I got a really good night’s sleep, which was nice. I woke up and worried about if I had slept through a gang of hoodlums breaking into the trailer and stealing everything, but they obviously hadn’t. John came down soon after I woke up and threw his bag in the back. I got up and made myself another sandwich, and then went upstairs to the room for a shower. On the way up, I passed by some rooms that had their doors open, and I noticed that some families were completely set up in this motel permanently. Like their place was fully furnished and they had their own rugs and art and stuff in these motel rooms. The people also looked like they were in real bad shape. Too bad.
Everyone was asleep when I got to the room, naturally. I took a shampoo-less, towel-less shower, and used a tiny motel towel to dry myself. I went back down to the van. Peter came down later and wanted to clean the mold out of the van, so he began doing that with some mildew remover and a sponge. I was sort of worried about the bleach, and the fact that we were going to be driving all day with the fumes, but then I realized that I’m punk as fuck and I didn’t care. We cleaned out a bit of the van, and then got impatient and packed up and left for our drive to Pasadena.
I decided to start up the tour journal again, I don’t really know why. I think I told myself that I wasn’t going to do it this time, because I easily get behind because I’m lazy. But, I felt compelled, so I started. Peter’s parents bought him this beefy power inverter which can handle 2 outlets and 2 USB outlets, and up to 400 watts, so if I wanted to I could run my computer all day in the van. I also have my iPhone which gets internet as long as I have cell phone reception, so I can check my email and surf the web. Touring ain’t what it used to be, I guess. Lucky for me.
We drive into Pasadena and have a few hours to kill, so Ryan parks the van in this upscale So Cal shopping area, and we walk around. John stayed in the car to do some HW; he’s taking the online Health class that I took last year, the poor fuck. We walked around and we separately passed like 3 groups of canvassers, which was kinda funny. There isn’t much to do, so we head into a Barnes and Nobles and I sit down in the café to do some computer stuff, but we decide to leave a few minutes later and just head over to the Old Town Pub where we’re playing (or Olde Town or Old Towne, whatever).
This place is almost impossible to get to, and Ryan and I are constantly screaming at the GPS on both of our phones. We drive around this area for 15 minutes, and eventually Ryan parks the van and everyone except for Ryan heads out to find this place on foot. We still can’t find this place at all, so John goes into a shop (this dimly lit “Desert Bar” … really? A bar for deserts? Fuck So Cal.) and asks where this place is. She says “Oh! Yah, follow me.” She leads us THROUGH the bar towards the back, and through 2 doors, and into the back alley and then into this small super-hidden plaza in the middle of the city block and there it is. This little plaza had green and white Christmas lights and a fountain and a bunch of trees, so emerging into this place from the back of a bar was kind of like entering Narnia. I go in the bar, and it’s like 6 o’clock, so no one’s there. It’s a cool little place, even though the stage is really small. The bar tender says we can load in whenever we want to, but Ryan is still with the van, and there’s no rush, so I head back out.
Peter then tells me that Ryan took the van and went to a free clinic because he was feeling like shit. This was kind of out of the blue, so I had a little wtf? Moment, but then got over it. We hang out in the little plaza for awhile, and then decide to check out The Container Store on the corner of the block, because we had never been in a store that just sold containers exclusively. Finally, Ryan and the van meet us outside the store and Ryan tells us that he has an appointment tomorrow morning at the clinic. The band decides that it wants food, and no one wants to eat at the nice restaurants around here, so we drive like 5 miles to find a McDonalds. I should probably mention that I’m not a real big part of the “we” here; I’m not really hungry, so I don’t care. Dollar Menu is king and will always prevail.
Ryan asks me about the venue, and I tell him what’s up. He’s getting kind of nervous, because there weren’t any bands there or any way to find the place, so I give Noey a call. Noey is the promoter, and he’s from the pop punk message board, so of course Danny knows him and gave me his information and she gave him my info. I call him, and he says the show is starting later than anticipated, and that he was on his way to the place. We head back, too.
Parking in downtown Pasadena is downright impossible. There are 2 alleys that you have to follow to get to this bar, and we don’t want to block them while we load in, so Ryan parks in this red zone on the main street really far from the place and load in. It’s a total pain in the ass, and I ask the bassist of the first band if I could borrow his bass amp for the show. It’s kind of small, and I want to actually be heard tonight, but our bass amp is as tall as I am, and I don’t want to drag it 4 blocks. He says it’s no problem, and then says that touring bands usually don’t do so well here, and that we should probably pass around a donations jar or something. He also thinks that we’re playing second, which is not what the flyer for the show said, and they were about to take the stage, so I go to tell Ryan that this might be the case. The rest of the band was setting up merch in the back of the bar in the outside area, and I tell them what’s up and then go off to find Noey to ask him about it as well. We introduce ourselves, and then he says that we’re playing last, which is what we thought. We talk a bit more, and then the first band, Reagle Beagle, starts playing.
It was a pop punk show, and this band was sort of your run of the mill pop punk band. I thought they were alright. I talk to Ryan in the back and he thinks it’s funny how much bands like this rip off the Queers, and after the band was on for over a half hour, he mentions that pop punk bands should play for a maximum of 22 minutes. Makes sense. The bass amp of the band is pretty quiet, so I thought about asking the next band for theirs instead. I walk by where all the gear is sitting, and see that their amp is pretty small, too. I asked them as they set up if I could maybe use it anyways, but they said that they’re leaving right after the show ends. This was getting stupid, so I just went and hauled out bass amp in; it wasn’t a big deal. The second band, The Simplisticks, was a 3 piece pop punk band, and the lead singer tried really hard to sing like Billie Joe. The first line in one of the songs was even “I know what you’re thinking. This guy sounds a lot like Billie Joe.” The songs were mostly about drinking and smoking pot. They pimped our donations jar out, which was nice of them. I picked up their CD, it was $2.
After those 2 bands played, like 2/3 of the crowd left. This sucked, but oh well. We played a decent set, but Ryan was getting visibly pissed off at John who was drumming not so greatly. The stage was small so I got stuck in back again. We played a shorter set, and a couple of guys at the bar got into it, so that was cool. Ryan said that he heard someone say “that was badass” at the end of one of our songs. We got a decent amount from the tip jar, but no one bought any merch. One of the guys at the bar said that he was going to tell his friend to go see us in Tucson the next day.
Noey met up with us at the end and offered us a place to stay, which we needed. We followed him out to his place in the San Fernando Valley, and I recognized most of the places we were driving through. We got there, and it was a nice place and Noey was extremely hospitable, even to the point where he said we could raid his fridge. His brother was also there, who was decked out in super pop punk garb. Half of the band slept in his daughter’s play room, and Ryan and I slept on the couches in the living room. Halfway through the night, I moved to the floor, which I found to be more comfortable, because I am crazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment