The first show of the tour would be in Atlanta, at an arena officially named the Omni but referred to by the crew as the Waffle Iron because of the shape of the roof, which looked like a—you guessed it—waffle iron. We had several days off in LA before the actual show because the crew […]
Remo and I were still sitting on the couch backstage in comfortable silence when Digger came in. He had a piece of curled-up paper in his hands. “Feast your eyes on this.” He handed it to me–that soft, strange paper that came out of fax machines, smudged black on the edges where he’d held it. […]
Close to midnight we pulled in to the motel in Cleveland, and Digger and Carynne did this little vaudeville act at the side door of the van. (“After you.” “No, after you.” “Ms. Manager, I insist.” “Oh no, you first Mr. Manager.” and so on until they both moved at the same time and bumped […]
I’m glad that Jordan turned out to be an incredibly cool dude, and that he didn’t turn the album into top 40 crap, and that he and I spent a lot of late nights talking about music and history and stuff. That wasn’t the only eventful thing in the spring besides my birthday of course. […]
Jonathan came on our bus with us, which was fine with me. I had discovered I liked talking with him those times when I didn’t have the feeling he was trying to put some kind of a spin on my life. He was intelligent and had interesting opinions on subjects far and wide. And for […]
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 […]
The buses pulled in to our hotel at about 7 a.m. and we were shuttled into rooms where we went immediately back to sleep. At ten a.m. the phone rang and I noticed that the message light was on. John was asking if I was awake and I told him that I was because the […]
An hour later, I was doing that. The audience didn’t seem to care much what we did. The place was only about half full and those that were there were indifferent. We adopted a “so what” attitude and drew into ourselves, like a tight rehearsal. Bart and Chris were grooving together and for the first […]
Nighttimes were settled then, Matthew and I roomed together most of the time. Everything about it worked out great, at first. I learned a lot about stage tech, and I read a lot of books, and it kept Carynne at a safe distance. Matthew always answered my questions, and kept passing down mysteries he picked […]