In the morning, the rock doc came. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever met before. Well, maybe he did, I mean, what did doctor’s wear under those white coats? I never really noticed. This guy was slicker-looking than I expected, though, very country club, Rolex watch and all. He didn’t carry a “little […]
Ziggy was in the head with the door open and sharp, medicinal scent was filling up the bus. I went to see what he was doing. Pouring a bottle of Listerine down the drain. “You won’t need that?” I asked.
Antonio carried Ziggy straight from the stage to the ambulance. I stuck to them like glue. The paramedics didn’t stop me from hovering. They had the gurney outside the back of the ambulance so there was plenty of room. Carynne was at my elbow. I didn’t really absorb what they were saying at that point. […]
During the show, Chris broke a drum head. I didn’t often look back for long periods of time, but it took me a moment to figure out what was going on. Louis adjusted the lights, I think, so that Trackie could work on replacing the broken head without Klieg flashes going off in his eyes. […]
I got Ray a can of Coke and a Gatorade for myself and we sat down in the green room. He was being so shy at first I was a little at a loss, but it was easy enough to peck away at him with questions. What did he play? How long? What did he […]
It was a long bus ride from Montreal to Chicago, over sixteen hours with the traffic, and we were awake for a lot of it. We listened to the CDs Ziggy had bought. I worked on some songs by myself. Ziggy worked on Sharpie-tattooing a stuffed animal for me. And so on. We had dinner […]
The opening band was called the Rebellious Doodads or something and I was reminded of a lot of the Providence bands we used to see–sloppy in a fun sort of way, earnestly jokey. We gave them high fives and that kind of thing and then took our turn. I’ve talked about video filming before, the […]
Ninety percent of the time spent on any tour is preparations. One moment you’re on stage, the next moment you’re off and already preparing for the next one, whether preparing to travel there or thinking about laundry or making sure to buy more strings. The good thing about it is one can fall into a […]
By the time all the video bullshit was over with and the roadies began hauling our setup onto the stage it was six. It became clear at that point that this stage was smaller than what they’d anticipated as they looked at our gear piled in the middle of it and MNB’s gear set up […]
Four days later, we flew United to Chicago O’Hare where a driver was supposed to meet us. I’d traded in my denim jacket for my somewhat battered black trench coat, and put on the round sunglasses Matthew had given me way back when. The contracts were in my backpack again and I felt weird traveling […]