Week 71: Guest Post by Todd Cobra, Rock Chronicles 3
My friend, Todd Cobra, excellent songwriter, guitarist and rocker from bands like The Spinns and The Gondoliers continues his guest post series, the Rock Chronicles... Chronicles... Chronicles...
I've heard the many perils faced by traveling bands. Band members catching would be trailer thieves in the act and then having to defend the gear, gigs canceled due to tragic death of a beloved small town local and of course, the poverty stories born of rocking tour masters having recently come home off the road. One friend told me that he was so poor, having just returned from a cross-country tour, that he was eating anything perishable in the old house in which he rented a room. He told me he found a box of spaghetti but it had bugs in it. He told me he washed the little bugs off as best he could, then boiled and ate it, "fear factor style".
Then there's the story of a friend's band who's tour was on an inevitable path through a town called Stoll, Kansas. Stoll had a reputation in certain circles of being a haunted town. Legend had it that specific bands, that either passed through or stopped there had soon after got in huge fights or broken up for good. This particular friend's band, their curiosity having overwhelmed any fear caused by said legend, decided to stop in Stoll. The town was described to me as deserted. The boys decided to get out and walk around. They soon came across the dilapidated church in the middle of the one strip of dirt road that was the entire town. Egging each other on, they opened its unlocked doors and went inside. While inside the church, it is explained to me that they came to the top of a stairwell, the bottom of which vanished into darkness. At this point the band mutually experienced what my friend described as a sense of dread. Nobody apparently, was going downstairs. They exited the church, confident that they'd seen enough when they met what appeared to be the town's only inhabitant, an incredibly angry man who commanded the young, dapper group leave town immediately, and presumably, never come back!
Which leads us to the final (?) chapter in the chronicles of my band. We booked ourselves the tour we'd heard about breaking many a stout band: two months, cross-country. To make matters more confusing, we were sharing all the dates with another band, good friends that had helped us book many of the gigs.
Before we left there were already mounting problems. Our bass player was poor and living in a vacant room (for free) in the house I lived in. Not so much a problem in itself but he was not behaving like a grateful buddy might under the circumstances. He had recently broken up with his old lady and consequently, lost a high paying job. So he was wasted often and neither saving money for tour, nor booking it, nor making/sending flyers, nor nothing. Also we didn't have a vehicle to make this trek. We were hoping to share our friends' van, which they allegedly were in the process of acquiring. When our buddies showed up ready to go however, their van was in no way capable of hauling us all. This meant that I had to spend a very large chunk of the cash I'd saved for the trip on tires for the highly mechanically suspect van that we had. The van was a mid nineties, Chevy Astro dubbed, white chocolate. The white chocolate had many distinguishing features. It had been badly sideswiped when we were in New York, so that the sliding door barely worked. There was a gaping hole in between the sliding door and the front part of the van, causing gale force winds inside the van while driving. The bench seat in the back was an unattached couch which of course, had no seat belts. The biggest worry though, was the rear passenger's wheel. It had been warped in the wreck and wobbled all over the place when driving. At least it had $400 worth of new tires!
It was March and we were heading north. This was not our idea. We had begun booking shows south and were planning on circling the country in that direction when somehow, we had been convinced by our partner band to go opposite this route. This was probably due to the fact that they lived north of us and had the ability to book a high paying gig in their hometown. The idea was to help get us at least start the tour with some loot. Little did we realize the horrible mistake of attempting to cross the top of the country at this time of year.
I wish I could say that the tour was going well so far. Despite our first few, semi-profitable shows, our band was floundering by the time we hit New York. I, in particular I think, wanted to do a good job in the big city. The last time we were there, we played one good show out of two. Then the city ate us alive. The van got wrecked and vandalized. Our bass player and I were abandoned by our drummer and his friend, and when we finally got kicked out of the bar at closing time, we went to the van and found that it had been broken into and beat up. The stereo was trashed and it had other dents besides the ones from the wreck. Luckily our gear was still there! Amazing. So our bass player and I drove the van across town and parked in the neighborhood of the next night's gig. We slept in the van. We woke up early the next morning and decided there was no other course of action other than to get drunk. We found a bar called The Patriot which featured a country atmosphere. We bought our own V8 and ordered pitchers of Pabst. A pint of beer with enough V8 to make it red is called a Redeye. We drank all day. The comely bartender liked us as we were from the south and knew all the songs on the jukebox. We sang along to Hank Jr. including the response parts that are not on the original recording of Family Tradition:
Call: Hank, why do you drink?
Response: To get drunk!
C: Why do you roll smoke?
R: To get stoned!
C: Why must you live out the songs that you wrote?
R: To get laid!
The bartender served up (and drank) many Prairie Fires (shot of tequila with Tabasco) and flashed her big tit's a lot.
Later that evening our drummer showed up with his buddy. Luckily I did not attempt to fight our drummer's friend as planned, as I'm sure he would have cleaned up the sidewalk with me. Later still, we loaded the gear into the venue. At one point our bass player (let's call him Ralph from now on) attacked me and I punched him. I remember looking down at him while he struggled to get up. He had gashed his head on the curb and was flailing his limbs like a turtle that was flipped on it's back. When we were carrying the gear in we were cussing at each other and Ralph was bleeding all over the place. We were then told that we would not be allowed to play unless we pulled it together. We did play but yikes! Every time I strummed my head pounded inside. I remember stumbling backwards into a sitting position on my amp. I sat there playing for a while. At one point Ralph leaned in too close to our drummer (lets call him Jolson) and got hit in the eye with a drumstick. For the rest of that tour, Ralph had two black eyes: one that I gave him and one from the drumstick.
Back to the more recent gig in New York. So desperate was I to make up for the last embarrassing debacle in New York, and so let down I was. Ralph was wasted and played atrociously. At one point I kicked a mic stand at him and it hit him in the face. Then he took off without helping us load out the gear. Later there was fighting. I lost my phone.
The gig in Milwaukee was the same thing; a drunken, crappy performance. We had played a great gig about a month before leaving town and my hopes had been so high. We weren't even half way through the tour. Then things looked up, momentarily. Chicago was fun. The wobbly tire was holding up. I think it was in Chicago where our buddies finally broke the news to us concerning just how wobbly it was. When you moved the passenger's side mirror so you could see it, it was definitely an eye-opening moment.
So we followed our bros into the tundra. I did not realize that there were parts of America that looked like this. Minnesota is a fucking wasteland. When you look at the landscape in the afternoon in March, there are a few dark patches in the middle, white above and white below. Did I mention that the white choc had no heat and windshield wipers that sometimes didn't work? The freezing cold blasted through the hole in the side of the van. Before long we were all wearing every warm article we had and were in our sleeping bags, including the driver. If you were driving, you're gas peddle foot would become painfully cold. If you were in the back seat, there was no escape from the wind, despite your best efforts to plug the hole with scarves or whatever. The cold began to have bizarre effects on us physically as I shall explain. Our friends speed ahead of us in their fine new minivan.
It got so cold that we had to pull over every chance we got. Not just to run our freezing extremities under hot water but also to pee. For some reason the cold was giving us all the urge to pee constantly. Then there was an insane hunger attack. We took an exit and drove miles away from the highway until we reached a shithole town with an all you can eat Chinese restaurant. Worst Chinese I ever ate. The most Chinese food I have ever eaten in one sitting. Twenty minutes after eating we were back on the highway, seemingly starving again.
Night was approaching. We had no idea how far ahead of us our friends were, but we knew it was very far. We passed an exit with lots of lights indicating hotels. Ten minutes later we were in the middle of nowhere in the dark, with no heat, driving at less than twenty miles per hour across a white road with embankments everywhere. This white-knuckle driving situation seemed to last a lifetime. Finally we saw lights. The exit ramp was so thick with snow we didn't think we make it up. We made it into the parking lot of a hotel. Minutes later, thanks to the charity of Jolson's madre, we were in a room with a hot tub. We drank 40oz. Beers in the tub and decided to alter the tour. The next day we would drive straight down the middle of the country, forsaking booked gigs in Portland and Seattle, and try to find an acquaintance of Ralph's in Kansas City.
It turned out that our partner band had driven far beyond our stopping point. Amazingly to us, they decided to turn around, despite the choice, confirmed gigs in the northwest and come with us. With a little effort we found Ralph's friend. He informed us that there was a hot rod expo/party/art show/possible gig at a warehouse/chop shop in town. Before we knew it our friends had caught up to us and we were both on the bill. The show was incredibly fun. The club that ran the shop/art space/venue, The Los Punk Rods passed around an old gas tank for donations. At the end of the night they cut it open and paid us pretty well. A more hospitable and generally cool group of cats I've seldom met. It seemed like we had enough money now to make the drive to Cali. As any cross-country touring band knows, there is a vast distance where no gigs are available on the way to the west coast.
Next week the conclusion. For other parts of the series, click on the link below.
* * *
Rock Chronicle 3: Cross-Country, Part 1I've heard the many perils faced by traveling bands. Band members catching would be trailer thieves in the act and then having to defend the gear, gigs canceled due to tragic death of a beloved small town local and of course, the poverty stories born of rocking tour masters having recently come home off the road. One friend told me that he was so poor, having just returned from a cross-country tour, that he was eating anything perishable in the old house in which he rented a room. He told me he found a box of spaghetti but it had bugs in it. He told me he washed the little bugs off as best he could, then boiled and ate it, "fear factor style".
Then there's the story of a friend's band who's tour was on an inevitable path through a town called Stoll, Kansas. Stoll had a reputation in certain circles of being a haunted town. Legend had it that specific bands, that either passed through or stopped there had soon after got in huge fights or broken up for good. This particular friend's band, their curiosity having overwhelmed any fear caused by said legend, decided to stop in Stoll. The town was described to me as deserted. The boys decided to get out and walk around. They soon came across the dilapidated church in the middle of the one strip of dirt road that was the entire town. Egging each other on, they opened its unlocked doors and went inside. While inside the church, it is explained to me that they came to the top of a stairwell, the bottom of which vanished into darkness. At this point the band mutually experienced what my friend described as a sense of dread. Nobody apparently, was going downstairs. They exited the church, confident that they'd seen enough when they met what appeared to be the town's only inhabitant, an incredibly angry man who commanded the young, dapper group leave town immediately, and presumably, never come back!
Which leads us to the final (?) chapter in the chronicles of my band. We booked ourselves the tour we'd heard about breaking many a stout band: two months, cross-country. To make matters more confusing, we were sharing all the dates with another band, good friends that had helped us book many of the gigs.
Before we left there were already mounting problems. Our bass player was poor and living in a vacant room (for free) in the house I lived in. Not so much a problem in itself but he was not behaving like a grateful buddy might under the circumstances. He had recently broken up with his old lady and consequently, lost a high paying job. So he was wasted often and neither saving money for tour, nor booking it, nor making/sending flyers, nor nothing. Also we didn't have a vehicle to make this trek. We were hoping to share our friends' van, which they allegedly were in the process of acquiring. When our buddies showed up ready to go however, their van was in no way capable of hauling us all. This meant that I had to spend a very large chunk of the cash I'd saved for the trip on tires for the highly mechanically suspect van that we had. The van was a mid nineties, Chevy Astro dubbed, white chocolate. The white chocolate had many distinguishing features. It had been badly sideswiped when we were in New York, so that the sliding door barely worked. There was a gaping hole in between the sliding door and the front part of the van, causing gale force winds inside the van while driving. The bench seat in the back was an unattached couch which of course, had no seat belts. The biggest worry though, was the rear passenger's wheel. It had been warped in the wreck and wobbled all over the place when driving. At least it had $400 worth of new tires!
It was March and we were heading north. This was not our idea. We had begun booking shows south and were planning on circling the country in that direction when somehow, we had been convinced by our partner band to go opposite this route. This was probably due to the fact that they lived north of us and had the ability to book a high paying gig in their hometown. The idea was to help get us at least start the tour with some loot. Little did we realize the horrible mistake of attempting to cross the top of the country at this time of year.
I wish I could say that the tour was going well so far. Despite our first few, semi-profitable shows, our band was floundering by the time we hit New York. I, in particular I think, wanted to do a good job in the big city. The last time we were there, we played one good show out of two. Then the city ate us alive. The van got wrecked and vandalized. Our bass player and I were abandoned by our drummer and his friend, and when we finally got kicked out of the bar at closing time, we went to the van and found that it had been broken into and beat up. The stereo was trashed and it had other dents besides the ones from the wreck. Luckily our gear was still there! Amazing. So our bass player and I drove the van across town and parked in the neighborhood of the next night's gig. We slept in the van. We woke up early the next morning and decided there was no other course of action other than to get drunk. We found a bar called The Patriot which featured a country atmosphere. We bought our own V8 and ordered pitchers of Pabst. A pint of beer with enough V8 to make it red is called a Redeye. We drank all day. The comely bartender liked us as we were from the south and knew all the songs on the jukebox. We sang along to Hank Jr. including the response parts that are not on the original recording of Family Tradition:
Call: Hank, why do you drink?
Response: To get drunk!
C: Why do you roll smoke?
R: To get stoned!
C: Why must you live out the songs that you wrote?
R: To get laid!
The bartender served up (and drank) many Prairie Fires (shot of tequila with Tabasco) and flashed her big tit's a lot.
Later that evening our drummer showed up with his buddy. Luckily I did not attempt to fight our drummer's friend as planned, as I'm sure he would have cleaned up the sidewalk with me. Later still, we loaded the gear into the venue. At one point our bass player (let's call him Ralph from now on) attacked me and I punched him. I remember looking down at him while he struggled to get up. He had gashed his head on the curb and was flailing his limbs like a turtle that was flipped on it's back. When we were carrying the gear in we were cussing at each other and Ralph was bleeding all over the place. We were then told that we would not be allowed to play unless we pulled it together. We did play but yikes! Every time I strummed my head pounded inside. I remember stumbling backwards into a sitting position on my amp. I sat there playing for a while. At one point Ralph leaned in too close to our drummer (lets call him Jolson) and got hit in the eye with a drumstick. For the rest of that tour, Ralph had two black eyes: one that I gave him and one from the drumstick.
Back to the more recent gig in New York. So desperate was I to make up for the last embarrassing debacle in New York, and so let down I was. Ralph was wasted and played atrociously. At one point I kicked a mic stand at him and it hit him in the face. Then he took off without helping us load out the gear. Later there was fighting. I lost my phone.
The gig in Milwaukee was the same thing; a drunken, crappy performance. We had played a great gig about a month before leaving town and my hopes had been so high. We weren't even half way through the tour. Then things looked up, momentarily. Chicago was fun. The wobbly tire was holding up. I think it was in Chicago where our buddies finally broke the news to us concerning just how wobbly it was. When you moved the passenger's side mirror so you could see it, it was definitely an eye-opening moment.
So we followed our bros into the tundra. I did not realize that there were parts of America that looked like this. Minnesota is a fucking wasteland. When you look at the landscape in the afternoon in March, there are a few dark patches in the middle, white above and white below. Did I mention that the white choc had no heat and windshield wipers that sometimes didn't work? The freezing cold blasted through the hole in the side of the van. Before long we were all wearing every warm article we had and were in our sleeping bags, including the driver. If you were driving, you're gas peddle foot would become painfully cold. If you were in the back seat, there was no escape from the wind, despite your best efforts to plug the hole with scarves or whatever. The cold began to have bizarre effects on us physically as I shall explain. Our friends speed ahead of us in their fine new minivan.
It got so cold that we had to pull over every chance we got. Not just to run our freezing extremities under hot water but also to pee. For some reason the cold was giving us all the urge to pee constantly. Then there was an insane hunger attack. We took an exit and drove miles away from the highway until we reached a shithole town with an all you can eat Chinese restaurant. Worst Chinese I ever ate. The most Chinese food I have ever eaten in one sitting. Twenty minutes after eating we were back on the highway, seemingly starving again.
Night was approaching. We had no idea how far ahead of us our friends were, but we knew it was very far. We passed an exit with lots of lights indicating hotels. Ten minutes later we were in the middle of nowhere in the dark, with no heat, driving at less than twenty miles per hour across a white road with embankments everywhere. This white-knuckle driving situation seemed to last a lifetime. Finally we saw lights. The exit ramp was so thick with snow we didn't think we make it up. We made it into the parking lot of a hotel. Minutes later, thanks to the charity of Jolson's madre, we were in a room with a hot tub. We drank 40oz. Beers in the tub and decided to alter the tour. The next day we would drive straight down the middle of the country, forsaking booked gigs in Portland and Seattle, and try to find an acquaintance of Ralph's in Kansas City.
It turned out that our partner band had driven far beyond our stopping point. Amazingly to us, they decided to turn around, despite the choice, confirmed gigs in the northwest and come with us. With a little effort we found Ralph's friend. He informed us that there was a hot rod expo/party/art show/possible gig at a warehouse/chop shop in town. Before we knew it our friends had caught up to us and we were both on the bill. The show was incredibly fun. The club that ran the shop/art space/venue, The Los Punk Rods passed around an old gas tank for donations. At the end of the night they cut it open and paid us pretty well. A more hospitable and generally cool group of cats I've seldom met. It seemed like we had enough money now to make the drive to Cali. As any cross-country touring band knows, there is a vast distance where no gigs are available on the way to the west coast.
Next week the conclusion. For other parts of the series, click on the link below.
Labels: Thursdays, Todd Cobra's Rock Chronicles
3 Comments:
I hope the lack of comments is not mistaken for disinterest, as this series is jaw-droppingly awesome.
I actually do often assume that the lack of comments means disinterest. I know rationally there is no real reason to think so, but i guess i'm a bit sensitive, especially when it has to do with my friends who are graciously subbing for me.
So thanks dd.
Well, speaking for myself at least, it has everything to do with disinterest. Sorry, but damn.
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