We Like It

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

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

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.

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

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

Click To Play

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.