GC / EC Tour Diary #5

When we arrived at the Grape St. in Philly, we were scolded for being 15 minutes early. I have never, in my 42 years of touring, been scolded for being early to a load-in. It was fascinating. Santi's mom brought us two huge boxes of italian/argentinian food, utensils, drinks, and salad. I asked her if she was single. There were these stuffed croissant-like things called "Veggie Empanadas" that made it hard for me to concentrate on the task at hand. At one point, I squirreled up in the corner of a bathroom stall, jamming them in my face while they called my name over and over again from stage. Looking back, those Empanadas may be the single most hindering thing to my career as a tour manager - I've dealt with violently drunk band members, whorey women bumrushing the mic mid-set, smoking engines, misplaced hotel rooms, and disappearing promoters. But I've never had to choose between the road and Empanadas. The bouncer (who seemed to be on his post a bit early, I noted) told Santi's parents that they could come in and hang out for sound check, because they weren't going to be able to stay for the show. Also, they were his PARENTS. Once sound check began, Santi was nowhere to be found. He finally came rushing in upset. Apparently that same meat-head bouncer, who probably knew nothing of his mother's wizardry in the Empanadas circuit, told his parents they weren't allowed in because they weren't on the guest list. This is FIVE MINUTES AFTER HE SAID THAT THEY, THE GUITARIST'S PARENTS, COULD WATCH THE SOUND CHECK (and 3 hours before doors open). Now - to be fair, there's a good chance that he'd misspoken five minutes earlier. It could just be a miscommunication - "you say tomato, I say tomaaato." We hear, "sure, your parents, whom you haven't seen for two years, can sit in the BIG EMPTY ROOM and watch sound check for a few minutes," but maybe he actually said, "I'm a doosh." All kidding aside, it was a crappy, unprofessional, power-tripping thing to do. That same bouncer was entirely sarcastic when I tried to supply him with a guest list. This is all before the show, mind you, so we hadn't even bombed yet! Maybe I misheard him. Maybe it wasn't sarcasm... but where I come from, when the tour manager is discussing business with you, you have the decency to remove the other bouncer's genitals from your fat ignorant jowls and articulate. You also wear sleeves.
Anyways, shut up about them for five seconds so I can tell you about the show...
I played after two blues rock bands that seemed to be overly familiar with the Phily circuit. The room was fairly empty, but attentive. I remember doing a really trippy version of 90 East. Usually when I do a track, I take a second and try to consciously steer myself back to where I was when I wrote the lyrics, so I can address them properly and honestly. But that night, the protagonists, antagonists, and recipients of all the songs were transformed into Empanadas. My hands shook as I sang love song after love song to those tiny pastry pockets of magic.

Later that night we all camped out on the floor of Sheel's cousin's apartment, after venturing out on the town for a minute. I delicately stored the remaining food in his fridge, and then we watched the Justin Timberlake HBO special. I asked Dua, "If you could touch any part of Justin Timberlake's body, which would it be?" He got real quiet, either because he couldn't decide or because he was afraid to face his true emotions.

The next morning we lounged around on the internet and continued to downsize the food supply. At 5pm, when we finally went to retrieve the RV from the lot across the street, I got in a fight with the lot attendant, in a manner not unlike Larry David. Truthfully, we were completely in the wrong and owed the guy $50 for taking up two spots with this hulking stench-ridden mass of steel. But the band, never missing an opportunity to question my managerial loyalties, insisted that I prove myself as the "TM With The Most BM" in the trial-by-haggling they call "Jewing-it-up" [I did of course point out that this was an offensive term and a bad stereotype but they quickly pointed out that bass player Graham is Jewish, and he is always haggling and I really couldn't argue with that]. So I fabricated, gesticulated, exacerbated, Californicated (that's when you shave a tone-deaf monkey, pump him full of heroin, and have him write preschool-level lyrics to a song featuring the hook repeated eight or more times) until this man offered us half off. By the end of the "transaction" we were both red in the face, but he was Indian so that could've been his normal state but then see even as I just thought that, I offended myself.

Our next stop was New Brunswick, NJ, which turned out to be a very high point on the tour for me. The venue was not unlike the basement of an alcoholic and possibly incontinent grandparent: thin wood panelling walls, weird dark corners with couches, a dart board, low ceilings with cement floors. I've played rooms like this in places like Hartford, CT, Worcester, MA, Springfield, MA, backwoods NY. The sound system was disproportionately large for the room, and was surprisingly clear. The sound guy was very kind to us. I had one of my best shows there, because my music sounded so clear, and I was such an oddball on the show. People were attentive, responsive, and polite, even as I berated the JT special as "unrehearsed, low budget, and talentless." We closed my set with a cover of Phil Collin's In The Air Tonight where the band slams in on the big fill. People responded just as they should under the barrage of roto-toms and drop D power chords. My man RP, who I've since resolved most of my issues with, brought it MVP style on keys and guitar simultaneously. The headliner, Thing One, turned out to be one of the most pleasing acts I've seen in months. It's funny how you can spend an entire tour publicly bashing New Jersey, and then you realize it's a little slice of heaven in a way. Hmmm.

We drove all night to arrive in The Hamptons at 4:30am at Miss Murda's beach house. She stayed up and welcomed us under these glorious stars. Graham welcomed her to some of his horrendous gas, and the whole process got awkward.

I was the first to wake up, so I ventured out alone to this long pier and watched the ocean like a rich person. I tried to meditate, but I couldn't shut my brain up. We were close to home and I missed Lumas like the dickens. I'd spoken to him on the phone every few nights and he'd seemed more and more detached. Looking back, he didn't really even say anything to me, just groanin and squeakin that stupid caterpillar toy he'd stolen. I remember looking out at that crazy expanse of Atlantic and thinking, "this crazy world can tear a good relationship apart if you let it." I was wearing really blowy clothes - thin white cotton stuff that the wind was really taking charge of. The top few buttons of my shirt were unbuttoned, and I had really nice teeth. It was kind of like an ad for Fruit of the Loom or maybe Viagra.

So then we frolicked all day. I capsized Rob, who was riding in a Kayak that he insisted was a single-seater. I told him that "if we both remove our swimsuits, there's more than enough room for two in this thing" but he was afraid of his emotions so I tipped him. We played with Hannah, the attention-sponging 7 year old daughter of our host. There was one point where most of the guys in EC were playing with Barbies on the beach with her. I tried to get a picture, but they destroyed the evidence. If I disappear, I want you, the reader, to carry on the truth with you and bring it to light about this.

We arrived at the venue sunburned but on time. We had a leisurely sound check, played some pool, snacked. My set that night was the worst on the entire tour. Like a harbinger of death, a slovenly drunk woman interrupted my sound check to ask if she could make an announcement on the mic. She wanted to let everyone know that it was Tanya's wedding party and everyone had to help get her "fucked up." Then she started banging on my keyboard. Not in a "I-know-how-to-play-the-Star-Wars-Theme" kind of way, more in a "my-hands-are-beef-slabs-that-I-wield-like-I-just-grew-them." I asked her to leave. I performed a lengthy and beat heavy version of Chameleon, which the wedding party seemed to enjoy. When I began to build the beatbox loop for 90 East, a clean cut man in a nice suit yelled, "Get a drummer! Get a band!" I let the beat continue and stared at him for a while. When I finished 90 East, which most people seemed to be ok with, and began to play 2007, another man in another nice suit yelled, "Last song!" Something in me kind of snapped. I was thinking, "how can an adult, who has a job, wears a suit, and live in the Hamptons, be so disrespectful to someone who is putting it "out there" like this? Were these people born with manners, and the alcohol deleted them? Or is it precisely because they live in the Hamptons, mostly likely had privileged upbringings, and suity jobs that they behave like heathens? I left the stage mid sentence. The irony was too thick for my fragile brain - 2007 is a song from my new album about giving up music because of a lack of impact and the over-saturation of what to me sounds like meaningless music. And I couldn't complete it because these inebriated frat-slappers were shouting "Black Eyed Peas!"

I went upstairs to the green room, cursing myself and these people and weddings in general, and took a swig of Cranberry Juice. I calmed down, went back down onto the stage, stopped the music, and declared that we would now play Phil Collins. We did, people clapped, whatever. A few minutes later, EC began a solid 1 hour set of all their hits. At the time it was possibly the best I'd seen them play. After that first hour or so, the bar manager asked me if they could take a fifteen minute break, then come back out and do a fifty minute set to close out the night. So they did. But after fifteen minutes and one bottle of Jameson, the band had somehow transformed into the Sex Pistols. They staggered through some impromptu funk jam, and then fell face first into a Snoop Dog cover. Salim had this goofy grin on his face as he abandoned his guitar and began "rapping." Noni and I looked on in terror as the band, who'd spent a majority of the tour trying to buck their "hip-hop party band" reputation, sweat out buckets to secure it. It was both strangely depressing and incredibly amusing. The dance floor thinned. Those that did remain were a mishmash of different stereotypes: a fratty guy swaddled in sports paraphernalia groping a sixty year old chain-smoking woman-of-the-sea type thing, both completely oblivious to the beat (and possibly each other), a 400 lb banker physically wooing a pencil-thin librarian, a cowboy with a stewardess... that sort of thing. Things got weirder and weirder... Miss Murda was sort of standing on stage for most of the set looking nowhere while Sheel played the drums like an Animal (literally, Animal from the Muppets). It was a mess. A good tour manager probably wouldn't have let this happen. But I felt like an even BETTER tour manager would make sure there were photos taken. So I went out to the RV and rummaged around for a digital camera.

Before I could document the band's transformation into aural feces, the set was over. The band staggered around, asking me how bad it was. I told them I was in the bathroom the whole time, talking to RP's girlfriend on video chat.

We rolled out at 5:30am... or tried to. Santi stumbled around somewhere in the house looking for shoes and his soul while I tried to figure out how many ferry's exactly we needed to get through to get home and make the GPS speak in that British accent I like. Three. We took three ferry's. On the second one, Graham "Jewed-it-up" with the ferryman, who, it turns out, plays a very neat bass guitar and so gave us a 50% discount. I fell asleep parked in line for the final ferry, nearly missing our chance at getting home early. Graham Jewed it up yet again by claiming that there were only 2 people in the RV. Since it was 6:30am, our grip on reality was probably slippery, so we covered the unconscious bodies of Eclectic Collective with couch cushions, bags, and Empanadas (that part was my idea - if we got searched, they would be distracted by the tasty pastries and forget all about the fact that we'd completely lied about our cargo. After a few of those they'd probably even buy a CD!). It turns out we didn't get searched, we just rolled on. Graham and I went inside and got a pathetic ferry breakfast and cashed out on some benches. A few hours later we were home.

We landed in Brighton to find our cars still parked on the street where we left them 3 weeks prior, unscathed. My car keys, however, were no longer in my bag. The band quickly dispersed to clean up and meet their prospective girlfriends with their pathetic tails between their huge thighs, Dua. I used Graham's AAA to get my car unlocked, and my spare key was not there either. Went to a friend's house to shower and eat, then went back to the RV to roll out to the Paradise.

The Paradise show has gone down as one of my top 3 favorite solo shows of all time. I barely remember making music, I just remember dancing a lot. Weird dancing too - like a crossbreed of the Bill Cosby dance and some Salsa steps... and maybe Elaine from Seinfeld. The audience was wonderfully attentive and respectful, the crew and sound was impeccable, and my equipment all worked. It was the antithesis of The Hamptons... or I was just inspired - that's what it is! On many nights of the tour my improvisation didn't feel very inspired. I felt short on ideas, or limited by the songs instead of set free by them. But at the Paradise it all flipped, and I was finally in charge of my music again. I played first, so a good 1/2 of the total attendance did not see me, but I felt really good about what I did in front of those that were there. On a side note, I’ve never been approached by so many Gruvis Malt fans at one show... I stopped counting after 22 people mentioned having watched me play with GM in their youth. Started making me feel kind of old at some point, but I appreciated the kind words. Overall, it's become a routine at pretty much every show, I have to explain to at least a few kids how we released a record in 2006 (that most often they've never heard of) and decided not to tour because we're doing all these other things. That's the part where they tell me if we played another show they know a lot of people that would go and then I do this stupid mini lesson in GM fanbase demographics and tour economics and they eventually concede, "true... true... but it'd be cool!" and I say, "yes, yes it would."
Eclectic Collective headlined the show like gangbusters. There was Beatlemania when Noni and Dua did a delayed entrance. I have not seen a show that loud since I saw Glassjaw. It was ill. Luckily, people calmed down when I got up to do You Put the V4G!N& in the Pon Pon and Bad Rabbits with them. They got so calm, they talked about the drinks they were holding. Loudly. It was still very very dope, and by the end of Bad Rabbits pants were missing everywhere.
Even though I'd seen EC in Boston 3 times before, this was very different. I could understand why the tour would be rough for them, going from rags to riches in a way, even though all audiences generally respond really well to them, it's never like the hometown crazies. I tried to sell them my "maintain a really tiny fan base everywhere so you never get let down" approach, but they didn't see the genius in it.
After the show we hugged alot. Lumas was there and our reunion was joyous. My friend brought a key from my house so I could drive home. I nodded off a few times on the way, but somehow fell into my own bed at 4am. Spooned Lumas like a champ, and woke up at 2pm still glowing from my newfound dance career.

GC / EC Tour Diary #4

Tour Diary 4

We're on our way to Philly from Morgantown, WV. Everyone's a bit crusty from last night's tomfoolery at the cozy home of good friends Clover & Jesse. The performances, or at least my perception of them, have grown increasingly strange. Three nights ago, we were in Charlotte, and EC was performing at the John Tosco Music Party (I didn't do a set that night) - a scene straight out of the 50s - that old style folk show where you nervously (but in sudden perfect pitch) perform 2 of your hittiest songs in front of a sold out opera house (bookended by a series of doo-wop groups or country singers), who rise to their feet because they've never seen someone jump in the air and play guitar. Then afterwards you're all young and giddy and the audience loved you and you're chittering backstage where someone analogous to LIttle Richard comes up and tells you you're "going places" and then flash forward and you're married to him but he has two friends, heroin and the new attractive backup singer, that are tearing your marriage apart at the expense of your two lovely children. Then, he gets an award for writing love songs about those friends, and it's all good because he's blind.

That was an ill show because EC ended up stealing the show, murdered, and when we first walked in, we thought we were on the moon or something... There was a huge men's gospel choir in nice suits, a 90 year old lap steel player with his pilgrim-looking wife, numerous singer songwriters, a jazz trio comprised of pre-pubescent and freckly boys, etc. I kept asking the stage manager if he understood that we were a little louder than they seemed prepared for and his response was repeatedly, "we have a blues act, all kinds of stuff, so we can handle it."
We got swamped at the merch table... this was the first show where people were there only to consume music, and in the most respectful manner I've seen in maybe 5 years (since I played with Tony MacNaboe opening for Joe Cocker). Afterwards, we thanked John Tosco, who puts on these shows every 3 months, I got to play the gorgeous grand piano (there's a video in my video section), and we left with a ginormous bag of trailmix, still providing sustenance to this day. Morale soared like a condor in the RV until we landed at a Tiki bar called Rum Runners the next day.

At first glance, this was looking to be either the best or the worst show ever. The room was specifically designed to replicate the aural spectrum of an empty Olympic swimming pool filled with broken cymbals. There were two "baby grand" pianos. I touched them both like they were my own children ("grand" children? mmmm... hmmm..... hmhmh..... haa....hahahaahhhhhaaaaa), but then I suddenly recoiled! Housed in the unnaturally robust shell of these tiny behemoths was a most unnatural electronic keyboard (the Priesthood-wielding owner later told me that they were custom made to withstand the impact of the bar's regular piano man - a 300 lb shredder known to strut the hood of this hog with a "blazing fiddle solo" several times a night)! Oh, the tease: the fantasy that had been tempestuously formulating in my mind had been shattered on the rocks of this tacky island-themed meat market. What should have been the premiere of my much lauded One Man Dueling Piano set would instead just be a normal "Why Am I Here" kind of set. Or would it?
Yes, it would.
Preceded by what may have been a "soul"-themed open-mic night, I began building the first beatbox loops of my set while a few couples on the dance floor were putting their clothes back on (one particularly burly woman, ensconced in Levi, had spent the last two songs with her forehead literally on the floor, and her rump aggressively grinding into the crotchal region of a man who was haphazardly pantomiming the operation of a tractor trailer. I took pause then, because I wondered these 3 things: Is this woman at all concerned about the floor residue that is being mopped up by her sticky hairdo? Does this man actually own a tractor trailer, because he's clearly shifting with his left hand, and in my experience, the gear shift is on the right? If he does own a tractor trailer, has he had it modified in some way to provide stimulation to his groin?). The audience, save for some members of EC, some of the staff, and Kevin, was entirely African American. This is exactly one day before I got my hair properly did to look like George Clooney so I'm still looking like the love child of Matt Damon and Charlie Manson. These factors, coupled with the extreme femininity already prevalent in my music were enough to make me fear for my life. It makes for a wonderful creative tension - I sang every word like it may be my last, literally. And then a beautiful thing happened:
"chigga chigga chigga Freeeeeshhhhh!" burst through the PA speaker, drowning out my silly attempts at innovation. Then another, "ya - ya - yigga - Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhh!!!"
DJ Sugar Shack, a sympathizing self-appointed collaborator (or possibly suffering from dementia), came scratching to my aid, punctuating my lyrics about delivering supplies to the Women's Care wing of a hospital with the nation's favorite battle samples. His helping hand continued to massage my music into a rousing DJ solo at the end of 90 East. Sweating profusely and trying to squeeze whatever scratch-like sound I could from my blue synth (back home my friends call me "Whammy Faye Baker"), we traded fours! I noticed that the majority of the stoic audience had stored their firearms back under their do-rags - the tides were turning for team Blanco... I'd emerged victorious!
EC was received well, despite (or maybe as a result of) the fact that they were dressed like beach bums. They finished the short set with a show-stopping medley of MJ songs - and none-too-soon! It was at that precise moment that the seafood served to us upon load-in began to make it's way back up and down in us.
We drove all the way to Morgantown, and woke up to Clover's pancake surprise and joyous internet connection.
I don't wanna talk about the show last night, at the Blue Moose Cafe - I got in a bad place mentally somewhere in the onset. The things that were said to me, by me, and about me, need not be repeated or dwelled upon... I felt like I was doing a disservice to the songs themselves, if that makes any sense. Regardless, we ended up back at Clover and Jesse's shortly thereafter, stumbling around in bunny ears, trying to find a microwave to make popcorn in.

GC / EC Tour Diary #3

We've somehow landed in the illest house in NC... it's a summer home with 3 stories of party potential, a hot tub, a pool, wireless internet, four showers, pictures of boats, Stovetop Stuffing in the billions, and every Matt Damon movie ever released (the racier, unreleased Damon tapes Dua from EC had in a special bag that has a picture of Damon with his arm around Tina Turner on the front of it). The moment we arrived a pack of us sojourned out to the sea toting two surfboards and huge grins. Flash forward about four minutes and those grins were transformed into full-face grimaces as we drank wave after wave of the Atlantic and tried to keep the boards from hitting our faces. Technically I got up twice but it was that type of "surfing" that should only be filmed from the waste up, so you don't see that the water is about a foot deep.
Tonight was the third in a string of very strange shows for me... strange in a few ways, really.

Ok, number 1: my equipment is totally functioning. Not a single thing has fritzed! As a result, I've started playing songs at my shows. Now before we jump to conclusions and embrace the idea that the universe wants me to play music and make the world a better place with it, we have to consider the more realistic scenario. I ask you to consider this question: would the Universe be so cunning and conniving as to set me up with a set venturing on flawless in order to make the nutwist all the more gruesome when that same flawless set goes virtually unnoticed in a room full of people that are more interested in shouting the zingers from last night's Scrubs episode to each other than watching a dude take on the persona of a 76 year old hospital stock room worker? The only reason I can think of, albeit cynical, for this good fortune is that it's the good cop to the universe's Bad Lieutenant. It's probably a little Gavin-centric of me to think the Universe could spend that kind of effort on tiny me, but it really does seem like a well crafted blow to the proverbial groin.

2: I'm sounding better and better... my man Salim is mixing my set exclusively now, and killin it as far bringing the clarity and those oodles of effecting that make me sound much closer to Pink Floyd, which is the goal. So that's weird 2 - my signature sound is shockingly coherent.

3: NC is rising to the top of my Weirdest States Ever list. (just two slots behind our reigning champion, Wyoming). For one they have this obsession with the phrase "I'll tell you what..." It bookends everything from "I'm going to get some Dorritos" to "you guys are the best party band I've ever seen."

4: Also, the women here are almost another species from those up north. They're disproportionately aggressive (and physically disproportionate, in some ways), as if the ratio of men to women is way off down here. Like if a dude goes "excuse me, which way to the restroom?" a likely response is, "I'll show you where it is if you put a baby in me." Though my friends in Eclectic Collective have been promoting Team Hetero with a passion that makes Will Chamberlain look like Spock, this forwardness, coupled with my none-too-recovered heart makes for a wonderfully awkward concoction. She will put a hand on my chest and ask me how such a beautiful voice came from in there, and I will tell her, "the only thing in there is stomach cancer." She will suggest we come hang at her house after the show and partake of her stash of exotic drugs and I will tell her that "normally we'd jump at the opportunity but 3 of us have to be at court in the morning for child abuse charges."
My game is off. My heart is literally not in it.

This is not to say we've been approached by legions of women since arriving in the area, it's just to say the few that have been sober enough to recognize me as the guy who they just shouted over for 40 minutes can smell my heartbreak like a poopy diaper (yes, you might point out that it's very likely my actual diaper with poop in it they're smelling but I'm really speaking figuratively here and that's a whole other blog). It's like that species of African hedgehog that can sense when one of it's litter is sick or injured so they take the whole herd (that's zoologist speak for "group") a few miles away while the sick one is sleeping. [for the record: it's exactly that kind of "every man for himself" attitude that's kept the African hedgehog on my shit list for years]. In some ways it's probably good for the soul to feel repulsive on so many levels... I'm not fishing for reassurance here - I'm not doubting my worth or whether or not I'm an attractive person - I'm just saying it's interesting how much my innards are effecting my outtards.

On a slightly different note, I'm having a blast with these 7 dudes and 1 lady [except for RP, the keyboardist, who refuses to bend the brim of his hat, and insodoing has caused a huge Rift (I capitalized that because I know somewhere, on a toilet, he is reading my blog, and will love that reference to the Phish album that his failed Phish Cover Band The Outlet were HUGE fans of) between us that no amount of alcohol (on his part) can remedy]. I've spent so many nights just talking about feelings and guy stuff with Dua, the lead singer that I feel like we've been with each other for years. Last night we were in the hot tub, with our shirts off, and he kept asking me if I prefer a stick to an automatic and at first I was like "that's kind of a weird question to ask me at this hour under these conditions" but when I said "stick makes me feel more in control" he was like "yeah, yeah, me too!" and I realized (in a really poetic kind of way) that sitting there like that, in a hot tub with our shirts off, and nothing but the ocean-scented night air to separate his dark skin from my bleachy white, we really aren't that different. We're just dudes, you know? He asked me if I wanted to write a rap with him about cars, and I was like "duh." Then he asked me for a hug to seal the deal but I was so exhausted I just sprinted to the house and shut the porch lights off so he wouldn't have to do it <--- For the record, that kind of considerate behavior is becoming more and more natural for me... not to toot my own horn but, I just feel like as I get older, I really am developing into a more compassionate, more muscular guy. One of the strangest nights was maybe 4 days ago when we played in the desolate town of Winston-Salem for a fairly receptive audience and a wonderful staff. We met this wily dude that was really enthusiastic about my music and touted the cities' plethora of ripping musicians (most with names like Funkalicious Groovecakes, or D Dolla Holla At Me, or Ya Momma's BIg Booty Band, etc.), all of which he was eager for me to meet because of how much I reminded him of them ("but wit that loopin shit"). He opted to buy two records and a t-shirt (well, in truth, he only bought the CDs... the T-shirt rested comfortably on his shoulder for the majority of the night but he sort of forgot to pay for it, and he was kind enough to take us back to his place so it got to that point where you gotta just swallow that one rather than create an awkward situation). He was very stoked for the EC set, and during it introduced me to his girlfriend and brother, who was leaving for duty in Iraq in 3 days. They offered us $200 to play another set back at their apartment, but I couldn't tell how serious they were... I asked the soldier if he seriously had that kind of money and he said, "I got 20 G's, I don't give a fuuuuuck" which was weird because I'd been under the impression that 1) the military did not pay all that well, they were just good about putting you through school, and 2) anyone with any money at all would not be desperate enough to risk life and limb to protect our right to air episodes of Cribs.
and afterwards invited us all (by way of an ill freestyle about acquiring contraband for us and cooking pasta) back to his apartment for what was to be the sickest meal of our lives. It should be noted that earlier in the night he'd handed me his business card that read "Personal Chef" and told me how he'd done the screen testing for Hell's Kitchen and was confident that he would probably be a contender. He assured me that he would drop my name on the episode if he got on, and I knew that would open a whole new market for me, so I hi-fived him.
We followed them to Walgreens, where he went in to get some "food." Not 3 minutes later he came sprinting out... as if he had... robbed the place... With armfuls of "food."
So we rolled up to his apartment, where there was this tiny terrier looking at me with the crook-eye from the moment I arrived. My man went straight to work at the stove, while his girl testified to the exaltation wrought by a meal prepared by his gifted hands. I was subjected to an episode of Family Guy, only eclipsed by the drunk rantings of the soldier, who was clearly more than a little perturbed by America's misconception of it's "progress" in Iraq. I found the internet and so went into my little glowing world for a few minutes, until the police arrived.
Apparently the neighbors had accused the Personal Chef of having a meth lab. Again.
The injustice of it enraged him - he cursed them loudly and creatively. What irritated him most was that he felt his apartment clearly did not have the proper dimensions for an adequate meth lab. Furthermore, if he was running a meth lab, most of the product would be devoured by the "rat problem" that his management refused to address. I went to read a book in the RV.

Maybe 10 minutes later, there was a knock on the RV door, which I answered in my usual falsetto, "Yesssssss?" When no one responded, I figured they thought I was doing something secretive and so left me alone. It did occur to me that this would be the perfect time for that little terrier to make his move, but I knew that was the contact lunacy I'd fallen victim to, and not, in all likelihood, a real threat. There came a knock again, and I opened the door to my personal chef's girlfriend, who was holding out a steamy plastic bowl of noodles. She graciously offered to come back to retrieve the dish but I told her I was headed back inside. Once seated with our crew in that tiny smoke-choked living room (by the way, where exactly were we supposed to perform this extended encore, and wasn't there a good chance that $200 would never materialize once my Personal Chef was sent to jail by his neighbors? food for thought), the night got realer.
My man brought out the dinner in 3 courses, and they were as follows:
1) Ramen. In bowls.
2) 3 cheese microwave pizzas
3) I missed the 3rd one cause I went back to the RV. I saw him mixing Spam with actual Pork and I bounced.

When I woke up in the morning, all but two of us were crammed into the RV. The Personal Chef was shirtless and screaming at the apartment complex security guard from across the parking lot. Apparently the neighbors had called the cops on him again because we had an extension chord running through the foyer door and into his apartment. Since I'm road managing this tour, it's my job to get us all out to the RV and on the road on time. On average, it is a minimum of 42 minutes to get 8 people on the road from the point at which you first say, "Ok, let's go." That morning, we were mobile 4 minutes after the Personal Chef first shouted,"I'll tell you what, I don't give a fuuuuuuck!"

EC / GC Tour Diary #2

We're in Washington DC and I just had a shower. Last night was a fairly fun show - several nice lads from MD drove up to see the show so it seemed like my songs had a little more welcomeness there. DC has amazing Ethiopian food, so I hit that, and hard, but the dudes in EC don't value their health at all so I hit it hard and alone. At the end of my set we did rousing versions of Pon Pon and Bad Rabbits from the FortNightShift EP and that got me kind of hoppity. I like bands and playing with bands and bandying about. I'm sick of rap. I'm gonna write a rap song today about how I'm growing pretty tired of rap on this tour. I think people were more down with GavCaz at this show than the ones preceding it, and may even have considered purchasing a record by said Caz had I not closed my set by saying (somewhat awkwardly), "I know alot of you want to put your penises in a vagina tonight, and you think you may need to spend the next $10 on a drink to do so, but I think you can purchase one of my records AND put your penis in a vagina tonight. The two aren't mutually exclusive." Crickets.

After the show we went out to a hipster bar in downtown DC... the male specimens here are very strange - the entire stuffy (but well decorated) place was squeezed to the brim with polo-shirt-wearing pretty boys with high collars and faux-worn denim (strangely enough, these funny men had ordered the jeans with worn crotches. Personally, I wouldn't want to walk around in public presenting my crotchal area as one heavily abused). The conversational snippets I overheard were a dense mishmash of plumber-like vulgarity and words like "dividends" and "figures." I put a guy's collar down for him and he looked at me like I was the one dressed like the bad guys from One Crazy Summer. Lucky for this town, it was so sweaty and packed, and these well-dressed sardines were so focused on maintaining their erections (and the whole scene was so cramped that they couldn't crane their necks even 40 degrees in either direction) that they barely noticed when I turned down each of their collars in turn. It was a lot of work, but within maybe 45 minutes I had the entire bar looking more respectable, and less like budget Count Draculas.
My next public service was to help the ladies put their breasts back in their bikini dresses, but after two or three of those operations, I was cast out of the bar by a burly man with a very thin mustache. Now that I think about it, and picture him (in my memory he is called "Ramone"), I think I was more threatened by the rapist 'stache than I was by his log-sized biceps. So I left without incident, turning down his collar on my way out.

We found our way back to the RV, where I drove us a treacherous 5 miles to a friends' apartment.
Cashed out in the heavy air conditioned Jambulance 2.0 and woke up with the sticky lips from a truly upsetting dream about yaghting.

GC / EC Tour Diary #1

It's day two of my tour with Eclectic Collective and we're in Pittsburgh. We played in NY last night and it was a strange show for me... I do a lot of rap on these shows... I think it's because there are black people in Eclectic Collective and I want them to like me. But I keep getting this weird feeling that dudes don't really wanna hear the story of my life, especially backwards, and over odd time signatures, if they have to listen to it while also trying to get a girl very drunk so she won't notice the ruffies cocktail he just planted on her. And girls don't want to hear it if it's coming out of the mouth of a sweaty dude with a mullet and sausage fingers. It's not that big of a deal, just a tad frustrating because I feel like there is a huge market for my work, but I can't seem to get them in one place. I can sea an ocean of them nodding their heads to my rapping... this is the profile:
-intensely obese
-3-7 years old
-ugly as sin
-strapped down in the clockwork orange chair

Any mis-marketting aside, I do have to say these Eclectic folk are instantly some of my favorite people. This week.