We’d had months to get ready, so why were we rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off the final week? That’s just how it is, I guess. Carynne had us doing a list of errands, and there was packing, and laundry, and equipment checks, and eight billion other things, plus phone interviews with […]
There was a bellydancer waving silks and hands in front of the table when we returned, dollar bills forming a green counterpoint to the blue sequins of her costume. She coaxed Digger up and danced with him to the too-loud piped in music, circling around him with her scarves while he did a kind of […]
At noon I went around to Digger’s door and knocked, figuring I’d maybe get in the driver’s seat for once. The too-loud voices of daytime TV came faintly through the door and then it opened. He stood there in a white undershirt and boxers, bloodshot and unshaven. If the can in his hand had been […]
Maybe an hour later Bart shook out his hands and said good night. I got up to leave, too, but Remo said a little awkwardly “Wait one more second” so I told Bart I’d be along. We were all three wearing jocular smiles but Remo’s eyes went somewhat serious. Bart, never blind to those sorts […]
We were still sitting there on the couch some half hour later, Ziggy telling a long involved story about where he got the idea for “Cross to Bear,” most of which I was pretty sure was fiction, when there was a thumping knock on the door. Carynne must have left the room entirely since she […]
Detroit is kind of an ugly town, at least the parts of it I noticed, haphazardly burned out and deserted right in the midst of otherwise normal-looking cityscape. I suppose New York is similar, only New York is so crammed it makes for a different effect. The inside of the music hall was about the […]
There’s not much to tell about the next day. We had some tech glitches with the live rig, but between Kevin and Colin and me and Christian and the guys from the venue they were eventually worked out. Soundcheck was a non-event, as if we were all working so hard not to be nervous about […]
The band had agreed on two weeks off after the Jingle Bell shindig, and given what our spring was going to look like, I suppose it was a good idea. Digger had promised Mills we’d do both the video and finish the new album by the end of March, which was the absolute latest I […]
In the end, it was Mills who wore me down, not Digger. On Monday at nine in the morning the phone rang in my room. I had the handset of the cordless next to my bed like I’d been expecting it. Normally I’d have put a pillow over my head and ignored it, but something […]
Ziggy left me standing alone in the men’s room. That woman is surely gone by now, I thought. I went back into the main room. As I scanned the crowd I saw Carynne wave to me. She was standing with Digger by a table with huge glass bowls of ice and shrimp. An overeager snacker […]