on - they asked me if I'd put a bomb in my box! A porter got nervous when somehow the little boombox in my box got turned on, and called the cops. I told them there was no bomb in my luggage, that I had no interest in going in getting it to turn it off, and since the batteries were rechargeable, did it matter? Let's get the fuck outta here! This delay made us nearly two hours late into Spokane, where I missed my connection to Pullman, and the last bus of the night got me there after the student dormitories had closed for the night. I wound up having to share the last available hotel room in Pullman with a guy I'd never seen before in my life, a student from Ohio who was similarly unable to get into the dorms.

My educational status was pretty odd there. Since I was a transfer from a community college with an Associates Degree, I was considered a Junior. But others in the university's bureaucracy considered me a Senior because of having three years' worth of transferable college credits. But despite my diligent effort at closing any gaps that I might have had in my portfolio, I still had to take sophomore- and even freshman-level classes! That entire year, if anyone asked me what grade I was, I told them 'all of the above'! And the other percussion students I was dealing with were far more talented than I was. My instructor there, a good man by the name of David Jarvis (he's still there at WSU - go look him up), I think I was pretty much a remedial student by his standards. And in retrospect, I wouldn't blame him for feeling that way. I just wasn't up to it. And as the year went on, I came to the realization that my heart wasn't into it. I've always told people that I ran out of everything while I was there - time, money, energy. I need to add enthusiasm to that as well. I had so much on my plate between classes, rehearsals, a part-time job slinging pizza for the local Domino's, and then I discovered that my dorm (Orton Hall) had a radio station within its innards. And since it wasn't a broadcast station (cable-radio?), it was exempt from FCC regulations. I took to it like a duck to water, managing the station under the oversight of my resident-advisor from my dorm's floor, setting up a schedule, and personally running six hours of programming a week - albeit that was just me playing stuff out of my tape collection and talking shit with my friends.

As a result, my grades suffered, I was placed on 'academic probation', and my managership at the radio station was taken away from me. The station's operation was awarded to another RA, but he couldn't be bothered to do anything - once during a meeting, his girlfriend (who had nothing to do with the station) suggested that I just go to another station, and I basically had to put both of them in their place rather abruptly. I ran the radio station for the remainder of the year, and played the weekly delivery of records (!) that played Dr. Demento and America's Top 40 in addition to my regular shifts. By mid-April of that year, I think that was when I came to the realization that I wouldn't be coming back the next year. I wanted so badly to just quit right there and then, but I had to try to keep up the illusion to my parents that I was trying hard and doing my best when in reality I just didn't give a fuck any more.

I still went to classes, still took notes, still answered questions, but I knew my heart wasn't in it. I'd been a part of the university's Percussion Ensemble and performed in several concerts, but now it all seems a blur to me. I wasn't selected for further concerts after I blew off a concert for an intramural basketball tournament. I'm pretty sure that my fellow drummers in the Ensemble just didn't give a shit about me, that I wasn't in their league. Can't say that I blame them if that's how they felt. I beat my head against the wall of Psychology 101, but the skinny puta grad-student that ran the class failed me despite B-plus work because I couldn't get into the required 'experiments' that all Psych 101 students were required to take part in no matter how hard I tried to get into them. By the end of the year, I was glad to just go away and wash my hands of the entire year. I made a few claims to family that I would go back after a year off to get my head right and my chops up to snuff, but I don't think I was even fooling myself, let alone anyone else. I spent more of those last months just wandering the campus more than anything else. At least that's what I remember, or what I choose to remember.

But where am I now? Okay, my financial situation is the shits, but let's look at things from a professional standpoint. In the fifteen years or so that I've been a professional drummer, I've likely logged more hours onstage than all those other, better drummers in the Percussion Ensemble combined. Sure, the gigs that I've played haven't exactly been glamorous, but I've earned the respect of my peers. I've played all over the West, and it looks like I could be going truly nationwide if the cards fall right for me. Perhaps even....... international. Who knows? What I do know is that for as disappointing a failure as that year was, I still survived, and my dream to play was still there. It just wasn't coming in the way I was thinking it would in 1990 and 1991. It'd come in bars and nightclubs instead of concert halls. It would be loose and limber instead of tight and formal. It would be with the love a wonderful, caring wife in my heart rather than a series of confused, uninterested girlfriends always wondering behind my back what I was up to.

It all boils down to that old chestnut, 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'. Well, I am stronger for that year, regardless of the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. Regardless of the pain and disappointment. I am still here, still playing, still doing what I've always wanted to do most in my heart. So in that case....... mission accomplished. Where do I go from here, who knows? At least now I can enjoy the ride.

Joe's Sense Of Snow

2010-11-23T20:04:00.000-08:00

If you live anywhere in Western Washington, you've probably been digging yourself out from the freak (by local standards) snowstorm that hit over the last few days. I'm no stranger to the flaky white stuff myself, having driven through ungodly amounts of it from here to breakfast. Surprisingly, sometimes it doesn't even change the way I drive.

It depends on where I am in relation to the Cascades and/or Sierras usually. What makes this most recent storm so unusual is that the snow was powder-dry. Usually, snow in Western Washington is wet, heavy crap the skiers call Cascade Concrete. The name is quite appropriate, because the second it hits the ground it turns into an impenetrable layer of ice that lasts far longer than you'd think it would. I won't be terribly surprised if I have to deal with roads still icy from this storm in two-plus weeks when I have to drive back to Nevada.

On the other hand, the snow in Reno and lake Tahoe is dry, powdery perfection - if you ski or snowboard. For me it's only an annoyance when it comes down really heavy, really fast. When I drove my courier route around Tahoe's eastern shore, the snow only slowed me down marginally. What slowed me down more was state law - In California. Y'see, while California and Nevada both are quite active in notifying travelers of road conditions in snow-prone areas, California actually enforces posted chain requirements while Nevada only advises for the most part, save for the drive west from Reno up Interstate 80, climbing up to Donner Pass. And this can be most annoying.

What the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) does is to actually install crews on either end of a pass to visually inspect each and every traveler's vehicle to see if they comply with the posted requirements. The problem is that sometimes the requirements change and the 'chain chimps' (my term) don't get the message right away - if at all. That can be a real pain in the ass. Sometimes the traffic along these back-road passes is so light, they forget what they're there for and take a little nap on the job, which I can say because I've seen it with my own eyes. Obviously it's a pretty thankless job, and even though I don't necessarily like it, I do appreciate the service they provide, helping keep the roads somewhat safer.

All I know for sure about my next trip is that I've planned to take my Explorer this time around, trading in a 30 - 40% drop in fuel mileage for the safety of better tires and better tire chains. I try not to skimp when it comes to tire chains. I usually by the self-tightening diamond-pattern chains that WalMart sells for anywhere from $60 - $80 depending on the size of the vehicle. But after a rather dramatic case of getting and returning a set of defective chains, I went with cheaper, basic chains that were supposed to fit my truck but didn't really live up to that billing. The best ones I've ever bought were Les Schwab Tires' QuickFit chains, which were pretty similar to the WalMart self-tighteners, just without the self-tightening thing. They weren't cheap either, but those were minor inconveniences as they worked like a motherfucker.

I just hope my back is feeling better by then. Loading and unloading my truck three or four times in the space of 72 hours tweaked it pretty badly, to the point where Joy is basically browbeating me into taking her Vicodin to ease the pain instead of plain old ibuprofen. I'm not looking forward to being in a car for that long with my back on fire.

I guess this part of growing up, right? Y'all can have that shit back.

The Longest Drive Home

2010-11-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

After Joy's birthday on the 27th, things hummed along as they normally do for me. The final day of our run in Carson coincided with Nevada Day, which celebrates the anniversary of the Silver State's admittance into the Union. And this being an election year, every candidate running for every office, from Senator to town dogcatcher, was out and about in the parade. Sharron "Forty-one To" Angle came within about five feet of me, and reeked of psychosis. Joy had to grab my shirt collar to keep me from asking the now-defeated Republican candidate why she hated America as much she did.

Heading home on Monday, we took our good sweet time going north. Y'see, we had a few side quests. Monday, we stopped in Bend to see Joy's sister Cindi and her family. We'd been charged with dropping off Christmas presents for them by Joy's mother, and they'd been riding behind the driver's seat for the last two weeks and change. My back appreciated dropping off the package. I also stopped by the local Fred Meyer to pick up tickets to see our old friends Ozomatli in Portland at McMenamin's Crystal Ballroom. We spent a quiet night at a cheap hotel, then headed northeast.

With the concert in Portland not until Thursday, we had a little time to kill. So in order to slay the beast, we spent a few days in Umatilla with her older brother Steve and his fiancee Nancy. We rested, played Nancy's Wii, sang karaoke, and marvelled at Steve's bountiful garden. Not to mention the fresh rabbit resting in his fridge. It cost an extra half-tank of fuel, but it was time well spent.

Thursday morning meant a steady cruise along the Columbia River Gorge into Rip City. We did a wee bit of shopping, searched for a convenient place to park, and found one directly across from the Crystal Ballroom. How convenient was it? The parking spot I chose faced the windows on the building's south side, and directly across from us we could see Ozomatli soundchecking! Once on the ground, we satisfied a long-standing and most major craving by visiting Voodoo Doughnuts. How good was it? Three words: Bacon Maple Bar.

I'll let that soak in.

Was it good for you? It was for us.

It was a long push for me with Joy in her wheelchair - ten blocks each way - but being able to get into line with fresh tasty doughnuts with bacon on them! was well worth the effort. Within a few minutes, the members of Ozomatli began to filter out of the Ballroom in search of food. We wisely hid the doughnuts. Joy wore the bass-guitar string she got from last year's show as a necklace, and Wil-dog wanted it back. Okay, he was just joking, but Joy was not about to give it back. Just about every member of the band stopped to say hello as they went past us. It was a long wait outside the hall to get in, and just as long to wait for the show to start. A DJ kicked off the show, then brought out a posse of rappers by the name of Animal Farm. They were pretty good, but I had one suggestion for them - for the love of God, invest in cordless microphones! The Tangled Cord Monster was on the verge of swallowing them all!

Ozomatli gave their usual 1,000%. I won't bore you with the details, but I will throw you one little anecdote. During the show, Asdrubal Sierra (vocals/keyboards/trumpet) did a little call-and-answer passage during a song on his trumpet. I more-or-less knew what was coming, but I like to participate. He played a passage, the crowd sang it back. A second call, a second answer. The third came so fast there was no way anyone could repeat it, and I knew it was coming, so I gave Asdru the finger for being a shit. I don't think he noticed, but Raul Pacheco, the band's guitarist and vocalist, saw me and busted out laughing! I was having a great time.

And that's when things started going downhill.

About an hour into Ozomatli's set, I got a phone call from Mike. Probably just checking in to see if I was okay, he does that a lot with me because of how many more miles I have to drive than anyone else. Well, I couldn't hear him over the roar of about a thousand Ozo-heads, so I yelled into the phone that I'd call him back later. Mikey called a second time, and I yelled that I couldn't hear him over the crowd and the band before ending the call. Then he texted me - to come back to Reno - now!

A band that shall remain nameless simply decided to not show up for a three-day gig at the Nugget in Sparks, and Stew Stewart called Mikey to see if we could fill in. Let's see here a minute - Mike is still in Carson City getting his car repaired, Cliff is back in Sparks, Arthur is back home in Las Vegas, and I'm in fucking Portland, Oregon! I texted Mike back saying that I'd get back to Reno as soon as the show was over. Later, I told him that if I'd been any further north, I would've told him no. I knew that Mike would've taken the gig regardless, and he would've accepted my decision. But it would force him to use one of the guys they use when they play at that place Cockbreath McPothead got me booted from. And while Alan Zukor and Vern Taylor are capable drummers, and Vern's a damn good singer in his own right, neither of them know the material as well as I do, and the show would suffer, and Mike and Arthur's reputation would suffer as a result of that. I couldn't let that happen. And I told him so. Mike appreciated that.

In hindsight, I kinda wish I'd let it happen after all.

Y'see, my truck had been acting funny. It was having trouble starting up, like it needed an extra second or two to get going. And it was beginning to get worse the further we got from home. The gig at the Nugget went well, and Mike gave me an extra $50 to make up for the expense of driving back and forth. The drive home Sunday had to be done in a real hurry because Joy had a very important doctor's appointment the next day, one that she'd been waiting for for nearly six weeks. So we had to go all out, all the way back to Port Angeles. Then my battery indicator came on as we left Chemult, OR. I figured that my battery was giving up the ghost - I knew it was several years old - so I figured that I needed to get to Eugene to get a fresh battery. One fresh battery later, my truck wouldn't start! Even getting a jump start from the reefer-unit of a friendly trucker couldn't get the truck to turn over. But a push-start did. By the time we got back on to I-5, the battery light was off, and we were heading north.

Then it went out again - with the sun going down. I made a command decision, and continued north, with only lights on. No stopping until the battery died. No stereo, no heater, no nothing. Joy took my phone and started making calls to arrange a rescue scenario. 170 miles later, sixty miles into Washington, the battery began to give out, and we coasted into the parking lot of Mrs. Beesley's Burgers, a burger shop on the highway between Toledo and Vader that crosses over the freeway. A deluxe cheeseburger and fries (quite good) eased my stomach, but not my mind. Eventually, I was able to focus on the positive - at least I was only an hour or so from Tacoma. Joy's youngest brother Scott came to our rescue about ninety of the longest minutes of my life later, and tried in vain to jump start my truck. Instead we let the battery charge, and push-started it again. He nursed the battery again in Chehalis, and eventually we pulled into Joy's mother's house in Parkland, sometime close to midnight.

Meanwhile, Joy had called her best friend Delane, then Delane's son Mike, and got him to drive our Exploder down to Parkland to come rescue us. He's a good boy, and does what he's told. Most of the time. He'd just made it there when we arrived. Everything but my drums and foodbox went into the Exploder, and we backed my truck out of the way of other vehicles. My gear went into the garage, to be picked up at a later date - with the truck, preferably. I finally went and got it today with my dad. Now it's in the hands of the Sequim Auto Clinic, where the brother-in-law of my dad's second ex-wife put it into the care of his best mechanic. And Joy made her appointment on time.

The ironic thing here is that I hadn't planned on driving my truck to Reno again any time soon after this trip, regardless of what happened to it. Winter is coming, after all. And that's when my Exploder's better tires, chains, and four-wheel-drive would would more than compensate for it's shitty gas mileage. And while my truck will be up and running long before December 8, my next date of departure, It's not going anywhere right now, or for a while to come. I just hope that I don't hear "it's not really worth fixing." My pickup is a POS, but it's my POS, and I've gone all over the West with it. I'd be pretty bummed out to lose it. Not to mention unable to replace it.

But I've gotta keep my head up, right? I think I shall.

UPDATE: My truck was fixed up a few days after I wrote the original post, and a new alternator and starter were required. Marvin and his mechanic Wong bought top-of-the-line parts for it, and they put a lifetime warranty - including nationwide retrieval in case of breakdown - on the work, for $685.11. That's a steep price to be sure, but Dad paid for it. I just find it hard to put nearly $700 in repairs into a truck worth only about $200 or so. But I won't complain too much. I figure that after my next run to Nevada, I'll be able to put fresh tires on the front end of the truck, or at least gently used ones. My stepfather recommended a local dealer to me, whose name I can't remember right off hand, so I'll give this place a look-see come January.

Wii'd

2010-10-24T23:37:00.000-07:00

Checking in from another two-week gig in Carson City. Joy is with me this time, her birthday is coming up this Wednesday, so I had to bring her. That, and this would probably be the last time I'd be able to do so until April or May. Packing for Joy means carry a whole fuck of a lot more than I normally would, and this time around it also included something new - our new Wii.

I'd always wanted one of these things, but our general state of poverty precluded purchasing anything like that. Then out of the blue we get a phone call from our daughter-in-law Melissa in North Carolina. It seems that she's gotten into the business of being an Ebay reseller, buying lots of particular items and reselling them individually. And apparently, she's pretty good at it. And she tells us that she'd been planning on sending us a Wii for Christmas, but she figured she might as well just send it to us right then and there, with a bunch of games and peripherals. She even threw in a coffeemaker for my folks. And sure enough, this giant package of Wii-stuff arrived about a week later. We got Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit, EA Sports Active, a Dance Dance Revolution game, DJ Hero, and even a GameCube 'street' soccer game. Joy and I, along with my little brother Mac, tore into the games with abandon. We golf, bowl, swordfight, play hoops, practice yoga, play balance and coordination games, and otherwise work up a good sweat while getting our game on. The package even included a mat for the DDR game, and a pair of MMA-style gloves with pockets for the Wii's Remote and Nunchuck controllers to be used for boxing and other combat-sports games.

But what I was looking forward to was what Nintendo calls the Wii's Virtual Console. With the Virtual Console, we can download original mini-games, downloadable content for Wii games, and most importantly to me, classic games from all Nintendo's old systems, as well as consoles from Sega, NEC's TurboGrafx 16, SNK's Neo-Geo, even the ancient Commodore 64 computer. With the Wii connected to the Station's free Internet, I downloaded Dr. Mario Online Rx for Joy, and the classic NES chestnuts Mega Man II and River City Ransom for me. And with games for as little as $5, the Wii's hard drive (augmented by an SD flash-memory cardslot - that's where the games actually went), I figure that the Wii will become a treasure trove of old-school games pretty quick.

And as an added bonus, Mac sold me his spare Xbox 360 for $40 and a carton of cigarettes. I can download stuff onto that system as well, and Microsoft's Xbox Live service offers it's fair share of classic games, even Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision. And I can get games from them for as little as $3 - bonus! In the long run, it means that there's that much more crap for me to schlep around from gig to gig, but at least it keeps me knee-deep in video games. So much better than gambling in my opinion. I may be spending money, but after the initial expenditure, it's all free!

I can live with that.

The Old Familiar

2010-10-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Sparks the other day after a weekender at John Ascuaga's Nugget. After Shreveport, then leaving my drums untouched in the basement after coming home, it took a while to get used to playing my own gear again. In fact, it took a lot longer than I expected to get back to old patterns - probably an entire night of playing. But that passed without any real incident. Just like riding a bike, y'know?

But over that weekend, I came to the realization that I actually have it pretty good when it comes to my gear. My drums came to me cheap, and they're not the best drums Tama makes. But they sound great, and I take damn good care of them. I buy my cymbals as cheaply as possible but once again, they sound great and I take damn good care of them. It took years to assemble all the pieces of my rack, but it's been a godsend to me in terms of making it a whole hell of a lot easier to set up and tear down. Now I'm in the slow process of buying the equipment needed to mic my kit so when I play in a band that requires me to mic it, I'll be covered. Over the years I've met a lot of drummers who didn't have what I have, good players for the most part, but unable to do the job because either they didn't have the gear or had other vices that prevented them from having enough money to get that gear.

Now if only it could pay better.....

Recovery Time

2010-09-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

After a long time on the road, any sort of recovery time is always appreciated. And when I got home to Port Angeles, I was able to fulfill a promise I made to Joy. We went to the fair.

And not just any old fair, mind you. The Western Washington State Fair, a/k/a "The Puyallup" after the city where the fairgrounds are located (pronounced 'pYOO-all-up' for those of that didn't know) is the largest fair on the West Coast, a two-and-a-half-week-long extravaganza of all things both urban and rural. Rides, food, rodeos, concerts, farm animals, firefighters and State Patrolmen (who demonstrate field-sobriety tests at their booth), all the things that make fairs what they are. Not to mention lots of infomercial-grade crapola being sold. There are probably a dozen or so tents at the fair solely dedicated to selling 'waterless cookware'. Okay stuff, but my All-Clad Emerilware is better quality, not to mention a whole fuck of a lot cheaper. My only problem with The Puyallup is that almost nobody takes plastic there.

Not that I had that much of a problem with that. Y'see, I'd pretty much ruled out eating overpriced fair grub from the jump-off. Here's how the day went for us:

Joy and I left PA about 9:30 or so that morning. I'd also invited my mother and little brother to come along, but Mom backed out at the last minute, which is pretty much what she always does. I guess I only invite her along for trips like this as a pro forma gesture. But little brother Mac was more than happy to get out of Dodge for the day. We hopped the Bainbridge Island ferry over to Seattle, and did some grocery shopping at Uwajimaya, arguably the best Asian market in the Northwest. And we're talking all of Asia here nowadays, instead of when it was more just for the Japanese immigrants that started the place. There's even an apartment complex directly above the store. I'd love to live there. It also doesn't hurt that it's walking distance from Pioneer Square and the stadia that host Seahawks, Mariners, and Sounders FC games. Uwajimaya also sells sundries, has a wonderful bookstore, and a food court that we all took great advantage of. Joy and Mac had udon and tempura, while I satisfied myself with some lovely Korean barbecue.

With a few bags of groceries in tow, we headed east over Lake Washington to go to the local branch of Fry's Electronics. We needed ink for our printers, but after we got what we needed, we came to quite a dilemma - the ink was going to cost over $120! For that much money, we wound up buying a brand new printer that will go a little easier on the ink, and a new Bluetooth for my cellphone, with the money we saved going towards dinner afterwards......

.....only that it wasn't at our final stop on the trip, a wonderful little bar in Tacoma called The Red Hot. After leaving the Puyallup, we went over to visit with Joy's mother in Parkland (Mac wasn't thrilled with that, and just stayed in the truck), then we headed over to The Red Hot. But as we loaded out of the truck, we found that Joy had misplaced the little clutch purse that contained her ID! And even though Joy is approaching........ well, let's just say she's approaching 'a certain age', she refused to go in to the bar because she wouldn't be able to produce ID if asked for it. And they check ID's pretty rigorously there. So I made a command decision and called it a night for all of us. We hit a Jack In The Box on our way out of Tacoma, but I was so looking forward to The Red Hot's totally awesome hot dogs, and washing them down with a Mexican Coke (made with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup) while Joy and Mac knocked back some of the area's best microbrews. Honestly, I can't recommend the place enough to you. If you've got any reason to go to Tacoma, check out The Red Hot. A disappointing finish to the evening, but the time spent with Joy (and with my little bro) was well worth the time and money spent.

And now I'm just resting up, healing psychological wounds, and this time physical ones as well. The dog-bite marks are healing, fading away. To be totally honest with you, I don't think I'll ever be able to really enjoy playing in Shreveport again, no matter how well the gigs themselves go. Psychological trauma caused by physical trauma, y'know? But we won't be going back there any time all that soon. Next up for me is a weekender at the Nugget in Sparks at the end of the month. I'll be back on the road in less than two weeks, and even though it's for only a weekend, I'll be looking forward to going to a place I know, where things are familiar to me. And then a few weeks after that, it's back to home base in Carson City for two weeks. That one I'll really be looking forward to.

Talk to y'all later!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part Four: Canines, Postscripts, And Even Fred Phelps

2010-09-13T00:34:00.000-07:00

The start of my second and final week in Shreveport found me adrift in a haze of Vicodin. How I managed to get through the week just past was pretty much beyond me. But I was beginning to see light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. On Monday I joined the Mike and Arthur on a trip out to a local Wal-Mart to get supplies, for me it was ibuprofen and Slimfast shakes, since the pain from my kidney stone had lessened to the point where the Vicodin wasn't necessary any longer, but the aspirin in my ditty bag dissolved in my mouth before I could swallow it, way too fast for my liking. By Tuesday the Vicodin-induced constipation and nausea had passed enough that I could entertain the thought of eating solid food again, though I wasn't really up to snuff until about Friday.

But we were kept pretty busy regardless of my health. Those minor sound problems that I'd mentioned before were persistent enough that we'd wind up eventually having to go through about six soundchecks to finally nail down a consistent sound. Fortunately for us, we were blessed with having a damn good soundman in Cary Jeter, who gets very high marks from me for his determination to get things right. And the good vibes we were getting from the management and employees were a very encouraging sign. Thursday brought the resumption of the gig proper, and things were moving pretty smoothly.

On Friday, I took a walk to take a picture of a building that I'd seen on my walk back from the hospital the previous Friday. The name of the business inside this building was quite close to that of my good buddy Brian Thrasher, leader of the Tacoma-based hard-rock cover band Just Dirt. I just had to get a picture of the place. Pictures taken, I started back towards the hotel. And that's when all hell broke loose.

Taking corners pretty much at random, I was walking along Lake Street, several blocks south and west of the casinos. There was this long one-story building on the south side of the street, and the businesses in the far end of this building were a tattoo school and adjoining parlor. An iron fence festooned with warning signs ran eastwards along Lake Street away from the building. There seemed to be some sort of residence beyond that fence. Well, if someone's going to put those kind of signs up along a fence like that, I'm not going to be inclined to even approach the fence, let alone hop it.

Something bit my left tricep!

What felt like a shoulder charge hit me from behind and scraped at my back as I went down. years of being bullied as a child came right back to the forefront, and I curled up in a ball as a fang found my right leg. Peeking through my fingers, there was a white and brown pitbull releasing from my leg, barking madly, then slowly walking away, never taking its eyes off me. Pain and blood were everywhere in my senses, and I started screaming like mad, hoping someone would hear. It might have only been three minutes or so, but it felt like an eternity to me. Eventually a man came up to the gate from the residence and called to the dog. This guy claimed to be a maintenance man for the building's owner, and took the dog back to its side of the fence. He then came back to help me up, apologizing profusely. The dog was a guard dog (which explained the attack, and why the dog stopped when I curled up), and had gotten loose from its pen. He told me that the building's owner would be there 'in five minutes', and said he would take care of things from there.

After thirty minutes of waiting out along the curb, I came to the realization that this jackass wasn't going to show, and if that dog could get loose once, it could do it again. So, holding my wounds, I started to walk back to Sam's Town. Along the way I tried to call the police, but my phone's 411 service spun me in so many circles I decided to just call from the hotel. I tried to call Mike, but had to leave a message. Once back at the hotel, the Shreveport Police Department referred the Caddo Parish (in Louisiana, it's parish instead of county) Animal Control Board. An ACB officer came by to take my story, and a supervisor from the SPD came by to listen in. When I told him where the attack happened, the super shook his head and told me that they'd had problems with the resident there before. A report was filed, the Parish would take care of my bills and hand them over to the owner of the dog, and the dog itself would be taken in and quarantined for ten days while they tested it for rabies and any other diseases that might negatively affect me. They'd inform me of anything that I'd need to have taken care of after I left Shreveport. That phone call hasn't come since, so I'd presume that the dog was healthy. I hope now that that the fucking thing is dead.

About this time, Mike finally got back to me and I was able to tell him and Arthur what had happened. At first he claimed that I hadn't called him or left him a message, then he actually checked his phone and found my voicemail waiting for him. Arthur went to the pharmacy again and returned with hydrogen peroxide and bandages, while Mike brought some neosporin from his medicine bag. Nobody could believe my rotten luck. Two Fridays in a row that I was destined for the hospital, though this time I was going to have to wait until after the show was over before I could get my wounds tended to. After much debate, we decided that I should return to Christus Schumpert, though on a Friday night, I might have to wait for the local wildlife (gunshot wounds, stab wounds, motor-vehicle accidents, etc) to be tended to before I could get bandaged up. As it turned out though, the ER was empty when I got there, and I was treated (including a tetanus shot) so quickly, by the time the woman from the admittance office got me to sign the papers saying that they could treat me, the release papers and a script for antibiotics came as soon as she'd left. I was in and out of hospital in a little under an hour, and I fervently hoped that I'd never see the inside of that hospital again. Two ER visits in a week. A week!

Aside from pain and bruising, there was no really extraordinary inconvenience for me in the wake of the attack. Ironically enough, this was when my appetite finally came back to me, the shows got better and better, and the band's mood was about as good as it could get, all things considered. Even my voice being shot from all that screaming wasn't that big of a deal. It all culminated with a killer show on Sunday night, topped off by a pleasantly rowdy batch of airmen and women from nearby Barksdale Air Force Base, whose enthusiastic enjoyment of the show really gave us a good send-off.

Getting home got a little hairy, though. Cliff overslept and made us late starting the trip back to Dallas, but that wound up being the least of our problems. A tropical storm coming ashore from the Gulf of Mexico delayed our flight out of Dallas far beyond any chance of meeting our connecting flight in Houston. Big props go out to Southwest Airlines for recognizing our problem and redirecting our flightpath to get us back to Reno before Reno-Tahoe International closed down for the night. We were stuck in Dallas for over five hours, but we got out okay, flying first to Austin, then on to Las Vegas. When our flight from Las Vegas to Reno was announced as being overbooked, Mike and Arthur were tempted to just give up their seats and fly to Reno the next day with an additional $300 apiece, but by the time they agreed to give up their seats, others had beaten them to it. We got back to Reno a little after 11pm, and came across something I'd completely forgotten about: the Burning Man Festival held in the Black Rock Desert a few hours north of Reno had just concluded, and festival attendees ("Burners") were camped out in the baggage claim, waiting for flights out the next morning. One final oddity: Our luggage actually beat us to Reno, arriving on a flight an hour ahead of us. Cliff and his wife drove me up to Sun Valley, where I picked up my truck. I found damn near the last hotel room left at the Motel 6 in Sparks (where they kept the light on for me), and I managed a heavenly seven hours of sleep before trying in vain to purchase a new headset microphone the following morning. After all I'd been through the last few days, the long drive back to Port Angeles seemed almost inconsequential.

So what did I learn from all this? Well, I learned that Mike and Arthur really do like me after all. Okay, I'm just being a smartass saying that. But the fact that they took as good a care of me as they did speaks volumes. I can put up with them nitpicking about my playing after that. I found that I have a really good friend in Cary Jeter. Soundmen like him don't come along very often. I found that Sam's Town really liked us, even after I went and had such a disaster of a time as I had. I just smiled and told them that the next time I came back to Shreveport, things will go perfectly, because I got all the shitty things that could possibly happen to me out of the way all at once. I found out that Southwest Airlines' reputation for customer service is well-earned. I found that I really don't have that much of a problem with flying. I also found that I really, really wanted to go home and see my wife and family.

And I even have a new winner of the Fred Phelps Award for The Dumbest Humanoid On The Planet: the unnamed owner of the property at 403 Lake Street, Shreveport, Louisiana. I hope your fucking dog mauls you not to death, but to permanent disfigurement and disability, so that you can appreciate the pain I felt as an innocent fucking bystander walking along the street minding my own fucking business before your fucking piece-of-shit dog attacked me and damn near cost me the ability to do my fucking job!

May God have mercy on your soul, even though you don't deserve it, you bastard.

UPDATE: I recently contacted Caddo Parish Animal Services on the status of my case. I was informed that I was not going to be reimbursed for the cost of the antibiotics, and was basically told that the case was closed. Why, you ask? Well, it turns out that the pigfucking bastard owner of that mangy-ass dog refused to turn over his animal when the authorities came for it. Pigfucker had the balls to actually tell them that he had no idea where the dog was! And when I contacted the Shreveport Police about this, they referred me right back to CPAS. Let's just say that when I come back to Shreveport, I think I'm going to consult a lawyer about this. Do the words 'depraved indifference' mean anything to you, needle dick?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part Three: Stoned In Shreveport

2010-09-12T00:32:00.000-07:00

Now I was headed into unfamiliar and therefore exciting territory. But I still had to get there. Combine my usual joke of a circadian rhythm with a 5:00am wake-up call and you get a grouchy, sleepless Joe ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But the sheer newness of this trip had me on an adrenaline high that was pretty much unstoppable. I wound up the night before the trip in Sparks, vegging out on Cliff's couch after dropping off my truck with Michelle and her family in Sun Valley. Then his daughter and wife took us to the airport to hook up with Mike and Arthur to get this trip started.

I've never been much for flying. I'm fully aware that commercial aviation in the US is actually the safest way to get around the country, but taking off and landing in Reno can be quite hairy due to the punishing winds, especially if your flightpath takes you in and out of Reno-Tahoe International northwesterly. But our flight out went in the opposite direction and there was nothing but smooth air between us and our first stop in Las Vegas, where we'd change planes and take a flight that would eventually deposit us at Dallas' Love Field in a muggy, sweltering Texas August afternoon.

From here, Mike and Arthur had rented a van to finish the drive. Y'see, there aren't any real direct flights to Shreveport that are, how shall we say, cost-effective. I'd been informed that actually flying into Shreveport would've likely doubled the cost of the trip for us. So I'll take the van. And pretty much as I suspected, we got maybe about a half-hour out of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex when Arthur asked me to take over for him. I finished the rest of the drive without incident, though I made some shopgirl's night when after being stuck with a flat Coke in a mini-mart somewhere off Interstate 20, I told her that there was only one true constant in the Universe:

Shit Happens.

I never fail to get a smile out of someone when I say that. Her tittering laugh followed me all the way back to the van. We pulled into Shreveport around 11pm local time. Cliff and I went next door to the Eldorado for a quick dinner, then retired quickly to bed. I found myself to be ensconced in a very nice ninth-floor hotel room, one that I'd wind up seeing far too much of in the days to come. And yes, my room had a panoramic view of that strip club I'd told you about before, but at least I know its full name now: Deja Vu presents Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. For the record, I never went in the place. Bad customer reviews.

I have to clear up a personal misconception here first. For some reason, I'd assumed that Shreveport and its sister-city Bossier (pronounced BOHS-yer) City were on either side of the Mississippi River. Incorrecto! That's the Red River passing through, on its way to join the Big Muddy somewhere in points east. The casinos along the river are actually riverboats connected to their respective hotels, though in some cases the riverboats aren't actually in the river, instead maintained in pools alongside and completely separate from the river itself. Nowadays there are similar set-ups all along the Mississippi and its major tributaries. Now back to the story at hand.

We had Wednesday to rest up and get used to the area, and Cliff and I walked over to the other side of the Red River (bridges are so handy) and visited what's known as the Louisiana Boardwalk. In other words, an outlet mall with some nicer shops and restaurants, a big movie theater (Mike loved that), and a Bass Pro Shops outdoor store that I never did visit. We found out to our relief that we'd basically be comped for every meal. Good news for us. The next day brought set-up, soundcheck, and our first night of work. The cabaret's house kit was nice, a five-piece Yamaha Oak Custom kit, albeit with only two cymbals (Zildjian A's, one crash and one ride) to complement the Zildjian Quick Beat hi-hats. The real problem was that the throne for the kit, while a reasonably comfortable bicycle throne, lacked a backrest. I was informed by the soundman that there had been a backrest on that throne before, but someone walked off with it. I wouldn't know how much of a problem that would be until the next morning. That said, the first night went well enough, but there would be minor sound problems that would dog us for most of the gig.

The next morning I woke up far earlier than I'd ever planned to, about 7am local time. Y'see, my body was still on Pacific Time, two hours ahead of Shreveport's Central Time. I woke up thinking "what the fuck am I doing up at five in the morning?" The reason was a small but throbbing pain in my right side, just above my waist and deep inside. Not a muscular pain, say a pull caused by all the stretching and bending I'd done the night before trying in vain to find a comfortable position for my back while playing without a backrest. Not a skin pain, like a rash or a cut. Deep inside. I hoped it would go away, but it wouldn't. I walked to the bathroom and took a couple aspirin and tried to return to sleep, but the pain began to increase. I got up, showered and dressed, then took a walk to get my mind off the pain. It got worse. I got back to the hotel, and there was no denying what was going on any longer. For the first time in about six years, I was dealing with a kidney stone. Unaware that I could've taken the shuttle bus, I called a cab and headed for what I was told was the closest hospital to Downtown Shreveport, Christus Schumpert Medical Center. Now I was in agony. I waited in Schumpert's ER for only about twenty minutes before being led back with what felt like a bear trying to eat its way out of my side. Thankfully, the staff didn't think I was some drug addict, but instead knew exactly what I was dealing with. A shot of morphine and phenergan later and I was feeling no pain. They passed along a prescription for Vicodin, and made me fork over $120 while passing on financial-assistance paperwork that will likely keep me from paying the hospital any more once I finish filling out the forms. I was so whacked out on the morphine that I wound up walking the roughly two miles back to the hotel before calling the rest of the band and informing them of my situation. The guys filled my prescription for me at a local pharmacy and Cliff paid for it, while leaving me in my room to sleep off the rest of the morphine.

I can't really remember all that much of the rest of the week. Why, you ask? Well, it turns out that I misread the prescription that Christus Schumpert gave me. I'd thought that they'd given me a ten-pill script. In reality, that number ten was how many milligrams of hydrocodone were in each of the twenty tablets in the pill bottle the guys brought me. For example, the strongest pills Joy has ever gotten for her pain had only 7.5mg of hydrocodone in each pill. No wonder I was stoned out of my mind. And constipated and nauseated to boot, thanks to the Vicodin. Solid food just wouldn't stay down, and liquids came out only in dribs and drabs. I threw up more in five days than I had in the previous five years. I soon found myself on an unplanned fast, drinking nothing but water and fruit juices for the rest of the week while in a haze of Vicodin, sleeping sometimes 16 hours a day.

Some first week, eh? How was I to know that it was only going to get worse?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part Two: Ghosts Along The Carson

2010-09-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

After getting smogged out in Sparks for ten days, I was looking forward to two weeks at the Carson Station, Steppen Stonz' home-base gig. But nothing ever turns out the way you want it to, y'know?

I checked into my room as usual on Sunday night, the night after the run in Sparks ends. Because we're pretty much the only band that makes the Station money, they pretty much let things go with us. The biggest thing is checking in waaaay early, three days before the first night of the gig. Mostly it's because Mike and Arthur drive up from Las Vegas or from God-only-knows where else after the previous gig ends, and they've got to have a place to crash on their off-days. Arthur just tends to stay in his room, or visit friends during his downtime, while Mike is a film junkie. He'll head up to the Galaxy Theater owned by Casino Fandango, or even the new second-run theaters that opened up in Carson City's old empty multiplex to watch a film or two a day. He even recently admitted to me while we were waiting for a flight at McCarran International Airport in Vegas that he once watched four movies in one day at a local theater. Me, I just grab a free modem from the front desk and get online with Joy's laptop. But there's just one problem, though - it doesn't seem to want to charge its battery. And after consulting three different shops, the problem is clear: the AC adapter's socket is bent, and the wires connecting it to the motherboard have come loose of the solder holding them in place. All three offered to fix the problem, but at a minimum cost of around $150, that's a fix I can't afford right now. So the laptop goes into its case, and I go into withdrawals. At least I have my PlayStation 2 with me.

We also received a visit from an old friend of ours, Andre Stennis. As in Andre Stennis, the guy I replaced in Steppen Stonz. Good ol' Dre. It's been a rough year for him, losing both his parents in a little less than a year. But he's holding up the best he can, dealing with his parents' effects and last wishes and all that. We all have to go through it sooner or later, but I can't imagine how he managed to maintain his sanity through it all. He was in town to visit friends and pick up gear left in storage in Reno for a gig back in the Midwest (note: I've since learned that he's in the process of moving from his native Omaha to Minneapolis). He was his usual jolly self, looking like he'd lost weight (a winter of shoveling snow out of your driveway will do that to you), and everyone was glad to see him, myself included.

But there was an unexpected negative reaction to Dre being there that first week in Carson as well. I noticed that Mike was really wanting me to do things with my playing that he'd never really wanted me to do before then. It seemed to me that he wanted me to be more like Dre, to play more like him. But I'm not him, and never will be. My ass is too pale, and I have more hair than the rest of the band put together. I'll do the best job I can to play the parts the way I'm told to and I won't argue about it, but I can't be who I'm not. Square pegs still don't fit into round holes.

And as the gig progressed, I got to see my good friends Idekay play a Monday night show at MontBleu, paying tribute to a fallen comrade. I've since learned that Idekay is breaking up, playing their final show next weekend, so I've come to the painful conclusion that whenever I buy a band's merch, they break up shortly after. It saddens me to know that I'll never be able to buy another Rush shirt again......

(UPDATE: I've since been informed that Idekay isn't breaking up after all. The band's founding guitarist had decided to move out of Tahoe, but recently changed his mind. Instead, the band will be hitting the studio to record a full-length CD, and recording their 'final' show for a possible release on DVD. Then they'll take the winter off to rest and recharge. My boy Jeremy is already working on material for a solo/side project to occupy his time, getting his Dave Grohl vibe on.....)

I also began to worry about my friends in Carson, how the difficulties of life were wearing at them. Jazzy, trying her hardest to get off welfare buy starting her own daycare, only to find that she's making less money now than when she was on the dole despite working 50 to 60 hours a week. Sara, dealing with an ex who she can't get out of her heart altogether despite her friends almost-universal dislike of the guy. Alexis & Crystal, planning a wedding that no matter how heartfelt, will mean nothing in the eyes of authority. And I added a new friend to my circle, one with whom playing the six-degrees-of-separation game one night revealed that she and I are a lot closer to each other than I could possibly have imagined. I look forward to introducing her to Joy in October.

But the gig came to a conclusion without any real surprises, and now I was getting ready to really break a new trail for myself and push into (for me) new and uncharted territory:

The Deep South......

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part One: Smogged Out In Sparks

2010-09-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been away for so long, dear readers. Joy's laptop died on me while I was on the road, so I've had to wait until now to explain my absence for the last six weeks or so. It was a long six weeks on the road, so I've had to break it up into four parts. Here's the first chapter of my sprawling epic......

The first two weeks of the journey started in Sparks, where we played a ten-day run of shows at John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks over the course of Hot August Nights. This has become an annual thing for Steppen Stonz, and while I had to pawn a mixing console just to get there (since paid off and returned), it's a paying gig, and a damn good one at that. But all gigs have their ups and downs, so here's how this one went for me.

I've discussed the pros and cons of playing at JAN before, so we won't go in to that. But the biggest downer is that playing for HAN is that it's for ten days straight, with no days off. Even though we're only playing for four or five hours a night, the drag of having no days off can be pretty hard on a guy. But it wasn't so bad compared to what I'd face in the future. Hell, it was a piece of cake compared to that. The only other real downer was that I had no real internet connection while I was there. The Nugget had recently introduced wireless internet access for its guests, but at a cost of $50/week, that was just too much for me.

And on top of that, the whole Hot August Nights event is a drag for me. Don't get me wrong, if you like classic American cars, it'd probably be nirvana for you. But it means something completely different to me. What, you ask? It means thousands upon thousands of big, old, and decidedly not low-emission vehicles tooling around the Truckee Meadows all day and most of the night. The resulting traffic makes it a bitch getting anywhere in the area. And when you combine all that extra smog with August heat, you get conditions that are entirely unsafe for Joy to be in. I hadn't planned on taking her with me anyway for a wide variety of reasons, but I could always use the company. I just wind up sitting in my room playing video games and watching TV a lot, just killing time until showtime came around.

But regardless of the negatives, the good thing about HAN for musicians is that everyone works while it's on. Everyone. I can't really tell you who played along with us in the Nugget's cabaret during the final weekend of HAN, but I will say that they were friends of mine, but they were pretty tired out by the end of the weekend, since they were also playing shows every night elsewhere after they got off the stage at the Nugget. Bands I know were also playing just down the street from the Nugget on a temporary stage set up by my friends at Starsound, serenading the nightly parade of cars through Sparks' Victorian Square. Every casino had live music, even the ones that generally don't have live music any other time of year. And the casinos that served as the official hubs of HAN had additional stages set up in their respective parking lots for local and national acts. Now if only there was something other than that boring Fifties and Sixties music being played. I'm just not much for nostalgia, but that's what HAN is all about - hearkening back to a day when gas was a quarter a gallon rather than three bucks, nobody cared about emissions, and it was all about muscle, tail fins and chrome instead of MPG and LEV.

Oh, bother.

At least I would be able to truly relax when HAN was over, when we moved on to our de facto home base in Carson City. At least, that's what I thought......

"So Why Do I Do This, Anyway?" or, "A Drummer Under The Influence"

2010-07-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Well, there's the mission statement right there, under the title. But more importantly, why write this blog in the first place? Who or what got you inspired enough to actually write about the inanities of your life and work? Well, I have a few inspiration, and it's actually a pretty diverse group. So here are the people most responsible for inspiring me to actually do something in front of my computer other than play Facebook games and caption pictures of cats:

David Goldstein - Seattle, WA

Goldstein, better known simply as 'Goldy', started his blog Horse's Ass (http://www.horsesass.org/) as an extension of a somewhat less-than-serious jab at the voter-initiative system here in Washington, targeting right-wing activist Tim Eyman with an initiative of his own, the sole purpose of which was to declare Eyman "a horse's ass" to all and sundry - even Eyman's mother. While Goldstein's initiative was shot down by a Secretary of State with no sense of humor whatsoever, it led to the blog which was probably the first one I'd ever read. He takes his shots at people, and takes plenty of shots in return. Goldy's biggest moment so far was when he revealed the utter lack of experience then-FEMA chief Michael Brown had in emergency-management in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And he continues to annoy righties to this day.

Andrew Sullivan - Washington, DC

I've always been taught to respect both sides of an argument, so long as the people making them are factual in what they say and respectful of others. It drives my old-school liberal parents crazy, but it's part of what makes me who I am. Andrew's blog (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com) gives hope to me that there's some sanity over on the other side of the argument. Even though many would supposedly think as he does, many on the Right consider him something slightly to the left of Satan hisself. Why, you ask? Well, let's see here - he's not an American (English), he's a Catholic (and deeply critical of the current Pope and his policies), and he's openly gay, HIV-positive, and married. And yes, to another guy.

No wonder Sarah Palin is so scared of him. Which explains why I like the guy, though it's much deeper than that. Having the balls to call out people on (theoretically) his own side for their bullshit takes big brass cojones, and that's something I respect greatly.

Jason Davis - Washington, DC (metro)

The old adage goes "you've got to start somewhere." I met Jason on the comment forums on ESPN's website, talking soccer - more often defending it from dullards who think soccer is gay/retarded/socialist/un-American/whatever - and he was encouraging readers to check out his blog Match Fit USA (http://www.matchfitusa.com/). And in the space of a few years, he's gone from him and thoughts rambling in the middle of the night to running one of the best American soccer blogs on the net, with the awards to prove it.

"Elli" - Vancouver, BC (metro)

Yeah, that's her name. The name she wants you to know. Y'see, she's an independent..... oh, fuck it. She's an internet porn star. Well, she doesn't really like being called a 'porn star', but that's what she does for a living, and doing it pretty much all by herself. I came across her blog (elligirl.livejournal.com - NSFW) very much by accident. Seriously. One day I was just surfing, linking from one blog to another, pretty much at random. I can't even remember the name of the blog I was on when I saw a link that read "The Reluctant Porn Star".

I'm a guy. How the hell am I going to pass that up? Well, I didn't, and while she advertises her adults-only website regularly on her blog, she also talks about things far more normal than her latest videos. To be honest, when I cook ribs, the recipe is hers. I've swiped a couple other recipes from her as well. I've grumbled at her successful gardening. She's a good photographer of things other than herself (her archive of nature pictures on Flickr reminded me a lot of home when I lived in Reno). I've been utterly lost when she talks tech (I wager that she has the skillset to be the IT manager for a fairly large business - though that would probably mean a pay cut for her). But what really made me a fan of her blog was a post where she revealed that most of her family was none too pleased about her career choice, and that this made holidays really uncomfortable for her. I can sympathize with that. A lot. Admitting something like that takes a lot of bravery. And as you may have guessed by now, bravery is something I admire greatly.

Jamie Harvey - Fredericksburg, TX

This is almost an obituary of sorts, though I hope she wouldn't take it that way. She has enough of that on her hands right now as it is. Like Elli, Jamie is quite pretty, formidably intelligent, and very tech-savvy. Unlike Elli though, Jamie is very safe for work. Until recently, she was arguably San Francisco's premier music-scene blogger, known as the Hard Rock Chick (http://www.hardrockchick.com/). She averaged close to 100 shows a year that she attended, mostly in the Bay Area but often venturing far and wide to follow her favorite artists and bands. And her vast knowledge of Nine Inch Nails trivia, lore, and legend even helped settle an argument between Joy and I. Allow me to explain:

Y'see, Joy had told me for some time that her sister-in-law had a nephew who supposedly was Trent Reznor's touring bass player for a while. My sister-in-law is one of the nicest Mormons I've ever met, and while I've known more than a few Mormon black-sheep growing up (Thad Huhn, where are you?), including the one I've been married to for sixteen years. But I just had a hard time believing that my very normal-looking sister-in-law had a nephew like that. Jamie not only confirmed that it was so, but also provided me a link of said nephew trashing the Orlando Hard Rock Cafe during a solo performance.

And Jamie has had the willingness to reveal her darker moments as well. Concert and CD reviews could often be as much about her mood at the moment as it was about the bands she was there to see and hear. A review of Alice In Chains offered glimpses into dark corners of her adolescence that I could seriously identify with. Abusive exes and confused, not necessarily supportive family members (she once wrote that she was asked by a relative if she was gay simply because she lived in San Francisco - she worked for Sega in the videogame biz there) surfaced in reviews of black-metal bands and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. And she had a geek-out moment with the best of them when she followed NIN last summer for a few weeks, culminating in meeting The Reznor himself at an airport in Southern California when he told her through the NIN iPhone app that he was literally standing right behind her. But she recently left it all behind to return to Texas to care for her seriously-ill mother. We're friends on Facebook nowadays, but I've been hard-pressed to talk to her since she went home - how do you wish the best of luck to someone caring for a gravely, perhaps terminally ill parent?

I guess what all five of these people have in common is a certain kind of perseverance. The ability to be honest with oneself to others, to complete strangers. To hang yourself and your thoughts and opinions out there for all to see, to support or criticize, and to do so without fear. That is something I admire greatly, and aspire to emulate when I write these things out for you, dear reader.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a chuck roast downstairs that should be thawed out and ready for my attentions. And no, I didn't swipe this recipe from Elli. I got it from Alton Brown.

So there.

Sunburns And Missing Cords

2010-07-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

I'm home in Port Angeles now, just got back the other day. Jeez, is it hot here - 85F at sea-level feels like 100F in the high desert. And I'd know. Hell, I just played in it on Sunday.

We'd known well in advance that we'd been booked to play at The Nugget in Sparks for July 4th. But we weren't really sure just how we were going to go about it. We originally figured that we'd be playing in the little amphitheater-like stage just east of The Nugget, on the eastern side of Sparks' Victorian Square. But only a few days out from the gig, we found that we would actually play on a temporary stage in front of the parking lot that separates The Nugget's Courtyard Hotel from the northern section of the casino itself. But this was no problem to us. All we need are enough electrical outlets for our stuff, and we're good to go.

But playing outdoors is a different thing. And in Reno, that usually means playing in the heat of summer. Starsound Audio actually rolled out their own portable stage, and shaded it from sun and wind reasonably well for us. A little bit of sunburn on my arms was about all I had to endure, because there was just enough of a breeze to keep the heat from being too oppressive. In previous outdoor gigs with other bands, dealing with the elements was always a challenge, especially considering that those past gigs were in the unpredictable environment of western Washington, where rain can short out equipment far too easily - particularly the very expensive electrical thingamabob wrapped about my melon - microphone becomes electrode, mayhaps? But rain was nowhere to be found Sunday in Reno, and the day dawned brilliant. And hot. But everyone knew that this was coming, so plenty of hydration was the order of the day as we set up. Me? I replaced the Coke in my king-size travel mug with Powerade.

We started our show at 5:30pm, but only after a scheduling mishap. Y'see, we'd been told that we'd be playing from 5 to 9, but it turns out that The Nugget had been advertising all along that we'd play from 5:30 to 9:30. I only found this out as I checked into my room at The Courtyard. After letting Mike know, as well as the crew from Starsound (who also thought we'd be starting at 5), we all agreed that since this was The Nugget's show, we'll run on their schedule. But starting a show like this can be a bit disheartening. Why, you ask? Well, the real show (the fireworks) wouldn't start until after we finished playing (actually about 10pm), so the crowds only started to really come in after about 7pm or so. Which left us playing to..... well, let's just call them interesting. I have no problem playing for people with disabilities. Hell, usually they're the best-behaved people at shows. But let's just say that a few people in that early crowd were maybe best left indoors. It took an effort to keep from laughing at their antics. And I'm not trying to be mean-spirited or saying that the disabled should be viewed as freaks or something like that. I was just beginning to wonder where their caregivers were after a while. Dude staring at a single empty part of the stage obsessively while pawing something I presumed to be a cellphone, or the pair spitting water on each other - well, it was really just one guy doing it to the other, actually - but still, this was adding a whole new meaning to the term 'crazy from the heat.'

We had our own little private backstage area to hide out in between sets, but after a while it wasn't all that private. Kids kept asking to have their pictures taken with Mike and Arthur, while ignoring us. The only attention Cliff and I got was from a drunken woman who actually tried to sit in my lap and kiss me - yuck! Beer breath is not my idea of an aphrodisiac by any stretch of the imagination, but how the hell do you politely tell someone to get the fuck off of you? It didn't really help that almost none of our friends from Carson City that had promised to attend actually did, just our friends and chocolate-pushers Robert and Rhonda (thanks for the truffles!). A few other friends of the band showed up, but they were all new to me. But they were nice, so I guess that's all that really matters.

But as day became night, the mood improved. Eventually, we were playing to around twenty- to twenty-five thousand people. Or at least that how many I thought there were. There could've been a lot more - the expectations were for fifty thousand. But I was only able to see so many, and the whole of Victorian Square was closed, so I probably saw only half the crowd at best. But they were thoroughly enjoying the show from my vantage point. We'd been rehearsing a bunch of new material up to that point, and it all came off good. Any mistakes made were minimal and went unnoticed by all. The show ended, and we introduced Ascuaga family scion Stephen to the stage, and he emceed the remainder of the show, basically introducing a Nugget employee who sang the National Anthem, then calling on the show to start. We sat back and enjoyed the show, then Cliff and I headed back to my hotel room to get back into civvies to change. We were in mid-change when I got a phone call from Mike to hurry the fuck up and get back to the stage. I wish I'd gotten there faster. Y'see, in the chaos, the Starsound crew picked up one of my instrument cables and packed it away. I'd already misplaced one cable earlier in the day, and this was really beginning to piss me off. However, the Starsound techs told me that since they don't use quarter-inch instrument cables, and hadn't in quite some time, it shouldn't be difficult for them to find my cable and to return it. I sure hope so. They agree that cables aren't cheap.

But I got everything else packed away, and made it home just fine. And with good press. Every comment we got was in the most positive of terms - especially those that came from the higher-ups, even Stephen Ascuaga himself. Hopefully this will lead to more gigs, something we need in order to keep me able to be there to play. But now I have a few weeks of downtime to spend with Joy, and my family. Maybe my dad finally got the buffer he'd been agonizing over the last time I hung out with him. That way I can actually work for that airfare, rather than just ask for it.......

Louisiana Purchase

2010-07-02T14:48:00.001-07:00

The other day, Mike and Arthur confirmed that we will indeed be headed to Louisiana, to play at the Sam's Town in Shreveport, right on the Mississippi River. We'll be headed there at the end of August, playing from the 26th to the 29th and September 2nd to 5th. There will be backline equipment waiting for me there so I won't have to take much more than my sticks, my kick pedals, my headset mic and maybe my monitor mixer. I am most certainly looking forward to this gig.

However, going to a new gig in a new city (2,414.57 miles from home!) has its own unique set of challenges. First off - naturally - is getting there. the four of us will fly from Reno to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) either through Las Vegas or Phoenix, with the exact date yet to be determined. I was informed that Sam's Town will require us to pay for our flight there as a de facto deposit to insure that we actually show up - eminently sensible in my opinion, but still a pain. After our arrival, they'll give us back the money spent on the flight. It just means that I'll have to borrow more money from my dad in order to pay for the flight as soon as possible, but at least it's money that I'll be able to pay back as soon as possible. We want to fly together in order to insure that nobody is left waiting around at DFW for god-only-knows how long.

The next challenge is actually getting to Shreveport itself. Actually flying in to Shreveport would likely double the cost of getting there, so we'll rent a van to get the rest of the way there. But there's one small problem. Though Arthur has already rented the vehicle, he and Arthur hate to drive. I mean, they really hate to drive. Go back to when I had them follow me from Reno to Florence, OR last year if you want proof. I've made the offer to do the driving for them, even suggested that Arthur cancel his rental reservation so I could make one instead (thereby saving them the expense of adding a second or third driver to his rental agreement). But even if nothing comes of that, I shan't worry. Instead, I'll just keep my mp3 player going, and make sure to bring more than one book - one for the flight, one for the the road, right?

The last challenge will likely be the thorniest - that car rental will be one-way, and one-way only. So until we start the journey home on September 6th, we'll be housebound. It shouldn't be too bad a deal, though. We will get rooms and a meal a day comped, and I'll have to find out how much internet access will cost me there, if at all. But what to do if I wish to get around? I can't imagine that I'd do that much walking in late-summer heat and humidity (both likely in the 90s and higher), but a bike is a possibility. Considering that I'll have a fair bit of money in my pocket at the moment, renting or even buying a bike isn't out of the question. The latter option also allows me the opportunity to donate the bike to a local charity when I leave town. Hey, take care of my own needs plus do a manly good deed by donating to charity when I no longer need it? BONUS!

I've been informed that I should have a good time while I'm there. Mike and Arthur have told me that the food is excellent there, and that they'd always had a good time there. One thing that intrigues me in a train-wreck sort of way, though: Remember when I told you that I found a Hustler Club in Shreveport when I looked at the area on Google Earth? It's right across the parking lot from Sam's Town.

Anyone want to give odds on whether or not I'll be able to fight off the temptation to look at the train wreck?

Playing Sick

2010-06-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's something we all have to do, regardless of what we do for a living - but we still have to do it. Another week in Carson City has passed, and this had to be just about the most difficult week with the Steppen Stonz to date.

It didn't really start out that way, though. Rolled in on Monday night, and for a moment I actually considered loading in and setting up my kit right there and then. But I realized that it was just the caffeine in my system talking with false bravado, and I slunk up to my room to get a decent night's rest. But a few minutes later I got a phone call from my friends Sara, Jazmyn (Jazzy) and Tyler, who wanted me to come down and visit for a minute. I obliged, and we hung out for about twenty minutes. And they gave me a nice present.

Rhinovirus, aka 'the common cold'. By Tuesday night I knew something was wrong, so I started downing Zicam tablets and drinking a whole lot of water. Wednesday was a blur of fever, chills, disorientation, vertigo, and a severe lack of energy. The guys noticed it right away, and cancelled rehearsal that had been scheduled for that night. It was so bad that I actually considered asking the front desk if I could borrow the hotel's only wheelchair to get back to my room, where I slept pretty solidly for almost fourteen hours. Thursday was only slightly better, but I mustered the willpower to persevere. I'd been told that we would rehearse after Thursday's show, but me shambling around like a zombie must've changed their minds. Now if they'd only have remembered to tell me. When we rehearse, it usually starts an hour after we finish the night's show. So I stumbled up to my room, peeled off my sweat-soaked dress clothes and pulled on a t-shirt and sweats, and headed back to the elevators to meet up with the band. And yes, it took me most of that hour just to get to that point. I went over to the snack bar, where the rest of the guys were eating dinner. They acknowledged my arrival and asked if I was going to eat. No chance there, my appetite had left the building. By all rights I should've stayed in my room, but I was grimly determined to keep up my end of the business, no matter the cost to me. Midnight came and went, and the guys kept bullshitting away and really not paying any attention to the zombie behind them. They finished up their meals and headed for.... the elevators! I went after Arthur and asked him if we were rehearsing, and that's when he realized that they'd forgotten to tell me that they cancelled it because they didn't think I was healthy enough!

Ten more hours of sleep followed. I was feeling better Friday, and better still yesterday. I'm pretty much back to normal now, and I'm pretty sure that it was the Zicam Joy talked me into buying that made it only last a few days rather than a few weeks. But it taught me a valuable lesson - I've got to carry cold meds with me at all times. That, and restock my supply of Zicam. I've spent enough time being the Zombie Drummer, I want no more of that than absolutely necessary. Now I'm going back to my Lemon Echinacea Throat-Coat Tea and vitamins, and back to sleep.

Talk to y'all later.

Life Is A Cabaret - No, Really.....

2010-06-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Back again in Carson City at the Station, this time for only a weekend - let's just say that we were offered the two nights, and we accepted. And they're putting us up for the entire week - bonus! I have Internet access again! Well, I could've gotten online at the Nugget last week, but I can't really afford $12/day for service. It'd also be nice if the Nugget comped meals for bands coming in from out-of-town, but I can't really complain that much. They are paying me to be there, after all.

And last week's run in Sparks brought about an interesting new thing to me - the chance to interact with a touring company. Y'see, a few feet to the north of the Nugget's cabaret stage is their showroom theater, which had been hosting a touring production of Cabaret (natch) for the past week. I'd never really gotten to do so before, because the showroom had been dark (no acts playing at the time) during previous trips, and this was the only place where I'd played that such acts were booked. When I was in Powerlight, we'd occasionally meet bands that played upstairs in their ballroom - Blue Oyster Cult comes to mind - and one night we met the alt-country/Americana group Calexico at the Atlantis' cabaret, they'd just finished a show elsewhere in Reno and were staying the night there. But this would be altogether different - not to mention a lot more fun.

I walked offstage after the first or second set last Saturday when I heard a woman's voice asking me what kind of drums I played. I looked around and the voice came from a woman sitting at one of the tables behind the cabaret's sunken dance floor. Since my kit's resonant (front) bass drum head doesn't have a decal for the actual manufacturer of the drums (only a small Sabian Cymbals decal in the bottom-right quadrant), I get that question quite a bit, but so far never from a woman. She then asked some very technical questions about my gear, and mentioned how clean my cymbals sounded - this woman was clearly a drummer herself, and when I said so, she introduced herself as the drummer for the touring company that was playing next door, and that she really liked what she was hearing from us.

Boingggggg!

I don't have a problem receiving compliments from women. It's just usually that the compliments come from someone who's looking to get laid (which I can brush off pretty easily), or someone who really wouldn't know that much about drums and just liked the show. But this was something entirely different. There just aren't that many female drummers out there. In my own personal experience, I've only met two - one who plays in a cover band in Tacoma, and one who plays the cabaret circuit here in the Reno/Tahoe/Carson area. The fact that this woman was not only a drummer, but a peer who clearly knows the business as well as I do if not better, and is probably a far better player than me, well..... let's just say that she had my full attention. And not in any sexual way. No, seriously. Drummers will almost always kibitz (and hopefully not kibbutz - that'd be way too fucking loud) with other drummers if given the chance, and here was my chance. We talked gear, sticks, tech, the road - they'd be finishing a week-and-a-half run in Sparks the same day we finished our four-day run, and they'd be heading north to Montana while we rolled back to Carson. By the way, she's a New Yorker named Mia Eaton, and she was just the nicest person. She told me that she'd seen a little bit of our show the night before, and advised me that the rest of her company would probably come by to catch the show later in the evening.

And she wasn't kidding. When the DJ across the casino floor at Trader Dick's (our friend Bobby G), finished his set, the company's performers started to filter over to the cabaret. How could I tell? Oh, using the roughly three-foot-high stage as a ballet bar would be a good hint. My friends Alexis and Crystal were there that night, and Crystal asked me if I could put one leg up on the stage like that. I told her that I liked my hamstrings right where they were, thank-you-very-much. I'd say there were about a dozen or so of them, and they were just having a blast. Pretty soon the entire company was there, and their energy was so infectious that we probably played five or six encores, and I had a hard time sleeping that night because I was just in such a good mood. A few of them came by the next night, though Mia didn't come herself - probably had more important things to do. Not to mention traveling to Montana - voluntarily! Oh well. We'd exchanged information the night before, including Facebook membership. Working drummers like us need to stay in touch, I said, be cause we're a pretty rare breed of cat these days. And she agreed with me on that, though I'm sure she probably knows hundreds more than I do - she lives in New York City, after all.

All four of us really enjoyed this last weekend. The Cabaret cast just imbued us with a good vibe for the weekend, something that I'm pretty sure we all needed. I know I did. Getting to meet nice people like that is one of the reasons why I'm still doing this after all the bullshit I've endured over the years. So thanks go out to Mia and the rest of the cast. I only wish I could've returned the favor and gone to see them play. I'll definitely be keeping in touch with her. After all, what's the downside of having a connection in New York City?

MB Presents: The Newest Winner Of The Fred Phelps Award

2010-05-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty weird night for me. Shall I give it to you in timeline format? I think I shall.

Sunday, 23 May 2010: 4:00pm:

Sundays at the Carson Station are always weird for me, and especially so when that Sunday is the day after the last day of the gig. But I have plans for the day, and money to make. So right about now I'm wandering downstairs to the cabaret to partially tear down my kit. Only partially - I'm helping Dean host jam night tonight at the Twisted Spoke, so I don't really want to tear it all the way down, only to put it back together then tear it down again. So I'm just taking the drums and cymbals off my rack. I'll come back after dinner and load up the truck.

5:00pm:

All-you-can-eat-pork-ribs night is a favorite night for me at the Station's restaurant. I invited my 'caretaker' Sara to join me, but she never showed. Oh well, her loss. Maybe she didn't read the message I left for her on Facebook. Either way, she missed out on some pretty good ribs.

6:00pm:

Dinner's over, now load up the truck and get over to the Spoke! Did I ever mention to you that my truck looks like it's grown antlers when I'm driving around with my fully-assembled rack in the back? This will come into play later. Now go set up at the Spoke, dumbass!

7:00pm:

Jam night starts, and look who shows up! Sara, along with Alexis, her girlfriend Crystal, and their pal Matt. I choose to be tactful and not bring up dinner. They leave after about half and hour, claiming hunger. They look like they don't have the heart to tell me they're leaving, and I tell them that it's okay, and while they say they'll come back afterwards, I say that it's okay if they don't, that I was glad that they came out for a little bit anyway. They never did come back, by the way.

11:15pm:

Jam night has just concluded, and I have a conundrum on my hands. You see, my next gig doesn't start until Thursday night at John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks. I probably won't even be able to check into the hotel until Wednesday night. Which leaves me with a few days' downtime. I've made arrangements to stay with my friend Jazmyn and her kids, but I have no clue as to the safety of the neighborhood in which she lives. So I decide to run down to Sparks and drop off my gear at the Nugget, just leaving it backstage until Wednesday when I can set it up.

11:45pm:

I'm driving through the southern end of Reno when I see 'sex lights': a cop ahead of me has pulled some poor schmuck over. I drive on by, right on the posted speed limit of 45mph. A Washoe County Sheriff's vehicle is watching the incident as I'm driving through. I figure that he's curious about the strange metal contraption on the back of my truck, and he wants to check it out, as is his wont. I turn off Virginia on to South McCarran Boulevard, and within a few blocks he pulls up behind me and turns on his lights. Nothing new for me, because while I've never been popped for a moving violation in my life, I get pulled over a lot. Such is life when you work nights in bars. He comes around, and I greet him casually and ask what the problem is. His reply knocked me for a loop:

My license is suspended!

WHAT THE FUCK? I ask him if he knew why, and he says he doesn't have access to that information, just that my license was suspended. He asks if I was in the process of moving, and I explained that I was. My insurance was current, as were my driver's license and vehicle registration. But according to the officer, my license had been suspended in January for not having insurance. Seeing that this just wasn't the case, he advised me to go to the Nevada DMV and show proof of insurance, and that would clear things up. He noted that I was driving normally, acknowledged that I was stone-cold sober (when am I not?), and sent me on my way, advising me that if anyone else pulled me over to tell them that I had already been made aware of my situation. He even told me where the DMV office in Carson City was. Give that man an extra donut - with sprinkles on it.

I finally get to the Nugget to load in my gear, only to find that for the first time in about a year, Security has actually bothered to change the codes on the doors leading to backstage. I alert them to the situation, and they most helpfully take care of my problems.

Monday, 24 May 2010, 1:15am:

I make it back to Carson City, and boy am I pissed off. What the fuck is going on here? Sitting in the Station's parking lot, I go through my stack of insurance proofs, and there's a neat little history of mine there to be had - a new card every six months. There's my last card for Nevada - October 2009 to April 2010. There's the fill-in card I got when I (quite happily) switched our State Farm Insurance account to our old agent in Port Angeles - Jan 2010 to April 2010. And there's my current proof - April 2010 to October 2010. With smoke coming out of my ears like a fucking smokestack, I realize just what's happened, and who is to blame for this conundrum. Dear readers, I give to you the latest winner of the Fred Phelps Award For Dumbest Humanoid On The Planet: Christina Kantrud, State Farm Insurance Agent, and her staff.

We have a history with this idiot and the idiotlings that work under her. About ten or eleven months ago, as Joy and I moved into our tent-trailer, we received a rather severe penalty from DirecTV for not having returned their equipment to them in a timely fashion. This penalty was incurred all of two days after terminating service with them, which was also the same day that the FedEx box arrived, the FedEx box DirecTV sent us to return their equipment in. This unfortunate incident took several hundred dollars out of our bank account, money that wasn't there to begin with. So, while we fought DirecTV over it and told our bank that this was their fault and not ours, we informed the other people we do business with that automatic withdrawals from bank account wouldn't be possible right now, and that our bills would be paid on a strictly cash-only basis. Ms. Kantrud and her staff were made aware of the situation, and agreed to cancel automatic withdrawals from our bank account. A few days later, I went in to the office to make my payment, only to find that it was unnecessary to do so - the automatic withdrawal had already been made. I asked the little girl behind the counter a simple question, quoting Ellen Ripley from Aliens:

Did IQ's drop sharply while I was away?

This was the exact same person who smiled and said she'd cancel the automatic withdrawals just a few days before! Hello? Anyone home? I reminded her of the problem with my bank account with DirecTV, and she blanched, admitted her mistake and offered to fix it as soon as possible.

One month later, it happened again. And the next month. And the next month. And the next month. We started a new account with a different bank, gave them that information, and told them to make automatic withdrawals from that account.

What happened the next month? Same ol' same ol' - they pulled from our old bank account!

In January, we informed them that we were moving back to Washington due to Joy's health, and going back to our old agent due to gross incompetence. We even filed a formal complaint with State Farm Insurance about the sheer negligence of Kantrud and her staff, their utter ignorance of our requests. Well, I guess she got some payback on us. And she probably did what she was supposed to do in the process. Never mind that we would be continuing our SFI account (albeit with a better agent in a different state), her office sent a letter to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles that we no longer had insurance. Therefore, my license was suspended.

Well, now it's our turn for payback. The DMV will more than likely revoke the suspension pending my showing them continuous proof of insurance. And Joy will be calling our SFI agent in the morning to let them know what a bunch of fuck-ups Ms. Kantrud and her underlings are. And following that phone call, State Farm's home office will be receiving another blistering complaint from us about shoddy service from an agent with a history of similar problems with us.

Well, here's to Ms. Kantrud and her staff of twatlings - the latest winners of the Fred Phelps Award For Dumbest Humanoids On The Planet. May God have mercy upon your souls. If you have any that is.

And one last piece of advice for the sad sorry lot of you: McDonald's is always hiring......

CONCERT REVIEW: Fear Factory, Prong, Silent Civilian, Thy Will Be Done - Knitting Factory Reno, Monday 5/17

2010-05-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

God help me, but I was jonesing for this show the minute I heard about it. Fear Factory is a band that I loved the minute I first heard their music, and the band's reactivation after years of acrimony and months of legal issues between current and former members was largely cheered by the metal community. My boy Jeremy from Idekay went way overboard for me - I asked him if he was going to the show, because I'd be in Carson City and had the day of the show off - and bought me a ticket without me even asking him to do so. So I offered to do the driving, and bought dinner for us at the Eldorado. Idekay's singer came with, but there was only room for two in my little truck, so we had to squeeze in close to get Josh to a restaurant on the other side of Carson City, where a friend of his would pick him up.

Jeremy and I got in to Reno, had our 'bro-feast' at the Eldorado's buffet, then made our way over to the Knitting Factory Concert House. The Knit, as it's called, is a welcome addition to the list of concert venues in the Reno area, having opened last New Year's Eve. It's clean, well-run, and has an excellent sound system, and is a great improvement over venues like the New Oasis and Club Underground. As Jeremy and I walked along Virginia Street, we found Fear Factory's singer (Burton C. Bell) and bassist (Byron Stroud) on their cellphones, probably letting people know that they'd made it into Reno okay - we found out later that their bus wouldn't start that morning when they tried to leave San Diego, and had only made it into town within the last hour, and Silent Civilian also had car trouble, and very nearly missed the show.

We went around back to get in line for the show, and within a minute Josh and his friend showed up. His friend was an attractive young blonde in an Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninites t-shirt ("Observe Our Digital Dongs" - I'm not the biggest ATHF fan, but that shirt was hilarious!). We were introduced, I didn't quite catch her name, and chose not to press the issue, because she looked familiar to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on where I'd seen her before. Anyhoo, we got into the Knit only to find that the doors would open about and hour later than scheduled due to the bands that arrived late. The crowd was kinda late as well, with many not arriving until the first two bands had already played. And as it was, there were only about 300 or so in attendance. And they'd only managed to sell that many tickets because the Knit wound up selling many of them for half the price Jeremy had paid for ours. He wasn't terribly happy about it, but he eventually shrugged it off. We found our way up to the Knit's balcony (an excellent spot to watch drummers in action) and waited for the show.

First up was Rhode Island's Thy Will Be Done, which was good but pretty straightforward metalcore, though much more 'metal' than 'core', and that's just fine with me. I really didn't know these guys at all, but I liked what I heard. They brought lots of energy to the show, which is really what an opener should do. After them came Silent Civilian from LA. This band I could've done without. But since the band is the de facto solo project of former Spineshank singer Jonny Santos, and Santos has deep ties with Fear Factory (Spineshank got their record deal through their friendship with Fear Factory), that's probably how they got their slot on this tour. The music was passable, not terribly original, and while Jeremy and I liked their drummer's style of play, his snare drum sounded positively awful - Jeremy actually said "that snare sounds so bad it makes me want to punch babies." I'd have settled for going down to the stage and tuning it up a bit for him.

Next up was Prong. This was the second time we'd seen them in about seven months, having seen them previously in November at the New Oasis. Like Fear Factory, Prong's music has always been a little ahead of its time with its strong industrial-music overtones. Seven months ago, Prong..... well, Prong main-man Tommy Victor seemed to want to get the show over and done with ASAFP. He basically had a brand-new backing band at the time (Static-X bassist Tony Campos and Alexei Rodriguez on drums), and while that show was good, there was still a visible lack of ease onstage. Last night, there was a much more relaxed vibe amongst Tommy and his bandmates, and they blew through their set with with a vengeance. In years past, Tommy has been saddled with a reputation of being difficult to work with - understandable once you've seen how many people have worked with him in Prong over the years. And when Prong was inactive, Tommy has been a sideman, playing guitar with Danzig for several years and playing on Ministry's last few tours as well (where he met up with Bell, who sang on Ministry's C U LaTour). From what I saw, I think Tommy has, how shall I say it, aged gracefully? He just seems to be happy just playing. And had it been anyone other than Fear Factory headlining the show, I would've said that Prong stole the show. They were clearly having a great time onstage.

The rebirth of Fear Factory hasn't been without controversy. It actually started almost by accident. The band had torn itself apart when there had been a falling-out between guitarist Dino Cazares and the rest of the band. Fear Factory basically broke up, then reunited without Cazares (with bassist Christian Olde Wolbers switching to guitar and hiring Strapping Young Lad's Byron Stroud to take over on bass). The band recorded two more albums, but something was missing. The band members went on to other projects (Bell founded the band Ascension Of The Watchers and worked with Ministry, while Olde Wolbers and drummer Raymond Herrera started the band Arkaea) while Cazares stayed busy with his side projects, Asesino and Divine Heresy. One night Bell and Cazares met by accident at a show, and over time managed to reconcile their differences. They brought Stroud back into the fold, and recruited Stroud's Strapping Yound Lad bandmate, metal-drumming icon Gene Hoglan for the drums. Initial efforts at playing live were stymied by legal actions taken by Olde Wolbers and Herrera against their former band over the rights to the name Fear Factory. I'd presume that either the actions were settled or an injunction has been put in place, because the band has moved on, toured, and released their new album, Mechanize.

Their set was awesome. It was the first time Jeremy or I had ever seen Gene Hoglan play live, and that man is a 300-pound pile of drumming awesomeness. Their set was amazing, but Jeremy noted something kind of odd. Dino seemed to be having an off-night, his playing seemed a little sloppy. He just didn't seem to be quite as in-synch with Fear Factory as we'd seen him six months before with Divine Heresy. I figured it was just an off-night because of their travel issues. But to be honest, I just didn't care. This was an awesome show, and I was in full fanboy mode for their entire set. The songs that stood out for me were "Mechanize", "Edgecrusher", "Linchpin", and the set-closer, "Replica".

On our way, I noticed something odd - while the merch booth had Fear Factory's albums for sale, the two albums that didn't have Dino on them were not available. And Dino, along with Prong's bassist Tony Campos, were right alongside the merch booth, signing merch and taking pictures with the crowd. I think I know who really runs Fear Factory now, and I really don't have a problem with that.

And on the way home, Jeremy filled in a blank for me. Remember I told you that I'd thought I'd seen Josh's friend before? I was right. Y'see, his friend.... well, I won't tell you her real name. She's better known as Bunny Love, and works at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch. She's a huge metalhead, and a big fan of Idekay. She's even told them that she'll try to wear her Idekay hoodie a lot when HBO's cameras come to the Ranch to tape the next season of their show "Cathouse", which chronicles the goings-on at the brothel just outside of Carson City. It's kinda weird - I'm actually developing ties to the Bunny Ranch, without ever having been there. Y'see, one of Steppen Stonz' closest friends here in Carson City (who Joy actually appointed to be my 'caretaker' here in Reno and Carson when she couldn't be here herself), her mother works at the ranch in housekeeping, while her aunt is better known as "Air Force Amy", one of the top girls at the Ranch. And another friend of the Stonz got a housekeeping job at Dennis Hof's two brothels through my 'caretaker' Sara's connections.

Jeremy also told me that Idekay will be hitting the road in a few weeks, and will even come up to play a gig in Tacoma in a few weeks. I told Joy, and she nearly hit the roof! Needless to say, we'll be there for that. He also told me something pretty big, but I won't say what it is. Let's just say that this could be a big summer for him and Idekay.

Last night was a pretty awesome night for me. But there's always blowback, and mine is coming up quickly. I told Jeremy's wife Alison that I'd teach her the intricacies of driving a car with a manual transmission today, and I'd better get going. Jeremy tried to teach her once, and he claimed it nearly ended in divorce.....

Is that impending doom I see coming?

Me & My Hands

2010-05-11T22:36:00.000-07:00

Get your minds out of the gutter, you perverts.

Now that I'm ensconced in my hotel room in Carson City, I have to slip back in to old patterns, old ways of doing things. I've had to deal with carpal-tunnel syndrome in both hands for years. The only saving grace is that neither wrist is really in that bad of a shape. The rest of me may not be that healthy looking, but having a pooch doesn't stop me from playing. Not being able to feel my fingers would, however.

Over the years, I've had flare-ups, sometimes so bad I've actually had to tape my sticks into my hands to be able to continue playing. I've developed methods of combating the swelling and strain. I take NSAID's like aspirin and acetominophen, B-complex vitamins (B6 helps reduce swelling of the nervous system), and most importantly, I stretch. Every finger is carefully bent back for a few seconds at a time. The wrists get stretched out for a few minutes at a time. Elbows, shoulders, neck and back, all my joints get a stretch before I go onstage. The sticks I use were designed reduce the shock of impact on my wrists. Using gloves and grip tape allow me to hold the stick with a looser grip, reducing the stress on my wrists even further. I even crack my knuckles, despite people telling me that it theoretically hurts my knuckles more than it helps. I've always read different, so there. This is something I've been doing since high school, so I think I know what the hell I'm doing.

All I know is that I have to take care of the machine, or else I'm not working any more.

On a side note, I'm pondering the idea of starting one or two more blogs, so I can rant about sports, politics, and anything else in the world that doesn't have to do with drums and drumming. I'll keep you posted as to what comes up. I've got the time to kill over the next few weeks, so you never know when I might get a wild hair up my ass and start writing.

Cabin Fever

2010-05-01T01:53:00.000-07:00

It's about two in the morning. I want to play. Badly. But there really isn't much I can do about this particular urge at the moment, so perhaps talking about it will help exorcise it from my mind. I've had a pretty long break between gigs, nearly six weeks. I was optimistic about finding a side gig to keep my bills at bay, but every lead went nowhere - at least for now. At least the prospects for Steppen Stonz are promising as far as this summer goes. Mikey (the bandleader) has thrown some interesting possibilities out, trips to play in the South and Midwest. Those would be pretty fun for me. I think the greatest buzz I get in playing in a band is playing someplace I've never played before. And best of all is getting completely out of the box and going somewhere totally new. I mean, we could play a new (for us) venue in Reno or Carson City, and while it'd be nice, we've all either played at or been to every venue in the area. And our fan base, as loyal as they may be, are still there. I love every last one of 'em for supporting us, but I like seeing completely new people, completely new places.

And this summer could be a banner season for that. One possible trip could be to the bank of casinos along the Mississippi River in Shreveport and Bossier City, Loiusiana. When the first mentions of this possible trip came up, I did a search on the net for the casinos in the area, and came to a minor surprise - there are links back to Reno in these casinos. There's an Eldorado in the area, and a Boomtown as well. I believe that there's a Harrah's there as well. This isn't anything particularly new, really. As casino gambling is legalized in more and more parts of the country, the casino owners in Nevada see opportunity. In most of the country it meant casinos owned by Native Americans initially backed by Nevada and Atlantic City interests, though most of the tribal casinos eventually either shook off their partners or went solo when the backers left of their own volition. But in Louisiana, they're apparently privately owned. The only difference between Nevada and anywhere else is the lack of sports-betting.

I also fired up Google Earth to look at the area in its entirety, and found something intriguing and slightly revolting at the same time - a Hustler Club. If you know your history of that naughtiest of naughty magazines, you'd know that the Hustler Clubs actually came first, as Larry Flynt's vision of a Playboy Club for average businessmen - hustlers - rather than the well-to-do. The magazine came along later. Well, a few blocks west of the Big Muddy is a Google Earth thumbtack with the tag 'Larry Flynt's Hustler Club'. This is almost scary for me, but almost too tempting to avoid. Y'see, I have a bad history with strip clubs. No, nothing scary, evil, or criminal, just embarrassing. Like getting my nose bloodied by a dancer in Reno nearly twenty years before I moved there, the first time I'd ever been in a strip club. To make a long story short, a dancer tried to stick her boobs in my face, but she didn't have enough to do the job and smacked me in the nose with her sternum. Didn't go near another strip club for almost a decade, when my sister-in-law took me to a club in Bend, Oregon. Where the dancers all knew her. She told me that it was the only place in Bend that she could get a drink in after midnight on a weeknight at that time. Well, I guess it'll do for and excuse.

Then there's the possibility of playing in the Detroit area. The city is really the cradle of American pop music as much as it is the Motor City. It's so much more than Motown, baby. George Clinton, Ted Nugent, Madonna, The MC5, Kid Rock, Eminem, ICP, and Iggy and The Stooges. Then again, the city is crumbling to dust as we speak, as the industries that supported it have all but died away. I'd still like to see the area, but to be totally honest, I'll go play just about anywhere as long as there's a paycheck involved.

And that's all I really want. So here's hoping for a very busy summer. Joy won't like me being gone, but she always appreciates the money I bring home.

Zen And The Art Of Drum Maintenance

2010-04-29T02:58:00.000-07:00

One thing that is universal with all musicians is that we have to replace our gear as it wears out. Strings break, microphones crap out, instruments need to be kept up as parts wear. For me, it's replacing heads. Normally, heads don't wear out terribly fast for me. I've worn out a grand total of one bass drumhead in fifteen years of professional playing, and tom heads are replaced maybe every three to five years. Snare drum batter heads (the one you actually hit - the bottom head that you don't hit is called a 'resonant' or 'snare-side' head) are the most frequently replaced heads for me, and even then that's only about every eighteen to twenty-four months. But I was in need of replacing my heads as a whole, as the worn-out bass drumhead I'd previously mentioned had forced me to use the head I'd padded for use with my triggers as a stopgap replacement.

I'd prefer to order Remo heads. PowerStroke 3 snare (batter) and bass heads, and Pinstripe tom heads are my heads of choice. But being on a budget forced me to go with an inexpensive set of medium-weight single-ply Attack heads. Price was the sole reason for buying these heads - a five-piece 'fusion' set, so called for the sizes of the tom heads (ten, twelve, and fourteen-inch clear tom heads, in addition to standard snare and bass heads, compared to a 'standard' kit alignment of twelve, thirteen and sixteen-inch toms plus snare and bass) that cost less than a single Remo PowerStroke 3 bass head. But these are the heads I use for my triggers, and they're serviceable heads.

Installing and tuning a drumhead, for those of you not who don't know, is very much like putting a tire on a car. The lugs are tuned in a pattern that goes back and forth across the rim while slowly going around. Imagine a drum with six lugs, numbered from 1 to 6 in a clockwise pattern. First you tune lugs 1 and 4 a little bit, then moving to one of the lugs to either side of 4 and going to the lug opposite that, either 5 to 2 or 6 to 3. Continue the pattern until you reach the head tension desired. The reason you do this is to keep the rim from going out of true (warping). There are special tools you can use to reach specific levels, like torque keys. Then there are actual tension sensors that you place in the middle of the head that can measure head tension to tenths, even hundredths of a degree. But I just use a good old-fashioned drum key and my ears to do the job. Old patterns used since high-school and a good ear allow me to tune the drums to a major I - III - V chord from bottom to top (I - III - V - VIII if I use four toms, and if I use all five toms, my largest tom is tuned an octave below the V-tone tom).

But friends, the shit hit the fan a few hours ago, as I worked on my snare drum. All of a sudden, I noticed that one lug refused to loosen, and after a few attempts to knock it loose, the inner workings of the lug bracket broke. Within a few minutes I removed the remaining lugs and loosened the broken lug's twin on the resonant head enough to pull the old batter head out of place. I only said 'enough' because that bracket broke as well. I removed the remainder of the lugs from the resonant head, pulled out the resonant head very carefully so as not to damage it, and unscrewed the bracket from the drum shell. Then I found out why Musician's Friend had sold it to me at a discount - both lugs in the bracket were bent. There's no salvaging the bracket, it's history. The only way to salvage the rims would require bolt cutters to cut the lugs. And since the snare only cost me $25 in the first place, I figured, why bother trying to fix the damn thing? The cost of the replacing the bracket wouldn't be all that much - if I could find one. The real cost would be shipping the damn thing from god-only-knows where to Port Angeles. So goodbye to my feisty little piccolo snare.

Fortunately, I always have more than one snare around. Two of the three I own are with me here in Port Angeles, while the third is in my storage unit in Reno. My spare snare is a funky old Ludwig student snare that Joy found at a garage sale run by her then-boss's daughter, and her son had used, then grown bored with the drum. I'd actually converted the drum into a trigger-only snare, with its snare assembly disabled and the snares themselves removed. So I removed the padded trigger-head and the old tom head I used as a fake resonant head, and installed the new Attack batter head and the piccolo's old Remo resonant head. Then I found that the snare assembly was missing a screw - and a damned important one. So I actually cannibalized the same part from the piccolo snare (and it fit!), and installed the expensive snares Joy had bought for me years ago that I'd put on the piccolo. Then came the twist ending - having to recall what little experience I had in tying the snares to the assembly that keeps it taut and in place. The vast majority of snare drums made these days use either plastic or Kevlar straps to secure the snares to the assemblies on either side of the shell. I used one plastic strap from the piccolo to anchor the snares, then carefully tied the other side to the assembly that allows me to adjust the snare tension. And tying knots is not a skill I'm very well-versed at. But I got the job done, and the snare sounds reasonably good.

Now all my drums have fresh, virgin heads on them. I never was able to find a gig while I've been away from Nevada - a few leads, but each one led to more questions than answers, and that's not something I really want to deal with - so the heads will have plenty of time to seat themselves properly before I break them out in Carson City in a little less than two weeks. I'm looking forward to playing the Station, the Nugget in Sparks, and perhaps a jam night or two to make a little money hosting the drummers. That reminds me, I'd better drop Dean a line pretty quick......

Later, y'all.

UPDATE: Within a few hours of originally posting this, I received an email from an employee of Musician's Friend (who'd sold me the pic) asking if there was anything he could do to help remedy the situation. After I threw a few more details at him, he concurred that the pic was a lost cause, but offered a ferocious discount on a snare that oddly enough, I'd already had my eye on for a future upgrade. Pretty cool, eh?

Vices, Temptations, And Things Better Left Alone

2010-04-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

Someone once asked me what my vices were, whether or not I indulged them when I was on the road, how easy they were to come by, did I even bother trying to resist temptations when I was on the road and away from my wife. It's never easy, avoiding temptation. The biggest ones are the easiest to avoid, but the most minor and inconsequential ones seem to be the ones that trouble me the most, morally and in more real-world terms.

Sex is always the biggest one, and the one I've developed the best defense against. Not that I have a problem with sex, it's just that whole Joy-would-beat-my-ass-like-a-redheaded-stepchild-if-she-found-out thing that gives me the willies. I'd mentioned previously how I deal with it, with what I call the Gentle Deflection, where I very carefully, very carefully try to turn a woman's unrequited lust into something more beneficial. No, not like a place to crash for the night or a free meal. More like having a network of friends that'll help keep me out of trouble and provide company of more Platonic means. I've even developed my personal favorite not-quite-a-brushoff line that's totally truthful:

Woman: "So, you're a long way from home. Do you cheat on your wife while you're on the road?"

Me: "Sure, I eat all the things she's allergic to. Dairy, citrus, shellfish, oh yeah....."

The last time I used that line, that poor woman looked at me like I was from Mars. Utterly thunderstruck. Gobsmacked. At sixes and sevens. DOES NOT COMPUTE. All I could offer up was a shrug and a shit-eating grin before I walked away. What the hell else was I supposed to do? Every last word I said was the honest truth!

The vices that get to me are more trivial, but perhaps more insidious. I'm already fully aware that I've got to get off my ass once in a while and exercise and eat less. Weather tends to be the problem a lot, as Nevada is dangerously hot in the summer, and dangerously cold in the winter. That keeps me indoors more than anything else. Now that I know that I have access to the gym and pool at the Nugget in Sparks, I can use that to get in a workout and kill time doing something other than eating junk food and making LOLz online. Finding similar freely-available facilities in Carson City would be even better.

I've also become an internet junkie, but then again, so has Joy. I can stay away from the more sordid corners of the World Wide Web without much trouble, but truth be told, virtually any activity online can be addictive for me. I already know that my genetic makeup leaves me very prone to addiction - most of my family are either alcoholics or recovering alcoholics - but bashing trolls on political blogs or on a PlayStation2 can be just as addicting. I know I've become a Facebook junkie, checking it several times a day for this update or that. Hell, I never thought I'd even like Facebook!

Lack of exercise is a killer for me. When I met Joy sixteen years ago, I probably weighed about 170 pounds. Now I'm pushing 225. Gaining about four or five pounds a year doesn't seem like much on the surface, but I know better. It's added up. This is why I need to get off my ass more often. When we first moved to Reno, one of the first things we did was to get a membership to a local gym. I'm not sure I lost a lot of weight, but I know that I was in better shape. It didn't help that my brief rugby career left me with shin splints so bad that, had I been either rich or a professional athlete, would've likely sent me in for microfracture surgery that would've taken months to recover from. But in the case of my working-class self, my only option was to get off my feet as much as possible for a while. But when your wife is in need of care like Joy is, that doesn't happen as much as I'd like it to.

And I know that I eat too much. Killing time alone in a hotel room as a virtual shut-in, staring at a monitor day and night (PS2, TV, computer), then working a sit-down job, it's not good at all. I like to cook when I can while I'm on the road, but cooking in a hotel room is a challenge at best, and something that could get me kicked out of said hotel room at worst. I wind up eating a lot of soups and sandwiches under the best of circumstances, and nothing but fast food and junk food under the worst. Working out more will hopefully offset the more destructive angels of my nature.

This way, the world can see less of me, right?

MB Presents: The Fred Phelps Award

2010-03-27T03:27:00.000-07:00

The other day, about an hour or so before I got up onstage here in Carson City, I got on my computer to see what was new on my Facebook account. I was confronted by my good friend Jeremy Orris ranting and raving like a madman. Or to be more accurate, a mad man. Y'see, his band Idekay was among five bands set to open for 80's hair-metal masters WASP. There was a problem, however - his band, along with the other four, were forced to wait outside the New Oasis nightclub in Sparks for several hours as WASP soundchecked. For seven hours. The band's tour manager also wound up forcing three of the five bands off the bill for no reason whatsoever, prohibited them from selling their merchandise, forbade the remaining two bands from backlining their equipment (basically, setting up in advance in front of the headliners' gear), allowed the two bands twenty-minute sets, and most bizarrely, forbid any and all, including New Oasis staff and security, even the local promoter, from looking lead singer Steven "Blackie Lawless" Duren in the eye.

Normally, this would be an unfortunate but all too common occurence. It does happen a lot, bands on club tours being forced to dump local bands from opening slots due to various real or imagined circumstances. But what pissed everyone off what that the local bands had done a lot of the ticket-selling for this show. A lot of hard work was thrown away by a band with no respect for the people who actually got the butts in the seats for them. Jeremy's band chose to walk away with their dignity intact. My good friends Pain Clinic were tossed from the show quite literally as the result of a coin toss. Both of these bands had driven for more than an hour just to get to the show, arrived at the venue when they were told to be there for set-up, waited patiently for the headliners to soundcheck, then were treated with utter contempt. Jeremy had every reason in the world to be mad. He vented his anger on his Facebook account, and Pain Clinic did the same on their MySpace account. I checked in with Pain Clinic, and with their drummer James on his own MySpace account, and suggested to them that they should air their grievances with WASP on Blabbermouth, the hard-rock and heavy-metal news website owned by top independent metal label Roadrunner Records. And boy, did they.

Not only did Pain Clinic reveal their shoddy treatment at the hands of WASP, they posted eyewitness accounts of Duren (Lawless) lip-synching his vocals during the soundcheck and the show, as well as accounts of watching WASP's soundtech muting Duren's microphone during songs, and unmuting it between songs so Duren could talk to the audience. While pre-recorded background vocals are nothing new in popular music, going back as far as the Sixties, but this is pushing into Milli Vanilli territory. Professional musicians know when people fake it. I know when people fake it. Powerlight faked their vocals for years, with Jackie mumbling along to her own pre-recorded vocals. I watched the keyboard player for the Dutch symphonic-metal band Within Temptation fake his keyboard parts during a show in Reno two-and-a-half years ago. I have no doubt whatsoever that Pain Clinic, however young they are, they're professional enough to know when they see a man faking it. They've endured a few slings and arrows from the trolls that inhabit the message boards on Blabbermouth, but in my opinion are stronger and better people for it.

Now I'll bet you're wondering about the title of this post, and why I would have an award named for a vile and disgusting anti-gay preacher from Kansas. This is something I've decided to bring over from my blog on MySpace, an award given to exemplary displays of stupidity of mind-boggling proportions. So now I give you the latest winner of the Fred Phelps Award for being The Dumbest Humanoid On The Planet: Steven Edward Duren, a/k/a Blackie Lawless. In fact, let's take it further than that. This blog has the word 'boycott' in it, after all.

It's time to call a boycott against WASP, and against Duren personally, for their cruel mistreatment of hard-working local musicians, their idiocy and bizarre behavior, and the deception of their paying customers. While I cannot verify the accusations leveled against them by Pain Clinic because I wasn't there to see it for myself, I would be hard-pressed to doubt their claims. Here's a link to their posts on Blabbermouth:

www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=137477

It's our privilege to support local music, and it's our responsiblity to call out touring bands that disrespect local bands and musicians. Better yet, don't support bands that behave in such a foul way. Let them wither and die on the vine as punishment for their actions. It reminds me of an old saying that so many famous people seem to forget:

"Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you'll probably see them again on the way down."

By The Way, Russ.....

2010-03-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

I figured out why my new friend Russ Strathdee wasn't able to comment on my blog posts - I'd never actually set up my blog to accept posts correctly. I think I've fixed it. but I'll still be moderating the comments, so no trolling, aight?

The Learning Curve

2010-03-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

This current run is winding down, and the Stonz and I have been taking the opportunity to add some new material to our shows. Actually, let me rephrase that - they already know the material, it's getting my pale fat ass to learn it that's the fun part. It's actually not that difficult, just time-consuming. They'd already been passing me material to work with from the moment I first played with them in Oroville at the Gold Country Casino last July, so whenever I get a CD handed to me, I know that there's some more material to learn. Last time through here I was passed a disc with a Temptations medley and a weird (to me) dance-mix version of the Ben E. King chestnut "Stand By Me". Back in Port Angeles, I rigged up my kit with my triggers and practiced quietly for about an hour or so a day, until I had things more-or-less down. Then they told me that I'd have to learn their harmonies. Normally, that's not a problem for me, so we just set up time during the day to work it all out.

The Carson Station has its own little green-room for the bands, with a storage area, a dressing room and a small bathroom. Mike and Arthur and I adjoin to the dressing room and go over the CD they gave me again and again, going through ten Temps songs in twelve minutes. It's difficult at first, but then I realized something that I'm not entirely sure that I'd ever done before in a band - actually learning a harmony, rather than merely listening to the other people sing and finding a hole in the chord structure in which to settle. In Powerlight, that's what I'd always done, even if turned out that the harmony I sang was some wild-ass extrapolation of the melodic line that nobody had ever heard of before, as if I'd just dropped in from another planet and decided to learn to sing rather than being taken to any particular leader. At first I struggled with what they wanted me to sing, and then commit that particular line to memory - I still really need to take a recorder of some kind to practice so later on, I can focus on what I did right. But Mike reassured me that I was actually picking up the parts with rather quickly, and that I shouldn't be so frustrated with my perceived inability to instantaneously absorb and process the information being given to me. The rehearsals rarely go longer than an hour, and I think I'm doing well, or maybe that's my more pessimistic side trying to be optimistic while wondering aloud if they really think that I suck at this.

I'm such a smartass.

Oh well, at least the material is being put to use and the crowds like what we play for them. And I appreciate that very much. And we'll return to Carson City in about six weeks, where I'm sure that I'll get another CD handed to me. I wonder what'll be on it? Probably something that was written and recorded before I was born. We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

Mistaken Identity, or "Waitaminute, Isn't He Dead?"

2010-03-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

I've recently had the opportunity to talk with a fellow music blogger about a certain friend of mine who's been in and out of my life for the last fifteen years or so.

Or so I thought. Well, it goes like this:

A few days ago, I was going through the email account tied to this blog and I received a message from a man who tried to post a comment to my blog, but was unsuccessful in doing so. It seemed that he knew my old friend Wes Chapman, a keyboardist and singer rebuilding his life after a long struggle with the bottle. So naturally, I responded gleefully and asked what kind of dirt he had on ol' Wes. It turns out that this fellow, a Canadian saxophonist named Russ Strathdee, was thinking of another Wes who'd passed on several years ago. My Wes is, of course, still breathing and playing the occasional piano-bar gig. We got over the "oops" pretty quickly and Russ even threw out the idea of jamming with my Wes if he ever came to Reno. Sounds like a fun idea if schedules work out right. I'll have to give Wes a jingle and see if he has any gigs coming up.

And in the spirit of cross-promotion, here are links for Russ' websites:

strathdee.wordpress.com (his blog)

rstrathdee.com (his personal website)

Russ is a pretty well-rounded player, handling jazz, blues and early rock with equal aplomb. He's got a pretty good discography, going back forty years. And he seems like a nice guy, so give him a look and listen, willya?

Well, I have to go set up my gear now. My next run of shows at the Carson Station starts tomorrow, and I've got the Monster out, and all of it, since I have to take it back to Port Angeles with me for the blues band that wants to jam with me when I get back. Wish me luck!

Departure

2010-03-08T21:57:00.000-08:00

Well, in a few hours Joy and I will be heading back to Nevada for a few weeks of work. It'll quite possibly be her last trip that way for the next several months, as the weather will likely be too hot for her once the next scheduled run starts in mid-May, and the following scheduled run (all of August) will most certainly be too hot for her. So I guess I'd better get her there while she can enjoy it. It shouldn't be too much of a chore, with a leisurely drive to Bend tomorrow to her sister's place, followed by another leisurely drive to Sparks the next night. By 'leisurely' I mean eight hours a day, but if you've been a faithful reader you know what my travel habits, so eight hours would seem leisurely.

After this run of gigs I'll have a whole month to myself. I have a few leads, friends offering to scout around and find last-minute substitute gigs. A guitarist I used to work with flat-out offered me the drum chair in his blues band, claiming enough gigs to live off of, but while the offer has its merits, I just don't have enough information to even want to think about making a switch. And then there's the fact the guy offering me the gig is more a little flaky. I like the guy, but I know enough about him to not place implicit trust in him without explicit proof. But playing with a live band is always fun, and playing with a different band than the one that pays my bills is fun in a dirty sort of way, kind of like cheating on your spouse, just without the mess, the guilt, the unwanted pregnancies or the sexually-transmitted diseases. All the fun, none of the mess!

Why does it suddenly sound like an ad for diet soda?

Oh well. I hate diet soda. Talk to y'all later.

Oh by the way, hi Russ.

Karaoke, or Killing Time By Singing Better Than Most

2010-02-24T02:36:00.000-08:00

I've got time on my hands, so what the hell else am I supposed to do? I've got three weeks in between gigs, and only two new songs to learn in that time. And I don't sing in Steppen Stonz anywhere near as much as I did with Powerlight, so I have to keep my vocal chops up somehow. Karaoke ain't the greatest solution, but I enjoy it, so there.

Coming back to Port Angeles, I find myself with only two legitimate options for doing karaoke. My preferred choice is at a funky little bar called The Coo Coo's Nest, which long ago used to be the whitest, most Irish Mexican restaurant in the entire universe. I would know, because I worked their once, washing dishes and doing prep-work while my uncle Skip was the cook, and the closest thing we had to a minority working there was an excessively-tanned bartender. Every time I go to The Nest, I get profoundly disoriented from that past experience. But it's a nice place with good music in the jukeboxes, Guitar Hero in the back room, and Joy's favorite beer in the world (Rogue Brewery's Dead Guy Ale) on tap, and perhaps the deepest karaoke selection I've ever seen on Tuesday nights.

That deep selection is giving me the opportunity to really stretch the limits of my capabilities as a singer. Of the three nights that I've attended so far, I think I've only sung two or three songs that I was already familiar with. Last week I walked in and sang Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself For Loving You" stone cold and took second place in a contest qualifier, though I honestly thought that nobody else sang anywhere nearly as good as I did. I've been doing so much off-the-wall, off-the-cuff, pulling-it-straight-out-of-my-ass stuff, say like following up 90's one-hit-wonders Failure with Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" and Genesis wannabes Marillion's one radio hit from the 80's, "Kayleigh", with old Whitesnake, Deep Purple, and Oasis on deck, that even I'm kind of surprised at what I've been coming up with, and doing well.

But in the end, it's just for fun. There's really nothing that I could come up with here that could surface with the Stonz. What will surface with them is sitting in the basement right now, as my kit is set up and waiting patiently for morning to come, so I can learn two songs, and generally just take out a lot of frustration upon. See y'all in Sparks at the Nugget in a couple of weeks!

Getting There

2010-01-27T21:39:00.000-08:00

Now that I have established my base of operations in distant (if not exotic) Port Angeles, you may ask yourself, "how the hell does this maniac get there?" Well, it's not such a chore if you're patient and generally love to be behind the wheel, as I am. So dear reader, here's a rough example and a timeline for getting from Port Angeles to Reno.

First off, there is no single way to get there. Add up the number of different combinations of which highway to take, which pass to cross through either the Cascades or Siskiyous/Sierras, and whether or not I have to stop for a meal or a purchase, and the possibilities are damn near endless. But for arguments' sake, I'll just go with my usual route.

3:30am: I'm just rolling out of bed, and the first thing I go to is my computer. The latest weather reports, specifically for those mountainous areas that I'll have to pass through, are utterly mandatory this time of year. Come spring and summer, I won't give a fat rat's ass about pass conditions, but right now that knowledge is paramount. Following that comes the shower and food prep, usually a mess of sandwiches for the trip to come.

4:45 - 5:00am: Departure from Port Angeles, eastbound on US101. Traffic at this time of day, no matter what day it is, will be almost nonexistent for quite some time, switching from US-101 to WA-104. After about an hour I cross the Hood Canal Floating Bridge and head south on WA-3. I finally see some traffic passing through Silverdale and Bremerton, and switch onto WA-16 in Gorst. By the way, times will be marked as (+h:mm) from departure the rest of the way, so just adapt.

+1:40: The turnoff at Gorst is actually pretty important at this point. Turning onto WA-16 here sends me to Tacoma, and the only toll I'll have to pay on the entire route at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. So if I'm short on cash, I may skip the $4 toll bridge and remain on WA-3 to its end in Shelton, where I rejoin US-101 (which slowly winds its way along the west side of Hood Canal to reach Shelton) and pick up Interstate 5 in Olympia, instead of in Tacoma, 30 miles further north. But I've got cash and cross the Narrows at about (+2:10). If I'm travelling on a weekday, I'll hit the morning commute in Tacoma as WA-16 crosses over Nalley Valley and intersects I-5.

+2:20 - 4:00: This is a pretty straight shot down I-5, passing through Olympia, Centralia/Chehalis, Kelso/Longview, and Vancouver before crossing into Oregon at Portland's Jantzen Beach neighborhood. Even though I'm in the midst of the morning commute, Portland's effective mass-transit systems have significantly reduced traffic levels on I-5 to the point where passing through Portland is of no great concern.

+4:00 - 5:30: Portland passes by, and I climb up to the broad plateau of the Willamette River Valley. I-5 takes me south through Salem, Albany, and finally Eugene. It's getting on towards lunch right about now, and some of my favorite joints in Eugene are opening for the day, like Three Forks Grill and Chipotle Mexican Grill. Also, Eugene is my last chance to buy any equipment I may need from Guitar Center (taking advantage of not having to pay sales tax in Oregon) before I hit Nevada. But instead, I pass straight on through, and take Exit 189 to get on OR-58 to clear Willamette Pass and cross into Central Oregon.

Now, I have to digress for a moment and talk about fuel. It takes a lot of gas to get me where I need to go. My redoubtable little Ranger gets about 26-30mpg, efficient by truck standards, but enough to make me miss my little Suzuki Swift hatchback (aka The Atomic Jellybean) and its 46-50mpg. But fuel stops still have to happen. I usually stop at AM/PMs and nothing but unless the prices are better somewhere else. So I should go back to the beginning and mention that while I'm online, I also check gas prices for pretty much every step of the way, which has a footprint reaching from Port Angeles to as far as Sacramento before landing in Reno.

+5:30 - 7:00: The deep forests of the Oregon Cascades are beautiful, but generally block the signal of my satellite-radio unit, which sucks generous amounts of ass. Clearing the highest pass in the Oregon Cascades (just past 5,200 feet) eventually drops me on to the high plateau above the Klamath River Basin, and OR-58 merges on to US-97 about 9 miles north of Chemult, where a Pilot truck stop frequently beckons to me to drain the lizard, grab a Subway sub and fill the gas tank. I hate gassing up in Oregon because you're not allowed to fill your own tank there. This usually screws up my gas-mileage estimates because of a tiny hole in the fuel-delivery hose prevents the pump-jockey from topping off the tank without causing a huge mess of spilled fuel.

+7:00 - 8:10: US-97 becomes a virtual dragstrip as police presence drops to almost nothing for the first 50 miles between Chemult and Klamath Falls, then the headlong rush becomes a sedate, no-I'm-not-doing-anything-illegal-officer 55mph from the McKenzie River Valley south to Klamath Lake, and eventually Klamath Falls itself. K-Falls is usually my last fuel stop of the trip, as what few hamlets I pass by along the rest of the way feature fuel prices that would bankrupt anyone short of a millionaire.

+8:15 - 9:15: The Klamath Basin gives way to the eastern foothills of the Siskiyous and Sierras, and the oddest thing that you might come across if you don't pass through this area very often: Fruit Inspection Checkpoints. Every highway has a booth alongside the road, a few miles in from any towns close to California's borders. Y'see, fruit and vegetables brought in from out-of-state could potentially harbor bugs, spores, and other pests that could potentially be a danger to the state's massive agricultural base. So they pull over every vehicle that passes through and ask the driver if they're carring any fresh fruit or vegetables and/or their destination. Since I generally don't do so, I usually tell the nice person that the only vegetable onboard is the one doing the driving. That never fails to get a smile and a wave through. A few miles past the 'fruit stand' on CA-139 (which started out life as OR-39) is my last real question of the trip. A turnoff only marked for the villages of Lookout and Bieber (Modoc County Road 85, I think) promises a shortcut of nearly 40 miles from staying on CA-139, turning east on CA-299 near Canby, then turning south onto US-395 at Alturas for the remainder of the journey. But the little county road is bumpy and narrow, and potentially icy and snowy in winter, whereas US-395 presents little hazard to me. But the weather is fine, so onto the County Road I go.

+9:15 - 12:45: The foothills are treacherous and windy, but of no great challenge through most seasons. The scenery is beautiful, but of little interest to me. Lookout passes by as no more than few houses on a hill near the road, and Bieber is a hamlet a mile or so to the west of me as I cross CA-299 and continue along the County Road to eventually rejoin CA-139, bypassing some nasty roads I'd rather avoid no matter the season. CA-139 passes through BLM land as well as the Modoc National Forest and skirts the eastern shore of Eagle Lake before eventually depositing me into Susanville and CA-36, eastbound for Reno.

+12:45 - 14:15: By this time, I'm pretty much running on little more than caffeine and willpower. Fortunately, the going is easy as CA-36 runs into US-395 a few miles east of Susanville, and the final 70 miles or so to Bordertown is uneventful, passing by little hamlets with names like Janesville, Milford, Herlong, and Doyle before blessed freeway returns at the appropriately-named Hallelujah Junction. Eventually my goal slides into view, the reflection of the lights of the Truckee Meadows off clouds and sky preceding the actual view long before then.

+14:15 - ?: Now it's just a matter of finding where the final resting place will be, but not before grabbing my gear at my storage unit, and maybe getting a quick bite to eat somewhere. In a few days, that somewhere will likely be in Carson City at the Carson Station. At least there, Lupe will make up a killer burrito for me, followed by a well-deserved slumber.

Well, there you have it. It's a long day. Ridiculously long. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do to make a buck. So if you happen to be in Carson City sometime between February 3rd and the 13th, come by the Station and tell me what a crazed maniac I am, willya?

Exile On Laurel Street

2010-01-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a few weeks since I last posted, and pretty much everything I figured that was going to happen, did. My boss laid me off from my courier route, not because of anything I'd said or done but because he'd lost so many of his other accounts he couldn't afford to pay me. However, he was able to pay me before we left town, and told me that if the economy improved he'd be more than happy to hire me back should I return to Reno. We're at my mother's house in Port Angeles, where the contents of our kitchen melded quite nicely with hers, and I've cooked a standing rib roast, kebab koobedeh and other delights for the family, to great fanfare and applause.

Honestly, it's been kind of surreal being back in Port Angeles. Some things haven't changed at all, while some things have changed beyond recognition. One thing that has changed around here is the absolute obsession with "Twilight". The teen-romance/vampire craptastrophe is set in Forks, an otherwise completely unremarkable little redneck lumber town about an hour west of here. As a result of this, hordes of teen and preteen girls (and their mothers) have begun to come to the Olympic Peninsula in the last few years to see the places and sights described by the book series. Naturally, local businesses have played along, and their are references to the book, its characters and its events all over the area.

It's fucking nauseating.

But it's home, and in a time and economy when jobs are scarce, you've got to do what you've got to do to keep your head above water, so I keep my revulsion to myself. After all, I might wind up employed at some place where I'll be neck-deep in "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" crap. That said, I still have gigs to play in Nevada, and connections to make in Washington to augment the load. I'll be back in Carson City at the beginning of February for two weeks at the Station, followed by three weeks at John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks as well as the Station in March. Hopefully, I'll be able to get my tattoo from Ali at No Boys Allowed then, mostly because Joy desperately wants to be there to watch me squirm.

And things aren't so bad here. We have a comfortable bedroom upstairs, with just about everything we need for the time being. My little brother has video games up the ying-yang in the room next door. Only having one bathroom in the house is kind of a bitch, but we're adapting. We even manage to have wireless internet, though that's because our next door neighbor has an unsecured wireless network in her own house. Thank you, whoever you are. And I even have a jam night to go to on Sunday night, though it'll be a little odd going to a jam hosted by my homeroom teacher from the 6th grade!

I think we'll do just fine, though. So here's to change and to what it brings. I'm ready.

Bring it on, motherfucker.

It Could Be A Lot Worse

2009-12-24T13:56:00.000-08:00

I could be dead in a ditch in Burma.

I could be unemployed.

I could be cold.

I could be alone.

I could have no hope for the future.

I could be whining incessantly for no good reason.

----------------------------------------------------

Back to reality, Joe. I'm not dead, that's clearly obvious. I have a gig. I'm ensconced in my comfortable hotel room in Carson City with my loving wife sleeping a few feet away from me. Things aren't easy, but I still have room for optimism. I'm trying to cut back on my whining, don't know how well that's going.

Looking back, this hasn't been a great year for me, but I've come to the realization that there are more important things in life, than the bigger things. Being closer to friends and family. Being a more forgiving person to those who crossed me, or at least trying to be. Being less concerned about myself and more concerned about others. Giving more and taking less. It's an ongoing process, one that'll only finish shortly after I stop breathing.

But I have hope. Things will get better, sooner or later. I know one thing for sure. My fingernails will be a lot stronger for the experience. Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, and don't forget Festivus (for the rest of us), and here's to a Happy New Year for all of us.

Back To The Future?

2009-12-22T00:14:00.000-08:00

With Joy's illness, I've had to make plans for a fighting retreat back to Washington, with the only variable in said plans depending on the status of my job as an overnight courier. Right now I'm on an enforced two-week vacation because, simply put, my boss can't afford to pay me. I knew that that the recession/depression/whatfuckingever was going to get to me sooner or later, but I still can't fight the feeling of helplessness, knowing the axe is falling one way or the other. If my boss can't bring me back by the time this gig at the Station is over, we're out of here.

That said, I'll still play with Steppen Stonz as long as is feasible. But it's also going to mean some serious downtime. I think that I've found a way around it, but it'll take some buttering up. And I have a recovering alcoholic to thank for it.

And it's not Rick Cowen.

It's a guy I first worked with several years ago, doing a fill-in gig at the New Peking in Port Angeles. His name is Wes Chapman, and he's originally from these parts. Back then he was a killer keyboardist and singer who was apparently trying to make his own version of Leaving Las Vegas, albeit without the hot-assed hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold a la Elisabeth Shue. Nowadays, he seems to have finally kicked the habit and is looking to be in better shape than he's been in for years. Unfortunately, he's also had run-ins with the local bands and agencies to the point where he's been all but blacklisted from the area's rooms. He still does piano-bar type gigs in small rooms around town, leavening them with part-time jobs (he even briefly worked with the Stonz' keyboardist for a few days at the Eldorado).

I ran into him at Diamond's, in the Ramada Inn on my route one night a few weeks ago. I told him of our situation, and he suggested that I get in touch with Norm, who led the band I played with when we first met back at the New Peking. I already have his email, and I recently found him on Facebook. Now if I could the last person from that group, my favorite Buddhist lesbian bassist in the world...... But I digress. Maybe Norm can help me get some fill-in work when I'm not here in Nevada with the Stonz. Maybe not. But there's no harm in asking. Either way, it brings up some interesting memories, of people I used to play with and hang out with when I was first getting established in the circuit back in Washington. Before Powerlight. And I have other contacts to work with as well. I have confidence that I can find gigs up there. So here's to being optimistic, and finding more work to lighten my load, as well as Joy's, and that of whoever we'll be landing with when we get back to Port Angeles. I just found out that my mom and stepdad filed for bankruptcy, and they could use our help as much as we could use theirs.

Wish me luck, eh?

A Slight Addendum, Plus Giving In To The Machine

2009-12-15T15:14:00.000-08:00

I want to clarify something I said in my last post. When I said that Joy and I are done with Nevada, I meant to say that we're done with living here. I'll still come down to play with Steppen Stonz for as long as they need me. I have to take Joy home no later than this coming spring, because she simply can't handle another summer here. Nor could we as a couple handle the likely bills incurred by another lengthy hospital stay. So I'll just commute back and forth for the foreseeable future after we move back to Washington. I could use the tax write-off for the mileage.

And you may have noticed the Facebook button to the right of the post. Yeah, I surrendered. I gave in. Given that so many of my friends are already on Facebook as well as (or instead of) MySpace, I figured that I'd better start a profile while I had the time. And since I'm comfortably ensconced in our hotel room at the Carson Station for the next three weeks, I figured that I'd pull my desktop out of storage to have the extra computer available to work on a suitable Facebook profile. It's slow going, but it's going forward. So look at my FB profile, and tell me what you think, willya?

Holidaze and Departures

2009-12-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

The holidays have always been weird for me. But it almost always means work as well. Ever since I started with Powerlight back in '98, I've worked just about every holiday season. Every Thanksgiving, every Christmas. This year was the first Thanksgiving I'd had off in quite a while. And after eating the cardboard that posed as the turkey my wife's daughter made, I'd have rather eaten one of those Jennie-O turkey slabs you can get at Wal-Mart for three or four bucks. And with Steppen Stonz playing the next four weeks in a row (next week at the Nugget in Sparks, the next three after that in Carson City at the Station), I'll be busy as hell. That is, if I'm still working my courier route. If not, then everything is up in the air except for Joy and I, as we'll be heading north for absolutely certain.

At least Christmas in a hotel room in Carson City is better than in a pop-up trailer in Reno. I can walk around a hotel room naked without fear of hypothermia. (Sorry about the visual!) One way or another though, it'll be our last here in Nevada. Joy's illnesses have gotten to the point where she won't be able to handle another summer here, so we'll move home no later than this upcoming May or so. Our friends and families back home are eager to see us in Olympia, Yelm, Port Angeles, and other places around the Puget Sound. I'll probably still commute to gigs in Nevada if the situation calls for it. But I think I've had just about enough of doing this for a living. I'd like to be able to do this for fun again. I don't think that's a realistic scenario here in Nevada.

I'm tired of the backstabbing. I'm tired of people making things up about me. I'm tired of playing to people who're only interested in getting another royal flush, no matter if they're eating ramen at home and the lights got turned off yesterday. I'm tired of the barely disguised desperation I see around me and within me, that feeling that the razor's edge I'm walking on is only getting sharper. That my own margins are getting narrower. That my wife's health is in decline.

I miss green.

I miss rain. Not that pelting rain we get here when thunderstorms roll through, but the gentle rain that I never had a problem walking around in, or better yet playing rugby in. To quote the Blink-182 song "Dammit", I guess that this is growing up. But growing up means dealing with the situation to the best of my ability, and that's just what I'll do for the next few weeks, until the run of gigs is over, and we'll have a better picture of what's to come. And as always dear reader, I'll keep you posted.

PS: I'm finally gonna stop being a wuss-bag and get a tattoo, from Joy's favorite artist, Ali Deceunynck at No Boys Allowed in Sparks. I should be getting it right around Christmas, So I'll post a few pictures when the deed is done.

Blast From The Past?

2009-11-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

Joy and I just got a phone call the other day from Calvin (my old bandleader in Powerlight), letting us know that they were going to be in town this weekend. That, and that he needed Joy's help again in doing his back taxes. They haven't played a meaningful gig since they got 86'd from the Atlantis nearly six months ago, and are only coming to Reno to play for Renown Medical Center's holiday party. Driving over fourteen hundred miles round-trip for one gig, one night only, what does that tell you?

But it stirs up some interesting emotions. I quit Powerlight to save them from getting fired because of Cockbreath McPothead's jealousy, only for them to get fired the very next gig. Meanwhile, I'm working pretty steadily and trying to get our lives in order for our next step, likely a move back to Washington State and probably back to Port Angeles, where Joy could live more comfortably (not to mention closer to our families). I never stopped being friends with Calvin, but dealing with Jackie could be difficult. Y'see, after I left Powerlight, a mutual friend who works at the Atlantis told me that Jackie had blamed me for all the band's ills over the years, never mind that I'd pretty much carried the band for all that time. Now, they're in more dire straits than they've probably ever been due to Jackie's (alleged) outburst, and they're in need of our help, even if only for Joy's bookkeeping skills.

Fortunately, I won't have to deal with them for all that long, as their gig is on Friday the 13th, which is the same night as the Divine Heresy show at the New Oasis. Three of the four opening bands on the bill, I Dekay, Pain Clinic and Blasphemous Creation are friends of ours, and our favorite tattoo artist, Ali Deceunynck from No Boys Allowed will be coming along for the show as well. Her ticket was the tip we gave her for Joy's latest tattoo. And Ali will pop my cherry next month, when I get my first tattoo. I'll only have to deal with Powerlight in passing on Saturday, when Calvin will unload a few hundred pounds of paperwork on us......

Oh, joy.

In The Crowd, Rather Than Onstage, Part 2

2009-11-04T02:08:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't enjoy a good concert, after all? And even if it may or may not cause future financial distress, there are certain bands that we just won't miss for anything. Ozomatli is one of those bands. This seven-piece combo is the living embodiment of all things LA short of getting a bacon-wrapped hot dog from a taco truck on the corner. Sunday's show was our third straight year seeing them up at the Crystal Bay Club, and we were dead-set on getting good spots up front.

I swear to god that we shouldn't be in such a rush. Security opened up the Crown Room at 8pm, and even though we went through the line about five minutes after eight, well..... there was no real line to speak of. Let's just say that Tahoe crowds like to develop slowly. The few that were there to greet opener Lateef the Truthspeaker enjoyed his set, but they were just biding their time, waiting for the headliners to come out.

Ozomatli hit the stage a little after ten, and delivered another killer set of their unique blend of Latin, hip-hop, soul and rock with the usual crazy energy that we've come to expect from them. The crowd is almost immediately in a frenzy....... and that's not really a good thing. Two years ago, a guy came rushing up to what he thought was an empty spot up front, and put a knee into Joy's back as she sat in her wheelchair. Her scream of pain brought the show to a standstill then. Sunday, some blonde woman tried to jump on to my back, as if to get a piggy-back ride. Well, all I knew about was feeling small hands on my neck, and what I'd presume was legs trying to lock around my waist, then suddenly dropping away. Followed by Joy shouting in pain. I looked behind me to find the blonde flat on her back, then turned to see Joy clutching her left arm. The blonde had kicked Joy in that arm when she tried to mount me. Inadvertently, to be fair, but she kicked Joy. I wasn't paying attention to the stage, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if the whole band saw it happen. I tried to explain to the blonde what she'd done, even guided her over to Joy to apologize, but I don't think she ever really caught on to what had happened.

I'm pretty sure the band knew what was going on. I was confirmed in that when Ozomatli ended their show with their traditional march through the crowd, where the entire band (save Asdru and Ulises, their horn players) grab drums or percussion and boldly climb down from the stage to play in and amongst the crowd in a conga line. Well, the line snaked around the crowd before coming right up to us, with bassist Wil-dog Abers leading the entourage, and every single band member came up to Joy and passed by, touched her in almost a kind of reassuring way, as if they all wanted to know that she was okay.

And after the show, we got to talk with Wil-dog for a few minutes. He was glad that we'd come, and noted that it was our third year in a row for their show in Crystal Bay. We were pretty impressed with him remembering us like that. After all, these guys play hundreds of shows a year, all around the world. I'm sure Joy isn't the only woman in a wheelchair that these guys see. But I'm also pretty sure that she isn't that hard to forget after what happened two years ago.

We left Crystal Bay with a set list, a warning sign with the band's pic on it, a CD, a pass to download the show to our computer as an mp3, and a broken string from Wil-dog's bass. And the special kind of buzz that you can only get from being at a really good show. A show from a band that we can count as friends instead of just a band. That's what makes being in the crowd so special to us.

In The Crowd, Rather Than Onstage, Part 1

2009-11-01T17:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. It's just been kinda hectic recently. Not my work life, my personal life. With Joy's suite of illnesses, things are never calm for long, as one or another bobs to the surface and she's in pain-and-suffering mode, and I'm duty-bound to care for her. Not that I have any problem with that. All part and parcel of the whole husband gig, I always say.

But today I write about other things than sarcoidosis, costochondritis, or multiple sclerosis. Instead, I write about the simple joys of being in the crowd for a show, rather than being the one onstage delivering said show. I'm writing this from the cozy confines of our hotel room at the Carson Station on the day after Halloween, getting ready to head up to Tahoe to see an absolutely killer show tonight when Ozomatli take the stage at the Crystal Bay Club. It's our third straight year seeing them play there, and we have no intention of missing this show.

It's kinda funny. We used to live an hour away from Seattle, which is always on the tour itinerary of most bands, yet we never went to any shows there. Now we live in Reno, which most tours avoid altogether, and we manage to hit several shows a year. Not quite three weeks ago we went to see 90's alt-metal legends Prong at the New Oasis in Sparks. And in a little less than two weeks from now we'll be catching shred-metallists Divine Heresy at the Oasis, and I'll be doing a little drum-deity worshipping at the feet of DH drummer Tim Yeung (go check out his videos on YouTube - you too shall bow). I guess that it's just that when anything close to a cool show comes down I-80, I'm going. It also doesn't hurt that most of the shows we go to aren't terribly expensive, no more than $30 a ticket and most less than $15.

I'd like to pontificate more about tours, travel paths, promoters and such, but it's dinner time and Joy's hungry. I wanted to take her to Happy Hour at Bite in Incline Village (www.bitetahoe.com - 'American Tapas' - We call it 'awesome'), but it's a little late for that, so it's down to the casino restaurant for dinner, then up to Tahoe. And I need to get dressed.

Typing in the nude - ain't it great?

(Okay, go clean up your vomit. We'll talk again later.)

Going Coastal

2009-10-01T01:57:00.000-07:00

I just got back the other day from a gig out on the Oregon Coast. It was a pleasant gig, but not great. There could've been more people there, especially on Sunday night, but I can't complain too much. The last time I played at the Three Rivers Casino in Florence, I played with a band that I don't have much contact with any more, mostly because the bandleader is a lying backstabbing bastard. And no matter how quietly I played, I was getting slagged for playing too loud. So, to prepare for the gig I took the heads off my drums and replaced them with a different set of heads that I'd modified with a generous application of carpet padding. Then I applied electronic drum triggers (basically similar to guitar pickups) to each head and ran them through the Simmons Hybrid controller that I got for my birthday in February. I still have some learning to do with muffling the heads properly, and getting the best contact of the triggers to the heads to get the best possible sound, but it was a good enough job to get by.

The drive over was easy enough, though I've come to the conclusion that Mike and Arthur really don't like driving too much, and would just take the easiest route to get where they're going rather than the the shortest route. I'd wanted to take Joy with me, but Mike really wasn't down with that idea, so I dropped her off in Bend to visit with her sister while I was out in Florence. I'd been informed that there was no way in hell that I could find the bandhouse, so I was told to go to the casino and wait for the guys there. I really hate to tell them this, but they were making mountains out of molehills. While the bandhouse was off US101 and up a dirt road, I had no doubt that I could've found it if given the proper directions.

The bandhouse itself was something of a shock - it was actually a nice house! And since nobody had a real idea as to who owned the place, my mind started to fill in the blanks for me. Whether I wanted it to or not. I even took a hint from Joy and brought in my thor's-hammer to bless my bedroom and protect it from evil. I later learned that the casino rented the house from the couples who owned it and were still in the process of remodeling it, but I slept the firs night in the house with the nagging feeling that something sinister was lurking.

I have to give a kudo to the casino's soundman, Jeff. He remembered me from the year before, and was nearly moved to tears when he saw that he had nothing to worry about with my newly-modified drums. That, plus the addition of a drum-screen to the stage, made me very quiet and mellow for the audience's safety. The shows themselves were okay, just not to a lot of people.

My only real disappointment was that there weren't good crowds that weekend. One of the waitresses was rather disappointed as well. The casino is the only real source of nightlife in the area, but it's still heavily dependent on tourists coming in from around western Oregon and southwest Washington, so if they're not there, the audiences get a little thin. I still had to go buy a few odds and sods in Eugene, so Cliff and I made a day of it and got a great lunch at Three Forks Wok & Grill (excellent stuff, right there in the same stripmall as the Guitar Center in Eugene - jackpot!). I really didn't leave the bandhouse much beyond that, other than for expeditions for groceries. Didn't really want to, because I just wasn't interested. All I wanted to do was to get the gig over with and get back to Bend to be with my wife.

I really shouldn't be so negative. I do get to do what I love to do, and get paid for it. But I never know when things will really start to go downhill with Joy, so I just would rather be with her and take care of her. But at least I'm working. I'll be pretty busy through the remainder of the month, and playing on Halloween night in Carson City at the Carson Station. That could be fun. I'm suggesting themed costumes for that night. Maybe 'Wizard of Oz' or something like that. Just as I'm not the Tin Man. Then it'd be hard to play.....

All Bets Are Off

2009-09-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

Y'know, I'd been planning on writing this post about how a former friend of mine had stabbed me in the back, calling me up and telling me the most heinous pile of lies that Cockbreath McPothead was probably spreading because his ass was in serious jeopardy (don't curse out a lipreader, fool - enjoy grill training at McDonald's!), but my situation has changed dramatically because of two little words my wife and I heard the other day at her doctor's appointment:

Multiple Sclerosis.

It wasn't a confirmed diagnosis, but it makes sense. After researching it online, it was crystal-clear. Every defined symptom of MS, she has it. Every last one of them. There will be tests coming, MRI's and CT scans, but a certain sense of inevitability has creeped into our trailer. And the weirdest thing is that one of the reasons for us moving here in the first place (Joy's allergies are relieved here due to the climate) is now the reason we will likely be forced to move home - that same hot, dry climate exacerbates the symptoms of MS. And Joy has already decided our course for the foreseeable future - if the diagnosis is confirmed, we're out of here, waiting only long enough to get her SS/D claim approved. I can't imagine the Feds turning down someone with MS.

In reality, it isn't a death sentence for her. At least not in the proper sense of the term. It's just another disease added on to her burden, another illness that kills by inches at a time. I was quite morose about it for some time, but now I've kinda gotten over it, and back on track. I've got a gig with the Stonz out on the Oregon Coast next week, and I'm taking a detour to drop Joy off in Bend so she can see her sister, who isn't doing too good herself - needing a hip replacement at age 45. October will be a busy month for me, but it will likely be my last October in Reno.

I just find it ironic that poor Mike and Arthur could wind up losing a second drummer in the course of a year for the exact same reason - moving away to care for an ailing relative. Which reminds me, I've gotta give Dre a call, see how his ass is doing.........

Is This Worth It Anymore?

2009-09-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

I just don't know. More and more this is just becoming another job to me. And anyone who knows my track record when it comes to employment would know that when I start to consider being the drummer in a band as merely being a job, you just know the shit's gonna hit the fan, and soon. Just being in a band is no longer enough. It's not that I want to run a band, it's that I want to actually contribute to the processes of the band and not merely do what I'm told and otherwise shut the fuck up.

I've also lost a lot of respect for a certain agent. When I'm told from on high that I must go to the Atlantis and prostrate myself at their feet and beg forgiveness for my 'personal problem' without anyone hearing my side of the story (does anyone read this?), only to find that even that opportunity was taken away from me before I'd even had a chance to do so, I have come to the full realization of just how musicians are regarded here. Like week-old shit.

Friends, neighbors and colleagues, this has got to stop. When we get less respect than a burger-flipping miscreant at McDonald's, why is that? When the local media prefers to talk about the days-gone-by of the orchestras that used to do our jobs rather than us, why is that? When any talk of making things better for ourselves is met with cold hostility and threats of blacklisting, why is that? It's because nobody takes us seriously, that's why.

It's up to us to change that. I was actually serious when I said that delivering pizza was beginning to look better than dealing with this, and I know that I've invested way too much time, effort and money into this to just walk away like that. I'm sure that there are things I could do to make myself better, but I also know that we as a group must make changes as well, or else we'll be making even less money and enduring even more shit than we already are now.

So how do we get there from here...............?

There's A Clusterfuck Going On, And I'm The Cluster

2009-09-04T20:21:00.001-07:00

This will only be a brief post, as I'm between sets at the Carson Station. But let's just say that the last 36 hours or so has been an exercise in what-the-fuck-now. Stressed, sick, and thoroughly pissed off is your humble blogger, and I'll be in the mood to vent about things when I get done with my night onstage and my time on the road.

Right now, pizza delivery in Port Angeles, WA is starting to look good.

How Being A Musician Kills Natural Circadian Rhythms, or "The One Rhythm I'm Not Good At"

2009-07-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

It's 8:15am as I start to type this.

I should be sleeping. I should be off in la-la-land with (insert famous hottie(s) of your choice here) somewhere in the mountains, but sheer nerves are killing me right about now. We're in the middle of packing up and moving out, for reasons I shall not make public (though I'll tell you privately). And it's making getting any sleep a whole lot worse. I joke that being a working musician tends to screw your natural sleep patterns, a/k/a 'the circadian rhythm'. Add on to it working a night job and a wife whose fibromyalgia screws her body clock up worse than mine, and I like to tell a joke:

"Have you ever seen that one Salvador Dali painting, you know, the ones with the clocks melting and shit? (it's actually called "The Persistence Of Memory" up there) Well, it's actually a portrait of mine and Joy's body clocks!"

And it really feels that way some times - limp, melted and lifeless. Add in the heat of your typical Reno mid-summer, and it's pretty fucking hard to get a decent night's sleep without spending a small fortune in air-conditioning. And we're nervous as all get-out about getting everything out of the house, into storage or the trailer, cleaning the house, getting the trailer and my poor Ranger over to the RV park we've chosen, all the while settling bills, trying to learn Dre's raps for Steppen Stonz's gigs starting next week.

And for some fun little side-quests, I'm pushing Joy to get her driver's license back - lost seven months ago due to a seizure - while she's pushing the State of Washington to release the remainder of her retirement monies, all while filling out her re-adjudication papers for a second try (and last before we bring in the lawyers) to get approved for SS/D. The hope is that should these monies be released to us, we can try to buy an RV. She's decided that she's done with the concept of a stationary home, and this would also allow us to finally see Eddie and Melissa and their two sons for the first time in years, by driving out to North Carolina to see them. And given the shitty current state of the economy, good-sized RVs that the two of us could live in are in good supply and priced anywhere from reasonable to pretty fucking cheap if we're willing to buy one that has a few years on it. I'm just trying to remain positive. Good times are right around the corner, we just have to hold on for dear life for just a little while longer.......

Putting The Work In Network

2009-07-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

Knowing what's going on in your work environment is critical to success. And it's no different for me. When my friend Tracy Bing suggested to me that I start hitting the jam nights her friend Dean put on in the area, I figured I'd give it a try. I'll trust her on pretty much anything, and even Joy trusts her. Well, it has provided work for me. Dean and I have played together for a gig or two, though a full-time band isn't really coming to fruition like I thought it would. But between jam nights and my courier route, work offers are coming in.

First was gigging with Dean, then came the temp gig with Steppen Stonz that may become permanent, depending on what happens with Dre's family issue. I only say that because Mike and Arthur have no clue what's going to happen with Dre. From what little I've heard, Dre has no idea what's going to happen with Dre, and I can't blame him either. I need to call his ass one of these days.

And my latest offer is coming from the person who got this whole ball rolling, Tracy Bing. I'll be subbing for her drummer Fletch (he's going to some sort of music festival, something that's been in the works for a while, apparently) at the end of September at a gig at the Desert Rose Casino in Alturas, CA, or as I like to call it, "The Town That Makes Me Glad I Have Satellite Radio" - drive through there, you'll understand! I used to drive through Alturas, a town of just under 3,000 in the extreme north-eastern part of California, on a regular basis when Powerlight was playing exclusively in Reno while Joy and I were still living in Olympia, and I swear to (insert the deity of your choice here) that whenever I drove through that town, the only radio station I could ever pick up was a scratchy AM station that only seemed to play Patsy Cline songs. If I liked her music, that wouldn't be a problem. But if you know me, you know my musical tastes, so there's where that lengthy nickname comes from. It's just for a weekend, but it's money in my account, so who am I to complain? There might even be more gigs than just the one in Alturas, from what Tracy was telling me the other night at Indigo. But let's just take this one weekend at a time, shall we?

I'm not terribly sure which incarnation of her band I'll be playing with. The basic version is simply known as "The Tracy Bing Band", and it has three alter egos, depending on what the situation calls for: a Fifties-and-Sixties band called "Tracy & The Kingpins" a Seventies-and-Eighties band called "Big Bad Boogie Rock", and a country and oldies band called "Ricky and The Redstreaks", which adds a male singer named John Jackman (and his 'sister' Jacqueline Zucchini as well) to the band. The Redstreaks seem to get the best gigs of the lot, playing regularly during the major rodeo events in Reno as well as gigs in Vegas during the National Finals Rodeo in December (this year they'll be playing at Mandalay Bay, no less!), though Tracy and her guys play all year long. But I really don't care, I guess. I've heard the music they play, and it shouldn't take for Tracy to round me into shape with her band. And after that gig has come and gone, having a well-rehearsed understudy is always a good thing, isn't it?

It just goes to show that having a good network of friends and colleagues is pretty good thing to have.

The Love-Life Patterns of Marilyn Manson

2009-07-16T00:43:00.000-07:00

I was reading a review of the RockStar Mayhem Tour over at the blog of my friend Jamie (www.hardrockchick.com) yesterday, and she was talking about Marilyn Manson, the tour's headliner this year, and she mentioned seeing what she thought was MM's new girlfriend, alt-porn star Stoya. This got me to thinking about the love life of one Brian Hugh Warner, and I noticed two emergent patterns:

1.) He prefers thin, pale, presumably damaged brunette goth-girls.

2.) His pattern has been (so far) ingenue - adult entertainer - ingenue - adult entertainer

Let's explore this further, shall we? First on the docket is actress Rose McGowan, who was engaged to MM, but they never married, and their relationship only lasted about two years and change. According to various reports, McGowan was the inspiration for the song/character "Coma White" from the MM album Mechanical Animals, and the breakup of this relationship is rumored to be the inspiration of the song "(s)AINT" from the Golden Age of Grotesque album a few years later. McGowan was still a relative newcomer to acting at this time, and was only 24 or so when she and MM hooked up. So that definitely would make her an ingenue.

According to MM's Wikipedia profile there was a girlfriend between McGowan and our next subject, burlesque perfomer Dita von Teese (born Heather Sweet), but Wikipedia had nothing of note on one Michelle Greenberg. von Teese would wind up being MM's only wife, and their engagement lasted longer than the wedding, with a factor towards its demise being MM's extramarital affair with subject number three..... a then nineteen-year-old Evan Rachel Wood. According to various media outlets, the two dated for almost two years. Wood = ingenue actress, and damn near jailbait. And now we have Stoya, an outright, unashamed alt-porn star. A quick search of IMDb and its adult-film counterpart AMDb didn't reveal much, not even Stoya's real name. "Stoya" is her childhood nickname, a shortening of her last name, likely Stoyanovic or something like that, given that her father - presumably - is of Serbian descent. That's all I could really find out. That, and that Stoya is currently twenty-three.

Given his personal preferences, and the average length of his relationships, the Scientific Method says that a hot young ingenue should be hitting his radar in about two years or so. A potential candidate could be Emma Watson (Hermione from the Harry Potter films), though she'd need a good gothing-up first, and may already be way too smart for him. A similar ingenue, though a singer instead of an actress, would be Paramore singer Hayley Williams, but her being a Christian would likely bother Manson too much. And neither of them seem damaged to me. I'd suggest Chyler Leigh, the Grey's Anatomy actress that got cozy in a hot tub with Manson in the video for his cover of the 80's chestnut "Tainted Love" (for the soundtrack of Not Another Teen Movie, which she starred in), but she's been married since 2002 and has three kids with her husband. Certainly not Manson's speed there. Megan Fox is a possibility, but she'd need to lose that tan tout-suite, and may be too old by then (she's 23 as of this writing). If MM was to be looking for a cute but already slightly creepy ingenue who'd probably love to dye her hair black, he'll just have to wait about two-and-a-half years, until February 23, 2012.

That's Dakota Fanning's eighteenth birthday.

Ston'd Again

2009-07-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

I just got an email today, one I'd been expecting for a few days, from Mike from Steppen Stonz. He was letting me know that he and Arthur were in need of my services again, starting at the end of the month and playing for most of August. I'd gone by to visit them at the Carson Station last week, and let them know that I was available if they needed me, that Dean had informed me recently that the gigs in Topaz that he'd gotten had for the beginning of August been rescinded by the club and given to another band. That was all I said, nothing more. I didn't politick for the gig, it something I just wouldn't do, no matter how desperate I was for the gig. There are lines I just won't cross, no matter what.

Therefore I was a bit surprised when Mike told me that Dee just wasn't working out for them, and that he and Arthur would be more than happy to have me fill in with them again. I actually defended Dee for a bit, and told them that he was doing a good job for them. They didn't try to refute me, but said that they would prefer me over Dee. I feel kinda bad, but not that much, since Dee already has another gig, playing with the various permutations of Escalade around the Reno-Tahoe area. But Dee isn't a drummer much any more, and by his own admission wants more to be a frontman and percussionist than the guy in the back of the stage playing drums. In my own opinion he's qualified for that gig - I've heard him sing, he's a damn good singer - but he's spent less and less time purely as a drummer, and Mike and Arthur have noticed that. I'm a damn good singer in my own right, but I have no aspirations to front a band. I remember all too well what my old friend Dan Hoyer of The Boinkers (www.theboinkers.com) told me once a long time ago back in Washington state:

"Joe, a stable drummer is worth his weight in gold. A stable drummer that can sing is worth a hundred times his weight in gold."

So what does it mean for your favorite asshole drummer? Four more weeks of work, and right when Joy and I could use it the most - just as we've finished moving into the pop-up trailer. The run starts on July 29 or 30, with two weeks at John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks, followed by two weeks at the Carson Station, the Stonz' de facto home base. and running my courier route all the while. So the bucks will flow quite heavily for a few weeks. This should allow me to get my truck repaired in that time frame, and also put some money away for trips to Sonoma in September and home to Washington in late October for Joy's birthday.

And as the TV pitchman says, but wait - there's more. I'm not going to say that there's an eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, but the deuce-and-a-half drummer not in the room is the only real variable in the equation. Y'see, Mike and Arthur still don't know what's going to happen with Dre. They're not sure if he'll ever come back to Nevada. I would sincerely hope that he does. Not that I don't need the work - boy, do I need it - but Dre's worked with Mike and Arthur for seventeen years now, and no matter how comfortable I could get playing with them, I'd always feel like I'm just keeping his chair warm for him.

And in a Twilight Zone moment to beat 'em all, the bass player I worked with at Toad's with Dean called me about an hour after I read Mike's email, telling me he had a gig at the Churchill County Fairgrounds set up for the weekend that would be my first with the Stonz at the Nugget in Sparks. I didn't actually take the call, didn't even hear the phone ring, so I heard the voicemail. This could be a bit difficult......