The May Fire

Crocktastico

2008-09-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

The way they billed the Circo Rocktastico tour for the in-store at Rasputin Music in Berkeley seemed oddly appropriate, somehow...

How is everyone feeling?

2008-09-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

Brown Lumpy Wings

2008-09-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

More breaking news from the Cat Files...

After "Drunk Zombies in Salt Lake City" we stopped to play a show at the most friendly place ever: Nampa, Idaho. We played at a nice coffee shop where every person was very appreciative of the music. We had free smoothies and cakes.

I also met two amazing new friends, Michelle and Gionne, two girls that flew from L.A. to join their friends Astra Heights for a couple of days. They brought the perfect amount of niceness and girl power that I needed. After being on the road for 5 weeks with just guys I was starting to panic. They invited me to ride with them in the car and it was a NICE break from the guys. They bought me fruit smoothies and a bracelet, while the guys in the other van slept and ate crap.

After a nice and smooth gig we went back to our Shiloh Inn, and, later on, to eat at Denny's. Josh from Astra Heights ordered our favorite "spicy brown lumpy wings" (check out our previous blog posting about the wings at Denny's), so we couldnt stop laughing, and of course he didn't know why. We waited silently until the wings came out, and yes, they looked exactly like the promo pictures.

We watched him eat them and Pipe couldnt resist and tried a bite. His face instantly changed from curious to sad.

After that we discovered that this Denny's had a lounge bar, so we all headed in there and had shots and beers. The place was very dark with blacklights and glow-in-the-dark everything. And it was karaoke night, so after about 5 shots of whisky El Pipe and Rob sang their favorite songs and entertained the whole crowd. We danced, drank, smoked, and then when things didn't make sense anymore I left to enjoy the beautiful and priceless experience of being alone for the first time in almost a month.

We didn't have a show in Wyoming

2008-08-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

but we sure spent a lot of time driving through it. And right in the middle somewhere, we found a real special place:

The Drunk Zombies of Salt Lake City

2008-08-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Cat Writes:

Out of all the places we've been on this tour, Salt Lake City has been the worst one. You can feel the agro vibe when you walk around and talk to people. We knew it was a weird town and we knew that alcohol was hard to find (that's why I think when these people get it, they go crazy).

For example: I was sitting at the bar with El Pipe. He stood up for a second, and a really rude, white trash macho man pushed him for no reason and sat his blonde fake tits middle-aged girl down in Pipe's chair. Obviously the guy was extremely drunk. Later that night the same guy got mad because the bartender wouldn't serve him more booze and he punched the window, broke it, and then got into a fight with another guy. The cops came and he got arrested.

The next day, El Pipe and I were walking to get some water at the gas station and again, for no reason, a guy with a psycho face tackled us and yelled, "watch where you walk!" At that point we were shocked, so we laughed.

I thought that Salt Lake City was the perfect location for a Quentin Tarantino movie. Every person had this strange look on their face, like they were dead but still breathing, walking like zombies waiting for the next person to visit their town. Like vicious vampires, hungry for new blood, they'll suck your energy until you can't move so you stay and became one of them. Like "The Drunk Zombies of Salt Lake City".

A Very Beane Vacation

2008-08-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

On our way out of Chicago, Cat noticed that the sky looked exactly like the opening sequence from the Simpsons. It was an omen of pleasant midwestern times to come.

And we soon learned that there's hardly anything pleasanter in this world than a stay with Johnny Beane's mom and dad in Minneapolis. Beds and couches! Laundry! Coffee! Turkey sandwiches! Pasta salad! Buffalo chili, burgers, and hot dogs! Corn on the cob! S'mores over a friggin' CAMP FIRE, for christsake!

Johnny had to keep reminding us that he didn't actually grow up there. His folks moved there several years back, and have a beautiful house, tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac, and full of cool decorations and eccentric knick knacks. We soaked up their care and hospitality like the poor, weary, road orphans we were. There was plenty of room for Astra Heights as well -- here you see them enjoying delicious fruit and tofu smoothies like kids on Christmas morning (yes that's a Christmas tree in back -- they keep it up year round!)

This little halftime oasis went on for three luxurious days -- we played Minneapolis, then St Paul (15 minutes away), then had a night off. These shows were lukewarm, but who cares?? After each one we packed up as fast as we could and booked it straight back "home", to find yet another improbable feast being laid out for us, and to hear more shocking and interesting stories about Johnny's childhood (which we will not be blogging, sorry ;)

With low attendance at the shows the bands all took the opportunity to try out some unusual material. You know things are getting, uh, experimental when Pipe jumps up on stage with Monte Negro to help sing the Cars' "Just What I Needed".

Chicago is a very large city

2008-08-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

We've got some great timing on this tour. And by great, I mean maybe not so much. Fourteen hour drives! Texas in the middle of August! Little college towns when school is out! Denver on the exact night Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for president!

So let's talk about Chicago instead. Our timing in Chicago wasn't so bad. Well, there was a Cubs game across the street from the Metro where we played, but there's no accounting for baseball, and anyway we managed to get there and load in before the game ended and the fans poured out. Chicago winters tend to be long, cold, and miserable, so when those precious summer months come around, everyone just goes buck wild crazy in the streets. Made for some slow navigating later on. But the Metro was a fun ol' party, and things really got wacky when the show's promoter came backstage to tell us he had just got us another show in Chicago the following night, opening for a Mexican rock/pop band called Motel, where there was "guaranteed" to be 1500 people.

We were confused.. ALL three bands? How is it that they still need and want three more bands, the night before the show? Well, it was at the Congress Theater, this HUGE cavernous place that makes the Metro look like your local watering hole. And they were just gonna start early and have a whole lot of bands play before the headliners. So hell, why not? We didn't have any show scheduled for the night, so we stuck around Chicago and played the show.

Thing is, when you're the opener (or one of FIVE openers) for a larger act in a big venue, the house crew is not so focused on getting your sound and monitors right -- they just wanna get you on and off. So suddenly you're on this huge fucking stage with this sea of people staring at you, and it's what you've always wanted.. except when you start playing you can't really hear your own band. Instead you hear all these muddy reverberations off the domed ceiling, and the back wall... back there somewhere... and of course they have this huge lighting rig but it's not set up for your own show so they're just flashing the lights around generically.

All in all, it feels very much like a dream you might have about being a rock star (except we weren't naked, sorry.) All the iconic elements are there: big stage, big crowd, big lights, but you're weirdly disconnected from what you're doing, so kind of going through the motions and hoping that somewhere out there this is making sense to somebody.

This last picture has nothing to do with anything, but hell, it's a lot of time on the road. Things happen.

The world needs music

2008-08-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

From the files of Catty Tasso

After the show in Houston we drove to Pipe's uncle's house. Like a good and warm Latin family they got up at 2:30 in the morning and served us an amazing paella, some hot bread and Chilean wine.
Pipe's little cousin Sofia (she is 10) inspired us for the next two days: she was wearing a May Fire shirt and even though she was sleepy and tired she stood up and sang a song with her mom on guitar. "The world needs music" she sang. It was a pretty good song, which kind of comforted our tired and vulnerable hearts. We ate, drank and slept for two hours to wake up at 5:30am to drive to Kansas.

I seriously don't remember much of the morning, only that I saw Pipe's aunt cooking for us again -- some french toast. I couldn't eat it since I had just stuffed myself with paella two hours earlier. Like I said before, Latin people like their kids to eat. We are always too skinny for them - "come mija, come!" It was raining and we were deeply tired. We picked up James, one of the Morales brothers from Astra Heights, and drove 13 hours to Manhattan, Kansas. Now we were 5 people in the van, so we had to make some special sleeping arrangements. It worked out fine, I slept like 7 hours.

We made James pay for his place in the van by making him drive for 5 hours while we slept in the back of the van. So basically, riding in our van is a luxury (the other van carries Monte Negro and Astra Heights, i.e. 8 people plus the tour manager). So if you want to be with TMF you got to offer us something good. In this case it was his driving skills. Mark Morales did ride in our van before (after Vegas) but I don't remember him offering anything, we are gonna have to charge him later.

When we got to Kansas City we encountered a not too full bar, but very nice people that kept buying us drinks and telling us how the music is what really matters in life. One guy told me he would give anything to do what we do. He was really nice, and bought one of our vinyls. I guess by now I've had several people telling us "don't ever quit music." I wonder if it is because of our faces of desperation.

Later on we spoke with a really nice army guy that told us war stories, which are pretty scary. He said his real love was punk music and gave us some recommendations on some Ukranian punk band. He also told us he won't be doing the army thing anymore, which we were very happy to hear. I told him he should start a punk band. He laughed. We partied till 4 am and went back to the hotel with Astra Heights and we kept on partying -- I mean, the guys did. I was watching them from my bed. I just wished I could have had 7 hours of sleep. That would have been nice.

Trapped in Mexico

2008-08-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

Astra Heights tried to warn us... are you SURE you want to go play one night in Monterrey Mexico?

Hell yes! we said, it's gonna be sweet. And it was. Kind of. Sort of. And everything went smoothly until we.. entered Mexico. Two full hours were immediately eaten up getting tourist permits, vehicle permits, and insurance:

With our huge piles of documentation we headed two hours south to Monterrey

and somehow managed to find El Garage, which is sort of a cross between a rock club, a psychedelic art gallery, and an Aztec ruin.

It was close to the super-pumping dance club part of town, which, by 10 or 11pm, started getting extremely full of decked out, partying Mexican youth. We walked around with flyers trying to siphon as much traffic as we could over to El Garage, and started pretty late.

Astra Heights went on around 11:30, we went around 12:30, and Monte Negro around... god, I don't even know what time it was by then. But I do know that we all sweated a LOT, cause it was fucking hot as crap.

Luckily we had a safe place to stay (and park the gear) at our friend Chetes's house. Instead of giving us directions to get there, he suggested we hire a cab, give him the address, and follow. Which turned out to be the right idea. Let me tell you about getting around in Monterrey, Mexico. There are a number of challenges to getting anywhere by car:

1. All the streets are named after notable people with really long names, like "Manuel Ruiz Garcia Vesquelaveda Boulevard", which makes it hard to remember anything for more than a few seconds.

2. The names on the street signs usually differ from the maps by one or two words.

3. Most major streets get a completely different name every few miles. Apparently they have more notable people than they have streets.

4. Left turns will often involve a right exit, and vice versa.

5. By the time you get a sign telling you which way your turn is, there's usually a curb or barrier preventing you from going that way (this is not a joke, this happened ALL the time)

6. Many maneuvers are based on u-turns, but they put signs pointing you ahead to where the u-turn is. The result of this is that there are signs all over the city pointing in the exact opposite direction of the place they are directing you to.

7. They seem to have a problem with people running red lights. Naturally, nobody slows down for a yellow light, so they added a green flashing light before the yellow (a warning warning?) And where that still didn't work, they just added stop signs too. So you frequently come up to an intersection with a green light AND a stop sign. We never did figure out the right way to handle that one.

8. Here and there the police flag you down and make up some reason to extort a bribe from you (in our case, not having a front license plate) We fell for this the first time, then learned that we just shouldn't stop. (This isn't technically a navigational problem, but it is really distracting)

In addition, and perhaps because of, all this, when people give you directions they go on and on forever, involve lots of hand gestures, and are basically impossible to make sense of, much less follow:

Which is why it took us another two hours just to find our way out of town and back to the road to Nuevo Laredo. There was much debate over which border crossing to go to. The "Colombia" crossing, 20 miles out of the way, was rumored to be much faster. But there was another rumor it closed early on Sundays. But what did "closed" mean exactly? That we couldn't cross, or we just couldn't return our car permit? Did we really have to return our car permit? What happens if we didn't? They did authorize our credit card for some kind of "deposit" when we got it, so we figured we'd better return it. So we went to the main crossing in Laredo and did that, then got lost in another cramped neighborhood for a while, and finally found the line to cross, which was REALLY REALLY long, stunk of exhaust, and was crawling with vendors walking between the cars selling large crucifixes. I'm not making that up. That's all anybody was selling: Jesus on the cross, anywhere from one to 5 feet long. Apparently such a thing is useful when crossing the border into the U.S.

We decided to try one of the other bridges, so we wiggled our way through town, part of which was severely flooded.

Eventually we found two other crossings. Both closed. By this point, as you can imagine, the tension level was quite high. We had actually gotten quite giddy and excited at the prospect of finding a crossing, which brought us all together as a happy team, cracking jokes and whooping it up. But once we were confronted with red cones and barriers, the shit fell apart. Cat was screaming "this is bullshit!!" over and over; Pipe was sweating bullets and basically having an ulcer while he drove; Rob was furiously wrangling his laptop in an attempt to get maps, information, anything; and Johnny sat stock still in the back, eyes wide as frisbees, wondering what the hell he had signed up for when he joined this band, and wondering if he'd rather get mugged and left on the street, or get thrown in Mexican prison for not having a front license plate.

Mexican Prosciutto

2008-08-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

From the offices of Catty Tasso:

In every city I try to get a little bit of gourmet food. When I see a supermarket I go straight to the delicatessen section and I fix myself a nice bagel with salmon and tomato. As everyone knows, girls eat healthier than guys, and since I'm the only girl in this 6 week tour (sharing with 2 more bands, all guys) it's a pain to get some good food when you have to decide where to eat next. Yeah, my bandmates like sausages, grease, meat, and bread. They don't care if they have coffee in the morning or if their water is cold or warm. So every "normal" request I have they look at me as if I was requesting something ridiculous.

Since we were in Mexico and all we could eat were tacos, I found myself buying some dry mexican meat in the gas station, on advice from my dear friend "La Rana". It tasted like prosciutto if you chewed it for a long time. The meat was so good that I ate the whole pack. Obviously I regretted it later because I started to think about what kind of meat that was. Some questionable one.

Later we had some quesadillas and tacos in Monterrey, next day too for lunch. Tacos and quesadillas, and after driving for 13 hours to get out of Mexico we were in Texas again, hungry and miserable, hopeless and angry. Nowhere to go at 3 am, we saw a "Taco Cabana" so we went in and ordered some disgusting shit. I tried to be good and order a salad. Bad choice. The lady that prepared it was so pissed off that i'm sure she spit on my lettuce. And she didn't use gloves (I wondered were those hands had been..)

I didn't eat it. So i'm still hungry and angry. Pipe and Rob order the most horrible meal I have ever seen. They got 12 breakfast tacos for 10 bucks. When they opened the tacos they looked like a ball of bad eggs in a flour tortilla. Smelled like crap. The other tacos had a ball of sausage inside wich looked like a throw-up. Rob ate two (can't believe it) and Pipe didnt eat any (which is a sign of how bad those were).

Anyways, as the days pass by I'm always on the look out for some smoked salmon, tuna salad, brie cheese with crackers, and from time to time a glass of some good merlot. That's how I keep myself alive in these vicious times.

A Dark and Stormy Night in El Paso

2008-08-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

On the road to El Paso, we find a bright wiggly friend.
We play in a sports bar in a thunderstorm.
The crowd watches the Olympics carefully.
Later, in a tiny hotel room with a slightly defective toilet, we lose our minds as usual.

Las Vegas is Still Insane

2008-08-13T18:08:00.001-07:00

Just about as opposite as can be from the night before, the Mirage is very large, very air conditioned, and overflowing with complimentary liquor. There is no back load-in access to the Revolution Lounge, so you just need to cart your equipment all the way across the casino floor and back. They have a topless pool, but we didn't make it. Rumors of sharks in the fish tank, but we didn't see any.

Somehow, when the fog lifted the next morning, Mark had ended up joining The May Fire.

Starting to crack

2008-08-12T14:47:00.004-07:00

After a particularly hot and sweaty set in a particularly hot and sweaty Phoenix establishment, we escape to our hotel in Surprise, AZ and struggle to open up some warm beers:

and attempt to cool the beer down:

And Rob finds a new way to charge his cell phone:

Video Shoot

2008-08-11T15:47:00.001-07:00

From the office of Catty Tasso:

We came to L.A. a week before the tour to shoot a video with this cool guy called Heath, from Lowbrow films. So it feels like we've been on tour for more than 4 days. The video shoot was really cool and their crew was amazing! We got to hang out in the suburbs in 100 degree weather.. eat almost a pound of goldfish and a bunch of non-diet soda, which sucked... at one point I asked one of the crew members if I could go and buy one diet because the sugar of the regular was making me really loopy (i had 3). He called me a diva and told me to toughen it up. Which I found pretty interesting...

Their D.P. was really cool and we could tell he knew what he was doing. The girls on make-up and hair were amazing! They didn't rest one minute, always on site with us checking us out making sure we didn't have some crap hanging out of our mouth. This crew rocked! Now the video better be good...

One day off

2008-08-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

Relaxing poolside in the desert on Sunday, our one day off before we strike out eastward. Warm winds, chips and beer, eccentric neighbors. Phoenix tomorrow.

We Like It

2008-08-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

From the mind of Catty Tasso:

Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is hard.. where is my bed and my dry towels? After 4 nights drinking and going to bed at 3am, sleeping on the floor and driving in the heat, I'm cranky. I can't imagine how it's gonna be after 4 weeks.. man.

But I got to say it's fun and we all like doing it, because we are masochist motherfuckers. We like to suffer and get drunk doing it. Is that bad? As always we've had awesome hosts. My friend Jaime and Jason are the best. Feeding us, buying us booze and making sure we don't collapse. Frankie, my dear friend too, took us in and he gave me his bed -- awww, so cool -- while he suffered with the rest of the band in the hot living room. No air conditioner and he lives in the valley (wow). He comes from Miami so that's why he is used to it. The guys almost melted.

When we got to Anaheim, we got some Cheese and Anna's love. We arrived to their house at 2am and he already had some inflatable mattresses set up for us and some delicious BBQ leftovers. Not to mention the nice fresh brewed coffee in the morning and the yummy BBQ the next day before we drove to the OC tavern.

We definitely have amazing friends that made this first week nice and cozy. So I guess it hasn't been that horrible. That's what friends are for!!!

A few things go wrong

2008-08-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

Three days in, and three minor emergencies. Okay, the first one was super minor, but it still seemed like a big deal at the time, cause it was the first one. After a packed night at the Knitting Factory, we left our clipboard and email list behind at the merch counter. Or so the other merch girl told us.. we even went back in to look, and it was gone. Oh well. Total loss: a night's worth of email addresses, and a $5 clipboard.

Later that night, while trying to back out of a particularly cramped tacqueria parking lot (and distracting ourselves with a shark puppet) we backed into a Mercedes. The other guy was all pissed off and aggressive, but he chilled out quick when we started busting out the insurance information. It was basically an issue of scratched paint:

Total loss: we'll find out when the insurance jibber jabber goes through. One lucky thing, maybe, is that we have the same insurance company as the guy. That seems good for some reason.

And, finally, minor emergency #3: Johnny's pedals get left behind in San Clemente. Luckily, our friend The Cheese has a friend who left her car there too, so she and Johnny went on the recovery mission. Total loss: 2-3 hours of Johnny's day. Lesson learned: gear should never be stored out of sight, partially obscured, or separate from the other gear. In the load-out chaos, it's sure to get left behind. And with three bands sharing two vans, it's load-out chaos every night.

Anyway, that's all behind us now, and the Cheese is grilling some meats, so things are looking up.

Circo Rocktastico Tour: Day 1

2008-08-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

The tour begins, naturally, in the cozy L.A. bachelor pad of Frankie "It's Just a Prop" Martinez, where we all plan and scheme on our laptops. Well, for Johnny it's more of a handheld device, and Cat doesn't have a laptop, so she's just carrying her entire iMac around...

So it's day one, and how are you feeling so far?

Luckily, we did manage to cram three band's worth of stuff into the available vehicles, and San Diego awaits...

Take the f..fuckin motorway.

2008-04-08T19:10:00.000-07:00

Rob likes maps. Pipe likes mapquest. Cat likes to ask for directions. And now Johnny has a GPS thing. So we can generally find whatever we need to find, if we can decide on which navigational method to use for each situation. The GPS device was cool at first, then it got kind of annoying, always telling us to do this and that... then we found an Ozzy Osbourne voice for it and it got cool again. Of course, what we really wanted was a Mr T voice, but no such luck.

Anyway.. we finally got our asses out of Vegas, thank god, and made it to the San Diego Beauty Bar in plenty of time to stand around with the other bands and try to decide what order we would play in. Finally it was decided that the Frantic Romantic would play first, then the Fascination, and the May Fire would headline. This seemed to make sense, given that we had got a great writeup in the San Diego Reader that week, and it was a Saturday, and the sets would be early anyway cause they have to stop the live music at 11:30. The other bands were actually really good, but they played a little long (despite the Fascination's singer having been recently punched in the throat -- again with the singers!) and the club didn't enforce their set times, and we ended up taking the stage at 11:25. At least the club was nice enough to let us play more than five minutes, and we got a good 20 minutes in before they made us stop.

Whatever, everyone was awful nice, and the music was good, so cool.

And at last, it was time for our first trip to Tucson. Crap, that's a lot of driving, but it was pretty flippin' sweet when we got there. The Congress Hotel is a lacvish historic hotel with restaurant, bar, and venue. The crowd was good, the sound guy was friendly and on top of it, and the other bands, The Solace Brothers and Shark Pants, were splendid. There was a questionable moment during our set when the singer from Shark Pants started getting inappropriately intimate with our big stuffed white tiger on the front of the stage, and he had a hard time explaining himself in front of everybody when Cat interrogated him on the mic (Let that be a warning to you all!) But overall the Tucson leg of the trip was a grand success, and we actually almost made enough to break even for that part.

Here's a little math: Gas is around $3.60/gallon right now, and our van is getting about 14mpg. That means we're getting about four miles to the dollar. It also means that it costs us about $17/hour to cruise down the highway (or, as Ozzy puts it, the f..fuckin motorway). That adds up! Basically we are in the business of converting gasoline into entertainment. Rough business so far, and not so profitable... probably a lot of people would just rather skip the entertainment and keep the gasoline. Times are tough, man.

But we say screw that! You'll get entertainment dammit, not gasoline. It's better for your health. Besides, the traveling leads to funny things, like the hostess of the hotel restaurant recognizing Rob's homemade Kap the Shampoo t-shirt, of which less than 10 even exist, and she turns out to be the ex-girlfriend of his old high school buddy from Connecticut. Whoa! How many of these people do we interact with every day, not even realizing how we might be connected? If everyone made their own art and t-shirts, maybe we wouldn't need social networking websites.

On the drive back to L.A. is when things started to get a little silly. The late drunken nights start to pile up, and our only iPod bit the dust so we had to buy random cds from roadside stops. You know, Kiss, Black Sabbath, Chuck Berry, Toto... once we started playing "Rosanna" and "Africa" over and over to decide which was better, it seemed as though we might not be able to function in normal society again.

We had already acquired that fuzzy gloss that makes everyone ask "are you guys a band?" And now the fuzz was entering our brains as well. By the time we arrived at Evocal in Costa Mesa (near L.A.) we were crazed and hungry and unable to say more than three sentences without interjecting "take the ff..fuckin motorway!" or "You have reached your f...f...fucking destination!" Nothing to do at a time like that but start drinking. Again. It was a short show in a tiny place, but somehow it was pretty fun. It's usually the most fun when you just don't give a damn anymore.

Later that night, with our exceedingly hospitable Anaheim friends that put us up, there was much discussion of cheese, for some reason. And we learned that Johnny our new guitar player is a dog whisperer. He had their wacky adorable dog under his thumb.. they were kind of amazed to see him curl up at Johnny's feet and gaze up at him in stone silence! Apparently it just has to do with establishing who the boss is. Which naturally shifted the conversation to Bruce Springsteen. From there it got reeeally foggy, until the next morning when our fabulous hosts cooked us steak and eggs! Ah, it's the good life.

What Stays in Vegas Happens in Vegas

2008-04-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

First of all, what's going on with all this singer illness? A few hours before the Elbo Room show last Weds, we learn that the headliner's singer has laryngitis, so they're cutting their set short, and aren't drawing a crowd. Then one day before the Silverlake Lounge show in L.A. we learn that the headliner's singer has the flu and they are straight up cancelling. Gah!

Good thing we are professionals in Making The Best Of A Weak Situation, because that's what we did, and the shows turned out alright. Not ideal.. but fun anyway. But no matter what, nothing can ever prepare you for Las Vegas.

"Well, you guys can do of two things at this point," says Woodstock Paul, the bartender, after we return from dinner to find the Art Bar still absolutely empty. "Play a show, or sit here and get fucking lit."

"Playing a show works," says Larry the owner.

"Uh yeah.. playing a show works," says Woodstock Paul.

"Alright, I'm leaving," says Larry the owner, "have fun, see ya. My guy will be here soon to take care of you." At this point, I'm not sure if he's talking about a sound guy, an Elvis impersonator, or both. But then he stops himself and turns back around. "I'm lying. I don't think he's coming. Have a great night."

When we first booked the show, Larry mentioned that he'd prefer we don't drink before the show. Which seemed strange to us. But it makes sense when you remember they basically give the booze away for free in that town. As long as you're either gambling or entertaining, you can drink all you want, whatever you want. And this is the night after we played in L.A. to an actual crowd... and they gave us each two Budweisers (and no, you can't upgrade to a better drink with two tickets plus cash so stop asking, jerkoff). Though what's strange is how hard it is to actually catch a buzz on all that free Vegas liquor. Or maybe it's not that strange, hmm.

Bottom line, there's just more space in Nevada. Physically and mentally. When your entire state isn't choking itself over miles of hot coastline property, you get a more relaxed kind of people.. people that don't make you wonder "is that their cool face, or are they really that pissed off?" Vegas exists solely to entertain and serve, thus the people are very friendly and very freaky. One minute they're helping you load in your equipment with a smile (holy fuck, in SF or LA you're lucky to get someone to TELL you WHERE to load in without making you feel like a retard) and the next minute, with that same big smile, they're telling you how glad they are to finally get a divorce from that damn stripper, along with a mysterious story about getting kicked out of Arizona.

Whatever. We gotta give the Vinyl Clouds credit for setting up and playing an enthusiastic set for twelve people (including the bartender and the four of us). We did a five song quickie, crazy mad punk style, which actually sounded pretty good even without the Elvis impersonator sound guy. But Vegas Jay was there, and he liked it, which kept our spirits up. Plus, later that night, Johnny told us that if you pour coca cola on raw pork, worms will come out of it. Which summed up the trip pretty nicely, I thought. Apparently there's a video of this on YouTube, you can look it up.

But really, the worst part about it is that we left our video camera at the hotel. Crap! It wasn't a great night for rock and roll, but it was a perfect night for shooting a movie. But I guess that's why what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Cause you forgot your camera.

Don't get us wrong, we love Denny's. It's a reliable staple of life on the road. But what's up with these sweet and tangy bbq turds on the placemats? We had to turn the placemats over so we could eat without looking at them...

8 dias en 1 minuto y 1/2

2007-09-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

Click To Play

Here's what happened on our little tour with Zoe

2007-09-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

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.

Right and Wrong recordings

2007-08-09T14:53:00.000-07:00

Click To Play

ringer

2007-07-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Today's Spanish lesson from Catty Tasso of the May Fire:

Translation: "This is very boring. This the second day, driving to... Seattle."

Damn that's a lot of driving. Luckily, El Pipe loves to drive. So he drives almost the whole trip. The rest of us pass the time by staring out the window, making ipod playlists, arguing about how many songs each person gets to put at a time, listening to the mixes for the next EP we're hoping to release Aug 22, and insisting to each other that we should practice our vocal parts, but not really practicing our vocal parts.

We carried some cold cuts in a cooler to cut down on costs, but we also ate at Shari's, where the menu is twenty pages long with lots of colorful pictures of the food, and they have not only a three-sliders-and-three-weiners plate, but a chicken salad with potstickers covered in sweet chili sauce. We ate at Penny's and watched the 3rd shift cook pour big gobs of yellow buttery mix on the hashbrowns and fry it up. We tried to eat at a Sushi place recommended by the door guy at the Comet, but the wait was too long, so we ate at the thai place a couple doors where the soup was killer and the waiter (owner?) was EXCEEDINGLY nice and tried to give us free dessert.. we felt kind of bad not taking him up on it. They also had far-out bathroom sinks. You turned it on by pulling or pushing an upright lever, like a joystick, and the water spills out of a tilted glass saucer sort of thing. Fancy.

The Comet show was fun. People came. We played rock and roll music.

Saturday was the party day. Only 3 hours of driving, hanging out with Michael, friend and sound engineer for kooken & hoomen, at his house with lovely wife, child, and vegetable garden. Gave us beds. Got us high. Barbequed steaks. Hooked up the 4-player football (soccer) on the wall projector. Made us fucking pancakes! Luxury.

The Tonic show was fun. People came. We played rock and roll music. This band Sleepless Me, that was sort of tacked onto the beginning of the bill surprised us by being good. And of course our friends X's for I's were good. Good and crazy. They had a bucket of donuts with them.

Sunday was a nice long day of driving. 10 hours. Oh wait, more like 12 hours cause of a huge traffic jam near Lake Shasta. We took a detour. I don't think it saved us much time, but at least we were moving. We like to be moving.

the van, and crazy frontwomen

2007-06-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

First trip in the new van, down to L.A. to play at Pehrspace, a tiny little art gallery kind of place, that also has rock shows and whatnot. The van performed very well with its brand new shocks, and we had a good ol' time listing all the extra additions we needed to make to it, which included but were not limited to: an extra window, a plug-in cooler, a table upon which to place a laptop and watch movies, a plasma bigscreen to more comfortably watch movies, a sauna...

Anyway, the one luxury item we agreed upon as a must have was a better stereo. The van had come with only a radio, and anyone that's tried to use an iTrip anywhere near a city with a population above 5000 knows that the iTrip is basically a useless piece of crap. Pipe was so pissed he actually stopped at Best Buy on the way down, but we didn't want to wait 2 hrs to get it installed, and end up rolling into L.A. at 2 or 3 am. So it was the first order of business the next day. The nice boys at the Circuit City on Sunset also installed some extra speakers under the back seat. They also pointed out the nail in our rear right tire. Ohh, that's why it's going flat.

So within a couple hours we've spent another $750 on the van. Ouch. But at least we're big pimpin' now with the stereo and new heavy duty rear tires.

And since we're talking about the van costs, let's just break it all down for a minute:

van: $7000 from Caspian Cars in Redwood City
taxes, registration, etc bullshit: about $1000
pre-purchase inspection: $100 from Precision Auto in Redwood City
bench seat: $50 from a guy in Novato named Rick
installation of seat, security grills, window tinting: $850 from Custom Auto in Oakland
four new shocks: $350 from Express Auto in Oakland
new stereo, speakers: $450 from Circuit City in L.A. (this was kind of a shocker.. we got the cheapest stuff but they nickle and dime you to death with charges for extra installation brackets and shit)
two new rear tires: $300 from Discount Tire in L.A.

Total so far: more than $10K. Yeah, we're in deep now.

And that's not counting gas, which, at around 15mi/gallon, is running about $150 for a trip to L.A. and back.

Luckily, we are making money by playing rock music. Last night, for example, we earned $84. Which, you know, buys us enough gas to go crawling home to our day jobs.

Oh but what a time we had at this show! It was a BYOB kind of thing, since it's not a bar, so there we were mixing jim beam and cokes out the side of our new van, which took up a good third of the Pehrspace parking lot, and wondering if the drummer for the first band, Peel, is ever going to show up. Their singer has arrived, in red trench coat and apparently not much else, and has begun hugging, complimenting, and flirting with every boy and man -- and some of the women -- in her path. My goodness!

And that was before she got on the stage. The drummer finally did show up, about 30 minutes after they were scheduled to start (yay) and Peel got the ball rolling. After one song the red trenchcoat is unbuttoned, and by the third song the trenchcoat is off and we're all grappling to comprehend the reality that Peel's frontwoman is writhing on the ground while she sings, in a sexy bra-and-stockings getup, a la Fredericks of Hollywood. In the words of Mayor Quimby, That was unexpected.

Anyway, band #2 was the trio Divisible, fronted by the lovely and fully-clothed Shola, who sometimes played guitar through a fairly impressive setup of pedals and amps, and sometimes just sang, leaving the bass and drums to manage on their own, which they did quite well. They had a very nice Bison painted on the kick drum, which turned out to match the artwork on their very nice cd. Shola later told Cat that they are all planning to move into a $100/month garage together so they can start touring more. Or something like that.

The good ol' May Fire ended up taking the stage around 11:45, also fully clothed, and somewhat drunk, in front of a thinning but enthusiastic crowd. It was a loud, dirty 30 minutes of intense May Fire insanity. It's what we spend all that time and money for, to create those 30 minutes of whatever the fuck it is.

Where we're from

2007-06-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

We often get asked "Where are you guys from?" This could mean a lot of things. Do they mean where we live? As in, where is this touring band from? This is especially confusing when we play in San Francisco. Maybe they think we're on tour from somewhere else, so we should say "we're actually from here." Or maybe they know we're from here but want to know where specifically we live, so we should say "we're from Albany", which is weird because Rob lives in Oakland, and actually Nachito lives in Berkeley now. And besides when you say "Albany" people often think you're talking about New York.

Of course, often it's a completely different story, and what happened is they noticed the accents and the spanish, and want to know what country we're from. But we're from different countries, so we always end up having to explain the whole thing. "well, cat's from chile, those guys are from colombia, and that guy's from connecticut." You always get the connecticut part thrown in, even though it doesn't really apply to the original question (which was really "why are you speaking spanish?") And sometimes when Cat's a little drunk she gets connecticut confused with iowa. But Rob understands.

Anyway, the point is, here's a handy map to help you understand where the May Fire is from:

I know it looks like the dot is next to Argentina, but really it's in Chile, which is sort of a thin country.

to san diego

2007-04-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

Well goddamn, we're on the road again, briefly. Friday night we play the Beauty Bar in San Diego, Saturday in L.A. at "Cigarettes & Alcohol"... in their new Chinatown location. Just before jumping in the cars, we watched the first draft of a live "shot me down" video Maria put together for us. It's over a mixed soundboard recording from Bottom of the Hill, and combines footage from the same Bottom of the Hill show with a show at the Silverlake Lounge in L.A. It all pretty much blends together and looks like the same show, except rob's shirt keeps switching back and forth between dark blue and light blue. Looks pretty slick so far though. Maria knows what she's doing.

The Plastic Army e.p. is damn near out.. it's all showing up in the mail piecemeal. First the sleeves, then the discs, and now we're just waiting for the tray inserts, which got mailed later for some reason, even though they were printed in the same order as the sleeves. Whatever. It's gonna be nice, but shit, our heads are already in the second e.p. now.. and the third. That's our little project for ourselves. Three e.p's. Then it'll be time for a full length. Or a tour. Or something.

But back to the cars. It's Pipe, Rob, and Cat in this car, and it is stuffed completely full. The reality has been sinking in as of late that we need to start laying down the bucks for a van. It's gonna hurt, but there's no way around it the more we start traveling. When it comes down to it, the biggest obstacle to this band's success is the cost of transportation. Making music is one thing.. bringing it to people is a whole other bucket of chips.

Here's my view for the 8 hour ride to San Diego:

Recording makes you crazy

2007-01-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

The first e.p. gets mastered tomorrow, and already we've started recording tracks for the next one. And here's an example of how recording makes you crazy.

Oakland, SF, LA

2007-01-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

So many shows! We've got 'em lined up every weekend for the next month. This Friday 1/26 at the Uptown in Oakland, a really really nice little spot, but unfortunately not very well known. We wrote to the East Bay Express music staff to try to get them to come out, not only to promote ourselves, but also the Uptown deserves more credibility than it gets, I think (maybe I should reserve judgment until we've actually played there?) Anyway, it's with The Look, who just took second place in a statewide battle of the bands, and seem to have a great following in the bay area, so hopefully we can get people to come recognize this spot. Plenty of parking! Let's hear you say that about your typical venue.

Then the following Thursday 2/1 at Grant & Green in San Francisco, in the North Beach area. This is kind of a sneaky little gig that we don't know much about, and we're not sure how much of our SF fanbase is gonna hit this one, cause mostly there's more interest in our Bottom of the Hill show (also with The Look!) two weeks later, on Saturday 2/17. A Saturday at Bottom of the Hill... does life get any better for a young rock band in San Francisco?

But wait, we skipped a week! Have no fear, we head down to Los Angeles on Weds 2/7 to play at the Silverlake Lounge. We've played L.A. a handful of times, but this is our first shot at the Silverlake Lounge, which should be cool. Plus we've got a small list of big shot managers and such (did we mention that TMF is currently in the market for a manager?) coming to check us out there, so we're really trying to pack this one in and make it fuckin' awesome... oh wait, that's what we do with all our shows. Except maybe the Grant & Green thing.. but that's North Beach, practically a different country.

E.P. in the works

2007-01-22T21:04:00.000-08:00

Here's something else that's happening. The May Fire is always recording new tracks when we can, and we're getting ready to put a new E.P. out. Since real label support is slow-moving and fraught with complication and peril, this will be another self-produced product from Rock Whores Studios! At the moment, it's looking like a five track release, and we may slap on a couple remixes that others have made from Right and Wrong. The mixing phase will be complete right about.... now, and we're currently researching deals for mastering and replication. Should be popping up on our merch counter at shows soon.

Welcome to the TMF blog, asswipe

2007-01-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

Hey look, the May Fire has a blog. Isn't that fantastic? Finally, a place to put all the crap that doesn't fit anywhere else. Why does this stuff need to be posted to the internet? Is it because all our screaming fans are dying to see videos of us brushing our teeth in the alley behind Motel 6? Hell no! It's because the music business is hard as shit, and you can never do enough promotion, and this is just another way of getting MORE STUFF ABOUT US out there. Us, us, us. The May Fire, The May Fire, The May Fire. Rock, rock, rock, roll, roll, roll.

So let's talk about what's going on. A couple weeks ago we played a raucous show at the Stork Club in Oakland. Anyone who knows anything about Oakland knows that that place is just plain nuts. They got barbie dolls lined up over the bar, and a huge P.A. system in a tiny little room. You set up your guitar amp, which only has to be at 2 or 3 to fill the room loudly, and they stick a mic in front of it and send it through the P.A. Outta control! They mic the drums, the bass, everything. When we played there last year the sound guy said "oh yeah, this is a full service dive bar." They all have a great attitude about it, which is huge, but they rig it all up so loudly that you're basically generating this enormous wall of soupy insanity... like outfitting a school drinking fountain with a fire hose. Luckily, by the time you get onstage, everyone's good and hammered (the stork pours good drinks) to the point that they actually enjoy standing right in front of us and getting blasted.

Here's some pics from that night, courtesy of radcliffe photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/radcliffephotos/sets/72157594469821851/

Speaking of late set times, something that a lot of music fans don't realize is that at the local level, "headlining" is often not a good thing. The general assumption with any music show is that the headliner is the best (or at least, most popular) act on the bill, and will therefore draw the most people. It's assumed that these people will leave after they see their band play, so naturally the headliners play last. Which is all well and good if you're, say, Radiohead, and playing last means starting around 9pm. But in your average local bar, the first band doesn't get going until 9 at the earliest, so your headliners are often going on around midnight, which cuts out a good deal of audience. Sure, die-hard fans stay up, but as a general rule, people get tired at night.

So really the best timeslot is the second-to-last set, around 11 or so. Everyone that's gonna come has showed up, and not too many people have headed out yet. So local bands end up playing this funny game with each other where they try to convince each other that "you're so much bigger than us, you should definitely headline", and the other band replies "are you kidding? we only drew like 5 people to our last show, you guys are the obvious headliners." And then you both turn around and tell the next club that you can totally draw 150+ people. It's not so much lies and backstabbing as... okay it is lies and backstabbing, but everyone has to do it, so it all balances out. Maybe.

For another example, last Friday we played at Kimo's in San Francisco with Shiloe and the Dont's. Kimo's is like the Stork Club West. Crappy lookin' little hole, but fill it with people and booze and you've got a good time. And I'll give Kimo's this: they understand the limits of their own sound system, and don't overdo it by mic'ing everything. Which is nice. But here's what's not nice: a week before the show (we had this booked two months in advance) someone at Kimo's suddenly decides, for reasons still unclear to us, to throw a 4th band in, in the 2nd slot. Which inevitably causes a certain amount of chaos and difficulty as everything gets reshuffled and the bands end up competing with each other all the more for good set times. And in the end it came down to The May Fire and Shiloe duking it out, which is really too bad cause we're both good and we're both in the same boat, pretty much. But that's how it is.