The Mini Tour
When I know I have to get up in three hours, I find it difficult to sleep at all, no matter how tired I am. I'm so worried about sleeping through my alarm and getting on the road late (and potentially missing the next show) that I just wind up lying there in a half-sleep waiting for the fast-approaching moment where I'll have to drag my ass out of bed, slam a gallon of coffee, and get on the highway. That's what happened to us last night: we returned to our local housing site after a show at some townie dive called JR's Bar in south south Philly around 2am, then woke up at 5am in order to get on the road by 6am to make our load-in time in Indianapolis tonight.
In spite of the fact that JR's isn't set up to host live music-- much less loud live music-- and the fact that during our last song the Ampeg SVT head belonging to Chris from Riff Cannon through which Willi was playing toppled off the speaker cabinet and onto the floor, the show was decent. We played well, and Riff Cannon played spectacularly. I'm bummed we barely got to hang out with those guys, though. Since they never made it to New York for Thursday's show due to van troubles and since we had to get to sleep immediately following last night's show due to our aforementioned 6am van call time, we hardly had a chance to hang with them. It's soul-crushing just imagining all the fun we would have, should have, could have had.
On the bright side, we have the best hosts a band can possibly ask for when we go to Philadelphia. Jeff and Nadine go far above and beyond all others to make us comfortable and happy. Where to begin? They had a parking space saved for us upon our arrival yesterday afternoon. They had lunch ready and waiting for us as well: grilled burgers and hot dogs of both vegetarian and dead animal soul varieties. They have a fully-stocked bar which they were all to willing to share with us. They had a room for each of us when we returned after the show (they practically live in a mansion-- four story early 19th century townhouse) and each of our rooms came with a bed and a fresh towel. When we woke up this morning, they had bagels with cream cheese and fresh coffee ready (including to-go cups). And, to top it all off, they sent us off with a bag full of sandwiches (spicy chicken, grilled chipotle tofu, and, my personal favorite, brie and apple with walnuts) and bottled water. It's people like Jeff and Nadine that make getting paid thirty six bucks to play places like JR's Bar for twenty people (approximately two of which appreciated what we were doing) tolerable.
As I write, we're on the Pennsylvania Turnpike en route to Indianapolis for what's practically a matinee (6pm doors, 7pm show) at some new 'DIY' venue called The Dojo with Coffinworm and Velnias. Hopefully it will be worth the 5am wake up call. I think it will.
And then tomorrow, we're off to Chicago to start recording. We're chomping at the bit to get started and I have no doubt that we'll end up with the (insert cliche superlative here) album of 2010. I'll post another update or two as the record begins to emerge, unless something interesting happens, in which case I'll probably post more. Does anyone know how we get a burger named for us at Kuma's Corner?
- geoff / batillus