Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Here's what happened on our little tour with Zoe
A couple days after the first two shows with Zoe at the Red Devil, we got up in the early-ass morning and drove down to the Ford Amphitheater in L.A., had a sound check, did some random filming for LATV, played our set from 7:30 to 8. Unfortunately, the time printed on the tickets was 8, so we played to maybe 20 people in a super nice 1000+ capacity venue. Felt and sounded fuckin sweet on stage, but then had to skip the last two songs when rob broke an e string. doh. Then we went and stayed at Jamie and Jason's house, where they always treat us like the poor innocent street children we are.. they pimp us out with beds and showers and liquor and water and quiche and internet access and vegetables. They even dried our bath towels for us! Plus, across the way from their kitchen window it looked like their neighbor had hanged himself, but he was just drying a pair of pants, so there's that.
Then we checked in at Frankie's place and picked up Frankie and drove out to the deep burbs of Los Angeles: Moreno Valley. There was a sports bar that was starting these club nights, see, with loud DJ dance music, and swirly lights, and a band, see. And they did it once and it was pretty good, so they did it again and it was packed, so next they're ready to offer us a few hundred bucks to play there. So we go play this shit and only like 20 people show up, to dance to (all of) the smith's greatest hits, and to have a cigarette break outside when the band played. Luckily the club was honest enough to pay us our guarantee anyway, and we booked it back to Frankie's. Frankie showed us a really bizarrely funny short video he had written and produced. Then he showed us the alternate version, where he plays all but one of the roles himself. It was far fucking out, hehehehehe... The next day, Nachito noticed that there was a surveillance camera in a corner of the bathroom. But it wasn't real it was just a prop, which was a relief.
In addition to all this, Frankie had some shifty neighbors.
Anyway, Sunday was a day off and Cat had decided we were going to the beach. Which sounded like a nice thing, except with all our dawdling (long showers, breakfast, packing up, picking up this and that at the store) and with Frankie not really living anywhere near the beach, it was past 5pm by the time we got there. But we had a nice big meal of seafood appetizers, but then regretted all the fried food on the bumpy road back, some of us getting a little nauseous, everyone agreeing that we really had to get the alignment fixed tomorrow cause it makes the van rattle worse.
Monday morning we woke up in Odette's beautifully remodeled apartment with not much to do. So we went to get the alignment fixed. Other than that, we had already bought some food for breakfast and lunch, and there was no internet access, so it was time to lounge around Odette's and do some serious TV watching. There was a reality show with Hulk Hogan, there was the part of the Emmys where they stand around talking about what all the actresses are wearing, and lots of great cooking and small claims court shows. But we gave it all up to go play at the Echo, which is a pretty sweet little place. There were like 4 or 5 bands playing, and even on a monday night the place was packed. Unfortunately it didn't really fill up until after we played -- we got bumped to the first slot after the promoter discovered we had played at the Ford three days earlier. The logic being that we would be spreading our crowd too thin. In other words, the price we paid for our extra-early set on Friday was an extra-early set on Monday. There you go. But still, the most fun show of the trip so far.
We stayed with Sr and Sra Rana that night in their beautifully designed and immaculately kept house. We have some of the nicest goddamn friends! With nice houses! And then, a short drive away, his beautifully designed, immaculately kept recording and production studio! Hijo de la madre, we are seriously impressed. Also with his almost complete feature length film "The Cook", wherein a bunch of sorority girls sit around doing drugs and playing May Fire records, until they get systematically murdered. Good stuff people, good stuff. The May Fire gives it 10 thumbs up (two from Maria, who basically raised all of our gas money by selling fine May Fire products to oodles of satisfied customers).
Oh but we hadn't had oodles of people in the place since the Red Devil, but things got better at this point. So we're in San Diego now, getting settled in at Danny's sparse but effective apartment with a ridiculously tiny trash can (the May Fire has a lot of trash, ok?) and a pool right in the middle that nobody ever goes in, as far as we can tell. We bought a ratty blanket at the salvation army next door and stuffed it in the springs of the back seat of the van in a meager attempt to make it less bouncy. We got some good sleep, some reasonable food. We watched "Art School Confidential". Eventually we went to play at the beautiful San Diego House of Blues, again opening for Zoe, but this time just the two bands. And here Zoe's fans like to get there early and get a spot up front, so we had a captivated and receptive audience.. which of course is fuckin fantastic and a lot of fun, so we had fun. And we would have sold a whole ton of merchandise, except somebody pulled an alarm that made sirens and emergency lights come on, so the place cleared out real quick. Oh well, still a great time, and Zoe tore the place up as usual: rabid screaming fans, epic rock music, flashing lights and fog, girls jumping up and dancing on the stage, the whole package.
Next thing we know, we're at the house of blues again, but this one is somewhere in what might be described as a suburb of Disneyland's Magic Kingdom (tm). This HOB is not as cavernous as the other one, which puts it as just the right size to feel good and rock the goddamn motherfucking bitch-ass shit out. Which is what proceeded to happen. Which is a good thing, cause on the way home it keeps us from feeling sad that we wouldn't be seeing the White Stripes after all because they cancelled their tour because Meg has "acute anxiety", whatever that means.
Then we checked in at Frankie's place and picked up Frankie and drove out to the deep burbs of Los Angeles: Moreno Valley. There was a sports bar that was starting these club nights, see, with loud DJ dance music, and swirly lights, and a band, see. And they did it once and it was pretty good, so they did it again and it was packed, so next they're ready to offer us a few hundred bucks to play there. So we go play this shit and only like 20 people show up, to dance to (all of) the smith's greatest hits, and to have a cigarette break outside when the band played. Luckily the club was honest enough to pay us our guarantee anyway, and we booked it back to Frankie's. Frankie showed us a really bizarrely funny short video he had written and produced. Then he showed us the alternate version, where he plays all but one of the roles himself. It was far fucking out, hehehehehe... The next day, Nachito noticed that there was a surveillance camera in a corner of the bathroom. But it wasn't real it was just a prop, which was a relief.
In addition to all this, Frankie had some shifty neighbors.
Anyway, Sunday was a day off and Cat had decided we were going to the beach. Which sounded like a nice thing, except with all our dawdling (long showers, breakfast, packing up, picking up this and that at the store) and with Frankie not really living anywhere near the beach, it was past 5pm by the time we got there. But we had a nice big meal of seafood appetizers, but then regretted all the fried food on the bumpy road back, some of us getting a little nauseous, everyone agreeing that we really had to get the alignment fixed tomorrow cause it makes the van rattle worse.
Monday morning we woke up in Odette's beautifully remodeled apartment with not much to do. So we went to get the alignment fixed. Other than that, we had already bought some food for breakfast and lunch, and there was no internet access, so it was time to lounge around Odette's and do some serious TV watching. There was a reality show with Hulk Hogan, there was the part of the Emmys where they stand around talking about what all the actresses are wearing, and lots of great cooking and small claims court shows. But we gave it all up to go play at the Echo, which is a pretty sweet little place. There were like 4 or 5 bands playing, and even on a monday night the place was packed. Unfortunately it didn't really fill up until after we played -- we got bumped to the first slot after the promoter discovered we had played at the Ford three days earlier. The logic being that we would be spreading our crowd too thin. In other words, the price we paid for our extra-early set on Friday was an extra-early set on Monday. There you go. But still, the most fun show of the trip so far.
We stayed with Sr and Sra Rana that night in their beautifully designed and immaculately kept house. We have some of the nicest goddamn friends! With nice houses! And then, a short drive away, his beautifully designed, immaculately kept recording and production studio! Hijo de la madre, we are seriously impressed. Also with his almost complete feature length film "The Cook", wherein a bunch of sorority girls sit around doing drugs and playing May Fire records, until they get systematically murdered. Good stuff people, good stuff. The May Fire gives it 10 thumbs up (two from Maria, who basically raised all of our gas money by selling fine May Fire products to oodles of satisfied customers).
Oh but we hadn't had oodles of people in the place since the Red Devil, but things got better at this point. So we're in San Diego now, getting settled in at Danny's sparse but effective apartment with a ridiculously tiny trash can (the May Fire has a lot of trash, ok?) and a pool right in the middle that nobody ever goes in, as far as we can tell. We bought a ratty blanket at the salvation army next door and stuffed it in the springs of the back seat of the van in a meager attempt to make it less bouncy. We got some good sleep, some reasonable food. We watched "Art School Confidential". Eventually we went to play at the beautiful San Diego House of Blues, again opening for Zoe, but this time just the two bands. And here Zoe's fans like to get there early and get a spot up front, so we had a captivated and receptive audience.. which of course is fuckin fantastic and a lot of fun, so we had fun. And we would have sold a whole ton of merchandise, except somebody pulled an alarm that made sirens and emergency lights come on, so the place cleared out real quick. Oh well, still a great time, and Zoe tore the place up as usual: rabid screaming fans, epic rock music, flashing lights and fog, girls jumping up and dancing on the stage, the whole package.
Next thing we know, we're at the house of blues again, but this one is somewhere in what might be described as a suburb of Disneyland's Magic Kingdom (tm). This HOB is not as cavernous as the other one, which puts it as just the right size to feel good and rock the goddamn motherfucking bitch-ass shit out. Which is what proceeded to happen. Which is a good thing, cause on the way home it keeps us from feeling sad that we wouldn't be seeing the White Stripes after all because they cancelled their tour because Meg has "acute anxiety", whatever that means.
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