:: Los Angeles, CA/ Cinespace with Dirty Little Secret ::

I kept confusing Cinespace with Cinnabon, and would occasionally daydream of getting paid only in Cinnabon classic cinnamon rolls and maybe even receiving a post-show- full-body frosting. I quite like the idea of Jonah being covered in cinnamon roll frosting in an attempt to recreate the cover of Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream and other Delights”. You know what though…fuck that weak-ass cinnamon roll shit, because goddamnit, the Vue is a big, novelty cookie band. In fact we’re going to be selling them at the “merch” booth. Macadamia nut is right, and I’m talking a circumference of 26’’- eat that in one sitting, you mall-walking gusset-nuzzler!

Anyway, the four of us with testicles (4 guys/7 balls- you do the math and take a guess) headed down to Charles Bukowski’s favorite puke hole of Los Angeles on the night prior to our show--and it’s a show goddamnit, gigs are for white guys with ponytails and Ren and Stimpy T-shirts playing “Mustang Sally” with all the adroitness of Special Olympic kids competing in a sparkler throwing event. The white man’s blues is a strange concept. Why do only rich white banker types and young white hipster kids like the blues? Who would have ever thought that hardcore gansta rap would predominate around a pan-flute patch setting on a Korg M-1 keyboard and a Macintosh computer, and Martin Scorsese would be finding his roots in the Mississippi Delta? Personally, I think it’s a tragedy when white and black culture are exclusive from each other, but they often are, as well as being paradoxically backwards to boot. With that being said, I’ll personally swallow M-80s by the pack if it will prevent Moby from sampling Skip James on his next record.

We arrived at Jessica’s mom house just between Ventura Blvd. And Laurel Canyon- no posche hotels for this major label rock band. What a myth (I am writing this just hours after Rex and I walked a mile to cash in my change at the Safeway on Market with their Coinstar machine so we could go eat some Indian food. The take from the bag: $20.90, saag paneer here we come!). The life of a rock star is remarkably like the life of a hobo. I love getting bagged on by “Book Your Own Fucking Life” bands who act punk for the six weeks they’re on the road before collecting on grandiddy’s trust fund. At any rate, after watching some Fox news, we fell asleep in what has to be the only house that stays consistently 20 degress colder inside than the outside climate.

The next day we woke up and ate what food we could find, which mostly seemed to be garbanzo beans. Jessica’s mother is a heavenly angel of hospitality and usually has a prison cafeteria’s load of food for us, but she too had been in Belize and was unable to prepare for the arrival of a van-full of undernourished young men. After a minor debate about whether we should stop at Guitar Center (a really cool, maw and paw music store you should check out sometime) to get Rex a guitar cable before or after soundcheck, we headed off to the club.

Cinespace is a cool but trendy and unfocused bar space that has airs of being an art gallery a la carte. Tonight was supposed to be an opening of sorts, but little attention was drawn to that fact. Oh well, rock music wins over visual art for the 178,456,867th time. You can always teach kindergartners how to use play-doh with that degree from the Academy! Okay, back to the rock. We double-parked outside and began the process of seeing what got destroyed in the trailer along the drive down the 5. The load-in was either by a flight and a half of stairs or in a annoying elevator that didn’t want to have it’s doors opened for too long, but that comes with the territory and we can lift with our knees with the best piano movers in the country.

Dirty Little Secret were already sound checking, which was weird due to the fact that we were supposed to play last. My friends in Les Savy Fav encouraged me to show up early to see the Secret open for them while in town at the Great American. They seemed like alright guys and, if nothing else, were a solid band with songs that had been given some real attention during the writing process, but unfortunately I couldn’t overcome my fondness of Styx’s “Mr. Roboto” to stop “Secret, secret…I’ve got a secret” from careening in my cranium throughout a good portion of the evening. Subsequent to them checking for over half an hour, we went from being partially confused to thoroughly befuddled. The sound guy was some open mic night rockabilly yahoo who did everything in complete contradiction to simple elements of logic that the Half Moon Bay High School A/V department could have probably mustered. We weren’t going to get to soundcheck after we had, for once, made an effort to show up on time (5:30 PM). Reverend Horton Geek told us we would have needed to be there at three to check, but he was a pro and would do a great job. Our conversation, paraphrased, goes something like this:

Brian: It just seems counterintuitive to check the opening band first. I’ve never…
Doofabilly: Well, we had to get this rolling. You know I’ve got…
Rex: Well man, we showed up when we were told to be here.
Brian: Actually we were 15 minutes early.
Doofabilly’s assistant, Boo-Boo: Look Doofabilly is going to make you sound great. We’ll do a check before you guys go on and it will be great.
Rex: Well it kind of ruins the vibe to have to bang on our shit when everbody’s already in the room
Doofabilly: Naw, it will just take about 15 minutes. Me and Boo-Boo will get you cabled up and we can knock it out in no time. Look, what is it that you’re worried about?
Brian: Look man, I know you guys have utter faith in yourselves, but we’ve never worked with you before and would like to not have to worry about it.
Doofabilly’s assistant, Boo-Boo: Well the thing is, they show a film here before the bands play, and we have to have everything out of the sightline. We couldn’t leave you guy’s stuff up there anyway.
Blah, Blah, Blah ad infintium.

During the melee, someone at the club informed us that there would be no film tonight and thus what they were saying about sightlines was wholly irrelevant. They didn’t seem to understand much of anything that had to do with change or, to be brutally honest, they really just couldn’t make sense of any language that wasn’t simple, monosyllabic soundguy fannypack-speak. There was still water in the bowl, but these goldfish were long dead. This was like having your sound done by Guy Pearce’s character in Memento, that is, if he looked liked the fat allegorical corpse of the swing-craze incarnate. The woman who was the promoter came over to Captain Doofabilly and relayed to him that we were the headlining band and that she would appreciate it if he could let us check our shit. After I diplomatically offered to play on the Dirty Little Secret drum set, followed by much hemming and hawing along with watch staring from the Doofzilla, they let us soundcheck, and I mean that in the most incompetent sense of the word.

Doofabilly and Boo-Boo still wanted to do logistically impetuous things like set our amps in front of Dirty Little Secret’s and then strike them, but such details of their inane suggestions numbs me to a point of having to now block it out to maintain my present, fragile mental stability. So we finally “checked” and even managed to get half way through “She’s Sweet,” at which point the power blew and soundcheck was unceremoniously declared to be over. Positive confirmation of their ineptness: it took them 25 minutes to find the breaker. No two ways about it, tonight was going to be a tragedy of all too familiar proportions, and everyone was left wishing that the night had a fast-forward button. We were prepared to stir our own ashes in an urn of vocal mic feedback and bad lighting.

We returned back to Jessica’s mother’s house already defeated. We had no idea what this place was going to be like on a Sunday night or even if the PA was going to work. Thankfully, more right-wing fascist propaganda via the Fox News Network helped us provisionally forget our woes. Nothing like doing a one-off show that seems futile and has no chance in hell of having it even sound remotely acceptable. Thankfully, however, the gods of karma must have been smoking some damn fine crack on this Sabbath, because when we arrived back, there was a thick crowd of young, well-dressed hipster kids already inside, and the venue had picked up some ambiance through some strange mythical force of which we previously had been unaware.

Dirty Little Secret, unequivocally put, played well and were enjoyable. I actually watched their entire show. After I tried to coordinate the DJ, and Doofalufagus the sound guy for ten minutes to work in conjunction, the music just abruptly ended dead, and Jeremy quickly hit the stage to fill the silence with our intro loop to which we often walk on stage to start the show. We took our accustomed positions under whelmed with fretful ambivalence. Astonishingly, the first few songs went off well, and we all seemed to be able to hear what we were doing. Well suck a dwarf’s dick in a forest of gnomes, this was actually going to be a fun show. Everything was flying around and with initial doubts behind us; everyone was genuinely excited to be on stage. The show was a damn fine one, and that’s coming from one harsh self-critic. We were extolled after the show with tons of people coming up to us and telling us how great the performance was. Even though a lot of people are fucking morons and have no critical faculties, it’s the best feeling in the world to see someone who is genuinely thrilled by your music. This is one of the foremost reasons to ever pick up an instrument. I know; I should shut my trap-shoot before I sound like Mike Watt or something.

So what did we learn? What we learned was this: Even some dickweed who looks like what would happen if Mike Ness from Social Distortion fucked the Golem and couldn’t wire up a PA system in his own asshole, can’t always force you into having a miserable show. Sometimes shit does work out against all odds. Great, now I’m going to have Phil Collins stuck in my head.

::Utrecht, Holland with The Rolling Stones::

Playing with the Rolling Stones was as cool as one could have imagined
it. It was my first time having seen them perform in any sort of venue
whatsoever - I never had the money to get a ticket. Then here we were,
some kids from California opening for the greatest rock band in history in
a 2,000 capacity club that felt smaller, if not taller, than the Warfield.

The day came on slowly and felt like any other day, waking up early for
soundcheck, loading and testing our rental gear, changing strings.
- then they started to arrive - We watched them do a soundcheck
from twenty feet away with just a dozen crew people standing around.
It was incredible. I was covered in goosebumps by their music
and awestruck.

Afterwards I actually only met Keith and Charlie, but they were both
interested in our drum set and guitars.. one of their techs (Russ) as
really interested in my bass > we spoke at length about his experiences
working for the stones since 1974 and Ian Stuart (their old
keyboardist)back in the early seventies. He also worked for Faces and
the Small Faces and has known Rod and Ronny Wood all his life. He had
great stories about how Keith hates it when Mick plays guitar (a recent
development, as in the last two decades) and in order to prevent Keith
from walking over and turning Mick way down, they turn Mick's amp upside
down. This is so Keth can't get to the knobs.

That night their show was amazing, we were dancing
right above them literally .. at one point Keith raised his cigarette in salute
toward Jonah and I during a little number called Satisfaction'.
I could write volumes about their set but don't know where to start.

The venue was very uptight about cameras, but I got someone to snap a
picture of the whole VUE crew- :Eric, Brian,Davy, Rex, Keith, Jonah and me.

The girls also in the picture were from somewhere in Spain.

Apparently,Mick Jagger loved our set and our music and was telling people on his crew to check out our record. So I gave Russ (the tech I made friends with) a copy of our new record "Down For Whatever".

My hangover and the memories of yesterday are subsiding into a dull glow of contentment.