Crazy August
[ editor’s note: oops - missed posting a story on Tuesday but to make up for that here’s a long one. ]
Summer 2017. Given life (i.e. work, injury, collaborators moving on), I hadn't played any goddamn gigs for a year. Then the following happened:
MoeTar had momentum again and booked a couple really great shows in August. The first was in Berkeley playing the coveted middle slot between Jack O' the Clock and Free Salamander Exhibit. And six days after that we had a whole set of rearranged tunes to perform for a huge Nina Simone tribute at SF Jazz. This would have easily been enough to get my musical pistons firing again.
But about two months out Secret Chiefs 3 was cooking up an amazing national tour opening up for Dead Cross. A couple proposed dates in the first week conflicted with the MoeTar schedule above. A whole year of nothing, and then immediately I'm finding myself double booked. Aaargh! However Trey magnanimously worked it out so I could still play those MoeTar shows and do the tour. I just had to manage with the extra travel arrangements myself.
No rest for the wicked: I worked a full day at the SETI lab, went home, ate dinner, then officially started the tour with a flight from SFO to LAX and meeting up with the SC3 gang at Jason's studio around midnight, and folded right into band rehearsal. We set up there to practice for a couple days before hitting the road. Basically 48 hours of either sleeping on Jason's couch or running the tunes. The last night in town I caught my Oakland pals in Free Salamander Exhibit who were there on tour, sharing a bill with Atomic Ape before heading to Vegas next.
The SC3 tour started in Vegas as well. We spent the morning on the first tetris pack in the van and then hit the highway. Enjoyed our first road meal in Barstow. Typical initial show of any tour - despite being a bit rusty everybody was super jazzed and the whole thing predictably rocked. And given the heavyweights in the headliners what an explosive way to return to the land of the gigging! Plus we wrapped up early enough to drive across town and catch the last 15 minutes of the Salamander set. Hello again, guys! And of course I'll be seeing them tomorrow back in the Bay Area - i.e. third night in a row! If I planned better I would have just hitched a ride on their bus back to Oakland, but I already had a plane ticket and wanted to maximize time at home.
The socializing ended around 3am, and it seemed like a good idea to just get dropped off at LAS since my flight was at 6am. The SC3 van then headed off on a two day journey to Dallas without me. Unable to sleep I ate airport garbage until boarding and catching some z's during the trip. Jenya picked me up from BART and while driving home she told me about the current ant invasion in our house. I was so out of my mind I kept looping in muppet voice, "ant spraaaaay... ant spraaaaay..." until I fell into bed.
I woke around 2pm, and at 3pm the MoeTar gang came over for rehearsal - cramming one more practice in before heading to Berkeley for tonight's show. Despite competing with the Outside Lands festival and the Swans playing in SF we had a damn good crowd. Nothing like three note-dense rehearsal-intensive Oakland bands melting many Berkeley brains.
The next day I basically had off. I had brunch with some friends, took a glorious nap, and went out to dinner with other friends. Meanwhile the SC3 crew drove in epic heat and bad weather through El Paso. The van almost got struck by lightning at one point. Me, I was in the comfort of my own house complaining I had to get up at 5am to go to the airport.
I woke and dizzily got on BART to SFO and moseyed to the gate for my plane to DFW (Dallas). I had to check my bag as I was in the final loser boarding group. I snoozed a bit until I realized the plane hadn't left the gate yet. The pilot announced: there's something up with the navigational system so there will be a delay until they suss that out. Well, poop. Thirty minutes later he said there was no progress but they'd report back in another thirty minutes. I started sending warning texts to the SC3 crew. Fellow passengers started to deboard as they would certianly miss their connecting flights. I, of course, was somewhat stuck as I checked my bag didn't want to separate from it by going on a different flight in case this takes forever.
Ninety minutes in and still no good news. I braced for missing the gig tonight. But at the two hour mark the pilot happily said they got it fixed and we took off shortly thereafter. Phew! But no further sleep for me as an infant two rows up, from the sounds of it, was being tortured during the entire course of the flight.
Called a Lyft after I landed. I got to chatting with the young driver. I was her fourth ride from the airport today and, somewhat sad and ironic, she has never flown anywhere ever. She took a road trip to Florida and back once but that was the extent of her travel life. Man, I felt like a spoiled brat in comparison given my jet-setting around the world thanks to music and radio astronomy. Yes, my carbon footprint absolutely fucking sucks. Still, I impressed upon her that one of the best things to do as an American is to explore as much of this amazing country as possible. She admitted she'd like to check out New York City someday.
Somehow I still arrived before the others, so I killed time maxing out on an multitasking ego trip by calling into the weekly meeting to check in with my team at the SETI lab back in Berkeley. I paced around a humid parking lot on the outskirts of Dallas while talking to the colleagues in Berkeley about server issues at the telescope in West Virginia. The van finally appeared in the parking lot. We were together again, sharing stories about our past couple of days apart.
What a hot and sweaty outdoor gig. The stage was literally next to a swamp. While loading out I was absolutely surprised to be approached by my old Flywheel bandmate Marco who - unbeknownst to me - recently moved to the area. What's up, dude?! Another example that touring is probably the closest one can get these days to the infinite improbability drive from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The next show was Houston, which was also hot and sweaty. Speaking of old bandmates who now live in Texas, Erik of Mumble & Peg came out for this one. Afterward we caught up at a bar across the way from the venue. It was hard to chat over the noise - lots of commotion due to hermit crab racing and people cheering on their selected crustaceans. Nobody here knew that within a week the city would be underwater due to Hurricane Harvey.
We headed to Austin and had our biggest show of the tour yet at Emo's. During load out I couldn't help but notice the styrofoam in one of my keyboard cases was red. Oh, that's blood. My blood. I cut my hand pretty bad somehow somewhere and didn't notice until now. This sort of thing happens a lot on tour as you're quite often living in the moment as a giant wolf pack and thus rarely living inside your own body.
The post-show parking lot was like one big ol' party culminating with some guy with a fireproof suit who does this thing where a lucky person gets to light him up and he'll flail around in giant flames for a while until extinguished by an assistant. J.P. from Dead Cross did the honors of torching him. Good fun. Except for the fumes.
That night at the hotel I made the mistake of checking in with the news of the world. And for this bad choice I was rewarded with footage of really awful, heartbreaking shit going down in Charlottesville.
The following morning I had enough time before heading to AUS to get some sick barbecue at Stubb's with the entire SC3/Dead Cross entourage. As plates arrived there was some confusion about who got what and I almost tucked into Lombardo's meal before others realized this error. Not really much of a story there except I would have never predicted back in high school I would interface with anybody from Slayer in quite this manner. Like I wish I can go back in time and tell Dave in my math class with all the heavy metal patches on his denim jacket that 30 years from now I'll be casually hanging out in Austin with the drummer from Slayer and I'll nearly eat his brisket sandwich by accident. After the meal I hailed a taxi to the airport.
On the flight to SFO I had an entire economy-plus row to myself. Had a wonderfully quiet evening off back at the house, dining on a home cooked dinner with Jenya. Sleepily ran through the Nina Simone material for tomorrow night's tribute gig in San Francisco and went to bed.
The next afternoon Jenya had a couple photo shoots in the Mission so I went into the city with her, and then tooled around until walking up to SF Jazz to chill out before setting up with MoeTar. Since I'm playing the house grand piano there was zero setting up and soundcheck was a snap - especially when compared to the several hours of exhausting daily chaos while on tour. We played a great set in front of 700 people. Everybody performing at this event killed.
Back home that night I helped Jenya dig out camping gear in case she decided at the last minute to go to Oregon and see the total eclipse. I, on the other hand, had to get up at 4:30am for a flight to SAN (San Diego).
Once again I had a lonely BART trip to SFO way too early. I arrived in San Diego with no plan about how to kill the next five hours. I ended up taking a bus as far as I could get from the airport and walked the remaining several miles to the venue through Balboa park. I assumed it would be a pleasant stroll, but between the sun, the exposure, the unexpected inclines, and the overpacked laptop bag strap digging into my neck.. it was more of a miserable exercise. I stopped inside a random mexican restaurant to cool down a while and ate until I was pretty much half-man, half-tamale.
The SC3 van arrived right before soundcheck. I felt bad they did the long ass drives to and from Texas without me, but hey. At least my non-SC3-gig detours were over, and I could focus on being on the road with one band for the next six weeks. Hallelujah! Just to recap, during the past 12 days I played 7 gigs (with 2 bands, doing a total of 3 different sets of material) and took the following flights: SFO-LAX, LAS-SFO, SFO-DFW, AUS-SFO, SFO-SAN. There were also drives from LA-Vegas, Dallas-Houston, and Houston-Austin. And I caught three Free Salamander Exhibit shows.
We drove to LA right after the San Diego gig and had a day off. Lots of recouping during the day, and then I went out all night with Danny of the Fuxedos, singing karaoke hosted by our friend Mark at the Melody Lounge. The next morning was the total eclipse. Barely noticeable in LA, but meanwhile Jenya - who ended up braving the traffic north - was in eastern Oregon having a mind-blowing experience.
I'm still super bummed I missed the totality, but as much as they break my heart a little bit scheduling conflicts are good - because it means you're definitely doing stuff.