Rock the Casbah
Another busy week, so here’s just one story, but it’s epic. People seem to like the rock n' roll origin/tour stories. Here's another one, about my very first show with Secret Chiefs 3.
With little fanfare I got inducted into this band by Adam the SC3 keyboardist. Out of the blue he wrote me an e-mail wondering if I could take over his position for the next U.S. tour in a few months. Sure, why not?
I first met Adam as part of the Immersion Composition Society, but he also ended up in the LA version of the Fuxedos. We did do one Fux show together here in the Bay Area - he sat in on accordian for a tune, but also there was a bit where he dressed up like Santa Claus and Danny the singer/bandleader beat him up real good with his own sack of toys. Tons o' fun. Anyway, I think the story is that Adam was concerned about bailing on SC3 to go back to school and Danny suggested that I take over. (Thank you Danny!)
I really didn't know what to expect, nor how I would fit in. Of course I go waaaay back with Jai Young the previous keyboardist. We were in a bunch of bands together in the early/mid 90's and knew a zillion people in common. That was my biggest link to everything, but he was out of the loop for a while. As far as the other characters I actually knew Shahzad pretty well from long ago - before his tenure in SC3 he was in a band with Jenya here in the Bay Area and they did some crazy touring together. I also knew Oliwia from us both being part of the whole Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Faun Fables scene.
As it stood I didn't really know anybody else in the current crew. I crossed paths with Trey and Danny H. a few times in the distant past. Ches and I shared a couple bills in the Bay Area new music scene but never really chatted with each other. I hadn't ever met Timba or Toby or Randall.
In the months leading up to it I met up with Adam a couple times to go over some of the material. He had a few of his own notes - there were no official scores. I made some video playthroughs of his hands playing the parts. He also handed over the Kurzweil K2600 so I could get used to the interface and how to load the "tuning tables." It was sufficiently clunky that I printed out a spreadsheet of the patches and tuning tables to minimize confusion on stage. I transcribed Radar on my own as I somehow didn't end up with Adam's chord chart. To help bolster the material Jai Young was more than happy to let me pick his brain. He also had a nice graph paper score of Vajra which was quite helpful.
I was basically working on my own as the band was busy with an adventurous tour in Europe (with Adam at the keyboard helm). Eventually I started getting cc'ed on band related communications. All seemed like it was proceeding along nicely. The plan formed: I'd fly to NYC several days in advance of the first show (in Hamilton, Ontario) to meet and greet the other members of the band and go over all the material.
But then.. a week before the tour Hurricane Irene started to form over the Atlantic.
Panicked e-mails from all parties started flooding my inbox as flights were getting cancelled left and right. As it turns out almost everybody involved were on the west coast (either living there or visiting) and now unable to fly to NYC in time for any rehearsals. New plans emerged to rent/borrow vehicles and drive across the continent hopefully in time for the first gig in Hamilton, Ontario.
The Seattle crew (Timba, Randall, Toby) already hit the road as the Bay Area crew assembled - that being me, Trey, and our savior Scott, a friend of the band who not only availed to us his van for which to carry us and tons of gear, but was also willing to drive thousands of miles there and then back to San Francisco by himself.
I was ready to go in the morning, but Trey and Scott were delayed for various reasons. One reason: the support band for this tour, FAT32, were flying in from France and unable to bring a proper keyboard. They had leads on borrowing a giant keyboard in New York, but it needed a case. So Scott took it upon himself to not buy a case, but build one out of wood and deliver it all the way from California. Trey and Scott had to employ Fitzcarraldo-like maneuvers to get the giant wooden box securely situated on top of the van.
Anyway, all day long I got e-mails from Trey saying they'd be at my house soon. I thought we'd be leaving in the early afternoon but they arrived at midnight, and we ended up hitting the road about 50 hours before soundcheck in Hamilton. Still, that should be plenty of time (I've previously driven coast to coast several times in under 50 hours, so I knew it was possible).
Amped up by the adventure we stayed awake all night getting through California and Nevada and emerged on the salt flats in Utah after sunrise. In our manic state Scott and I failed to notice the van was pretty much out of gas, and we were 30 miles away from the nearest station on the empty, barren flats. Oops. We pulled over at a rest stop where I miraculously had one bar of cell service for which to call AAA.
While waiting for rescue a Love's tanker truck pulled into the rest area and Scott went over to greet the driver with an empty canister. He asked if we could buy a gallon of gas. The driver said he just unloaded everything but maybe there were some drops left over. Sure enough, he opened the giant spigot and a half gallon or so drizzled out from the giant tank into Scott's canister. The guy wouldn't accept payment for the fuel even though he totally saved our ass. I cancelled the AAA call and we reached the next station no problem. Crisis averted. We celebrated by eating lunch at Red Iguana in SLC. They have some of the best molés in the country.
Trey and I got to know each other better during these travels. Before all this he really had know idea who I was outside of just another weirdo who hung out with Jai Young way back when and who also knew Adam somehow. But clearly we had a lot of musical philosophy and Gen X world view in common. We barely talked about the actual songs I needed to know for this tour - he really had a lot of trust in my abilities simply based on our hyper discussions about astronomy, politics, history, evil technology, and our respective war stories from the road.
We continued tearing through the west and then I took over driving all night during one of the worst thunderstorms of my life while crossing Nebraska. Sheets of rain and thunder blasts every few minutes for hours keeping me awake. A cheap tarp we bought at a station to cover the keyboard coffin had completely disintegrated due to the wind and rain. The sun rose and after an hour of napping at some rest stop we pushed forward through the "I" states with the motivating goal of getting delicious Arabic dinner in Dearborn, Michigan. We succeeded, though in our sleepless haze we ordered an insane amount of food. This included a unexpectedly giant plate of kibbeh nayyeh (i.e. raw meat). Unable to eat most of it, we brought a pile of to-go containers back to our hotel. There was no fridge in the room. So we filled the bathroom sink with ice and put the leftovers in there as we crashed out for the night. There was some spoilage by morning.
We arrived at border control where we easily managed the initial round of questioning but were still sent to secondary interrogation. This is usually the case for touring musicians and typically we have our immigration papers in order well in advance. However this time we weren't planning on driving to this gig from this direction until a few days ago. This added a bit of suspicion, hence the extra attention by the agents. A bit nerve wracking, especially in our frazzled state, but even after separate questioning they finally let us through.
A few hours later we pulled into the Casbah parking lot. I played a gig there with Faun Fables/Fuzzy Cousins five years earlier, so it was familiar turf. We arrived a mere few minutes after the Seattle crew (and a mere few hours before show time).
'Twas a huge group celebration in the parking lot: We made it! It was a little weird as I still didn't really know the others. I introduced myself in the parking lot. "Hi, everybody. I'm Matt. Nice to meet you. I'll be your keyboard player this tour. You'll be stuck in a van with me for a month. So, um, I guess let's start."
By the way Timba had been awake for about 80 hours straight at this point. He was camping in the Rockies when this all started going down. He then burned rubber back to Seattle, collected Toby and Randall around that region, dealt with getting the band van rental, hauled ass all the way to NYC, collected the trailer in Connecticut, picked up the FAT32 guys at the airport, and then drove the final leg up to Hamilton. Jeez!
Soundcheck was cut a little short as there were several cabling issues Randall had to sort out at the venue. So we had only time to run a few tunes before giving the stage over to FAT32 (who were somehow unaffected by the hurricane even though they flew in from Europe). Over Canadian burritos a 90 minute set list was drummed up basically built around what songs I felt I could just play with the band live without any rehearsal. The 3, the 4, Vajra, Ship of Fools, Halloween, Fast, Exodus, Tistrya, Brazen Serpent, Radar, Saptarshi, Sophia's Theme, Labyrinth of Light... no problem. I did my homework before the tour like a fuckin' professional - I knew I can wing it. I was honestly more concerned about the robe (the standard SC3 garb) which was handed to me minutes before downbeat. Would it drape over my hands and distract me? Will I be able to catch cues from band members through the hood? Would I trip over it? I guess we'll find out!
And that was that. We hit the stage. It wasn't the tightest performance ever, but that was mostly due to massive group sleep deprivation than anything, and we survived. And somewhat ironically this show is one of the most fan-documented shows on youtube during my tenure with SC3. So you can judge how I did for yourself. And oh yeah, I had no problems with the robe though as Timba and I walked through the crowd to join Toby, Ches, and Trey on stage (after they started the set as a trio with Medieval) somebody outside of my reduced vision patted me hard on the back which was a bit startling.
One funny aside - Adam and I look eerily similar to each other. Given that, and our equal height, and we're both keyboardists who double on guitar, and the general facial obfuscation of the robes, there were many confused fans during that whole first tour. For example Adam's former Estradasphere bandmate Lee lived in Atlanta. After arriving at the gig there, Lee mistook me for Adam from behind and surprised me by sneaking up and grabbing my shoulders. I then turned and the confused, horrified look on Lee's face was like, "holy shit you aged a LOT, man!"