Day 3

I woke up in the basement and it was still dark, but I was awake so I decided to take my much needed first shower of tour. I looked at my phone and it was 12:45pm. I can’t even remember the last time that I have slept in past noon, but the band had told me beforehand that my sleep schedule was going to take a massive change, and I guess they were right. The bathroom was a little sketchy, but of course I didn’t care. I didn’t pack travel shampoo, but I found a small amount of baby shampoo in this really old looking bottle, and I made do. I climbed the stairs out of the basement and found that someone had tagged “Fuck Yo House” on their stairwell along with another tag, both in paint pen. The Camel House guys assumed it was the wigger looking bros that the douchebag second band had brought to the house. It was still raining pretty badly, but loading the gear out wasn’t as terrible as it could have been, but it still felt terrible. I tied the broken van window shut, and we headed out to Seattle.

We hit up Wendy’s, AGAIN, but this time I think that I’ve perfected my Wendy’s meal. Five Jr. Cheeseburgers, no meat, and have them put them in the microwave so that the cheese melts. It’s under 5 bucks too, and I got a hot tea which warmed me up significantly. We hopped back into the van and in 5 minutes we were in Washington. For some reason there’s a noticeable difference between California/Oregon and Washington for me, and I’m not saying that as soon as I crossed state lines I was flooded with memories of my former home, but being there amongst the trees and the rain did bring back a little something. It was a few hours to Port Orchard, and everyone in the van spent the time listening to their iPods through headphones (John, in the back, was practicing his drumming on a pillows with his drum sticks), and I wrote a bit more in the tour journal. We passed through Tacoma, and I tried find buildings or streets that I could remember, but from the highway there was barely anything. No big deal.

We get to Port Orchard, which is a pretty small town on the other side of the Puget Sound from Seattle. We’re scheduled to play Myhere’s, a largish bar/café with a few other bands, including Smokejumper, a pop punk band fronted by the illustrious Chris Crusher who is friends with Danny and I believe is expecting me so that he can meet/judge me. The show is also a benefit for the local roller derby girls who need new uniforms or some other shenanigans. We go inside and spend a bit of time searching for the stage. We’re eventually told that we’ll be playing upstairs, but we can’t go up there yet because the door is locked. Fine by us, we puttered around, some of us had coffee at the café, and we talked to the promoter who was really jazzed to have us. The owners of the bar showed up and they let me into the upstairs where we would be playing. Huge place with a bunch of long tables, seems like it’s usually meant for community events, but it’s a good place for a show as well. The stage is small, just big enough for the drum set, so the rest of the band is on the floor. Ryan and I are the only members of the band who are over 21, and the owner is really worried about the rest of the band being in the bar, but she’s really cool about trying to make it work, and decides that if they stay at the merch table or behind this curtain in this makeshift backstage area, then it would be fine. We unloaded the van, and once again there’s a big flight of stairs so we opt not to take the bass cab up because another band has an amp I can use. It’s a good one this time, and I’m always happy not to have to lug our heavy amp too far.

People start arriving, and it looks like it’s going to be a great turnout. The van that was loading the PA system was a plain white van with “Adolf Ketamine” spray painted in several locations. This prompted us to talking about North Western White Power groups, and we jokingly told John (who is Columbian) to watch his ass. The roller derby girls showed up and started setting up their table where they would be holding a raffle. Prizes mostly include movie tickets to the nearby theatre and roller derby tickets, but they had some cool stuff like $200 of tattoo time at the local tattoo shop, and $50 worth of piercings at another local place. Later in the night I decided to drop $10 on 15 tickets, thinking that there were a lot of prizes and not that many people would buy tickets so my chances at winning something were pretty good.

Chris showed up, and the band greeted him. They all know him because they crashed at his place last time through here on tour. He said hello to me and told me that he’s supposed to beat me up tonight. I also meet his girlfriend Allison who I talk to for a bit about standup comedians and other things. We set up the merch table near the door, and I want to attach the new shirt to the board with all the other shirts, so I go downstairs and ask for a piece of cardboard, a stapler, a piece of paper, and a screw. The bartender kinda looks at me funny and then hands me some materials. We sell a bit of merch to the promoters and other people there before the show even starts, so far so good. Ryan, Peter, and I decide to make the trek to KFC down the road, which looks to be the only place that’s open anywhere nearby.

The first couple of bands were so-so, Smokejumper played 3^rd and I thought that they were good. Between every band the roller derby girls would raffle off a few prizes. The crowd was getting pretty big and drinking a lot, which is good, Ryan said that means that we’re probably getting paid tonight. That’s good news, gas is cheaper up here, but still pricey for our huge van with trailer. We loaded our gear onto the stage, all the while I kept stopping and checking to see if I’d won anything from the “A Cup Killer” roller derby girl.

Our set was amazing. People were going absolutely crazy, bodies were flying everywhere! The band was tight too, we played really well. I was trying to match the unbelievable intensity of the crowd which resulted in me snapping my guitar pick clean in half. The crowd chanted “Atom Age!” for an encore, and after Ryan apologized, because opening bands aren’t really supposed to do encores, we went into Blitzkrieg Bop, the only real cover we all know. The place ERUPTED and I actually got a little worried because people were getting hurled everywhere and people were falling over the monitors into the band. Great great set. Put me in a really good mood.

We hauled our gear off the floor into the back room into the makeshift backstage (all while I was checking my raffle tickets to see if I had won anything, and then going back to carrying gear), and all of us were wide-eyed thinking “Holy. Shit.” We sold a TON of merch. If we sold like that every night we would sell out of CDs and 7”s in 3 days. We also got a good amount from the door, and all-in-all this show got us way out of the red. The last band that played was a sorta pop punk band, and it took them 3 tries to get through their first song. Later I learned that they hadn’t practiced in 8 months.

After playing a few shows with The Atom Age, I’m really glad and really lucky that they are good musicians and not idiots. It doesn’t take a lot for me to think that somebody is an idiot and not like them, but everyone in the band is cool and likes good music and isn’t style or image obsessed. There are not a lot of people that I can talk about rock and roll music with and not get upset, but it’s fun talking about music with the band. It seems like most of these bands that open for us try really hard to be a perfect copy of Jawbreaker or Blink-182, and play a lot of covers of the bands they try to emulate. Same goes with the Against Me! or generic metal rip off bands. I don’t like thinking that bands suck or talking shit about other people’s art. Early in this tour, I realized that “HEY! I get to see a free punk show every night! This rules!” but I have yet to see one band that I’ve really liked besides Smokejumper, and it was hard to hear them because the bass was turned up super loud. I’m not saying that The Atom Age is the most original band in existence, or that we’re super amazing, but I’m just glad that we’re not douchebags with sideways baseball caps or emo haircuts or neckbeards.

After the last band cleaned up, the roller derby girls were raffling off the grand prize of $200 at the tattoo place in town. I hadn’t won anything yet, in fact, a lot of the prizes were won by the roller derby girls themselves who had purchased a lot of tickets. I thought that that was a little bit unfair. No one else in the band had gotten tickets, so they had been all cheering me on and wishing me good luck. They drew the ticket and I didn’t win. I honestly didn’t know what I would do with $200 at a tattoo shop in Port Orchard, WA. I would have to decide on a tattoo by the next morning. So, whatever. The person whose ticket was called didn’t come up to claim the prize, so they drew another ticket. And I won. “Holy shit. I’m getting a tattoo.” I went up there and got my prize, and people were yelling “Hey! No fair! He doesn’t even live here!” They handed me the envelope with the gift certificate and I went back to the band and friends, and (of course) the dumb tattoo ideas start coming. We were going to be in the area for 3 days (we’re playing 2 shows in nearby Seattle), so it looks like Monday would be the day.

We load out, and people are outside and talking to us about the show. Someone was saying that the only band that rocked Port Orchard as much as we did was NOFX when they came through 20 years ago, and that we were better than them. That’s a pretty hefty statement, but it’s nice to hear good things about the band. We’re staying at Chris Crusher’s house tonight in Seattle, which is across the Puget Sound, so we have 2 options. 1) We drive all the way south around the Sound and come back north into Seattle, or 2) We take ourselves and the van on a ferry across the water. The ferry idea sounds expensive, but then we learn that it’s only $13 for all of us and the van. Way cool. We follow Chris and co. to the ferry station and drive onto the ferry. I guess we made it just in time, because after we head to the top of the ferry and outside to look at the water, the ferry was on its way. I love the Puget Sound, it’s really beautiful, and being out there on a boat out on the water was a great way to end the evening. It was cold, but the rain had stopped and it was clear enough to see Seattle and the surrounding areas. It got a little too cold, so we headed back inside and got some snacks from the vending machine and talked a bit to Smokejumper and Allison.

It was a fairly short ride, and before we docked I wanted to go outside again, so I did (by myself, no one else wanted to brave the cold). Watching the water foam up as the ship was slowing down was really cool, and when the ship was anchored in, I turned around to go back inside, when I noticed that the inside of the ship was completely vacant. Oh crap, everyone must be in the van downstairs about to drive off the ship. I sprinted down to the car level just in time to hop in the van. My band said that Brendan went out looking for me, and was wondering if he had found me. He didn’t, and now HE was the one who was going to get stranded on the ship. We still had to drive off the ferry to not hold up traffic, and Brendan made it off the boat just in time. We saw him sprinting towards the van, and were glad that he wasn’t going to get left behind.

On the way to Chris’ house we made a few pit stops to drop off members of Smokejumper and to unload their van at their practice space, and then we went to Chris’. Chris’ place was pretty cool, I almost immediately started going through his record collection which was laid out against the wall (his shelf broke or something). Chris was showing off his new 50-something inch plasma TV, and the band played Xbox (which was something that was almost constant for the extent that we stayed at Chris’). Chris’ roommate comes in and says “Hi” to the band and then without delay asks which one of us is Danny’s new boyfriend. I hesitantly raise my hand, and he lunges towards me and lifts me in the air, I wiggle my way towards the wall and try to escape by climbing up to the rafter or the space above the closet, but don’t make it. Chris then starts paddling my ass while I’m helplessly failing. Chris’ roommate (I’m bad with names) told me that Danny told him to do that, so it looks like Danny told all her friends to harass me.

I got on my computer, and was surfing the net, when my “spider sense” went berserk and I reached up and caught a bottle of pills that Chris had thrown at my neck. He said “Wow, nice catch” and I mentioned the whole juggling thing. He had kind of been picking on me the whole night, on account that I’m Danny’s new boyfriend and that Danny told him to heckle me, and it had been kind of wearing on me a little bit because I was trying to be nice to him and Chris seems like a cool guy. I just kinda wished that he would knock it off a little bit.

We all headed to bed, I took the couch. Peter had to sleep in the van because he’s allergic to cats and Chris has at least 2. Ryan used Chris’ massive air mattress that inflates to about 2-3 feet off the ground which would have been very comfortable if it had held air very well, something that he learned pretty quickly. Ryan, Brendan, and I stayed up until about 5:30, with Ryan critically analyzing Chris’ CD collection, making fun of Broadway Calls and The Leftovers (something he does almost daily), but saying some good things too about the majority of it. A lot of time was spent talking about b as well, which I’m glad that I’m not part of at all anymore. “Pillow talk” with the band always seems a little funny to me, it takes you back to the slumber party days, but it lets me get to know the band more, something I always appreciate.