Jenny Choi!
More than for notes on me, just check out Jenny & Philip - they are the shizzle!
"Mia Park knows everyone in every city. No shit."
asians in rock (air) tour (8/8/03-8/24/03)
east coast leg
as remembered by: philip stone
E A S T C O A S T L E G
FRIDAY, August 8th:
I sneak out of work early, around 3pm, quietly praying that I will still be on the schedule when I return in two weeks. The first show of the tour is tonight in Champaign and I am already running late. Miss Mia from Panda Panda meets us at our house around 4. Her bandmate, Sarah, is traveling separately for this show as is Tony, our bassist. So the three of us-Jenny, Mia, me-load the van, Smitty, and drive two blocks to a gas station on Division Street.
While I am filling the tank I notice a small pool of coolant forming near the front of the van. The radiator is only three days old, so I know that this leak is not coming from Smitty. As I top off the second gas tank, it becomes impossible to pretend I do not see the coolant, as it is beginning to touch my shoes. Reluctantly I pop the hood and see our brand new radiator swimming in brand new coolant. I curse my mechanic, I curse Smitty, and I curse Tony for not being with us as he is the only member of our band that is mechanically inclined.
Fortunately, this gas station is also a service station. I pay the attendant $7 to figure out our problem. He takes a very long screwdriver and tightens one screw. The radiator stops leaking immediately. I give the mechanic an additional $7 because I am very happy. We get back into Smitty and head south to Champaign-Urbana, the spot of the first show of the AIR(Asians In Rock) Tour. Jenny and Mia talk the entire ride while I quietly listen to the None More Black CD over and over and over.
The entire Midwest-East Coast leg of the tour features Panda Panda (Mia and Sarah) Jenny Choi (duh), and Chiyoko (Chiyoko Yoshida and Jeff Carleton), as well as an ever-changing slew of other bands. Tonight we are joined by Champaign rockers, Triple Whip (Santanu, Holly, Brett), but they have not arrived yet because they are local and can afford to be late. I meet Chiyoko and Jeff for the first time, and they make me laugh because they both appear to be ready to take a nap. They open up the show and I am floored. She says she has not performed in a year, but this in not apparent because they are fucking dope. The music is dark, brooding, beautiful and indie-cool. Both Chiyoko and Jeff are polished performers and the songs are great. I am excited. Panda Panda go up next. I love this band. They are
fast, funny, poppy, irreverent and energetic as hell. They rock my world. Urbana seems to like them too. We go up next. We play two new songs without names. Jenny differentiates between the two by referring to them by the key they're in, but since both of the songs start in b-flat, Tony and I have to guess which is which before we play. We guess right and the show goes well.
Triple Whip closes. They destroy! Holly, who plays bass, has not been playing music for long at all, but no one in the world would ever guess because she is such a badass. So good. Find this band and see them live and ask Santanu to play the song about Dolemite. We congratulate ourselves on a great show and the lovefest begins.
"You were great."
"No we weren't, you were."
"Nuh uh."
"Yeah."
Barf.
We drive home to Chicago, finding our beds by 3 or so in the morning.
SATURDAY, August 9th:
Jenny wakes up too early and races over to a photoshoot with Mia and some other ladies for Columbia College's Gravity Magazine. I take this time to buy some drumsticks and deposit some money in the bank. I am a bellboy, which is a stupid job, but it affords me the luxury of taking time off to tour and the novelty of bringing home stacks of singles that make me look like a drug dealer. I give roughly $800 in an envelope to the bank teller and try to deposit them. "Should I kill you now or later?" she asks.
"I'm sorry," I say, slightly self conscious about having eight hundred one dollar bills. " My friend who works at a bank told me you wouldn't be mad if I made sure they were all face up and facing the same way."
"Nope."
She disappears to the money counter for fifteen minutes. When she returns, she types my info into the computer and perks up. "Wow. You're the third person to come in here today with a famous name."
"Come again?"
"First there was this guy named Patrick Duffy. Then Jennifer Lopez. Now you. Stone Phillips." She smiles ear to ear. I leave.
Tony, Jenny, and I converge at our house, load our gear into Smitty and head over to the Subterranean where we are supposed to play as part of the Estrojam festival before our AIR show at the Korea Town Street
fest. We park illegally, borrow some other band's gear, play for barely 20 minutes, return to the van and head to Korea Town.
The lineup tonight is the same as last night (Chiyoko, Panda Panda, Jenny, and Triple Whip), except this time the stage is warmed up by hardcore Korean rappers. I enjoy this. As we play, the crowd is lively, the sun is shining, and the local rockstars show up(Jason from Baldwin Brothers, Josiah from Light FM). It is much fun, although I am self conscious because Josiah from Light FM is wearing the same sunglasses as me. From Monument to Masses(Sergio, Francis, Matthew), a Berkeley band that is supposed to play with us tomorrow in Ann Arbor shows up. We are not sure why they are here, but we do not ask questions. We offer them our floor for sleeping and our shower for washing. They accept. So does Triple Whip. Everyone heads to our crib which is way too small for a party, and we party until much too late.
SUNDAY, August 10th:
A barking dog wakes me up way too early. I walk to Dunkin Donuts and bring home a dozen donuts and some coffee for our sleeping guests. I have not packed yet, which is a problem because I am about to leave town for two weeks and all my stuff is scattered throughout my new house and someone is sleeping in every room.
Jenny leaves to speak at a conference on how to book your own tour. She leaves a list of things for me to make sure I pack:
keyboard
power strip
duct tape
fireworks
blue bag
The word "Fireworks" is circled and underlined.
Sergio from FMTM wakes up and fixes our DSL router, for which I am endlessly thankful. He and Francis and Matthew geek out on our two computers and their laptop for the next hour. I ask them if everyone from the bay area is so computer savvy. They respond in emoticons and then try to get me to join that horrible cult known as "Friendster."
I leave them in my house and go pick up Mia and Sarah from scary ass Humboldt Park. We toss their shit in Smitty and reconvene at my house. I finally pack, load up the van, and Jenny, Sarah, Mia and I jump in the van. Tony is not coming(fucker) because he cannot get permission from his boss. We caravan with Triple Whip into Ann Arbor which takes too long because of construction. We hit the Blind Pig 5 minutes before showtime. We play first to the four other bands and maybe five paying guests. This is the first time we have performed a set as a two piece. People seem to
dig it, so I relax a little.
After we're done, Jenny and I run across the street to the Fleetwood Diner for some grub. The restaurant is surreal. A midget is washing dishes. No shit. And my club sandwich is delicious. (Note: I spoke with my friend from Ann Arbor, Paul, after the tour and he told me that the Fleetwood is known as the Freakwood to locals. You know, because of the midget and the other weird people. Funny, huh?)
Back at the club, From Monument to Masses blows my mind. Seriously. Un-fucking-believable. You should never miss this fucking band if they play anywhere near you at all. FTFM is drums, bass, guitar, and samples. The only vocals are screamed sans microphone into the air like badass hardcore kids. Their shit gives me goosebumps.
Triple Whip closes out the night again. They are nervous about following FMTM, because they were so dope. But Triple Whip is dope too, so all goes well. The five people who paid to get in thank us for a fucking great show. The club also tells us we put on a great show. If people had shown up, they say, they would be paying us right now.
We load up our respective vehicles and loiter outside the club for awhile. Francis from FMTM blows some fireworks up and a short man carrying a pool cue takes our picture. Triple Whip and From Monument to Masses say goodbye and head off in their separate directions(back to Urbana for T. Whip, Lansing for FMTM). Chiyoko and Jeff drive off to God knows in their little Jetta that I suspect will not survive the tour. The rest of us(Mia, Sarah, Jenny, Me) hop into Smitty and drive into Detroit to find Patrick who is giving us a floor to sleep on.
Detroit is so fucked up. Every highway we take somehow ends up trying to take us into Canada, which I do not appreciate. The streets are filthy and amazing, gilded with fantastic and ugly concrete building and steam vents that smell like hell and make me feel like a badass when I drive through them.
We meet Patrick at the Magic Stick Club, which is way too hipster for me to process. Patrick is a drummer for the Dirtbombs and the photographer for the White Stripes, and his band is just finishing up a show that dragged every "Strokes" look-alike in a thirty mile radius from their respective vintage kitschy furniture adorned homes into downtown Detroit. I see Meg from the White Stripes hanging out at the bar. This is surreal and way too stereotypical to make sense. We agree that it would be like going to the Metro in Chicago and expecting to see Billy Corgan. Shit like
that ain't supposed to happen. But this is Detroit, and Detroit makes no apologies for being dirtier and hipper than anywhere outside of London, circa 1969.
We drop Patrick's gear off in a scary practice space and then caravan to the outskirts of Detroit to Patrick's surprisingly suburban home. It's a very small and charming house with a screened-in porch and a yard. Definitely not where I expected a Motor City rockstar to live. We drop our sleeping bags and crash hard.
MONDAY, August 11th:
We wake up too late and load the van. For good luck, Patrick tapes a photo of a piece of uncooked steak onto our dashboard. Not only do I love pictures of meat, but I agree that Smitty needs all the luck we can summon, so I am endlessly grateful for Patrick's act of goodwill.
We buy Patrick breakfast. I order an omelet and a Coney Island(hot dog, chili, mustard, onions). It is delicious, but time will tell if this was a good idea before embarking on a seven hour road trip to Pittsburgh. Sarah, who is a vegetarian, orders French Toast that not only tastes like meat, but actually has pieces of ham pressed into it. She does not eat much.
Realizing that we are going to be very late for our Pittsburgh show, we haul ass through Michigan and Ohio, stopping infrequently. Mia and Sarah have decided that "riff-raff" will be the secret word for this tour, meaning whenever someone says "riff-raff," everyone else must scream and cheer. This is too bad for me, as I love saying, "riff-raff. (YAY!)"
Pittsburgh is a charmingly old, beautiful, run down city. I love seeing Pittsburgh, but I hate driving in it. We get lost, as usual, but manage to hit the club an hour before showtime. The Club Café is dope. Their green room is on the second floor, complete with complimentary beverages, a nice shower with steamed towels, and free high speed internet access. The fucking works. This is a nice change of pace from the clubs we usually play with
green rooms that only exist in your imagination and even then aren't this nice.
Tonight's lineup is Chiyoko, Panda Panda, Jenny and me, and local rockstars, Strangeway. We draw a better
crowd than last night and we all have a nice time until the club decides to pay us $6 each. Jenny is determined to play hardball, goes back inside the club, and returns with an additional $21 for each band. This is more reasonable and we leave happy.
Dan, Mia's friend and owner of the floor that will house us tonight, takes us on a guided tour of Pittsburgh that ends on top of some mountain overlooking downtown. It is very beautiful. Chiyoko takes some killer photos with her magic camera that can apparently shoot in pitch black and still look incredible.
We head back to Dan's huge ass house. It's an amazing building, but sort of a work in progress. Everything is boxed up, exposed wires dangle from every light fixture, the only toilet that works is on the first floor, and the only shower that works in on the second floor. We (Chiyoko, Jeff, Sarah, Mia, Jenny, Dan, his wife Sally Anne, and me) find space for sleeping scattered throughout their three story house. I am almost asleep when Sarah shows up and
announces that she has left her cell phone at the club, most likely in the dope ass green room. I agree to drive, even though I always get lost in Pittsburgh.
Sally Anne draws us a nice map, complete with pictures of bridges and whatnot. We get there fine and Sarah finds her phone. On the way back we get lost. At 2AM, the Pittsburgh ghetto is oh so frightening. Some streets don't have streetlights, but they do have plenty of riff raff(YAY!) in the yards drinking beers and staring at us. We eventually find our way back to Dan's house around 2:30. I crash immediately.
TUESDAY, August 12th:
8:30 AM. Two foul mouthed plumbers begin installing a toilet in the 2nd floor bathroom, ten feet from my
head. This is the only bathroom in the house with a functioning shower. I go downstairs to the half
bathroom and take a half shower in the sink. The plumbers are directly above me, and debris keeps
falling onto my head through the hole in the ceiling as I rinse under the faucet. I decide to take a dump,
even though I know the plumbers can watch me if they want to. They probably do not want to.
We forgo showers and get Dan to give us the most detailed directions possible back to the Pennsylvania
Turnpike. He gives us the directions and every Pizzicato 5 CD ever recorded. I am not sure why, but that's cool, right?
Smitty and company hit the road and it appears that this will be the first time I have ever not gotten lost while driving in Pittsburgh. We get cocky and pull into a Whole Foods to get some road grub. But the store sits on one of those crazy circle drives with seven streets jutting out of it in every direction, so as we leave the parking lot we are inevitably going the wrong way. I curse the Pittsburgh road Gods.
Several hours later we are somehow on the 76 cruising through the mountains towards NY. We each rub the meat photo on Smitty's dash for good luck. Smitty responds by not breaking all the way into Manhattan.
We wander around a little bit in Greenwich Village until we find the Lion's Den. None of us have ever played this club before, but it looks nice. There are three local bands playing with us tonight: Suntan(recently relocated from Boston), Creme Blush, and DJ Rekha. Suntan and Creme Blush are already loading their gear into the venue. Both bands are proof that a band's website is a window into its soul, because Suntan smokes just as much as
www.suntanmusic.com suggests, and Creme Blush really does dress like psychotic extras from Less Than Zero.
New York is hot. Really really hot. I love NYC, but their weather seems to be consistently worse than Chicago's, and that's saying a lot. New York is hot, sweaty, smelly, and awful. The locals drags their slimy, glistening bodies across the narrow Village streets like retarded snails. Everyone carries bottles that are empty except for a couple of ounces of saliva saturated water being conserved just in case the city's supply suddenly runs out. This might not be a good night for a show, we tell each other, especially because the club has no A/C. Oh fucking well.
The Lion's Den fills up early, which we are happy about, but because of the club's layout, it still appears empty. There is a section of tables left of the stage completely filled with shy concert goers, and the performers cannot see them unless they turn all of their equipment 90 degrees to the right. No one does this, though, because that would be really friggin stupid. So we instead play straight ahead to a long hot tunnel of emptiness and evaporating sweat.
Each song ends to the applause of a crowd of people who have been beaten down by oppressive heat for weeks. Tired and soggy hands barely connecting with one another makes a noise that resembles a clap, only without the energy or the gratitude.
By the time DJ Rekha takes the stage to close out the night, everyone has gone home to their air conditioned apartments. She is, however, a consummate pro, and she performs anyway. At the night's end, the venue informs us that we did not draw enough to get paid.
We go over the math with them several times, but their door policy is so twisted and unfair that no matter what we say, the end result is always $0. I suspect that no one reads these diaries, but for the record I would like to say "Fuck the Lion's Den." There are a lot of great venues in NYC. This is not one of them. Let my words start the ball of Karma rolling. God willing, that ball will gain size and momentum before landing on top of those greedy bastards' headsfor stealing from poor traveling musicians.
We load up and drive across the bridge into Queens in hopes of finding Sonia's (Mia's sister) house. We do. It is beautiful and they have tall tall glasses of wonderful cool water waiting for us. After rehydrating, we crash.
WEDNESDAY, August 13th:
Sonia wakes us up with fresh bagels from her corner store and lets us check our email. I have no messages yet. WTF?! I check the hits on out MP3.com page so that the others do not think I am a complete loser.
During breakfast, Sonia shows us her collection of White Castle coffee mugs. Mia has sent her one for Christmas every year since God knows, and it is indeed an impressive display. The drive from NY to D.C. is uneventful and perfect. We thank Smitty and the meat photo for our safe travels and for the perfect parking space we find in
crowded-ass Georgetown in front of Bob and Diana Hacker's condo.
This is the third time Jenny and I have crashed at the Hacker's while in DC. Bob is a very successful lawyer; my mom calls him a charming drunk. He is. Diana is the author of the nation's bestselling collection of grammar textbooks. Their wealth and reputation intimidates the hell out of us every time we visit, but they are always very nice. We find it cute how they like housing touring musicians.
"We told the neighbors a rock band would be staying here tonight," they said. "We told them not to be surprised if a little 'pot smoke,'" finger quotes, "comes up through the heating vents."
We try to explain that we are in fact not pot smokers when Tony is not around and that we'll probably be pretty quiet and clean. They look disappointed.
Sarah, Mia, Jenny, and I head over to the Velvet Lounge and meet up with Chiyoko and Jeff, Suntan, and Creme Blush. I love this room. We had a great show there last summer with dope-ass Metropolitan. The stage is small and intimate, the sound is great, and the staff is super cool. There is a great vibe at tonight's show. The room fills up fast, and Jenny and I opt to go on first because the energy is so awesome.
We SHRED.
Panda Panda SHREDS.
Chiyoko and Jeff SHRIZED.
Creme Blush is a'ight.
Suntan SHREDS. Slow, drug enhanced, trippy, and super talented.
What a dope night. We all sell mucho merchandise and the club pays us fairly.
We stop by Ben's Chili Bowl on the way back to the Hacker's and I get a ridiculously awesome chili dog. Sarah and Mia are vegetarians and Jenny is not hungry and none of them are interested in the charm's of Ben's Chili Bowl. But I am driving, so they are fucked, relegated to sitting in Smitty while I indulge my fetish with rotten food at inappropriate times of day.
Back at the Hacker's we all go to sleep quietly and do not trash any of their nice things, despite the
fact that we all know Bob and Diana secretly want us to misbehave.
THURSDAY, August 14th:
Mia Park knows everyone in every city. No shit. I was quite sure that I was going to be the only person with DC contacts, and Lord knows Mia wouldn't know the Hacker's, but on our way out of the city, she makes us stop to eat brunch with her friend Jake and his family. Jake is JAKE of Rocktober and Chic A Go Go.
That Jake. I'm still not sure why he is in DC(Chic A Go Go is a Chicago phenomenon by definition), but I suspect Mia planted him there to make sure she had representation in every city on this tour. After eating a nice meal with Mia's peeps, we head north to Philly(Mia's Hometown). It is a short drive, completely uneventful until we hear on the radio that all of New York, Toronto, and Detroit have no power at all. We make a few phone calls and make sure that the rest of our dates on the tour are plugged in. They are, so....oh fucking well.
Smitty cruises into South Philly in good time, and we navigate the ridiculously narrow streets to Robert's house. Robert is the man. He owns the two coolest bars in Philly and lives in the absolutely coolest house on the planet. Have you seen Ghost World? You now how Steve Buscemi's character has amassed a collection of the most kitschy and useless retro stuff imaginable? Well, all that stuff lives in Robert's house. Indian garage rock blares from hidden speakers on every floor, fifty year old pomades are stacked carefully in a glass case in the bathroom, and every countertop contains an interesting gem of such preposterous uselessness that one can do nothing but marvel at the collection that is at once both fascinating and completely without function. I am in heaven.
Robert makes a nice meal for us and for Chiyoko and Jeff who are also staying with us tonight. Jenny suggests that Robert should start a bed and breakfast for traveling musicians. He laughs, but I can see the wheels turning in his noggin. Don't be surprised if you read about the Rocknroll Bed and Breakfast of South Philly very soon.
Fresh and rejuvenated, we head to the Rotunda in West Philly. The Rotunda is owned by a university--I'm not sure which one, but like all university venues there is no alcohol or smoking,and for some reason there is no air conditioning. None of these factors are conducive to a rock show, but we're all feeling pretty badass by now and don?t give a shit. Besides, Philly is Mia's hometown, so are audience is all but guaranteed. I've seen how she draws people from random cities. This is Philly, and before the show has even started, the Rotunda is full of people who know Mia.
Chiyoko and Jeff do their thing. Jenny and I do it next, punctuating our set with an on stage happy birthday phone call to Sergio from From Monument to Masses, who is in New York in the midst of the blackout. Panda Panda closes out the night. We are not charging cover, but our "gas money" jar looks pretty full when we finish. Sweet.
We head back to Robert's House of All Things Cool and he breaks out the fancy beverages. Once everyone is appropriately sauced, I spring the news that we are going to go get cheese steaks immediately. We are three blocks away from Pat's and Gino's, the two premier cheese steak vendors in the Philadelphia area, and Lord knows I will not leave this town happy if I have not eaten their worst food at the worst time. Robert, Jenny, Mia, and I walk to Pat's and order cheese steaks and cheese fries for everyone. Note: they make cheese steaks with Cheez Whiz--that's fucked up, right?
I eat my cheese steak, my cheese fries, half of Jenny's cheese steak and most of her fries. Everyone comments on how amazing my stomach and digestive process is. I laugh it off as if it is no big deal. While they laugh with me, I sneak up the stairs to the bathroom and vomit my brains out. I continue up the stairs to the third floor until I find an empty bed. I lay down and go into a coma.
FRIDAY, August 15th:
Today is my birthday. I celebrate by waking up in my clothes, above the sheets, on a bed in an empty room decorated sparingly with photographs of 50's pin-up girls. My mouth tastes like vomit and cheez whiz; I do not know where I am.
I descend the stairs and piece it together: there's the toilet where I vomited, there?s my backpack, there?s Mia on the floor, there's Jeff on the couch tuning his guitar...I'm in Philly. Robert, who has already made us breakfast, informs me that I went into a "cheese steak coma" last night.
"It happens all the time," he says.
"Yeah, but I've got superhuman digestive--"
"I won't tell anyone," he says.
We eat quickly and hit the long road to Cambridge, MA. The driving is smooth as we move North through Jersey. I am not driving for pretty much the first time on the tour-my b-day gift from my tour buddies-so I lay in the back and receive birthday phone calls from my family. I feel good. It's nice not to be driving, it's nice to be older, and I'm excited about our Cambridge show with Kevin So. He is a cheeseball, but always a consummate professional and a great performer. We're ahead of schedule, even though it is an early show, and should have plenty of time to negotiate the fucked up roads of Cambridge.
Then we cross the Jersey line into Connecticut and traffic stops moving completely. Hmmm. It looks like everyone is trying to leave NYC. The blackout?hmmm. We check traffic radio. Stay off the 95. I glance at the stationary highway sign that has been standing outside my window for fifteen minutes: 95North. Hmmm. I grab the atlas.
"What does the radio say about the 84?"
"Bumper to bumper."
"The 8?"
"Fucked."
Oh well.
So we sit for hours, crawling like someone had shot out Smitty's tires and Mia was pulling us along with a rope tied to the front bumper. For hours and hours.
We call Kevin, who is supposed to headline, and ask him to open the show. We might be late. A few more hours pass by. We call again and tell Kevin he might need to play for a couple of hours. We sit on Connecticut's finest highway amidst the mass exodus of New York City and watch as Smitty's dashboard clock informs us our show has started. Fuck.
Traffic finally opens up as we pass through Hartford. We pull over, gas up, I take the reigns, and we push Smitty to his mechanical and spiritual limits. The meat photo is rubbed until the color fades. Miraculously we arrive outside the Zeitgeist with 20 minutes of showtime remaining. We send Jenny out of the van and order her to go play solo while we try and park the van. Jenny bolts and the rest of us park on the street a few blocks away. I grab a handful of CD's and run back to the venue in time to see Jenny finishing a song. People clap, Jenny bows, and the venue owners kick us out onto the street.
Kevin, who played for an hour and forty minutes, asks us what took us so long.
"Bad traffic near New York."
"I could have told you that," he said. "You should have stayed off the 95. Why didn't you call me?"
"We did," I say.
"And what did I say?" he asks.
"I don't know," I say. "Be safe, or some shit."
"See?" he says.
I now realize that Kevin is stoned out of his mind, so I walk to the other end of the sidewalk to talk to Jeff. Tonight is Jeff's last night of the tour. He has to catch a flight back to Chicago for a surprise anniversary party for his parents. We pull his gear out of Chiyoko's car, hugs all around, and we dump him in a cab en route to Logan airport. The rest of us collect in a nearby coffee shop to regroup and lick our wounds.
None of us have eaten since Robert's in Philly, and it is well past midnight now, so we clean out the pastry cabinet of the café. After polishing off several muffins, slices of pound cake, and brownies, we get back in our respective cars and hit the road. We have a room at an Embassy Suites reserved in Syracuse for the night, and we figure we can get there before 3 or 4.
Our next show is in Akron, OH, and that?s a long ass drive. Sure enough, we land at the Syracuse Suites early in the morning. There are five us now, without Jeff. We are sweaty, grumpy, stiff, poor, and hungry. We spread our shit about the two room suite, each of us claiming a few feet of carpet and a couple of pillows; we crash for a few hours.
SATURDAY, August 16th:
We wake up in time to tear into the complimentary cooked to order breakfast, then we load up and hit the road towards Akron. Everyone is sleepy and a little bit sad. It is overcast and rainy the entire drive through upstate New York and across Pennsylvania. Plus, this is the last show of the East Coast leg of the AIR tour, and only Jenny and I will be continuing out to the West Coast. Despite of all the stress and drama of this tour(or perhaps because of it), the six core members of AIR have become very close. None of us are looking forward to heading back to the real world or onto a new tour with strangers.
We hit the Lime Spider in Akron a little bit ahead of schedule. It is still raining. I get out of Smitty to stretch my legs. Across the street from the Lime Spider is an outdoor amphitheater. There is a small crowd of people in lawn chairs with umbrellas sitting in front of the stage. The big band on the stage is playing marching band music. I look at the marquee and discover that tonight is "Sounds of Sousa" night. That's right. Sousa, as in John Philips Sousa, or whatever that guy's name is who wrote all those horrible university fight songs. And now there are people actually sitting in the rain to hear this music on purpose, without a football game or a parade or anything exciting enough to warrant sitting through this music. This bodes well for our show, I decide, because this town is obviously very bored.
Tonight's show is going to be opened up by Kris N. from Tagline. He lives in Chicago and is driving out to Akron just to play a few acoustic numbers before the show. Headliners for tonight?s show are Pittsburgh's Strangeway. They are rock stars and we are not sure why they?re purposefully hanging out with us.
The Lime Spider is a really cool club. As we set up, all of the TV's are playing some bizarre psychotronic b-movie montage. Every time I look at the screen I see some kung fu, some guns and disco clothing, some amazonian space women, or the usual pimps in hats. Kris goes on first, and he draws about twenty people. We?re very impressed. He's originally from Cleveland. But I'm from Chicago, and if I played an acoustic show at 9PM on a rainy night, there would not be twenty people there. There would be three if you count my mom who would be on the guest list anyway.
Kris plays really cool pop punk stuff, heavy leanings towards emo. Really solid. Really energetic. He is a great opener and addition to the tour. Chiyoko plays next. This is her first show without Jeff. I love Jeff, but Chiyoko sounds pretty dope by herself. Panda Panda goes next, and they have some serious sound problems. We suspect this is because the soundman is kind of a dick. They don?t let the technical difficulties take the steam out of their show and rock solid anyhow.
Jenny and I play and I feel like we are hitting our stride now. It's been a few shows, and we're probably tighter than we've ever been before. Once we're done, we load out and stay to watch one or two Strangeway tunes before hitting the road. We are planning on driving straight through to Chicago, so the sooner we leave, the happier we will be tomorrow morning when we get home.
We stop just before the highway and set off a ton of celebratory fireworks. After several minutes we hear approaching police sirens. These are probably not for us, but we jump in our vehicles and bust ass towards
Chicago, nevertheless. I drive all night with Chiyoko driving right behind me the whole time. No one is talking much because they are sleeping, and I spend most of the six driving hours listening to the None More Black CD over and over again.