we have been setting fire to the roads since we dusted your ass on rt.5 headed south. At our sick berkeley show we frightened and amused the patrons of Becketts upscale irish pub on shattuck with our drunk antics and sloppy stage manner (three hours of play time!). after we played we walked home an hour to joel's brother's house. I lost my cellphone in a bush and we all took a good bath in the fountain at the traffic circle on marin ave. In the morning we watched legends of the fall which as it turns out is five or six hours long. later as our hangovers subsided we spent some qt with joel's brother who divides his time between gathering soil samples from the bay and building large foam muppet costumes. that next night we played at a queer house in oakland with two other acts. lots of crowd participation, and record tshirt sales.
we then headed to LA to stay with kathy and her dog teddy for two days. no shows, just as tourists. we sang kareoke, ate at a 1930's cafeteria with red wood trees and animatronic racoons, saw dolphins and pelecans on the beach, built a sand castle, etc.
next to vegas!!
we booked a room at the Luxor hotel (the one that looks like a giant pyramid) and hit the video poker. joel decided to win ten grand on roulette. he knew that number 27 was to be his big winner. he set 20 bucks in chips on the 27 for the first spin, but hesitated at the last moment and pulled the chips off... only to see the ball land on the 27!! then we lost more money. joel, to cope with his grief, bet higher on the video poker to meet the free drink minimum and we had to put him to bed at ten thirty. zak stayed in the room watching the history channel and monitoring joel while me and ailey went back downstairs to throw more money away. after I lost another twenty we met a couple of nice boys from colorado who wanted us to help them get into the casino club LAX. they needed girls since they didn't have the proper attire. we got in but they didn't.
I'd never been to a night club before, and now I know why. the pole dancers were pretty cheesy, and otherwise it just seemed like a lot of slimey people who couldn't dance. A big guy started rubbing up against Ailey and I punched him in the stomach. after that probably some more stuff happened, but between ailey and me we can't fill the holes in the story. I could barely stand up at the check out desk in the morning.
we drove all day to get to flagstaff, where my dad now rents a house with my step mom. they were out of town. I visited the restaurant where I worked in flag, and we crashed early.
the next day we drove to arcosanti - an architectural.. uh.. commune place where people live and make solari wind bells.
they were having a haunted hay ride and we dressed up as zombies. we made an 8 year old girl pee her pants, and two girls who worked at a funeral parlor doing embalming were afraid to get out of the truck. we played at the after party and I fell asleep early again.
this morning I woke up and walked out to the top of a mesa. then we got in the car and drove back east. stopped in flagstaff again to eat dinner with my dad, and now in santa fe we're staying with zak's pal. I think we'll be here two days and then I'm going to hop out in Amarillo TX, take a hound bus to dallas and then another bus to mexico.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Enchanted Castle US tour, Oct 11, MPLS, Bozeman
transmission from bozeman MT.
after we left chicago we made our way in a short day's drive to minneapolis where we stayed with joel's friend megan in her studio basement apartment. we watched uncle buck and slept under the dinner table. the next morning we went out for a big breakfast and played a highly exclusive show under the stone arch bridge by the mississippi for megan and her man friend dylan. and some man walked down and took our picture.
we split mpls about 5pm with bozeman in our sights. and drove through the night: first terrible rain and creepy dairy queen bathroom stops, then dexadrine and a white out blizzard. we climbed the mountains in montana from 3am to 7am through the snow and played twenty questions. about 8am we got to bozeman finally. we were just in time to eat a hearty breakfast and make it to the main street for the homecoming parade. we cheered so loud we got the most candy thrown at us and I got a sweet picture with a half naked football player with a giant "T" painted on his chest. I bought joel a three piece cordoroy suit in town. we checked out some coffee shops thinking we'd play an afternoon show before we crashed, but they were all so stuffy that we decided to get a motel room instead. The blue sky motel on the edge of town had great rates and only a two hour wait for a room to be ready. we went across the street to the Jackpot casino and drank beers and played video poker. I came out 19 dollars up and we got into the room and crashed. we woke up around dinner time and watched billy madison on tv before we got pizza and went to the Crystal Bar in down town. we drank wild turkies and shot pool and played the juke box. I shot terrible but thanks to joel we still held the table. later more pillowfights in the room and drunken plans to hit the road around 6am despite the persistant snow. so icey roads we take to our last minute show in seattle.
then the 14th in OLYMPIA!
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after we left chicago we made our way in a short day's drive to minneapolis where we stayed with joel's friend megan in her studio basement apartment. we watched uncle buck and slept under the dinner table. the next morning we went out for a big breakfast and played a highly exclusive show under the stone arch bridge by the mississippi for megan and her man friend dylan. and some man walked down and took our picture.
we split mpls about 5pm with bozeman in our sights. and drove through the night: first terrible rain and creepy dairy queen bathroom stops, then dexadrine and a white out blizzard. we climbed the mountains in montana from 3am to 7am through the snow and played twenty questions. about 8am we got to bozeman finally. we were just in time to eat a hearty breakfast and make it to the main street for the homecoming parade. we cheered so loud we got the most candy thrown at us and I got a sweet picture with a half naked football player with a giant "T" painted on his chest. I bought joel a three piece cordoroy suit in town. we checked out some coffee shops thinking we'd play an afternoon show before we crashed, but they were all so stuffy that we decided to get a motel room instead. The blue sky motel on the edge of town had great rates and only a two hour wait for a room to be ready. we went across the street to the Jackpot casino and drank beers and played video poker. I came out 19 dollars up and we got into the room and crashed. we woke up around dinner time and watched billy madison on tv before we got pizza and went to the Crystal Bar in down town. we drank wild turkies and shot pool and played the juke box. I shot terrible but thanks to joel we still held the table. later more pillowfights in the room and drunken plans to hit the road around 6am despite the persistant snow. so icey roads we take to our last minute show in seattle.
then the 14th in OLYMPIA!
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Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Enchanted Castle Oct. 8th, tour log: Let it Be in Oberlin, Pork Sandwiches in Chicago
It's the eighth day of tour and we've just done our first load of dirty undies here in chicago. the fourth and fifth of this month we spent in Oberlin eating pasta, watching point break, and composing ham bone pirate ballads at a lovely apartment with a lovely host. we played on the roof of her building, but the landlord called mid set to tell us to go back in. so much for exposing the streets of oberlin to our songsmanship. ONly five hours of driving later we arrived in Chicago and played at the K-town moonbase way out on Ogden in a studio wharehouse. A lot of people came and we sang our little hearts out. Ben Kolak built a fake campfire and made a light show using projected video (footage of Dubai)and there was grilling and brownies. Some other travellers who were touring playing folk songs on superliner trains played a few songs and then we all played eachothers songs. People danced and busted out xylophones. Zak said it was the first show where he felt like we were a real band. after the show we went to the depot on 31st street to slobber on some midnight cheeseburgers and porkchop sandwiches (my favorite thing in chicago... okay maybe a tie with tacos).
we then took a day to hide out and eat ramen noodles in becca's pilsen apartment across the street from the Thrill Jockey records office. Joel and Zak (giant balls have they) went over to the office and tried to give them a tape and invited them to the show. We had our official first brushoff as a touring band! Later we went out to see a show and then to a bar and shot some pool. In the back room of the bar a company was having one of those ice breaker parties where they play little kids games and get drunk and then talk about their jobs.
tonight we're playing at becca's apartment. maybe probably no one will come. Tomorrow we pack up again and head for Minneapolis where we have no show.
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we then took a day to hide out and eat ramen noodles in becca's pilsen apartment across the street from the Thrill Jockey records office. Joel and Zak (giant balls have they) went over to the office and tried to give them a tape and invited them to the show. We had our official first brushoff as a touring band! Later we went out to see a show and then to a bar and shot some pool. In the back room of the bar a company was having one of those ice breaker parties where they play little kids games and get drunk and then talk about their jobs.
tonight we're playing at becca's apartment. maybe probably no one will come. Tomorrow we pack up again and head for Minneapolis where we have no show.
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NUDITY PLAYS THE NUDIST COLONY, DRIPPING SPRINGS TEXAS, MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND 2006
"Live in action @ the Nudie
Ranch. Note Nudity poster bottom left"
"With joyful sound tech. Note giant-sized mysterious band-aid on abdomen."
Woke up in Austin with Nudity and the Old Haunts at Corinne and Jeremiah’s pad and after a nice morning porch hang, went to eat with all of us and Otto and then to a river swimming hole that had been turned into a big pay-to-swim swarming-with-human-masses thing so I didn’t go swimming. Then we left the others there and headed out to Dripping Springs to the Nudie Ranch, over a bunch of winding rural Texan back roads. We got there and nude Guy (no, that’s his name) comes out to greet us at the gate. There’s an open field with an array of tents and vehicles and trailers and motorhomes and mostly nude people milling about, or soaking in hot tubs (2 of ‘em) or having sex. Oh, and a rickety small wooden stage. We unloaded our stuff and set it up and then stripped down to our shoes (the Texas soil is full of potentially painful burrs - but nude with shoes is just such a great look anyway) and wandered around a bit, and sat in a hot tub with a bunch of folks, and a woman pretty damn hopped up on something took a shine to Eryn, Jo-Jo was her name, and asked him if we play “Margaritaville.” Unfortunately, we don’t. Later in the afternoon, Eryn found himself unwittingly walking past Jo-Jo’s motorhome, and was summoned in by her ostensibly to further discuss music, but was a bit disconcerted to find her holding a beer in one hand and a double-dong in the other. She then tried to tell him that her boyfriend is really into “That one, um... Reggae guy... I can’t remember what he’s called...” “Uh, Bob Marley?” suggested Eryn. “Y-e-e-e-a-a-a-h-h, that’s him!” “Okay then,” whereupon Eryn quite wisely extricated himself from her INCREDIBLY stoned gaze. After the hot tubbing, which included someone snapping a few pictures and everyone in there except us covering their faces, I wandered over to the pool while Chris and Josh smoked a bowl with Guy, and found 3 people doing something together in the pool, a woman giving a man in a lawn chair the most bored handjob imaginable, and a very large shaven-headed black guy giving a possibly larger woman oral sex.
A bit later, we headed back to the stage to play our set, passing a 3-man tent with 3 men and 2 ladies having a pretty cozy little orgy. I don’t think the tent was rated for that occupancy. As we were getting ready to play, and trying to find places where our equipment wouldn’t topple over, and get the PA going - which did later topple, and MAY have been loud enough for spoken word at Traditions - a motorhome pulled up and John, the local “sound tech” (naked except for the gigantic band-aid on his stomach) started telling us in rather reverential tones about the guru-like fella driving it, and how he just travels around to various nudist gatherings all year long, and that this year he’s rumored to be bringing his “Fucksaw,” which apparently consisted of a Saws-all with a dildo stuck on the end of it - how hot is that? So eventually we started playing. At first it was a bit funny - especially Josh, in his coonskin hat and red-white-and-blue shades, but that soon mellowed out, and it didn’t even feel that weird other than how outdoor daytime shows always feel kinda odd. We played a pretty sweet set to maybe 25 people, kind of coming and going, hanging about 25 feet back from the stage, and a bunch more listening from wherever they happened to be at. Lots of picture-taking, like 4 or 5 cameras, which eventually turned to photograph another spectacle a few yards away where Jo-Jo, still tripping heavy balls, or whatever she was on, had managed to get herself tied to the front of her Winnebago and was getting licked by another woman in an obvious display of exhibitionism and not desire. 4 or 5 dudes were gathered around trying to get a piece of the action. This is what we were looking at as we were finishing up our set. “Don’t be surprised by anything you may see out here,” we were told. Will do.
The owner of the whole 14 acres (“Kind of the Hugh Hefner of Dripping Springs,” said Guy) apparently came and watched us for a bit and didn’t pull the plug as we were warned he would if we were too loud, but had to return to his big house to calm his hysterical stepdaughter whom apparently regularly freaks out when they have these 3-or-4-a-year parties. After we played, I told people to buy our shirts so they could clearly state their preference for being nude when the man makes them wear clothes. That worked on a few of ‘em, and we sold a few cd’s and posters, too, actually, I think just out of the novelty of it all.
We packed up our stuff and took another dip in the hot tub and pool (“Be careful going in that pool,” said Hef’s wife. “My son went in and then I told him not to let anyone see what the cold water did to his PARTS!”) and went to Guy and Paula’s trailer full of cheesy psychedelic internet printouts and two iguanas. They were super nice folks tho, and stoked we were there. Before leaving, Guy asked if we wanted to do some DMT. “It’ll make you feel like you’re dying for the initial rush.” Eryn and I politely declined, but Chris and Josh took him up on it. So he took them to a spot just a few yards from the van and they smoked it, and then literally stumbled hazily back to the van. At first it hit them both similar, and totally fucked up their muscle control, but as soon as we had driven out of the Nudie Ranch gate, Josh made us stop while he got out of the van and had a total freakout. Chris was fine after a minute, just chilling on the bench seat in the warm Texas sun, but Josh was seriously freaked and paranoid as hell, like, “We have to take off this sticker of a bulldog that I put on the back of the van earlier today, I feel like it’s too conspicuous, I can’t get it off, does anyone have a straight razor?” “Can we please, just no one say ANYTHING for the next, like ten minutes.” “Just, just 5 more minutes here, what’s 5 more minutes?” as he crouches next to the whitewashed wall and then stands up, shirtless, be-coonskin-hatted, in white pants, raising his arms to the sun goddess. “Okay, we have to throw away the directions to the Nudie Ranch in case we get pulled over, we can’t have them trace anything.” And then after we get going finally, “Dave, back off this car, they’re gonna pull over any minute, if they pull over, you gotta just gun it, I’m serious, oh man, they’re gonna stop and all get out, Dave you gotta just gun it!” This for a car in front of us just slowly looking for an address. And so on. Meanwhile, Chris is almost fully reclined on the back seat, lazily drawling, “Oh, you know what sounds really good right now? A popsicle!”
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Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Spider and the Webs, Enchanted Castle, Olympia, Oct14, 2008
Tuesday, October 14th, 9pm, 2008, Olympia, Washington @ Le Voyeur:
http://www. levoyeur. netfirms. com/calendar/shows. htm
(404 E 4th Ave Olympia, WA 98501 (360)943-5710)
With Spider and the Webs:
http://www. myspace. com/spiderandthewebs
Enchanted Castle, Polar Tangerine and 10 Years Old!
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!
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http://www. levoyeur. netfirms. com/calendar/shows. htm
(404 E 4th Ave Olympia, WA 98501 (360)943-5710)
With Spider and the Webs:
http://www. myspace. com/spiderandthewebs
Enchanted Castle, Polar Tangerine and 10 Years Old!
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!
Read more!
Monday, October 6, 2008
heavens to betsy - June 13, 1992
Preface: This is my tour diary from when I was nineteen. I will try to reproduce it intact, although there are many cringeworthy moments. June 13, 1992 Sat. "We are the lost children" - Roger Nusic We spent yesterday in San Francisco. This area is not like I remember it. It's so spread out but at the same time so connected. The first night's drive was so crazy. Dark, rainy mountains. Then straight to Oakland, Molly's aunt and then stubborn Hannah getting us lost. Tim's, the place we stayed, was a crazy townhouse with a weird guy with a Poison Idea shirt and awesome hair. Some old guy on the couch. The next day we all get burritos in the Mission district, which is totally the poor part of town. So many people asked us for money - mostly black men. There are so many people of color in this area, but the Mission district is mostly black. Fuck this society.
The girls went home to sleep and Dan and I walked through San Francisco. We met up with Candace and she showed us around. We rode the cable cars to the waterfront. Too many tourists, but I think San Francisco is beautiful. Then we went to Gilman St. last night and played with circus tent (ugh) and PMS (rad) and Strawman (yawn). I was afraid before we played that we would be really boring, but as soon as we got on stage all the energy of what we were doing came back to me. We messed up a lot the drums fell over but we totally rocked. We left 'em screamin' for more. So did the Brats. That is the best part of tour. Seeing all the girls rocking out and feeling that energy run through you. Then I can't feel anything else. So many people came up to me and told me how they liked us and good voice and so on....Spray painted love in the grrrls bathroom. The worst part of tour is driving almost dead on the way back but staying at Callie's so nice and comfy.
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The girls went home to sleep and Dan and I walked through San Francisco. We met up with Candace and she showed us around. We rode the cable cars to the waterfront. Too many tourists, but I think San Francisco is beautiful. Then we went to Gilman St. last night and played with circus tent (ugh) and PMS (rad) and Strawman (yawn). I was afraid before we played that we would be really boring, but as soon as we got on stage all the energy of what we were doing came back to me. We messed up a lot the drums fell over but we totally rocked. We left 'em screamin' for more. So did the Brats. That is the best part of tour. Seeing all the girls rocking out and feeling that energy run through you. Then I can't feel anything else. So many people came up to me and told me how they liked us and good voice and so on....Spray painted love in the grrrls bathroom. The worst part of tour is driving almost dead on the way back but staying at Callie's so nice and comfy.
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Sunday, October 5, 2008
Enchanted Castle Oct 5th, 2008, New York, West Philly, Oberlin
Our first show in new york was so much fun. the first band that played was a sort of awesome super serious 90's cover band that confused everyone. then some eukelaililililis. then an opperetta about a man with no feelings. then some more sweet acts. we went on about one thirty in the morning when people were good and drunk (including us) and messed up every song so bad that none of us could stop laughing. everyone there bought our tape.
in the morning we went out to eat at a lousy greek diner in queens and joel ate blood sausage. we packed the car (a little more efficiently each time) and drove down to brooklyn and unloaded at zak's friend charlie's woodshop studio. he had cleared out one side of the room and put black lights and pumpkins and painted "summer time scrap yard" on the wall. we went out and ate sandwiches on the beach in williamsburg and saw (surprise!) a bunch of people making independant films. all of zak and ailey's and joel's new york buddies came to the show, and all of us got to play for an hour each. we ate a chineese feast from Kum Kau.
everyone went home with their friends and I slept in the woodshop.
the next morning I went over to sarah's for breakfast and like usual it was the best breakfast ever and we laughed at sarah palin on youtube.
we got back in the car late and the traffic leaving new york was bad. and then we went on the wrong hiway for about an hour. it took us almost 4 hours to get from ny to philly.
we played a big party at a queer house in west philly and everyone was super friendly and all the other acts were awesome. we played last and then a dj played an everyone danced. we slept in the basement.
we ate a late breakfast at a cafe across the street from a farmers market with a live band and a bunch of kids playing midevil L.A.R.P. style sword and crossbow capture the flag.
we drove all day and got to oberlin where we are staying with zak and ailey's childhood friend. we went out to a bar and ate wings and beer.
today we might play just for their friend on the roof of her building, or maybe press on to chicago.
sorry I hadn't written in a few days. we don't have a computer with us. I promise to keep you updated though, and thank you for encouraging me to write.
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in the morning we went out to eat at a lousy greek diner in queens and joel ate blood sausage. we packed the car (a little more efficiently each time) and drove down to brooklyn and unloaded at zak's friend charlie's woodshop studio. he had cleared out one side of the room and put black lights and pumpkins and painted "summer time scrap yard" on the wall. we went out and ate sandwiches on the beach in williamsburg and saw (surprise!) a bunch of people making independant films. all of zak and ailey's and joel's new york buddies came to the show, and all of us got to play for an hour each. we ate a chineese feast from Kum Kau.
everyone went home with their friends and I slept in the woodshop.
the next morning I went over to sarah's for breakfast and like usual it was the best breakfast ever and we laughed at sarah palin on youtube.
we got back in the car late and the traffic leaving new york was bad. and then we went on the wrong hiway for about an hour. it took us almost 4 hours to get from ny to philly.
we played a big party at a queer house in west philly and everyone was super friendly and all the other acts were awesome. we played last and then a dj played an everyone danced. we slept in the basement.
we ate a late breakfast at a cafe across the street from a farmers market with a live band and a bunch of kids playing midevil L.A.R.P. style sword and crossbow capture the flag.
we drove all day and got to oberlin where we are staying with zak and ailey's childhood friend. we went out to a bar and ate wings and beer.
today we might play just for their friend on the roof of her building, or maybe press on to chicago.
sorry I hadn't written in a few days. we don't have a computer with us. I promise to keep you updated though, and thank you for encouraging me to write.
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Saturday, October 4, 2008
Go Team West Coast Tour: November 87
Intro: Go Team (me and Calvin) went on a short west coast tour during Thanksgiving break, 1987. We took Spook and the Zombies and Rich Jensen. Aaron (spook) was 15, I was 18. Everyone else was older. It was super fun. Read my diary:
Corvalis, OR
we played on KBVR-a radio station at OSU- and we screwed up on “I Don’t Wanna Always Be Me (and not her)”. Calvin forgot to play the guitar on one of the songs I sing and I forgot the words. This is only the second time I have ever sang at a show and it was on the radio and I couldn’t hear myself. They gave us a tape but I don’t really wanna listen to it. set list: my best friend, cowboy song (scary), birdcrash song, I don’t wanna always be me, song from donna parker pop and the song with a c chord-I think that’s it- people were walking by looking confused. we played on Brian’s show, black hair, scary-smiley-friendly. Rich’s grandparents were there with rumballs and cookies. Curt left town with our amp stuck in his apartment. I haven’t seen George since Thursday morning, before Thanksgiving. Rich drives insane. Jean and Dave are in another car. Spook and the Zombies played after us, it was good, but he forgot the words. Calvin reminded him. Then Jean and David played. I think people were offended or something. Rich did ok…not as good as before, but his grandparents were there.
after the radio show we went to record stores in a hurry-happy trails-used, cool. I forget the other one. then we went to Safeway for dinner. Spook demanded Calvin buy him meat, I guess he’s not a vegetarian but Calvin says neither are Mecca Normal, which is weird. He ended up getting this weird canned hot dogs in a Gerber baby food jar so I got plum sauce, like apple sauce but with plums, I don’t see why they don’t make it for adults. everyone else got sandwiches and then we had to get to Eugene really fast to play another show, this time in front of people.
Eugene, OR
we were late. the show started at 6:00 pm, it was at the college. there was about 20 people at the show when we got there, but it was a lame scene on campus, just drunk college types everywhere, so boring. the people who were there to see us were really cool though. we did pretty good, there was no stage, just a big room that was pretty empty. I did ok at singing I think. people seemed to like it. I was really nervous. the new song-picky-dragged on- kind of bad. my best friend cowboy song-short green yellow guitar song bc I say you don’t shocked-energy level high but I don’t know if it sounded too good, a minor orange song. then Rich was nervous, forgot the words. Did ok. Mecca Normal was really cool, well received. Spook and the Zombies had good stage presence. Rambled. Then Go Team/Rich bongo thing…broke strings, hand, confidence…it was ok…people were into it. blond girl impressed by me she said wanted to form a band-said I was a really good guitarist but could I play bass—didn’t realize we were from Olympia—wanted to do something bigger. I didn’t really talk to her but I should have, Calvin got her address. Then we went to Robert and Denise’s pad, then to a party down the street in a big house that was being worked on where Some Velvet Sidewalk played. They were groovy. It was their first show. The guitar player, Alan, had an easel on stage and kept drawing pictures with a purple crayon while he was playing guitar. It was really cool, he seemed nervous though. Maybe they can play a show with Doris at the Smithfield Café…Now we are going to San Francisco. It’s about 10:00 PM and Rich is driving. We’re in Douglas County.
San Francisco, CA
we played at the Rough Trade record store. Steve Connel was Mr. Big Wig. The people who work there were there, they were cool. I asked them if they had any records by girl bands from California and they told me to buy the Holy Sisters of the Gaga Dada record. I also got a Throwing Muses record and some other stuff. I hope my records aren’t getting squished in the trunk. they didn’t have anything by Talulah Gosh or the Shop Assistants. Jennifer from the Furies –whose house we are staying at in North Beach—said I write really god songs and seemed to be impressed. She as really excited when she heard I play drums in an all girl band-DORIS-and she wants me to send her our tape. sisters. she seems pretty cool. she’s into drugs, the grateful dead and hippy arty stuff but there’s definitely something besides that. she seems really off the wall confident-happy, fun, together and a cool girl-she is busy working on video projects, going to the art institute and knows a lot about art. she talks, she’s not afraid to say what she thinks, be what she is-independent, well-defined, free in a sense. strong and sincere. caring. God damn Spook is looking at what I’m writing. I am Harriet the Spy and I will never die. back to our show at Rough Trade. I was so nervous my hands were shaking and I couldn’t play guitar. maybe because we were in San Francisco. Maybe because we were in San Francisco and no one was there. I hope the show tomorrow at Bound Together Books is better. we didn’t play a show today. it was even kind of boring. the morning was pretty nice. Aaron and I walked around North Beach to the Art Institute, saw some pretty cool paintings-the sculptures didn’t make any sense to me but the view of SF was good. I took some photos. We walked around, got lost, ate ice cream at Gelatos went to City Lights books “fun around the world, fun around the world, fun around the world/let’s rock/yeah” we went to the Exploratorium but it wasn’t as cool as I remembered, kind of boring actually. Then we didn’t do anything for a really long time until we visited Steve and his girlfriend who edits Puncture magazine-pretty limited musical tastes but funny—sort of snobby but I think sometimes that’s ok if it’s entertaining and interesting to read. We hung out at Steve’s pad-he gave me both green and purple Talulah Gosh singles for free and showed me a toy record and record player that actually plays by a German group called die Todlichen Doris, that also have girls in it. so cool. He also took us out to Chinese food and was really super encouraging and nice.
we listened to the Birdcrash tape today, everyone thinks Theme for an Unmade Bed sounds like the Velvet Underground, hmmm. I don’t know if I agree, but I do know that it kicks butt. It is really wonderful. So is Cactus Bone Candy. The rest is cool too, but the songs are too long. Aaron is much better at guitar now than he was when they recorded.I got into the Exploratorium for being under 17 and then into a bar with no questions asked. COOOOOL. Aaron kept driving me insane, he asks too many questions.
We went back to Rough Trade. Calvin met with Steve Conell aka Mr. Big to settle a Beat Happening contract. Bret and Heather probably don’t even care. I should have joined that band when Calvin asked me, but I would have had to quit high school and my dad told me I had to earn a bunch of money before he would let me do that. So I didn’t get to go to England on tour. Being on tour and playing in bands is all I ever wanna do. I don’t understand why Bret and Heather don’t feel like that. They don’t want to be famous I guess. We were sitting at Rough Trade for hours. There was an earthquake warning but nothing happened. I bought a million records. Everyone is super old.
When we were playing at Rough Trade a guy walked in off the street and they kicked him out. Rich said something about it. Why did they have to kick him out? Everyone got real uncomfortable. There’s a lot of really poor people here and everyone acts like they are invisible. It makes me think of “Are You Hungry, Joe” by Mecca Normal. That’s such a good song. Rich is a performance artist. That’s what Jennifer said, but Rich said he’s a story teller, that we are all story tellers. Jennifer said that is a kind of performance, but Rich disagreed with her. I think they are both right and just like to talk. People laugh at Mecca Normal. Don’t people think? “They keep you wanting more more more”. Some people are influenced by their environment, sure, but does that mean they stop thinking? I should do something bigger than Go Team.
Anarchist book store show, Haight Masonic, not Haight Ashbury. People came to see Mecca Normal. They laughed at Aaron, were awed by Rich and eating up Mecca Normal. What about us? Did anyone watch? Did anyone care? Beats me. Did it matter? Yes it really matters. I didn’t meet anyone my age that I could relate to really. I keep thinking about the people at our Eugene show. I want Doris to play in Eugene when we get home, maybe with Beat Happening.
Then we headed back. Jokes. No Jokes. AMC Pacers and Gremlins ate at Bill and Kathy’s diner, got on I-5 North. The night was long. I drove to Eugene. Big couch, sleeping on the floor, not in the bed with Aaron, on the floor. TV, Pop Tarts, remote control. In the morning Rich’s mom took us out to soup and salad. Aaron won’t stop talking about Alan from Some Velvet Sidewalk. We drove around Eugene looking for him without any luck. We hung out at House of Records for a long time but he never showed up. I got a Sonic Youth record.
Portland, OR
we played at the Ooze. I got some expensive imports on Flying Nun and a Smiths record. The show was ok, the crowd was boring. Just as we were going to drive home we realized that Rich left with the keys to our car and there was no way to get a hold of him, so I had to call George and get him to drive down from Olympia with the other set of keys. We had to sit in the record store with the lights on after it closed for hours with all these people walking by trying to come in. I just wanted to go home. Then I realized I didn’t get George a souvenir or anything. I didn’t get anyone anything, besides Heidi. It sucked to be inside this record store with all these records and to even have all these new records and not be able to listen to them. we just had to wait for hours and hours and hours and we were so tired and I didn’t want to go home even though I did want to go home. I used to be scared of everything and everybody. Am I now? I wanna be a rock-n-roll star so listen now to what I say, gonna get an electric guitar and take some time to learn how to play…like patti smith.
postscript 2008:
back at home, I immediately decide to
1. move out of my parents house
2. quit school
3. break up with my boyfriend
4. start planning more tours
5. start writing the first issue of jigsaw
it took a few years but it all comes true
Read more!
Corvalis, OR
we played on KBVR-a radio station at OSU- and we screwed up on “I Don’t Wanna Always Be Me (and not her)”. Calvin forgot to play the guitar on one of the songs I sing and I forgot the words. This is only the second time I have ever sang at a show and it was on the radio and I couldn’t hear myself. They gave us a tape but I don’t really wanna listen to it. set list: my best friend, cowboy song (scary), birdcrash song, I don’t wanna always be me, song from donna parker pop and the song with a c chord-I think that’s it- people were walking by looking confused. we played on Brian’s show, black hair, scary-smiley-friendly. Rich’s grandparents were there with rumballs and cookies. Curt left town with our amp stuck in his apartment. I haven’t seen George since Thursday morning, before Thanksgiving. Rich drives insane. Jean and Dave are in another car. Spook and the Zombies played after us, it was good, but he forgot the words. Calvin reminded him. Then Jean and David played. I think people were offended or something. Rich did ok…not as good as before, but his grandparents were there.
after the radio show we went to record stores in a hurry-happy trails-used, cool. I forget the other one. then we went to Safeway for dinner. Spook demanded Calvin buy him meat, I guess he’s not a vegetarian but Calvin says neither are Mecca Normal, which is weird. He ended up getting this weird canned hot dogs in a Gerber baby food jar so I got plum sauce, like apple sauce but with plums, I don’t see why they don’t make it for adults. everyone else got sandwiches and then we had to get to Eugene really fast to play another show, this time in front of people.
Eugene, OR
we were late. the show started at 6:00 pm, it was at the college. there was about 20 people at the show when we got there, but it was a lame scene on campus, just drunk college types everywhere, so boring. the people who were there to see us were really cool though. we did pretty good, there was no stage, just a big room that was pretty empty. I did ok at singing I think. people seemed to like it. I was really nervous. the new song-picky-dragged on- kind of bad. my best friend cowboy song-short green yellow guitar song bc I say you don’t shocked-energy level high but I don’t know if it sounded too good, a minor orange song. then Rich was nervous, forgot the words. Did ok. Mecca Normal was really cool, well received. Spook and the Zombies had good stage presence. Rambled. Then Go Team/Rich bongo thing…broke strings, hand, confidence…it was ok…people were into it. blond girl impressed by me she said wanted to form a band-said I was a really good guitarist but could I play bass—didn’t realize we were from Olympia—wanted to do something bigger. I didn’t really talk to her but I should have, Calvin got her address. Then we went to Robert and Denise’s pad, then to a party down the street in a big house that was being worked on where Some Velvet Sidewalk played. They were groovy. It was their first show. The guitar player, Alan, had an easel on stage and kept drawing pictures with a purple crayon while he was playing guitar. It was really cool, he seemed nervous though. Maybe they can play a show with Doris at the Smithfield Café…Now we are going to San Francisco. It’s about 10:00 PM and Rich is driving. We’re in Douglas County.
San Francisco, CA
we played at the Rough Trade record store. Steve Connel was Mr. Big Wig. The people who work there were there, they were cool. I asked them if they had any records by girl bands from California and they told me to buy the Holy Sisters of the Gaga Dada record. I also got a Throwing Muses record and some other stuff. I hope my records aren’t getting squished in the trunk. they didn’t have anything by Talulah Gosh or the Shop Assistants. Jennifer from the Furies –whose house we are staying at in North Beach—said I write really god songs and seemed to be impressed. She as really excited when she heard I play drums in an all girl band-DORIS-and she wants me to send her our tape. sisters. she seems pretty cool. she’s into drugs, the grateful dead and hippy arty stuff but there’s definitely something besides that. she seems really off the wall confident-happy, fun, together and a cool girl-she is busy working on video projects, going to the art institute and knows a lot about art. she talks, she’s not afraid to say what she thinks, be what she is-independent, well-defined, free in a sense. strong and sincere. caring. God damn Spook is looking at what I’m writing. I am Harriet the Spy and I will never die. back to our show at Rough Trade. I was so nervous my hands were shaking and I couldn’t play guitar. maybe because we were in San Francisco. Maybe because we were in San Francisco and no one was there. I hope the show tomorrow at Bound Together Books is better. we didn’t play a show today. it was even kind of boring. the morning was pretty nice. Aaron and I walked around North Beach to the Art Institute, saw some pretty cool paintings-the sculptures didn’t make any sense to me but the view of SF was good. I took some photos. We walked around, got lost, ate ice cream at Gelatos went to City Lights books “fun around the world, fun around the world, fun around the world/let’s rock/yeah” we went to the Exploratorium but it wasn’t as cool as I remembered, kind of boring actually. Then we didn’t do anything for a really long time until we visited Steve and his girlfriend who edits Puncture magazine-pretty limited musical tastes but funny—sort of snobby but I think sometimes that’s ok if it’s entertaining and interesting to read. We hung out at Steve’s pad-he gave me both green and purple Talulah Gosh singles for free and showed me a toy record and record player that actually plays by a German group called die Todlichen Doris, that also have girls in it. so cool. He also took us out to Chinese food and was really super encouraging and nice.
we listened to the Birdcrash tape today, everyone thinks Theme for an Unmade Bed sounds like the Velvet Underground, hmmm. I don’t know if I agree, but I do know that it kicks butt. It is really wonderful. So is Cactus Bone Candy. The rest is cool too, but the songs are too long. Aaron is much better at guitar now than he was when they recorded.I got into the Exploratorium for being under 17 and then into a bar with no questions asked. COOOOOL. Aaron kept driving me insane, he asks too many questions.
We went back to Rough Trade. Calvin met with Steve Conell aka Mr. Big to settle a Beat Happening contract. Bret and Heather probably don’t even care. I should have joined that band when Calvin asked me, but I would have had to quit high school and my dad told me I had to earn a bunch of money before he would let me do that. So I didn’t get to go to England on tour. Being on tour and playing in bands is all I ever wanna do. I don’t understand why Bret and Heather don’t feel like that. They don’t want to be famous I guess. We were sitting at Rough Trade for hours. There was an earthquake warning but nothing happened. I bought a million records. Everyone is super old.
When we were playing at Rough Trade a guy walked in off the street and they kicked him out. Rich said something about it. Why did they have to kick him out? Everyone got real uncomfortable. There’s a lot of really poor people here and everyone acts like they are invisible. It makes me think of “Are You Hungry, Joe” by Mecca Normal. That’s such a good song. Rich is a performance artist. That’s what Jennifer said, but Rich said he’s a story teller, that we are all story tellers. Jennifer said that is a kind of performance, but Rich disagreed with her. I think they are both right and just like to talk. People laugh at Mecca Normal. Don’t people think? “They keep you wanting more more more”. Some people are influenced by their environment, sure, but does that mean they stop thinking? I should do something bigger than Go Team.
Anarchist book store show, Haight Masonic, not Haight Ashbury. People came to see Mecca Normal. They laughed at Aaron, were awed by Rich and eating up Mecca Normal. What about us? Did anyone watch? Did anyone care? Beats me. Did it matter? Yes it really matters. I didn’t meet anyone my age that I could relate to really. I keep thinking about the people at our Eugene show. I want Doris to play in Eugene when we get home, maybe with Beat Happening.
Then we headed back. Jokes. No Jokes. AMC Pacers and Gremlins ate at Bill and Kathy’s diner, got on I-5 North. The night was long. I drove to Eugene. Big couch, sleeping on the floor, not in the bed with Aaron, on the floor. TV, Pop Tarts, remote control. In the morning Rich’s mom took us out to soup and salad. Aaron won’t stop talking about Alan from Some Velvet Sidewalk. We drove around Eugene looking for him without any luck. We hung out at House of Records for a long time but he never showed up. I got a Sonic Youth record.
Portland, OR
we played at the Ooze. I got some expensive imports on Flying Nun and a Smiths record. The show was ok, the crowd was boring. Just as we were going to drive home we realized that Rich left with the keys to our car and there was no way to get a hold of him, so I had to call George and get him to drive down from Olympia with the other set of keys. We had to sit in the record store with the lights on after it closed for hours with all these people walking by trying to come in. I just wanted to go home. Then I realized I didn’t get George a souvenir or anything. I didn’t get anyone anything, besides Heidi. It sucked to be inside this record store with all these records and to even have all these new records and not be able to listen to them. we just had to wait for hours and hours and hours and we were so tired and I didn’t want to go home even though I did want to go home. I used to be scared of everything and everybody. Am I now? I wanna be a rock-n-roll star so listen now to what I say, gonna get an electric guitar and take some time to learn how to play…like patti smith.
postscript 2008:
back at home, I immediately decide to
1. move out of my parents house
2. quit school
3. break up with my boyfriend
4. start planning more tours
5. start writing the first issue of jigsaw
it took a few years but it all comes true
Read more!
Go Team Tour March 89 PT 7
Post-script 2008. At some point on this tour, Robert called his girlfriend Denise from a phone booth and asked her to marry him. We had been driving all night and were in a parking lot and the sun was coming up. He walked back to the car and told us he was getting married, I was like, uh…”why?!! Are you insane?!” I didn’t really get that--like you are on tour and you want to go home? And get married? The road makes you wanna settle down? He said he missed Denise and he didn’t want to be away from her ever again. It was a mystery to me but he knew what he wanted to do and in retrospect I’m glad he was smart enough to live his life the way he wanted to. It was only on this last tour that I began understand how he must have felt. He and Al were older, they were turning 25 and had just graduated from college and they were ready to settle down. I liked Robert, but we argued a lot, he was always talking about wanting to grow old gracefully and did stuff like listen to Frank Sinatra and wore old man sweaters. I remember wishing I had met him when he was a young, wild punk kid. He spoke in aphorisms, so it’s cool that there are so many Robert quotes in here. I was turning 20 and returning to Olympia to finish my first year of school but I all I wanted to do was hang out and play music 24/7. I was trying to formulate my next band. Calvin was 26 or 27 and was working on K full time. Mecca Normal were older too, I looked up to them because I had seen them on the Black Wedge tour in when I was 16 and was blown away but they seemed like authority figures to me, because they were older and serious…I related to Billy and Jenny best, they were older--Bill was 23 and Jenny 25 I think--but they were both wild and up for kicks ….so I was the baby of the tour, still a teenager and a little scared of everything but trying to break out. I would spend much of the next several years on tour. Bikini Kill started touring the summer of 1991, but first there would be another Go Team U.S. tour (fall 89) as well as a west coast tour playing drums with Some Velvet Sidewalk (spring 1990).
Cheers to Robert and Denise. Cheers to Al & Jenny, Bill and Calvin and to Jean and David. Thanks for bringing me on the road.
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Cheers to Robert and Denise. Cheers to Al & Jenny, Bill and Calvin and to Jean and David. Thanks for bringing me on the road.
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Go Team Tour March 89 PT 6
In the car on the way from Washington DC to Iowa City, Iowa to play a show tonight.. Mecca Normal and what’s left of Some Velvet Sidewalk stayed at Shawn Wolfe’s house. Everything feels so much different now that Jenny’s gone He has a small apartment with lots of cats. 597 Franklin Columbus, OH I think. He is a lot less geeky looking than I thought he’d look, but still geeky, with blow dried hair. He’s young looking and has a lot of records. I think I’ve gotten used to Al’s anti-consumer ways. Also there was a totally old and yuppy looking girl and a computer geek guy who maybe plays drums.
Washington DC -Calvin’s mom was not what I expected. A little more like Edith Bunker than I had imagined, but pushy. Calvin was acting like a little kid and his mom slapped him at the dinner table. We ate salad and listened to Broadway musicals. We saw the video she made for Crashing Through (Beat Happening). Things seemed really tense at the dinner table. I slept on the couch and woke up and it was Easter and we colored eggs and ate food from a New York catering company and we had a day off so we freaked out because there was nothing to do, like everything is totally pointless and arbitrary and nothing has any meaning. We went to a cemetery. Robert says “poverty and hunger aren’t arbitrary” and that “things really do matter”. I decide that it’s because we are on tour and nothing is real like paying rent and that since there is no real life there is no basis and when you sit around all day and don’t play a show you freak out and don’t understand anything especially when someone is trying to deal with something real it is just extremely difficult to understand what’s going on. So we maybe are living a hedonistic life style? In the aesthetic realm? Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. The whole world is like what it’s like to fall in love with someone at first. All the excitement and apprehension without the pain. But without the sex too. So we went to a movie. Everyone except Jean. and mom. and Jenny. who stayed in new york with Linda. We saw a movie called Paperhouse and it was about a little girl who drew pictures and then would pass out and end up in the world of her picture. And it was bad. Bad acting. No plausibility. No logic within the movie. Kept thinking about them filming the movie rather than about the movie itself. Al and Dave seemed to like it. Robert didn’t care, he said “I fucking hate the movies” and me and Calvin and Bill didn’t like it. Then we had to drive around Washington DC looking for Cynthia Connolly and it took forever. DC is so fucking gross, American royalty. We found her. She was shy. I was disappointed she had long hair and wore sandals. I thought she would be more punk looking. We drove around the block with her in the car. I didn’t really get to talk to her.And then back to Calvin’s mom’s for dinner. We had lasagna and then everybody tried to kill me and then Calvin turned into Dracula and his arm fell off and then I was going to write my paper but then Calvin asked me to go for a walk. He asked me why I like to go on tour. I’m not sure. Bill is driving the car and turning into a monkey.
Iowa City, IA Flannery O’Connor used to live here. It’s a college town. Our show was 21 and over, but it wasn’t supposed to be. No one showed up. Calvin argued with the guy and then we left.
Lawerence, KS Played basketball and drank beer on the fire escape with Billy, it’s beautiful and peaceful here. This is near where my family is from. It feels peaceful, like the center of the world to me. It’s springtime now and warm and sad. Last night Billy called William Burroughs at 3:00 AM. He answered and told him he had to go to Kansas City today. I wonder what would have happened if he called earlier. His number is listed in the phone book. We met John and that was good. We hung around and drove and drove and drove and ran out of gas and stayed in a motel and snuck Billy in and had a fire alarm and then we drove and I didn’t wanna go home and we played in Utah.
Salt Lake City was our last show and it was weird. It is really spread out and feels like it’s in the middle of the woods. We ate at a hippy vegetarian restaurant that reminded me of Mork and Mindy. It was 1974 there and I was wearing my Hellcows shirt for all the Mormons.
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Washington DC -Calvin’s mom was not what I expected. A little more like Edith Bunker than I had imagined, but pushy. Calvin was acting like a little kid and his mom slapped him at the dinner table. We ate salad and listened to Broadway musicals. We saw the video she made for Crashing Through (Beat Happening). Things seemed really tense at the dinner table. I slept on the couch and woke up and it was Easter and we colored eggs and ate food from a New York catering company and we had a day off so we freaked out because there was nothing to do, like everything is totally pointless and arbitrary and nothing has any meaning. We went to a cemetery. Robert says “poverty and hunger aren’t arbitrary” and that “things really do matter”. I decide that it’s because we are on tour and nothing is real like paying rent and that since there is no real life there is no basis and when you sit around all day and don’t play a show you freak out and don’t understand anything especially when someone is trying to deal with something real it is just extremely difficult to understand what’s going on. So we maybe are living a hedonistic life style? In the aesthetic realm? Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. The whole world is like what it’s like to fall in love with someone at first. All the excitement and apprehension without the pain. But without the sex too. So we went to a movie. Everyone except Jean. and mom. and Jenny. who stayed in new york with Linda. We saw a movie called Paperhouse and it was about a little girl who drew pictures and then would pass out and end up in the world of her picture. And it was bad. Bad acting. No plausibility. No logic within the movie. Kept thinking about them filming the movie rather than about the movie itself. Al and Dave seemed to like it. Robert didn’t care, he said “I fucking hate the movies” and me and Calvin and Bill didn’t like it. Then we had to drive around Washington DC looking for Cynthia Connolly and it took forever. DC is so fucking gross, American royalty. We found her. She was shy. I was disappointed she had long hair and wore sandals. I thought she would be more punk looking. We drove around the block with her in the car. I didn’t really get to talk to her.And then back to Calvin’s mom’s for dinner. We had lasagna and then everybody tried to kill me and then Calvin turned into Dracula and his arm fell off and then I was going to write my paper but then Calvin asked me to go for a walk. He asked me why I like to go on tour. I’m not sure. Bill is driving the car and turning into a monkey.
Iowa City, IA Flannery O’Connor used to live here. It’s a college town. Our show was 21 and over, but it wasn’t supposed to be. No one showed up. Calvin argued with the guy and then we left.
Lawerence, KS Played basketball and drank beer on the fire escape with Billy, it’s beautiful and peaceful here. This is near where my family is from. It feels peaceful, like the center of the world to me. It’s springtime now and warm and sad. Last night Billy called William Burroughs at 3:00 AM. He answered and told him he had to go to Kansas City today. I wonder what would have happened if he called earlier. His number is listed in the phone book. We met John and that was good. We hung around and drove and drove and drove and ran out of gas and stayed in a motel and snuck Billy in and had a fire alarm and then we drove and I didn’t wanna go home and we played in Utah.
Salt Lake City was our last show and it was weird. It is really spread out and feels like it’s in the middle of the woods. We ate at a hippy vegetarian restaurant that reminded me of Mork and Mindy. It was 1974 there and I was wearing my Hellcows shirt for all the Mormons.
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Go Team Tour March 89 PT 5
Am in Washington DC now, we aren’t playing here though. It’s Easter, we are staying at Calvin’s mom’s house. So much has happened. We had a party on Friday night at Linda Serbu’s basement apartment, across from Tompkin’s Square Park. There’s a studio in it where the yogis come to teach yoga or whatever, or maybe they live there. Her apartment is painted black, even the bathtub. There’s all this weird art hanging everywhere, like torture devices, it’s creepy. They were doing bad stuff in her room. Sex and drugs and rock-n-roll. Lung Leg lives there too, or did. We got the new Madonna tape after the Boston show and drove straight to New York, the city that never sleeps. We got to the Lower East Side at 4 AM. Apparently the city that never sleeps does sleep from 4-5 AM. Olympia has more stuff that’s 24 hours than the Lower East Side. I didn’t eat anything because we were supposed to get pizza in New York, so we drove around until we found a place called Ray’s and I got a slice. It had canned spinach and corn on it, it sucked. We then slept a few hours before getting up early to see the city. Me and Calvin went to Battery City Park where Madonna hangs out in Desperately Seeking Susan and rode the Staten Island Fairy past the Statue of Liberty. He made fun of me because I didn’t recognize any of the buildings, not even the Empire State Building. Who cares about that stuff? I wanted to go to Macdougal Street and Washington Sqare park and see where Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo lived. I wanted to climb the fire escapes of Greenwich Village and live life like the pictures of Jack Keroauc and all the cool girls in the beat history book whose names I don't know but who must've written cool poems too. We walked around for the whole day until I had blisters on my feet and we had to take the subway to an art museum that was showing the Andy Warhol retrospective. Wow. The party at Linda’s was nuts. We got in a fight with Mike McGonigal from Chemical Imbalance. We wanted to dance to the new Madonna record. He kept putting on Jad Fair and the Shaggs. Hey, we love that music, but the new Madonna record just came out yesterday and we wanted to dance. All these east coast people showed up with dyed hair, big shoes or boots and black clothing. Tammy Rae was there and some people from Pussy Galore. We played with Galaxie 500, who are so boring but really nice. When Go Team was playing this totally wasted old guy comes in off the street with a guitar and asks to play a song. He played Sympathy for the Devil. I played the Go Team beat and Calvin & Bill started Go-Go dancing (the rule is that I can play the beat whenever I want and they have to drop whatever they are doing and start dancing like crazy) things really almost fell apart then, the drunk guy thought he was in our band. The New York people wanted to kick him out, but we invited him to stay at the party. It seemed like a culture clash. Tammy Rae said Olympia/NYC are very different and it was weird for her to see her east and west coast friends in the same place. Everyone at Linda’s party was real arty-farty and too cool, like almost too cool to have fun, but we were not afraid of being ridiculous and we pulled off the show I think. Billy taped it. We got beer at the corner store and drank in the park, then hung out at a 24 hour diner for a long time after the party was over. I wonder if they closed from 4-5.
I’m reading a book for school called Breaking the Glass Armor about Neo-Formalist film analysis, this new approach of analyzing films where you’re encouraged to look at the formal elements for variations? I don’t exactly understand what they are talking about because they spend pages on the most obvious things and they explain everything so well that it’s distracting from the overall picture and you begin to think it’s really too specific. Like I’m not exactly sure why to do the whole analysis thing in the first place. Ya know. Why? Why why why why why? To explain things more effectively. Truth I guess.
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I’m reading a book for school called Breaking the Glass Armor about Neo-Formalist film analysis, this new approach of analyzing films where you’re encouraged to look at the formal elements for variations? I don’t exactly understand what they are talking about because they spend pages on the most obvious things and they explain everything so well that it’s distracting from the overall picture and you begin to think it’s really too specific. Like I’m not exactly sure why to do the whole analysis thing in the first place. Ya know. Why? Why why why why why? To explain things more effectively. Truth I guess.
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Go Team Tour March 89 PT 4
We are in a tunnel in Pennsylvania.
Fast Forward. Woke up early after a night w/ Al & Mecca Normal and cats (allergic) and drove across Illinois and Indiana and Ohio and then Pennsylvania. I forgot Wisconsin. Little House in the Big Woods/ Wisconsin Death Trip Illinois, Indiana is major farm country. Superman. It was sunny there. Robert says Ohio guys are Rubes. Bill was driving “Is this where Chrissie Hynde lives?” then PA. Pittsburgh was more bricks. We drove across bridges. Bricks, I can’t even explain this. It turns out we were in a dry town outside of Pittsburgh and it was Sunday. Nothing was open. We still haven’t had pizza yet. There was a subway sandwiches. A tired gray slow bitter man was working. Calvin says “what kind of cheese do you have?” and the guy says “American.” He holds it up with a plastic glove hand and says “white American, that’s about all I can tell ya” He asked if we had any rolling papers and of course we didn’t and then he seemed even more defeated and resigned to doing his ridiculously demeaning job. But then he said “you can get as much pop as long as you want if you stay” and he said it like “take as much as you can while you can”. We played at the Sonic Temple, an old Masonic Temple. They have shows on the fourth floor, it was warm there. The Go Team drove together all day. We were pretty good. There’s a tape of it. Calvin said we had attitude. Set list: Red Headed Aunts, Broken Window, Tummy Hop, Sand, Hop on Clock, Cactus Bone Candy, Outside…fuck I don’t know but I sand Sandcastle Nightmare. And we broke a snare. Some Velvet Sidewalk were alright. Robert and Jenny were really great. They carried the drums all around the room, Robert banging on the kick drum like they were a marching band. The room was huge and they took up a lot of sonic space. Weird record store geek types. Manny. We got stuck in PA because Mecca Normal’s car broke down so our show got put to the next day.
New Hampshire. At a weird place. Some guys house in the middle of the night. It’s colonial times here, quilts and wooded slats. We played a show at a café of some sort with Ed’s Redeeming Qualities who are the worst band in the history of the world. No sex no reality no rock-n-roll no punk rock no sadness no anxiety they are so totally normal I couldn’t even stand it totally boring totally lame. Anyhow the show went alright I suppose.
Then Boston. We played at the Rat Cellar, the first real club we played at. It felt like a pretty good show I guess. I found a Look Blue Go Purple record at the record store, still looking for the Shop Assistants. I met a guy named Mark who puts out records for Galaxie 500 Aurora and we stayed at the house of the Blake babies and briefly met Juliana but they were all studying pretty intensely I think. Then me, Calvin,Jenny and Bill drove to NYC.
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Fast Forward. Woke up early after a night w/ Al & Mecca Normal and cats (allergic) and drove across Illinois and Indiana and Ohio and then Pennsylvania. I forgot Wisconsin. Little House in the Big Woods/ Wisconsin Death Trip Illinois, Indiana is major farm country. Superman. It was sunny there. Robert says Ohio guys are Rubes. Bill was driving “Is this where Chrissie Hynde lives?” then PA. Pittsburgh was more bricks. We drove across bridges. Bricks, I can’t even explain this. It turns out we were in a dry town outside of Pittsburgh and it was Sunday. Nothing was open. We still haven’t had pizza yet. There was a subway sandwiches. A tired gray slow bitter man was working. Calvin says “what kind of cheese do you have?” and the guy says “American.” He holds it up with a plastic glove hand and says “white American, that’s about all I can tell ya” He asked if we had any rolling papers and of course we didn’t and then he seemed even more defeated and resigned to doing his ridiculously demeaning job. But then he said “you can get as much pop as long as you want if you stay” and he said it like “take as much as you can while you can”. We played at the Sonic Temple, an old Masonic Temple. They have shows on the fourth floor, it was warm there. The Go Team drove together all day. We were pretty good. There’s a tape of it. Calvin said we had attitude. Set list: Red Headed Aunts, Broken Window, Tummy Hop, Sand, Hop on Clock, Cactus Bone Candy, Outside…fuck I don’t know but I sand Sandcastle Nightmare. And we broke a snare. Some Velvet Sidewalk were alright. Robert and Jenny were really great. They carried the drums all around the room, Robert banging on the kick drum like they were a marching band. The room was huge and they took up a lot of sonic space. Weird record store geek types. Manny. We got stuck in PA because Mecca Normal’s car broke down so our show got put to the next day.
New Hampshire. At a weird place. Some guys house in the middle of the night. It’s colonial times here, quilts and wooded slats. We played a show at a café of some sort with Ed’s Redeeming Qualities who are the worst band in the history of the world. No sex no reality no rock-n-roll no punk rock no sadness no anxiety they are so totally normal I couldn’t even stand it totally boring totally lame. Anyhow the show went alright I suppose.
Then Boston. We played at the Rat Cellar, the first real club we played at. It felt like a pretty good show I guess. I found a Look Blue Go Purple record at the record store, still looking for the Shop Assistants. I met a guy named Mark who puts out records for Galaxie 500 Aurora and we stayed at the house of the Blake babies and briefly met Juliana but they were all studying pretty intensely I think. Then me, Calvin,Jenny and Bill drove to NYC.
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Friday, October 3, 2008
Bratmobile/Heavens To Betsy U.S. tour June 1992 Pt. 2 Sacramento/SLC
Sacramento was a momentous show for us. We were playing with Tiger Trap who we were obsessed with. The show was at a cool triangle shaped space and there were lots of kids there including a few from Oakland/Berkeley. For me it was important because I met my future ex husband.
After the show we were packing up and I saw a cute boy on the other side of the room and I barked at him "hey, help me with my stuff." He was sort of shocked but came over. It turned out he was there with Jesse Blatz who one of the others in my group was sweet on (a future ex friend!) We all ended up going back to Rose's cool apartment. She had a pool and everyone went swimming while I talked on the phone for like an hour with Calvin. In the days before email and cell phones the phone was so crucial and we were so new to being in the tour experience we were obsessed with staying connected. But while I was on the phone I was thinking about the cute boy outside swimming. I finally got off, got my suit on and got in the pool. The next 5 hours were totally awesome. Yum Yum donuts, east bay punk stories, holding hands with big thumbs and exchanges of phone numbers. No mentions of girlfriends back in Berkeley though. We set off for Salt Lake City around 11 the next morning. We were going to drive all the way there and stat at the promoter Natalie's house. Because we were in two cars we drove at different speeds depending on who needed to pee the most. My car got there first and the house was dark. We knocked on the door and were greeted by Natalie's boyfriend. It turned out they had gotten into a fight and she had called the cops and I can't remember if she went to the hospital or to a friends house but he let us into her room and we basically waited sort of scared until the other car showed up. Now this part of the story just makes me so annoyed. We were totally conflicted because here we were on the feminist tour of our lives but we were in a house with a guy who had just beat up his girlfriend. Why didn't we just wait for the car and bail and get a hotel? Because we were cheap idiots and we didn't know better. Anyway, by the time the others arrived it was after midnight and also my 21st birthday. Happy Birthday! We got up the next day and wisely decided to go to a motel, although we crammed the 6 of us into one room being the cheap- that we were. The comedy continues as we played a bar in Salt Lake City on my 21st b-day and I didn't drink during this time at all. We had a nice dinner at a Chinese place after the H2B posse confirmed that their order was vegan, much to our chagrin ha ha. The show was with some major label rock band again Erin will have to comment on and I away with a stolen calling card to make my first call to Chris. The next day we stopped by the post office as Natalie had said there was a package waiting for us there and it was a cool present for me from Calvin. Some tapes and stuff that got us through the trip. I remember being happy to be thought of. And we continued on to Sioux City.
Read more!
After the show we were packing up and I saw a cute boy on the other side of the room and I barked at him "hey, help me with my stuff." He was sort of shocked but came over. It turned out he was there with Jesse Blatz who one of the others in my group was sweet on (a future ex friend!) We all ended up going back to Rose's cool apartment. She had a pool and everyone went swimming while I talked on the phone for like an hour with Calvin. In the days before email and cell phones the phone was so crucial and we were so new to being in the tour experience we were obsessed with staying connected. But while I was on the phone I was thinking about the cute boy outside swimming. I finally got off, got my suit on and got in the pool. The next 5 hours were totally awesome. Yum Yum donuts, east bay punk stories, holding hands with big thumbs and exchanges of phone numbers. No mentions of girlfriends back in Berkeley though. We set off for Salt Lake City around 11 the next morning. We were going to drive all the way there and stat at the promoter Natalie's house. Because we were in two cars we drove at different speeds depending on who needed to pee the most. My car got there first and the house was dark. We knocked on the door and were greeted by Natalie's boyfriend. It turned out they had gotten into a fight and she had called the cops and I can't remember if she went to the hospital or to a friends house but he let us into her room and we basically waited sort of scared until the other car showed up. Now this part of the story just makes me so annoyed. We were totally conflicted because here we were on the feminist tour of our lives but we were in a house with a guy who had just beat up his girlfriend. Why didn't we just wait for the car and bail and get a hotel? Because we were cheap idiots and we didn't know better. Anyway, by the time the others arrived it was after midnight and also my 21st birthday. Happy Birthday! We got up the next day and wisely decided to go to a motel, although we crammed the 6 of us into one room being the cheap- that we were. The comedy continues as we played a bar in Salt Lake City on my 21st b-day and I didn't drink during this time at all. We had a nice dinner at a Chinese place after the H2B posse confirmed that their order was vegan, much to our chagrin ha ha. The show was with some major label rock band again Erin will have to comment on and I away with a stolen calling card to make my first call to Chris. The next day we stopped by the post office as Natalie had said there was a package waiting for us there and it was a cool present for me from Calvin. Some tapes and stuff that got us through the trip. I remember being happy to be thought of. And we continued on to Sioux City.
Read more!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Go Team Tour March 89 PT 3 1/2
I found this in my tour diary in between Montana & Minnesota, I probably wrote it in North Dakota:
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS: a sketch of politics and truth, prospectus ’89
mind. major frustration lack of clarity “everything is vague, nothing is ever clear” also everything totally sucks …um…questions:
+ in order for art to be political, is it really necessary for the form to be destroyed? (more later)
+why are there so few girl bands? ideas-girls are smarter than boys and not as petty. girls are shyer? girls write songs but don’t go about it in the same gung-ho way—not aggressive about marketing, don’t want people to hear them, they’re not as show off-y? don’t know how is a common excuse—‘I wouldn’t be any good at it”. in the spotlight. don’t want to be exploited, objectified, male defined. lack of drive; self-respect?
+another idea: explore the sexuality of rock-n-roll. things like, why do teenage girls like boys in bands that look like girls? the teeny bopper vs. cock rock. look at existing models, girl groups, etc. “the tease” & “the slut” and girl bands. why so much sex and does the music sacrifice it’s integrity…morality… when it’s sexualized?
+more on being male-defined and feminism. attitude. dry “women’s music” that ignores sex is not realistic and too repressive.
Read more!
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS: a sketch of politics and truth, prospectus ’89
mind. major frustration lack of clarity “everything is vague, nothing is ever clear” also everything totally sucks …um…questions:
+ in order for art to be political, is it really necessary for the form to be destroyed? (more later)
+why are there so few girl bands? ideas-girls are smarter than boys and not as petty. girls are shyer? girls write songs but don’t go about it in the same gung-ho way—not aggressive about marketing, don’t want people to hear them, they’re not as show off-y? don’t know how is a common excuse—‘I wouldn’t be any good at it”. in the spotlight. don’t want to be exploited, objectified, male defined. lack of drive; self-respect?
+another idea: explore the sexuality of rock-n-roll. things like, why do teenage girls like boys in bands that look like girls? the teeny bopper vs. cock rock. look at existing models, girl groups, etc. “the tease” & “the slut” and girl bands. why so much sex and does the music sacrifice it’s integrity…morality… when it’s sexualized?
+more on being male-defined and feminism. attitude. dry “women’s music” that ignores sex is not realistic and too repressive.
Read more!
Go Team Tour March 89 PT 3
Chicago.
Now it’s the next day. Nothing seems real. There is a real feeling that we are really on our own and nobody knows or even cares or something. My life in Eugene and working at the deli seems so weird now. Like that whole year didn’t even happen. I really almost believe it didn’t actually happen. I feel so isolated. My mom says “people are more alike than they are different”. I can’t identify with that at all right now. Maybe being in Some Velvet Sidewalk is really hard, because it’s so confessional and raw.
Later. We drove across Illinois. It was different from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Really more Midwestern looking I guess. Flat without snow, fields of hay and silos. Bill drove the last stretch. It was classic fun, hanging out in the backseat with Jenny. In Chicago we were supposed to call Calvin. We called Peter from Buttrag and got the answering machine. So we drove towards the water and went walking around. It was called Old Town. Brick buildings, lots of shops. What else…I don’t really understand what kind of area it was, except tourist-y I guess. Bill used the phone, we memorized the directions, drove down an alley and we went to the show. I wanted to eat pizza and we had to go get guitar strings. There were hours and hours and hours of waiting, which was just like…grueling. Buying strings and then seeing the place we had to play. It was a back room to a coffee house that was just too arty. It was from a “beatnik” scene in a movie. If they had shown us any respect or been nice to us I probably could have been more impressed, because it was kind of cool that it seemed like it was from a movie about beatniks, but in real life I guess that sort of thing kind of freaks me out. And it was sooooo coooold in Chicago It just kept snowing but nothing stuck to the ground. So far both shows we played were in really bright places without much of an audience. I don’t really have a sense of who these people are, like why are they coming to see us or whatever. We ate some health food stuff, the guy was a dick and wanted us out of the customer area and to sit in the back room, which was, by the way freezing cold. We didn’t have to pay for some reason and I got free coffee too. Sneaky girl. I am having a hard time playing the shows. It seems unfocused and really random. Singing felt pretty good this time, but I am still too concerned with people’s reactions and expectations. I wish I could be totally removed from that when I play. Peter’s house was too small so some of us went to this weirdo artist guys’ house. There was this couple on the couch who had been drunk for several days and were watching a video. They didn’t want to have to move and I didn’t trust the artist guys there. They had really ugly sculptures on the wall, disgusting pet ferrets and the one guy reminded me of Dustin Hoffman. I couldn’t understand why he would want us to stay at his house except maybe the Wipers (because we are from the NW) Mostly I like their first record and the Greg Sage solo record. Actually I like their other early records a lot too, just not as much and I love seeing them and their live record. And I know why people like them so much, I understand them, I can relate to it. They are so real and completely passionate, about being lost and sad and desperate-- but the desperation is so much in the need to express it rather than the need to overcome it…the Wipers are a soul band…and their soul is heavy. Lately I’ve been thinking about the idea of heavy souls and bands and people I know. So much anxiety, self-pity and depression. Doom town. Being so sad and lost and frustrated with your situation. You know, I feel like that too, but if I let myself sit around or hang around with people who do, or be in a band ABOUT THAT—I would be wallowing. I would be accepting it. I don’t want that. I want to go on, to get by, to live, to lead a meaningful existence. Like Mecca Normal “I want to go beyond the weather or not at all”. That is my desperation. The drive to be more than that. Truth. To understand things. Clarity. To be complete. And I love the Wipers, but they are not the ultimate band to me. Probably the reason I like them is because they are so good at being completely one thing. They are true, clear, focused. In my own songwriting I settle for sad and it needs to be more than that. Empathy…the walking wounded. I know some people are so hurt and affected they can hardly walk down the street and I can feel like that too because the world can totally suck. Everything is so fucked up and nobody cares. And sometimes you feel so powerless. For people who have so much pain they can’t relate, they can’t communicate, the Wipers are so important. To know that someone feels the same as you, to have something to identify with, is so powerful and clear. Empathy is important, but I can’t limit myself to working out of personal frustration. I am driven to create and feel despair about being controlled by capitalism, nuclear war and sexism. I don’t want to accept these things, I want to go beyond it and reject the pain they create in the world. I am confused about what I want in music.
Back to the Chicago artist guy. He wanted something from us, but I don’t know what. And that was Chicago. It was so cool looking there. And freezing cold.
Read more!
Now it’s the next day. Nothing seems real. There is a real feeling that we are really on our own and nobody knows or even cares or something. My life in Eugene and working at the deli seems so weird now. Like that whole year didn’t even happen. I really almost believe it didn’t actually happen. I feel so isolated. My mom says “people are more alike than they are different”. I can’t identify with that at all right now. Maybe being in Some Velvet Sidewalk is really hard, because it’s so confessional and raw.
Later. We drove across Illinois. It was different from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Really more Midwestern looking I guess. Flat without snow, fields of hay and silos. Bill drove the last stretch. It was classic fun, hanging out in the backseat with Jenny. In Chicago we were supposed to call Calvin. We called Peter from Buttrag and got the answering machine. So we drove towards the water and went walking around. It was called Old Town. Brick buildings, lots of shops. What else…I don’t really understand what kind of area it was, except tourist-y I guess. Bill used the phone, we memorized the directions, drove down an alley and we went to the show. I wanted to eat pizza and we had to go get guitar strings. There were hours and hours and hours of waiting, which was just like…grueling. Buying strings and then seeing the place we had to play. It was a back room to a coffee house that was just too arty. It was from a “beatnik” scene in a movie. If they had shown us any respect or been nice to us I probably could have been more impressed, because it was kind of cool that it seemed like it was from a movie about beatniks, but in real life I guess that sort of thing kind of freaks me out. And it was sooooo coooold in Chicago It just kept snowing but nothing stuck to the ground. So far both shows we played were in really bright places without much of an audience. I don’t really have a sense of who these people are, like why are they coming to see us or whatever. We ate some health food stuff, the guy was a dick and wanted us out of the customer area and to sit in the back room, which was, by the way freezing cold. We didn’t have to pay for some reason and I got free coffee too. Sneaky girl. I am having a hard time playing the shows. It seems unfocused and really random. Singing felt pretty good this time, but I am still too concerned with people’s reactions and expectations. I wish I could be totally removed from that when I play. Peter’s house was too small so some of us went to this weirdo artist guys’ house. There was this couple on the couch who had been drunk for several days and were watching a video. They didn’t want to have to move and I didn’t trust the artist guys there. They had really ugly sculptures on the wall, disgusting pet ferrets and the one guy reminded me of Dustin Hoffman. I couldn’t understand why he would want us to stay at his house except maybe the Wipers (because we are from the NW) Mostly I like their first record and the Greg Sage solo record. Actually I like their other early records a lot too, just not as much and I love seeing them and their live record. And I know why people like them so much, I understand them, I can relate to it. They are so real and completely passionate, about being lost and sad and desperate-- but the desperation is so much in the need to express it rather than the need to overcome it…the Wipers are a soul band…and their soul is heavy. Lately I’ve been thinking about the idea of heavy souls and bands and people I know. So much anxiety, self-pity and depression. Doom town. Being so sad and lost and frustrated with your situation. You know, I feel like that too, but if I let myself sit around or hang around with people who do, or be in a band ABOUT THAT—I would be wallowing. I would be accepting it. I don’t want that. I want to go on, to get by, to live, to lead a meaningful existence. Like Mecca Normal “I want to go beyond the weather or not at all”. That is my desperation. The drive to be more than that. Truth. To understand things. Clarity. To be complete. And I love the Wipers, but they are not the ultimate band to me. Probably the reason I like them is because they are so good at being completely one thing. They are true, clear, focused. In my own songwriting I settle for sad and it needs to be more than that. Empathy…the walking wounded. I know some people are so hurt and affected they can hardly walk down the street and I can feel like that too because the world can totally suck. Everything is so fucked up and nobody cares. And sometimes you feel so powerless. For people who have so much pain they can’t relate, they can’t communicate, the Wipers are so important. To know that someone feels the same as you, to have something to identify with, is so powerful and clear. Empathy is important, but I can’t limit myself to working out of personal frustration. I am driven to create and feel despair about being controlled by capitalism, nuclear war and sexism. I don’t want to accept these things, I want to go beyond it and reject the pain they create in the world. I am confused about what I want in music.
Back to the Chicago artist guy. He wanted something from us, but I don’t know what. And that was Chicago. It was so cool looking there. And freezing cold.
Read more!
Go Team Tour: March 89 Pt 2
Later that day
Something happened. A big snow-storm. And Calvin’s still driving and we are still in MONTANA. Billy and Al probably both got to stay in motels both nights. we drove and drove with a lot of junk in this car. now we are in North Dakota and it looks like where they go to make freaky movies..Friday the 13th or Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something.
Ok the plot. First me and xxxx are sitting around on her bed talking about yyyy and why he is so oblivious about her..knock knock knock Mecca Normal are here. I was surprised. “Are you early?” Jean said “No, I told Calvin we were going to be here.” We didn’t know where Al and Billy were and Go Team were supposed to practice the next day. Being in a band where we don’t work together like a band—practice, play something, is really kind of nerve racking. And Mecca Normal wanted to leave at 10 AM the next day, which really kind of sucked. Bill was with Cheryl and Al was coming back from Eugene. They got home super late and everyone had all this stuff to get done, no one knew they were leaving so early and it felt like we were little kids or something, but then they finally left. The universe seems to be more and more infinite every day. I fell asleep. Then the records arrived. Calvin woke me up and things were so hectic and I felt really bossed around again. Silk-screening the singles was ridiculous. He was so completely stressed out. It could have been avoided. There’s no way I want to spend all that time silk screening, it’s not worth it. Maybe it is. Maybe more people will buy them, or maybe it means something that we care enough to waste hours of our time making ‘art’. I’d rather be playing guitar or studying. I don’t have time to silkscreen. It is totally ridiculous. Business (selling records) no matter how cool, totally sucks. I should have thought about this before. As it is we’re going to have to practice, mix, record and play and I’ve got to see shows and write two papers. Finally, Robert and Jenny arrived, which was TOO COOL and we left. Off to Seattle with Calvin driving, to Margaret and Heather’s cool apartment and then we drove to Ellensburg. We got gas at Circle K near where the Screaming Trees grew up. Cool. The town smelled like cows. They let us use the employee bathroom. Me and Jenny stayed up all night. The sun came up. We were in Idaho. It was in the mountains. Snowy big mountains and then weird little houses. Driving by seeing people turning on their lights was real strange….it was like what the exchange student wrote in my high school annual “it must be strange to live here forever and ever and ever and ever…” And then the freeway stopped and we were in Wallace. A town with really old old wood houses. Beautiful colors, beautifully painted signs. Pretty soon we were in Montana and that lasted for absolutely ever. It was really weird and really snowy. Montana looks exactly like that Alice Wheeler photo of Slim in the field with the cows. It was incredible--wild-west display and all that. But there weren’t any towns. None. Dirt roads. Montana doesn’t really exist. I kept wondering if more people live in small towns or cities because there sure seems to be an awful lot of small towns in the U.S. We stopped in Billings, on Montana Avenue. A café. But it was really a bar or something …old Montana drunk guys. It was scary. Robert comes back from the bathroom and says “my shirt was tucked in, no wonder everyone was starting at me”. It was really really snowy. We had to stop really fast because a guy from a truck was walking across the freeway. Calvin slammed on the breaks and we went in a ditch. Then a snow-plow came up and saved us with sand, but then we had to jump in the car when it was still moving and all these cars were coming and if they put on their breaks we would have all died. In North Dakota it was dark and I kept thinking of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It was purple outside. Jenny was driving and there was even more snow all of a sudden and then we got to Minneapolis and I had to wake up Calvin But first it was really cold and the window kept opening up and then it was really really really cold. Some Velvet Sidewalk was playing really really loud on the stereo. And then Snakepit and finally we were at a house. Actually driving wasn’t really that bad, but I didn’t actually drive, as Jenny reminds me. So we got to Rick’s house all of a sudden and we fell asleep on the floor. For a long time and got up, took a shower, ate some food, played a show, went to a cool record store. It snowed an awful lot. We played at this college-y coffee house with no real audience, a lot of lights and no PA. Go Team set list: The Loneliness March, Outside, Keep Away, Rainy Day, Stay Ready, 935 Patterson, Red Headed Aunts. I broke a string, Billy broke two. It was weird. Too bright and no one watched us. The volume was fucked up. The show was chaotic; kind of horrible. I hope we get better. It totally sucked. What a dumb place to play a show. Some Velvet Sidewalk were totally on overdrive. It was powerful to watch. The songs were pretty great but they were too loud and a bit over dramatic. It was like ‘we want to be really sincere and rock out but we don’t know how to unless we act self-destructive’. Makes me think of the sacrificing of reality/truth for morality. Mecca Normal were alright. Joel is a great song. Strong White Male “your talk is in the sun and rain/mine is in the want and hate” and stuff like that-songs about women. No one does what Jean Smith does. I just wish it was more accessible. David was going overboard. With time things will get better. I don’t know how well-received we were. Met a girl named Karen who works at Twin Tone. She’s heard of Rockin’ Rod. “I have connections” she says. Talked to Rick about Evergreen. He’s gonna send me a tape of Babes in Toyland. Tomorrow it’s off to Chicago. It is so fucking snowy here.
Read more!
Something happened. A big snow-storm. And Calvin’s still driving and we are still in MONTANA. Billy and Al probably both got to stay in motels both nights. we drove and drove with a lot of junk in this car. now we are in North Dakota and it looks like where they go to make freaky movies..Friday the 13th or Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something.
Ok the plot. First me and xxxx are sitting around on her bed talking about yyyy and why he is so oblivious about her..knock knock knock Mecca Normal are here. I was surprised. “Are you early?” Jean said “No, I told Calvin we were going to be here.” We didn’t know where Al and Billy were and Go Team were supposed to practice the next day. Being in a band where we don’t work together like a band—practice, play something, is really kind of nerve racking. And Mecca Normal wanted to leave at 10 AM the next day, which really kind of sucked. Bill was with Cheryl and Al was coming back from Eugene. They got home super late and everyone had all this stuff to get done, no one knew they were leaving so early and it felt like we were little kids or something, but then they finally left. The universe seems to be more and more infinite every day. I fell asleep. Then the records arrived. Calvin woke me up and things were so hectic and I felt really bossed around again. Silk-screening the singles was ridiculous. He was so completely stressed out. It could have been avoided. There’s no way I want to spend all that time silk screening, it’s not worth it. Maybe it is. Maybe more people will buy them, or maybe it means something that we care enough to waste hours of our time making ‘art’. I’d rather be playing guitar or studying. I don’t have time to silkscreen. It is totally ridiculous. Business (selling records) no matter how cool, totally sucks. I should have thought about this before. As it is we’re going to have to practice, mix, record and play and I’ve got to see shows and write two papers. Finally, Robert and Jenny arrived, which was TOO COOL and we left. Off to Seattle with Calvin driving, to Margaret and Heather’s cool apartment and then we drove to Ellensburg. We got gas at Circle K near where the Screaming Trees grew up. Cool. The town smelled like cows. They let us use the employee bathroom. Me and Jenny stayed up all night. The sun came up. We were in Idaho. It was in the mountains. Snowy big mountains and then weird little houses. Driving by seeing people turning on their lights was real strange….it was like what the exchange student wrote in my high school annual “it must be strange to live here forever and ever and ever and ever…” And then the freeway stopped and we were in Wallace. A town with really old old wood houses. Beautiful colors, beautifully painted signs. Pretty soon we were in Montana and that lasted for absolutely ever. It was really weird and really snowy. Montana looks exactly like that Alice Wheeler photo of Slim in the field with the cows. It was incredible--wild-west display and all that. But there weren’t any towns. None. Dirt roads. Montana doesn’t really exist. I kept wondering if more people live in small towns or cities because there sure seems to be an awful lot of small towns in the U.S. We stopped in Billings, on Montana Avenue. A café. But it was really a bar or something …old Montana drunk guys. It was scary. Robert comes back from the bathroom and says “my shirt was tucked in, no wonder everyone was starting at me”. It was really really snowy. We had to stop really fast because a guy from a truck was walking across the freeway. Calvin slammed on the breaks and we went in a ditch. Then a snow-plow came up and saved us with sand, but then we had to jump in the car when it was still moving and all these cars were coming and if they put on their breaks we would have all died. In North Dakota it was dark and I kept thinking of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It was purple outside. Jenny was driving and there was even more snow all of a sudden and then we got to Minneapolis and I had to wake up Calvin But first it was really cold and the window kept opening up and then it was really really really cold. Some Velvet Sidewalk was playing really really loud on the stereo. And then Snakepit and finally we were at a house. Actually driving wasn’t really that bad, but I didn’t actually drive, as Jenny reminds me. So we got to Rick’s house all of a sudden and we fell asleep on the floor. For a long time and got up, took a shower, ate some food, played a show, went to a cool record store. It snowed an awful lot. We played at this college-y coffee house with no real audience, a lot of lights and no PA. Go Team set list: The Loneliness March, Outside, Keep Away, Rainy Day, Stay Ready, 935 Patterson, Red Headed Aunts. I broke a string, Billy broke two. It was weird. Too bright and no one watched us. The volume was fucked up. The show was chaotic; kind of horrible. I hope we get better. It totally sucked. What a dumb place to play a show. Some Velvet Sidewalk were totally on overdrive. It was powerful to watch. The songs were pretty great but they were too loud and a bit over dramatic. It was like ‘we want to be really sincere and rock out but we don’t know how to unless we act self-destructive’. Makes me think of the sacrificing of reality/truth for morality. Mecca Normal were alright. Joel is a great song. Strong White Male “your talk is in the sun and rain/mine is in the want and hate” and stuff like that-songs about women. No one does what Jean Smith does. I just wish it was more accessible. David was going overboard. With time things will get better. I don’t know how well-received we were. Met a girl named Karen who works at Twin Tone. She’s heard of Rockin’ Rod. “I have connections” she says. Talked to Rick about Evergreen. He’s gonna send me a tape of Babes in Toyland. Tomorrow it’s off to Chicago. It is so fucking snowy here.
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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.
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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!
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Enchanted Castle tour diary day one: Oct 1, 2008
touring day one.
leaving joel's grandma's house in ct. His grandma is 99 and a retired pediatrician/farmer who has more wits about her than most adults. making the two hour journey to queens and counting 18 moustaches along the way and kept record of with notches on the top flap of joel's wallet. no near accidents.
arrived at the flux factory and were met by one responsive human and a handful of others who scattered to their drywall cubby holes like a colony of domestic rats, where they hid for the duration as we played a rousing game of cherades on the rooftop overlooking manhattan. I struggle as usual with insecurity and self doubt - overcoming it momentarily before my travel buddy Ailey (a medicated anxieteer) reenforces sentiments with similar parinoia and fear.
carrots and grapes are snaks as we wait for the show to begin, and become increasingly aware that it's a wednesday and it's a lightning storm, and we're in queens, and a "yes, awesome, I'll be there" from a new yorker means diddley squat, and we'll all be too drunk to stand by the time we go on at one or two in the morning.
but we are together and it's only the beginning and at least we're not in tivoli doing and saying the same old things as always.
love, Sasha
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leaving joel's grandma's house in ct. His grandma is 99 and a retired pediatrician/farmer who has more wits about her than most adults. making the two hour journey to queens and counting 18 moustaches along the way and kept record of with notches on the top flap of joel's wallet. no near accidents.
arrived at the flux factory and were met by one responsive human and a handful of others who scattered to their drywall cubby holes like a colony of domestic rats, where they hid for the duration as we played a rousing game of cherades on the rooftop overlooking manhattan. I struggle as usual with insecurity and self doubt - overcoming it momentarily before my travel buddy Ailey (a medicated anxieteer) reenforces sentiments with similar parinoia and fear.
carrots and grapes are snaks as we wait for the show to begin, and become increasingly aware that it's a wednesday and it's a lightning storm, and we're in queens, and a "yes, awesome, I'll be there" from a new yorker means diddley squat, and we'll all be too drunk to stand by the time we go on at one or two in the morning.
but we are together and it's only the beginning and at least we're not in tivoli doing and saying the same old things as always.
love, Sasha
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Go Team Tour: March 89 Pt 1
In the Spring of 1989 I went on my first US Tour as a member of the Go Team. The line up was me, Calvin and Billy. Also on the tour: Some Velvet Sidewalk -Al, Robert & Jenny Olay and Mecca Normal. It was an International Pop Underground Tour, all K bands. We crossed the country in 2 1/2 weeks, skipping the South, and the West Coast, which we had already done the previous year with Mecca Normal, Rich Jensen and Spook and the Zombies. I was 19 and had just moved back to Olympia after having taken a year off school to work and live in Eugene, OR. There was a scene of NW bands we felt a part of, so we hit the road. My writing is not strictly linear and jump cuts around because I'd start writing and then have to stop and then pick it up later, so the tenses change and there are some chronological gaps/overlaps and then there are all these expository rants where i'm trying to formulate my ideas about art. Read all about it. I'll be posting more as I transcribe/edit. Thanks to Joaquin for making a rad blog.
March 16 1989 PART ONE
One day before our first show, in Minneapolis. It doesn’t really seem like we’ve been driving very long at all. 12 hours about, or so I guess. Montana. It’s snowy here. It looks like eastern Washington from the car window. There doesn’t seem to be any people who live here. Hey, where did all the people go? Apprehensive about it being my turn to drive a stick shift… in the snow. I’ll be totally exhausted pretty soon. A lot less hellish than I thought possible. I feel like one big pore, sweaty and ugly. It’s been a really long time since I’ve played a show. What would it be like to go on tour for like 2 or 3 months? Less drive drive drive? Countdown until the first day of spring, when Madonna Like A Prayer comes out—where will we be then? It’s Thursday the 16th…driving across Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota…Friday the 17th Minneapolis, the 18th Chicago, 19th Pittsburgh, 20 New Hampshire, then Boston March 23 & 24 New York City, the 25th & 26th are free, then Easter in Maryland then Iowa…Kansas…Utah? Idaho.? Listening to Scrawl…Calamity Jane. God the snow is getting really bad. Dylan said “Keep your head level with the window so that you see outside moving past with one eye and you don’t get motion sickness.” I love my friends. Love & truth…it’s so important to me. I hate being tangled up, I love moments of clarity…the Subterraneans…Al and Billy in the car with Jean and David. I have to not be mean. I make everything difficult for myself. There is power and strength in distance.
Talking to Dylan about girls and bands. The Tease, The Slut. Girls thrive on the sexuality of rock-n-roll. And we are male-defined, male-dominated. It’s like escapist, only…an idea. Art that has morality and is feminist..or that tries to be moral & feminist…is didactic and not very accessible or real..the sexuality is usually denied…and in rock-n-roll that’s a contradiction…boring or non-existent..not real or contemporary. A need to find something new that is sexual but not exploitation…and not just sexuality..which a lot of rock-n-roll is. There is so much repression and denial tied up in morality…and it’s so arbitrary that consistency is impossible. On post-modernism…in order for art to be political it has to destroy the form. This is difficult and kind of depressing-a sacrifice of aesthetics? Is aesthetics then in conflict with the morality of the decade?
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March 16 1989 PART ONE
One day before our first show, in Minneapolis. It doesn’t really seem like we’ve been driving very long at all. 12 hours about, or so I guess. Montana. It’s snowy here. It looks like eastern Washington from the car window. There doesn’t seem to be any people who live here. Hey, where did all the people go? Apprehensive about it being my turn to drive a stick shift… in the snow. I’ll be totally exhausted pretty soon. A lot less hellish than I thought possible. I feel like one big pore, sweaty and ugly. It’s been a really long time since I’ve played a show. What would it be like to go on tour for like 2 or 3 months? Less drive drive drive? Countdown until the first day of spring, when Madonna Like A Prayer comes out—where will we be then? It’s Thursday the 16th…driving across Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota…Friday the 17th Minneapolis, the 18th Chicago, 19th Pittsburgh, 20 New Hampshire, then Boston March 23 & 24 New York City, the 25th & 26th are free, then Easter in Maryland then Iowa…Kansas…Utah? Idaho.? Listening to Scrawl…Calamity Jane. God the snow is getting really bad. Dylan said “Keep your head level with the window so that you see outside moving past with one eye and you don’t get motion sickness.” I love my friends. Love & truth…it’s so important to me. I hate being tangled up, I love moments of clarity…the Subterraneans…Al and Billy in the car with Jean and David. I have to not be mean. I make everything difficult for myself. There is power and strength in distance.
Talking to Dylan about girls and bands. The Tease, The Slut. Girls thrive on the sexuality of rock-n-roll. And we are male-defined, male-dominated. It’s like escapist, only…an idea. Art that has morality and is feminist..or that tries to be moral & feminist…is didactic and not very accessible or real..the sexuality is usually denied…and in rock-n-roll that’s a contradiction…boring or non-existent..not real or contemporary. A need to find something new that is sexual but not exploitation…and not just sexuality..which a lot of rock-n-roll is. There is so much repression and denial tied up in morality…and it’s so arbitrary that consistency is impossible. On post-modernism…in order for art to be political it has to destroy the form. This is difficult and kind of depressing-a sacrifice of aesthetics? Is aesthetics then in conflict with the morality of the decade?
Read more!
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