A glamorous life. 7/15/06

Great first show of the second leg of touring for Greenland last night at the "new" 9:30 club in Washington DC. A splendid venue with great sound, staff, food and a dressing room with...unbelievable!....no penises drawn on the walls! Why do musicians draw huge penises on the walls of dressing rooms? Insecurity? Do they think this will get them laid? Trust me morons, this is not something women want to see if you are lucky enough to escort one back there. Visiting Moms and aunts don't want to see it either. Of course here in the 9:30 dressing room there IS a highly stylized and oddly sexual Grecian painting on the dome ceiling. Hmmm. There are also clean bunks where a musician can afford him (or her) self the rare luxury of a nap. This club gets a 10 on the 1 to 10 scale. A far cry from the original 9:30 of yesteryear which although legendary, was in actuality a hellish little punk rock dive with a low, cramped stage with support beams that half hid the performers from the crowd. Perhaps a blessing on some nights. There was a storeroom/dressing room with overhead pipes that were a regular thoroughfare for big rats looking to pilfer your rider (backstage food). I remember stomping my boot at one such brazen rodent who looked up and hissed at me fearlessly before sauntering off into a hole in the wall with a tortilla chip.

At the moment I am sitting behind David as he drives through the upstate New York downpour as we try to find our way around construction riddled road detours to the gig near Albany NY. At around 2:30 AM in DC last night, after settling the business, loading out the equipment, signing CDs and T-shirts we hauled ass to our hotel to steal a precious few hours of sleep. Up at 7 am to grab a coffee and hopefully some rider scraps we'd stuffed in our backpacks from the night before we head out to the next adventure. I awake sleep addled and befuddled after having snoozed in the back seat most of the 8 hour drive while David and Wayne (our temporary tour manager from South Carolina) take turns at the wheel. Load in was supposed to be at 3:30 and due to the weather and construction delays it is now 6:20. Sometimes routing and variables just fuck up the best laid plans. Yikes....we are at the venue. Time to snap out of it and move gear in the rain! Yeeeha!!! Over and out..... Johnny and the grizzled veterans of the road.

7/15/06 3 am. Frank sleeps peacefully in the next bed...his traditional post show Sambuca numbing his weary soul to slumber. The band played their asses off tonight. On a 1 to 10 it's a solid 9 show.

7/16/06 Hoorah....we got to sleep till 11!! We are on a punctual course to Poughkeepsie until one of the trailer tires blows out on the highway. Today being Sunday, it takes some phone scrambling but we find an open RV outlet and buy a new wheel. They have no separate tires so we buy the whole enchilada, rim and all. Once again we head toward a late load in. 2 opening bands tonight. Sound check? Probably not. Dicks on the dressing room walls? Probably. I'll check in with you later my friends.

PS: Just got another report from Pioneertown about the fire. All the historical buildings still standing...including Pappy and Harriet's and the big barn up the road where we recorded Kerosene Hat. David's cabin has very likely burned down. No access to the road up to it yet but the satellite photos do not bode well.