Thursday, October 2, 2008

Bratmobile/Heavens To Betsy U.S. tour June 1992 Pt. 1 Olympia-SF

I used to be a terrible sleeper. In preparation for this , my first real "tour" I stocked up on "sleep-eez", wax ear plugs, brought a mat and a lot of desire for comfort. We were a travelling party of 6, 3 bratmobile, 2 heaves to betsy, Hanna Sternshine and her station wagon, and Counter Commons (then known as Dan Hansen) as well as Allison's buick or le sabre or whatever it was, a hamburger on top for extra storage, equipment, some hand screened t shirts and a lot of energy. Allison booked the tour via phone and letter. The plan was to go down to the bay area, over to Chicago via SLC and Denver, Sioux City (more on that later) and wind our way though Ohio and Kentucky to D.C. and the east coast. I actually don't know what that routing was about but we did want to be in D.C. to hang out and try to change the world. We set out from the Martin were I lived and I'm sure started bickering immediately. Of the touring party only Allison, Hannah, Corin, Tracy and I drove, and only a few of us drove stick. Basically it meant we weren't organized by band but by who had to drive and it was slightly chaotic. Heavens To Betsy wouldn't play bars so there were some shows they didn't play with us. The first show was Gilman and it was nuts. Gilman was totally mythological to us, so to play there was a mega achievement. The next night was at the chameleon on Valencia in the mission. This was our first bar show so no H2B but there were luminaries in the audience like Larry and Trent from the Mummies, Alicia aka Miss Murgatroid booked the show and many others although my memory is fuzzy. The third show was in South Oakland at some warehouse where Allison made some typically absurd sexationalist comments in front of my aunt and caused me much mortification.

Erin will remember all the exact dates, faces and names. She can fill in later. Meanwhile I'll continue to give you the tone. More soon!

3 comments:

Joaquin said...

I remember this entourage well. What else?! Thanks for posting! I can't wait for the part two. I gotta get Erin and Al to weigh in on this.

Molly Neuman said...

wait until we get to Chicago.

Tabitha Says said...

i was there!