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[Well, you may have seen some or most of this text before. It was published in a sort of "diary" format on another site. But, go ahead and read this anyway. It's a specially expanded and compiled version, with the literary equivalent of "bonus tracks." To the point where, finally, it's way too long for anyone to ever actually read. But go ahead, have fun. In most cases where the text makes reference to Contemporary Events, they're contemporary to October 2003. But I know you're intelligent enough to overcome any issues which may be raised by such time-fabric brain-porking. And so, onward.] I had never, in all my travels, actually been a ROAD DOG before. But I was lucky enough to have wormed my way into the good graces of Arthur Lee's band and management. You can catch up here if you like, we'll wait for you.
"The Red Telephone" (Gene Kraut, manager. Well, if my last name translated to "un-pickled cabbage" I might want a snazzy nickname too) was happy with my work at Town Hall NYC in June, so he asked me to be guitar tech/backline tech for this little mini-tour. And, of course, I'd have the bonus perk of singing at the sound checks in Arthur's stead, again. Also, I'd be the one driving either the cargo van or the 15-passenger van with the band and orchestra in it. I chose the passenger van. Why? Because I LOVE PEOPLE SO MUCH, I guess. And to further the cause of World Peace. And last but not least because right now, at this moment in history, it's a piece of cake to make fun of Californians. Like shooting fish in a barrel, really.
[In case you are reading this several years in the future, Californians have just thrown out their governor in a recall election and replaced him with, um, a cinderblock I think.]
The mini-tour was originally concocted around some sort of festival-thingy in upstate New York. To make it economically viable to fly a rock and roll band and small orchestra from California to the East Coast, some other dates were added. Then, the festival-thingy fell through. What to do? Cancel the shows? No, happily. The decision was taken to forge ahead with the remaining dates and cross-fingers that some measurable amount of money could be made on the deal. (Can you hear the solitary trumpet going "Waaht - Waaaaaa"??) There would be four shows in all: Philadelphia, Alexandria (Washington DC) Boston, and New York. With the New York show in Brooklyn, at my own home base, Warsaw. Cool.
The players were to arrive on Sunday, in Philadelphia, with the first show Monday night. Civilized, this. A whole day free. As for us New York-based folk, we had to pick up three vehicles and drive them to Philly from New York, so we got an early start Sunday morning.
The Road Party began somewhat inauspiciously. I had arranged for the backline, drums, and a big plexiglas baffle (to keep Drum Noises away from the string section) to be rented from SST, which is in Weehawken NJ, right outside the Lincoln Tunnel. Gene would be meeting me there with two vans and another driver -- a friend of his, named Lawrence. So I drove to SST, with Wendy, and we sat outside in the car, waiting. Very pleasant place, outside SST, if you enjoy a low-headroom lot littered with broken glass and a few generations-worth of Dried Pee, underneath the ramp to Hoboken.
It was quite a long wait and eventually I needed to augment the inventory of Dried Pee, I sadly confess. So if any of you have a pressing need to collect any of my DNA you can find it under that ramp, in the left rear corner. There's no shrine, you'll just have to search for it and hope you get mine and not someone else's. I guess it'll be kinda like those things in the penny arcades with the big hook in 'em, where you try to grab something shiny but sometimes end up with a plastic bust of Dag Hammarskjold or something equally vibed. Where was I? Oh, yeah, bring your own jar or dustpan, as they do not furnish them on-site.
Anyway -- eventually Gene and Lawrence showed up -- with a lovely red cargo van and a lovely white passenger van. Wendy went home with my car, and we loaded the gear into the red van, and off we go to Newark Airport -- where we're to pick up a third vehicle, an SUV for Gene to drive Arthur around in. But as we're walking in to the rental place, we decide a minivan is a better choice. Good thing too, in retrospect -- we never would have fit everything we needed to carry. Gene hadn't quite reckoned on the sheer volume of baggage-plus-instruments our Brace Of Californians would be trailing along behind them.
So it's up to the rental counter, and suddenly a quick unscheduled trip into the twelfth dimension. Our Rental Agent Guy was a bit of a card. A black feller, who said with a straight face -- as Gene was trying to decide what color van he wanted -- that a certain color choice would indicate that you were a racist, or something like that. No hint of a smile on his face.
Yes, of course he was joking. Havin' a bit of a laugh on the job, and why not? But it just seemed weird that he would make a joke like that RIGHT UP FRONT -- without first, y'know, taking the measure of the people he was talking to. To make sure they'd a) GET the joke and b) not get all pissed off. It was just very odd. He made a couple more cracks in the same style before we got out of there. Finally I said to him "The gig makes you this crazy this early in the day? I usually save that kind of stuff for the END of my shift." He said "You never know how much time you have" or something like that. It was really rather entertaining but just, as I said, weird......
So. Phila-friggin-delph-eye-ay. We rolled in at midafternoon on Saturday. We took Lawrence to the train station (he was heading home to go to the World Series game that night) and then headed off to the airport to pick up the band, the orchestra, Arthur, and Arthur's cousin/assistant Leon. Got to the airport easily, without incident, and waited by the baggage carousels for about half an hour.
Randle was the first to appear. I'm told this is the way it usually goes. We had a big hug, made fun of each other's hair (HE STARTED IT! HE STARTED IT!) and waited for the rest of the weary travelers. Finally collected 'em all -- four band-members, Arthur, Leon, five String-Section Goddesses and two Trumpet Boys -- and, against all odds, managed to fit all their luggage into the two vehicles. (I know you THINK you know how much space a cello takes up -- but trust me, you don't.)
And of course, on the way back from the airport, we promptly got lost. Went past the exit we wanted -- twice. I am blameless. I was following The Red Telephone, or in this case The Red Minivan.
Chapple was sitting up front with me, and Arthur was right behind us in the middle seat. (He was supposed to have gone in the much-more-comfortable minivan, but -- in a display of True Proletarian Spirit -- he jumped in with us instead.) My iPod was blaring "Walk Away Renee" by the Left Banke. Arthur shouted out "Who is that, do you know?" at Chapple. I answered, before I could stop myself. Arthur then said "I know YOU know, I wanna see if HE knows." (Well, Dave knew, of course, but he's from California and therefore I'm quicker than he.) I then managed to get myself into a small but polite argument with Arthur immediately (how DO I keep doing this?? It's just a gift, I guess) when he opined that the Left Banke were from San Francisco. Finally I laughed and said "Oh, no, you're not doing this to me again! You got me on Skip Spence, but not this time!" He laughed too and said "Well sir, you've taught me something today!"
We did finally get back to the hotel, after a couple more wrong turns, and got the entire mob checked in.
That night, just about everyone showed up in the sports bar at the hotel, to eat and to watch Game One of the World Series, including Arthur. (New York Yankees vs. Florida Marlins, just in case you're reading this in the year 2012.) It was quite heartening to hear all these California Folks rooting so hard for my beloved Yankees -- I did not expect that. The Yankees are pretty much Universally Detested outside New York. Then I realized what was up, as I remembered the disdain that Californians feel for all things Florida. (Motto: "The OTHER Place That Grows Oranges.")
Well, we lost, of course. And that was the only game we actually got to watch, on the entire tour!
My Mingling Skills lag behind most of my other skills, so I ended up sitting with the people I already knew -- the band. The Orchestra Folks were splayed around and about at several other tables, and Arthur was off on the far side of the room with Leon. I looked at the menu -- excellent stuff, and pretty much what you'd expect to find in a well-appointed hotel sports bar in Philadelphia -- and wondered to myself if all these California Ladies were going to turn out to be the stereotypical Dainty Salad Eaters that you hear so much about.
Um, no. Pretty refreshing it was, really, to see -- out of the corner of my eye (I'm too polite to stare, you know, and besides there were huge New York Yankees losing an important game on the wall in front of me) -- five cute and relatively petite California Girls sit politely in front of tables loaded to the groaning point with monstrous sandwiches and such...and, with one deft motion, bang down hard with both fists on one end of the table, flipping the entire table up in the air so that the contents slammed into their waiting maws. After which they ate the tables as well, and a chair or two. So forget what you've heard about Californians and their half-a-spinach-leaf luncheons.
I'm reasonably certain I'm remembering this correctly -- but, hell, it's been a few months now and there just MIGHT be an hallucination or two in the mix. But I'm pretty sure about that one. I think.
The next morning, I eschewed the skanky-looking Breakfast Room at the hotel, and set out on foot looking for a place where I could eat for real -- armed with trusty iPod filled to the gills with Philadelphia music. First up: The American Dream, from 1969. One of my very favorite records and nobody but nobody knows about it.
What's that? You'd like me to tell you about the American Dream album? Why, well, I don't know. Go ahead, twist my arm. Ow. Alright, okay.
They were a band from Philadelphia, who had the distinction of being Todd Rundgren's first outside production, and also the first LP on Ampex Records (motto: "We Make Blank Recording Tape. Let's Make Records Too. Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.") It's a real crack of an album, too. Sounds like old Horsey-Face just turned on all the mics and said "Last one in don't get no hoagie." If you've never heard it, you must try to find it. None of the personnel was ever heard of again, at least not by me, EXCEPT: very hot lead guitarist Nick Jameson, who ended up around Woodstock/Bearsville somewhere, and put out two solo LPs in the late 70s. Why I mention him is that we were watching Seinfeld sometime in the early 90s, and I spotted this familiar-looking blond guy doing a cameo as a German Tourist. There, in the credits, it was: Nick Jameson. So how about that?
How do you suppose I saw "...RY" and came up with "JURY"???? Answer: I'm an IDIOT.
Hey! You peeked at the answer!
Anyway. When I set out on foot from the hotel, on that lovely brisk October morning, the concept was to travel just far enough to locate breakfast, then to stop right there and eat said breakfast. But oddly, I found this part of Philadelphia to be much like center-city Hartford, in which Wendy and I had once essayed a similar mission -- in that AIN'T NO SUCH PLACE. How odd. No diners, no coffee shops, no nothin'-of-the-sort. I just happened to be in "that part of town." That part of town being Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Strangely, though, there was an awful lot going on. The streets were absolutely filled with people, and they were all headed toward some museum-lookin' edifice to the West, where the parkway appeared to end. I finally surmised, from the sounds of people on bullhorns, that there was a Walk For AIDS about to start up at the museum. Ah. Nice. But, frankly, baby gots to EAT. So baby heads Eastwardly along the parkway, hummin' along with The American Dream.
At some point it becomes evident that I am sufficiently Breakfast-Deprived that I am having a spontaneous Arthur-Lee-Related hallucination, which I snapped a picture of JUST IN CASE it wasn't in fact an hallucination. Turns out it wasn't, and I will now share said picture with y'all:
 As it turns out, all the fountains in the city had been dyed Pepto-Pinko in honor of the AIDS walk. And it was only later that I found out that the "Love" logo sculpture was the permanent centerpiece of this particular park, which is called (duh) "Love Park." Well, not on THIS day. On this day it was called "Friggin' Skateboard Punks Who Will Not, No Matter How Nicely You Ask, Stay The F*ck Out Of The Way Long Enough For You To Take A Goddamned Picture" Park. I managed to work around this, as you see, but it did take some time. Precious time, and BABY STILL AIN'T HAD NO BREAKFAST. So I continued Eastward, and eventually realized that I had been walking for roughly half an hour and was more than halfway to the Historic District. Well, heck, I had been planning to go there at some point anyway. So I trudged onward, with Independence Hall as my goal. I snapped a few more pictures of the environs. Finally, Independence Hall, and our friend "Barry." And then, lo and behold -- there on the East side of the quad in front of the hall, what do I come across but a whoppingly large sit-down breakfast buffet establishment -- where they charge you literally by the pound. This will do fine. I loaded my styrofoam tray to the gills with all manner of lovely stuff, sat down in front of the window, and ate cheerfully -- as the American Dream screeched away in my ear-buds. Nice. With a lovely view of the quad, Independence Hall, and all the attendant Sunday Morning revelers. It was an easy trudge back to the hotel. I had had in mind to try and locate the venue, but I had forgotten to bring the address with me. No matter. Plenty of time for that later. As I got near the hotel, the sound of a blues band began to assert itself underneath my ear-buds -- turns out that, in addition to the AIDS Walk, there was some further festivity going on in front of the museum. I wandered past the hotel to get a look, and suddenly it's The Shock Of Recognition: oh, yeah, these marble steps are the "Rocky" steps. And sure enough, here's a couple of nimrods bounding up and down the steps in front of a couple of thousand people, with no shame at all, "flying now." Yeah. I don't imagine this happens much more often than, say, four idiot tourists sauntering across Abbey Road in that famous crosswalk in front of EMI. As soon as this part of the show was over, I turned around and headed back hotel-ward, just a couple of blocks. And as I'm about to turn toward the hotel, it's The Shock Of Recognition again, but this time it's a better movie: Chapple. So we walked back in together. Pete The Sound Guy, my roommate, has an interesting slumber pattern. He goes to sleep in the middle of the night in October and wakes up sometime in June or July, it would seem, and yet he's never late for anything. I dunno how he does that. Suffice to say that at the end of my VERY long on-foot adventure, he was still asleep. This after I had risen none too early, showered, let my Mane dry down in the lobby (this takes almost an hour) walked halfway to France and back, and watched the Surrealster Stallone twins hop up and down the marble stairs. It also transpires that Pete showers for roughly as long as he sleeps. By the time he was through in there, every fountain in Philadelphia was just an inch-thick layer of pink mud. I think the Delaware River had to be diverted through the city to get the municipal water supply back up to snuff. Yes, I'm sure of it. I think. My mind's a blank regarding the next hour or two, so it couldn't have been so very important. Late in the afternoon, we took the gear over to The Trocadero. What a gorgeous place. About 150+ years old, I'll guess, and obviously a converted opera house with the seats taken out. I set up most of the equipment and then went back to the hotel to get the band and the Orchestra Folks, most of whom I still hadn't actually met or really spoken to at any length. Ana, the Cello Goddess, sat up front with me. She innocently asked if I was from Philadelphia. Well, no harm done, really. By now it was starting to get dark out, and as I pulled the van into the narrow alley behind the venue, there was a shadowy figure waiting by the door, furtively clutching some 13" square items. Gee, what could HE want? He would not go away and was eagerly scrutinizing each occupant as they rolled out of the van. Finally he came over to me, wild-eyed, and pointed at Rusty and demanded to know if that was Arthur Lee. Yeah, sure, that's him. 20 or 30 years ago. And we're back inside the venerable Trocadero. Gorgeous carved-wood balcony. And full to the gills with the kind of ghosts, ambience, and smells that a theatre of that age has. I loved it. It compensated (partially) for the slimy Dinner-Voucher concept they have there. They give you a ticket with "discount coupons" for a couple of neighborhood places of their choosing. Me, I didn't get to eat. I didn't have enough time for a sit-down, and there was only one non-sit-down place on the ticket -- a pizza/sandwich place -- and after I walked the four blocks to its FORMER location, I found that it no longer existed. Rock and roll. I wasn't gonna have time to sit down and eat the way the orchestra ladies did, so I just went up to the dressing room and made a Rider Sandwich. ...Annnnnnnnnnd SHOWTIME. I chose a perch behind Randle and slightly offstage. My mandate is to grab Arthur's guitar and re-tune it every time he puts it down. Easy enough. Plus, I guess, catch anyone that falls over. You know. Quickly, a problem. Arthur is using a borrowed guitar strap that someone at the venue was nice enough to hand me, and the bastard won't stay on. The way he moves around, he keeps popping it off. I have to run out onstage several times and effect a guitar-and-strap reunion in mid-song -- certainly not a real comfortable event for anyone, least of all me. Oh well. At least I get Arthur's patented little "Thank You Sir" each time. Mid-set, a surprise: a new song. It's called "Rainbow In The Storm" and it's a cunning little pastiche of Forever Changes-influenced snippets. Nice. Things like this so very rarely actually work, and this one does. It even has a little voice-and-guitar "Ba da da da da da da da" thing in the middle, lifted straight out of Clark And Hilldale. The audience likes it too. So the show ends without much incident. And that's where the fun starts. The band and orchestra repair to the upstairs dressing rooms, and of course a handful of fans are milling about at the front of the stage, looking for Arthur to come out and sign something for them or Dispense Some Cosmic Wisdom That Will Alter Their Lives For The Better, you know. At least, that's who MOST of them are waiting for. I'll quote Mr. Randle from one of his diary entries: Then this one guy separates from the pack and makes his request known at the top of his lungs: "THROW THE CELLO PLAYER DOWN!" Rusty and I were practically in tears laughing our asses off! Well....being the cheeky f*cker I am, I go and get Ana, our Cello player... Unbeknownst to Randle, this is actually the END of the story. The story in fact starts out IN the house, after most of the audience had left, and Pete and I were packing up the equipment. Two of these boneheads were jammed up against the stage yelling for "Cello Lady! Cello Lady!" They got pretty annoying, and at one point even demanded of me that I go back and get "Cello Lady" and bring her to them. On a plate, I guess. Finally I said, "I think she's a couple of ticks out of your league, fellas." Which, frankly, I would also have said had they been asking me to bring them Joan Rivers, they were that hopeless-looking. This did not please them. "No! We do not want to talk to you! We want to talk to CELLO LADY!" [Lest you misunderstand -- I'm not some xenophobe dirtbag making fun of someone's accent here. These were Reg'lar Ole AmURCAN Douchebags, who were obviously under the impression that Bellowing In A Funny Voice Is A Good Way To Get Laid.] Clue number 687: It is NOT. And hell, I oughtta know. At that moment, Viola Goddess Heather came down the very long staircase, still wearing her stage outfit -- the key syllable there being, of course, "out" rather than "fit" -- to search for some lost item or other, and my two New Best Friends started bellowing "VIOLIN LADY! VIOLIN LADY! WE WANT YOU!" Clue number 688: when you're trying to impress a girl, don't call her by the wrong instrument. The subtext here (which is really insulting!) is that, after they were thwarted in their quest for their first choice (Ana) they were obviously willing to "settle" for Heather (or, I guess, whomever walked out next.) F*ckheads. I was folding up cymbal stands while all this was taking place (and Heather, by the way, was NOT particularly amused) and my Macho Douchebag Older Brother Instinct started welling up inside me, and I had a good mind to pierce his f*cking skull with the javelin-like implement I was holding. I passed, though. No point in getting arrested the FIRST night! Anyway, so, yeah. Randle was not aware of the genesis of this series of events, and Your Writer was not aware of the way it ENDED -- with the retreat of our two friends to the back alley and the bellowed demands for Randle to throw a highly-refined Living Organism out of a second floor window. A Living Organism who, had she survived, would surely have beat them both to jelly. Sweetly. I had vaguely heard the yelling and the laughter, but had missed the gist of what was being said. Apparently the Ringleader (yes, there is always one of these) had identified himself loudly as "Bruce The Lover Dot Com." No, don't bother looking -- Paula checked on that later. He was no more a Dot Com than he was a Lover, it would seem. Well, enough about him, he doesn't rate this many pixels. Now back to the important stuff: ME, and my painful efforts to pack up the damn stage and get My Babies outta here. I had a rougher-than-usual time wrestling the rental equipment back into its cases. The first try is often difficult -- what with sprung springs and bent latches and so forth, and this time was no exception. The Troc (gorgeous ancient theater, as discussed previously) has a stage which is actually a raised platform with floor-level walkways around its sides and back, and a long stairway at the back of stage left (clearly visible from the audience) that goes from the floor all the way up to the dressing room door (also clearly visible from the audience.) This lets the artiste make a very dramatic entrance if he/she so chooses. But it also means that -- after the show ends -- when the band and orchestra disappear, they REALLY disappear. And whomever is left out onstage packing up the gear (hi, pleased to meetcha) is pretty much on his own. Given that, and the fact that I was distracted constantly by a couple of dozen Audience Types who either wanted to meet Arthur or penetrate one of the orchestra members (or both, how the hell do I know?) it took longer than it should have for me to wrangle the Amp Dogies back into the corral, as it were. I didn't wanna be rude to (most of) The Audience Types, with the single exception of Bruce The Lover and his equally annoying friend. Glassy-eyed Arthacolytes kept coming up to me and asking when he was going to come out and waft some words of wisdom down on their heads or something. Well, he wasn't, of course, but you never know. So I just told them to stay put. But they kept talking and I kept trying to work. My own personal Double Helix lacks the gene that would enable me to say "Piss off, you nitwit, can't you see I'm trying to work here? Can't you see that by the time I get upstairs there will be NO BEER?" I do, however, have plenty of the genes that let me THINK that. Which was no help, of course. Finally Daddy-O came down the stairs and asked "How's it goin', Mike?" -- which, for those of you who've never done Backline Tech before, is a friendly query which translates roughly to "What the f**k is taking you so long, douchebag?" So I redoubled my efforts with the prodigal hinges and clasps, but I wasn't getting much done. I think the entire ordeal was only about half an hour but it seemed like an eon. This is all very fascinating, isn't it? A few minutes later, Daddy-O came back down the stairs and said "Everything okay, Mike?" -- which, you've guessed by now, translates to "ARE YOU CRIPPLED OR JUST AN IDIOT???" But I was done shortly thereafter, and we piled all the stuff into the two vans ("stuff", of course, is a designation that includes eleven musicians) and made it safely back to the hotel. Most of us sat in Paula's room and decompressed for a while, and then a few of 'em went up to the roof to take pictures or do whatever it is you do on a roof. Either I was too tired or I was afraid Paula's Satanic Stuffed Bear might try and toss me over the side, I dunno. I just went back to my room. Oh yeah -- Paula has a Satanic Stuffed Bear. I suppose that owes an explanation but it'll keep. The next morning everyone was still alive so I guess it turned out okay. I briefly contemplated trekking all the way over to buffet-land again, or even taking the van to somewhere nearby there; but in the end I elected to spare my feet. I just went across the street to the conveniently-located Wawa store and got something-or-other -- one of those pre-wrapped sandwiches, I think. Yes. Then I went around the corner and gassed up the van -- holy jumping spittoons, those things hold a lot of gas -- and came back to the hotel to pick up My Babies. Gene (The Red Telephone) had a minivan that carried Arthur, Arthur's man Leon, a bunch of cargo, and one or two band members depending on whim. Pete would drive the cargo van with one other band member, chosen on the fly. That left me with the passenger van, one or two band members, and the entire orchestra. I'm absolutely awful with names and faces, but these are the kind of folks you get to know very quickly. They're all very nice and they're all absolutely nuts, each in his/her own unique way, and that makes it easy to tell 'em apart. And it's off we go, through Maryland, without incident. Mainly. Though I should note, with only the deepest affection, that one of the ladies (whose three-letter palindromic name I will not repeat here -- NO -- don't ask me -- I will not) apparently has a bladder the size of a neutrino.
...or something |
Here's an interesting little brain-f*** story: the cover of the LP shows the band clustered around a statue in front of what I had always assumed was Independence Hall. Except when we got there, on our first trip to Philly in the aforementioned early 90s, it didn't look right. I for some reason remembered the statue's pedestal saying "JURY." So we were looking for some kind of courthouse or something. Wasn't till we got home and looked at the cover again that it became clear that Mr. Jameson is covering all the letters except "...RY." The pedestal actually says "BARRY" and it's right in back of Independence Hall. The building looked different in person, and the tower was obscured in the picture by the statue, and the camera angle makes the building look closer than it is. So there we are, standing right in front of this statue, and Wendy (who's only seen the picture once and doesn't remember it) says, "Are you sure it didn't say 'Barry?'"
MIKE RANDLE -- always with us, in the van. He's a pure shot of sunshine, and the only person on the tour with sillier hair than mine. He can't spell to save his spleen, but when you can play guitar like him, you don't have to. Other people will follow you around and spell for you.
RUSTY SQUEEZEBOX -- Why the silly nicknames, I thought, when I first met these guys. One reason: three of them all have the same name. Darn good reason it is, too. These poor folks had a terrible time remembering to say "Randle" and "Mike F" all week. Anyway, Rusty plays a lovely Rickenbacker and sings most of the background vocals, helpfully nudging Arthur back into the correct lyrics when necessary. Rusty seems, to me, to be the lynchpin that holds this whole thing together on stage. Of course, he could just be pulling a Robbie Robertson and making it LOOK that way. How can you know these things?
DAVE CHAPPLE -- never, in my memory, has anyone under six feet tall (and considerably so) looked so good wielding one of those impossibly long Fender basses. Even THIS Fender bass, which has half the skin worn off of it. Dave is very easygoing and speaks in a measured laconic drawl -- until some Evil Relay snaps shut in his brainpan. You can actually see this take place. There's a snapping sound and the smell of ozone, and a spark behind each eye. Momentarily, rest assured, there will be A Show, and no one will be seated after it begins. The Show might be a monologue worthy of Lord Buckley or Irwin Corey -- or it might be something slightly more physical, resembling a high-wire walker with St. Vitus Dance, or it might just be a series of yelps and grunts. On at least one occasion, it was all three of these. I found out quickly that there is actually a clinical term for these interludes. As soon as the aforementioned relay snaps, someone will call out (to warn whatever others might be in the area) "It's Chapple Time."
DAN CLUCAS -- trumpet and flute. Imposing demeanor but friendly-looking. Only removes his gray wool cap during the shows (if then.) Does not listen to any music except free jazz, of which he carries a generous supply everywhere he goes. Sadly, he left the entire supply somewhere in New York and now it's been funnelled and channeled through the CSN (no, not the Crosby Stills and Nash, the Crackhead Shopping Network) and probably been turned over four or six times by now.
PROBYN GREGORY -- Okay, stop right there. Why even tell you what he plays? There was no need to have a Coolest Name On The Tour contest. "Leon Porter?" Nope. Blown right out of the water. Probyn Gregory.
ANA VALE-LENCHANTIN -- cellist. From Argentina but thoroughly Californitized. Every morning she makes some sort of fiercely ethnic tea, from scratch, and I'm sure it tastes way better than it looks. As for Ana herself, I didn't taste her but she looks just fine. A big smile and a throaty laugh, and claims to have a boyfriend back home who looks like Vin Diesel. I'm not attaching any particular value to these factoids, it's just that they're all I've got. Oh, but here's one you can actually sink your teeth into: you can hear Ana sawing away on the Melissa auf der Maur solo album.
HEATHER LOCKIE -- viola. Funny as hell, and gorgeous in a somehow Deliberately Just-Left-Of-Center sort of way -- I'm sure she'll take that as an insult, but it isn't one. Heather is apparently on a constant quest for yogurt. And she was the first Californian that I caught over-dressing. Don't these people have blood? I first noticed this when Wendy and I went to visit friends in San Francisco a couple of years ago, in April -- it was about 68 degrees and humid, just gorgeous, and here were all our friends dressed like Siberian Refugees. Anyway, the morning after we arrived in Philadelphia, as I was heading downstairs In T-shirt and Members Only jacket (I'm waging a one-man crusade to make those cool again. Oh, that's right, I mean "to make those cool for the FIRST time") here comes Heather, wearing a winter coat and a matching deep red wool hat and scarf -- a scarf that, were it made of different material, could just as easily have been called a tarpaulin. I said nothing but I found out later that she had busted my barely-concealed smirk.
CARRIE BARTSCH -- violin. In every bunch of women there's a Tall Cool Beautiful Ghostly One, and that's Carrie. She plays with a fierce, head-snapping intensity. Apparently she's a marathon-running champion, and she went out each morning on what would be a gruelling run for most of the rest of us. This rendered unexpected benefits in Virginia; more on that later. But I will speak now of a scenario at the venue in Alexandria, wherein I walked innocently into the backstage area after setting up the stage, only to find the room empty except for Carrie -- who was on the floor engaging in a stretching-exercise so fluidly torrid that I couldn't hold the camera still enough to capture it on film. Your loss.
PAULA YOO -- violin. Here's a lovely and interesting lady. You've seen her name rolling by in the credits if you've ever had your TV turned on for any reason other than to play Pancreas Harvester 2010, or whatever your game of choice is. As I've said elsewhere, Paula trails behind her a veritable arsenal of electronic devices which glow, hum, throb, and crackle. She is constantly on the phone to unnamed folks back in L.A., asking them worriedly if she's been Drummed Out Of Show Business since the moment she left for the airport. Her parents and brother came to see the show in Boston and looked very proud. She had mentioned, earlier, that her father -- when he found out about the tour -- had asked sternly "Will there be other girls on the tour??" Paula is 34 years old. Time to let the leash out a bit, you Yoo you.
JULIE CARPENTER -- About whom, the less I say, the smarter I'll look. I never quite got a bead on Julie Carpenter, even after a long dinner with her and Heather. Here's as much as I know. She's from Texas.
 Dan sleeps in his clothes. There's no real significance to that, I don't think, it's just a good way to start a new section. Isn't it? I woke up the next morning (I had been rooming with Pete prior to this, but in Virginia I was assigned to Dan) and this was, indeed, the first thing I noticed. You don't need to form a mental picture or anything, it just was what it was. I elected to go take a shower. Without my clothes. You definitely don't need a mental picture of that either. What do you think this is exactly?? Alright, so anyway. I'm outside now, (WITH clothes, thanks) and it's a lovely morning, and I'm drying my tresses in the breeze. Gene appears. He had gone to the venue the night before, with Arthur and Leon, while we were all playing tourist. He had found that there were ample and comfortable dressing room facilities, with plenty of space and even a shower. At that point he decided that we'd just leave the motel in the late AM and go straight to the venue and stay there all day, saving the cost of a day-room at the motel and the hassle of getting back and forth. He had gone out early for breakfast, to a diner which he recommended to the rest of us upon his return. We all piled into the big white van and I drove off in the direction he had specified. He had said it was "just around the corner" -- but although we were definitely on the road he spoke of, we went for quite a ways and were now back in a residential area. Grrrr. I turned around. Carrie, of course, had gotten up earlier and gone on a pleasant little 58-mile sprint, or something, and mentioned a little shopper's-paradise sort of street set in an incongruous area behind an industrial park not far from Hooker Hotel, so we headed off in that direction. And what do you know. Just as she said -- it's like you took a bustling upscale-suburban village's three-block "center of town" and picked it up and stuck it smack in the middle of nothing. There were several places to eat, most of them with additional sidewalk seating. Yes please. In an unusual display of solidarity, we all went to one place. Funny, isn't it, how they were NOT expecting a Gang Of Twelve at 10AM on a Tuesday morning, huh? Anyway, we were about halfway through having our orders taken when the waitress -- a very tired-looking lady who looked like she'd seen way too many menus and dishes -- asked who we were and what we were all doing converging upon her sleepy little gig en masse. Rusty said we were a band that was playing in town that night. Suddenly she got all wide-eyed and said, in a dark little whisper, "Oh! Oh my -- this is Arthur Lee and Luuuuuuuuuuuve!" Rusty smiled and concurred. She then asked which one was Arthur. I was gonna nominate Rusty again. After all, it had worked in Philadelphia. I guess he DOES look more like Arthur than, say, Paula does, but what do I know? But this waitress seemed too nice to f**k with, and it was very plain that the presence of Arthur Lee's band at her cafe had just lifted her momentarily out of a world she was tired of being in. This resonates with me FOR SOME REASON. She started talking a mile-a-minute about how she had really wanted to go to the show but she had to work. I crooked my index finger in a "c'mere" gesture, and when she got close enough I felt her forehead and said "I can feel a fever coming on. I think you'll have to go home early." Upon which, Rusty told her he'd leave her name at the door. Nice gesture, and you could tell it meant the whole world to her. "Oh -- really?? Oh my God, thANKew!!!" Glad I got to see that. Well, this is ONE way to get good service, huh? The food was uncommonly good for such a place, and it sure did come out quickly. She must have gone back there and pounded the cook over the head a few times. A couple of our mob went across the street to a strategically-placed bookstore, and then we went back to Trollop Towers to check out. And then onward to The Birchmere. Strange location....at the end of a long driveway off of a main road, and it shares its parking lot with a pre-school. You can see how confused Probyn appears at the concept.
Setup was kind of problematic -- the stage is not so very large -- but there was ample space to stow all the empty cases and such and (as mentioned earlier) a huuuuge backstage area. I dunno if anyone used the shower or not. All that was fixed in my mind with laser-precision were the following two tidbits: 1) Immediately after the show I am driving to Newark. MapQuest says that this is 3 1/2 hours. Yeah, and perhaps you can make an omelette out of six dogs and a dreidel. 2) After the post-show difficulties in Philadelphia, I am resolved that this stage is going to be packed up faster than if it were done by Thor and The Flash with the aid of half an ounce of crystal. Well, I don't want to waste time surveying the backstage area until all the amps, drums and guitars are set up. But I have to pee, you see. And that is when I see the Birchmere's idea of "catering." See, normally backstage you can expect a pitifully small plate of coldcuts, some rolls, and some soda and tea and water and maybe some chips. The Birchmere has a full refrigerator and an ENTIRE SALMON which has been gutted, decoratively serrated (I do hope they killed the poor f**ker first) sliced, smoked, and re-stuffed.  Again, we are using Probyn as a Reaction Barometer. He is very handy to have around. Well, I'm not one for salmon, and even less so when it STILL HAS EYES, and besides I have work to do. Finally, with some help from the friendly locals, we got the stage set up in a satisfactory manner. I'll repeat this: you might think you have a pretty good idea how much space a cello takes up, but -- trust me -- you don't. This goes for a cello in the case as well as it goes for a cello with a cellist wrapped around it. But eventually we prevail. Meanwhile, what has transpired backstage? Well, first of all, several e-mail-starved band and orchestra members finally have their first taste of a free and available telephone jack, so Paula's laptop suddenly becomes really popular. In fact, it was hissing and crackling under the strain of overuse by thirteen e-mail-starved travelers. So me, I limited my usage of same to the simple examination of my e-mail inbox (three days away from home -- total number of incomings: 142!!) and I just sat there absent-mindedly clicking "delete"..... "delete"..... "delete"..... "delete" on all of the helpful advertisements promising to add two inches to me. Hell, if I had answered all of them, I'd probably be able to reach my wife with it all the way from DC -- but, you see, there was no time. Also, the restaurant manager has appeared backstage with the Birchmere's regular menu, and informed the ensemble that each of them can order anything they like therefrom. I missed this and had to order on the fly, but I ended up with a very lovely and very huge sandwich, the contents of which I can't recall. Then, the supreme should-be-good-news-but-ain't of the evening: The Birchmere hosts its own microbrewery, and Mr. Restaurant Manager Man is real proud of his five different concoctions. So proud that he brings us a FULL PITCHER OF EACH. And who, if you recall, has to bust down the stage, hop into a van and drive for half the night right after the show? I'll give you a hint if you've forgotten: he looks a lot like me. In fact, he looks exactly like me, lucky bastard. But not feeling so lucky right now, as there is HALF AN OCEAN'S WORTH OF EXCELLENT ALES AND LAGERS ON THE TABLE AND I, IF I'M SMART, CAN'T HAVE ANY. Well, I decide to compromise, and I had just had a big meal and it's early anyway. So I have a taste of each of the five -- the equivalent of a shot of each, or half a pint of one. And I stuck to the Diet Coke for the rest of the evening. But ooooooh those beers were wonderful. Oh well! Finally, time for my favorite part of the day, sound check. The part where I get to pretend to be Arthur. Except today Gene has gone to purchase a new guitar strap for Arthur, with Strap-Locks this time, so that his SG won't keep falling off him like it did in Philly. Arthur has a strange relationship with his guitar onstage. First of all, when he plays he tends to yank backwards on the neck, which keeps pulling it out of tune (which is why I'm there.) Second, the way he moves tends to disengage his strap much more often than would happen to most players. So the strap-locks are a must. Thing is, they need to be "installed." On these new, lesser-expensive ones, which I've never seen before, this involves burrowing a much larger hole into the leather strap than the one that's already there. No problem, except there's NO TIME. So, then, picture me if you can. I'm standing at the mic, under full stage lighting, singing Bryan Maclean's "Old Man," with a guitar strap in one hand and Chapple's swiss army knife in the other, trying to sing while simultaneously chewing a hole in a thick leather strap with a very sharp knife and NOT slicing off my thumb in the process. I responded to the challenge much as you might expect: "Dear old man No. I'm not making this up. I have witnesses. Luckily I came out of this with all ten fingers intact. And just in time to deal with another problem -- the stage is small but it's DEEP. Chapple's amplifier is way back behind him and the two cords leading to it have to be secured so Arthur doesn't take a header over 'em mid-show. Have Gaffer's Tape, will travel, and I secured the cords. This becomes important later, I promise. The opening band were The Pleased, from San Francisco. Thanks to our problems wrestling the stage into shape, they did not get a sound check. When you're the opening act on the bill you have to pretty much be prepared for that eventuality. Shame, but there you go. They received this news with good humor. I thought, upon hearing them, that they were an odd choice for this bill and wouldn't go over so well with Arthur's audience, but they were received respectfully and graciously if nothing else. That's always nice to see, and it sure doesn't happen very often. Two examples: in 2001 at the Village Underground, in NYC, we had four nights with Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone of The Zombies -- and they insisted on going onstage no later than 9PM. Well, okay -- but that meant that out of the four "opening" acts, three of 'em were gonna go on AFTER the headliner. Fine, not a problem. But Cod and Rollin (sorry, couldn't resist that one) finished their set on the second night and one of the other bands -- a very well-respected critical-darlings band from Detroit -- went onstage and literally just about emptied the place. People were actually streaming for the exits! And the poor guys in the Mooney Suzuki -- who were due to go on after them -- were literally standing at the exits begging people not to leave. The venue manager and the bar manager were in a complete and utter panic, watching roughly half their expected take for the evening galloping up the stairs, ready to claw their way out if they had to, just to get away from [name of band here] and into the fresh air. Oh well, you live, you learn, right? Well, not so fast. The fourth show (Sunday) is to be a special "sit-down" show, wherein the venue's usual (and typical) sardine-can motif is to be replaced by tables and chairs, cutting the venue's capacity by more than half. Plainly, this is the show that the Old People will attend. And that night it's to be only TWO bands: Cod and Rollin, and -- you guessed it -- [name of band here.] The promoters had a very hasty little confab (for which I was present) and elected to pay them to go home, NOW, RIGHT NOW, and do not stop for anyone or anything. And the fledgling Datsons, from Montreal, who had opened the Thursday night show, were tapped to play in their place. They're called the High Dials now, and they're quite excellent. Very mod-sort-of early Who sound. They had to change their name when the New Zealand Datsuns (with a "u") started making a name for themselves. Anyway, irony of ironies, the sit-down Sunday balding-guys-with-ponytails crowd didn't care much for the Datsons either. Stony silence. Screw 'em, they didn't know how lucky they were. If they had had to sit through [name of band here] they would REALLY have been upset. [Name of band here] would NOT have been their cup of tea at all. Anyway, back to the present, and to the Birchmere. This show was going to be a bit different for me -- the stage is a flat platform, up against the long wall, and it's in the middle of the room. There are no wings. So my perch is, essentially, completely visible to just about the whole audience. Well, heck, let 'em look if they want to. Arthur put on a great show, as usual (there apparently have been a few not-so-stellar ones and even a couple of disasters, but surely none that I've seen) and every time I handed him his guitar after re-tuning it, he responded with a "Thank you sir." And everything is going just fine till one of Chapple's cords fails him, and as he's pulling up the tape he flashes me a thoroughly pissed-off dirty look. Oh well! You wanted 'em taped down.... Well, I laugh that off. And it turns out later that he just HAPPENED to have been looking at me, by accident, when he made that face. Well, that's what he said and I believe him. Good show, and again the new song "Rainbow In The Storm" went over big. I love the song. What a relief. Arthur was very gracious with the audience afterwards, signing things and such, and as we were packing up I saw our breakfast waitress talking to Rusty. So she made it after all. Well, the breakdown and load-out went much more quickly this time, and we hopped in our various conveyances and headed off towards Newark. Yeah, three and a half hours my spleen. I had figured it would be more like five. I was not looking forward to it, but at least I'd have a van full of nice folks and only about half of them would be asleep at any given point in time. We agreed that Pete would lead in the cargo van, I'd follow, and Gene would bring up the rear. Arthur and Leon weren't gong to Newark, they'd be flying directly to Boston. Well, our route took us along a significant stretch of local roads, and whaddaya know? Suddenly it's the age-old dilemma: GWB. No, not George Washington Bridge. Girls With Bladders. It wasn't long at all before at least two of our human cargo needed to shed some fluids. So someone phoned Pete and explained, and we all pulled into a gas station, which of course had no restrooms. And it's kinda late at night, and the odds of finding a restroom looked slight. Well, we're a refined bunch of folks, so none of us guys dares suggest out loud the solution that would occur to US should one of US need to shed some fluids on a dark road in the middle of the night. One of the girls reaches this epiphany on her own. So we pull over, near a wooded area, and two of the girls get out and run into the woods. We're all having a good laugh over this, of course, until only one of them comes back. Oh fine, now I'm in a teenage slasher film. ("Hey, I've got an idea, kids! Let's all split up!") But finally a third girl runs into the woods and brings back the straggler, and that's all I'm gonna say about any of that. (Actually, chivalry isn't dead -- but chivalry, in this case, cannot REMEMBER at this late date which two girls had to perform the ignominous Urea Squat dance in the woods, or I would surely tell you -- that's just the sort of guy I am...) So anyway, now we're on the highway, and I've got the Left Banke blaring. None of them has, apparently, ever heard any of these songs except the obvious two or three, and they love it. So they stay awake. About midway through the night somebody -- Randle, I think -- mentioned my fake Moby Grape tape that I had made a few years earlier. Well, it's right here on the iPod, so I put it on. Probyn busted it right away. He knew it wasn't the original record, but he didn't know what it was. We made only one stop (for those of us who managed to make it past the woods) during the whole trip, as I recall, and it was (of course) the only one of these stops we ever made in the middle of the night. About 3:15 AM, I'll guess, and I only mention it because: I don't care if you've been in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, I don't care if you've floated on a raft in the middle of the ocean. You have NOT experienced the truest, deepest Blank Nadir Of The Human Spirit till you've visited a highway rest stop in the middle of the night. Brrrr. Well, we finally got all the way to the Newark Airport area, and then -- could you have guessed this, d'ya think? -- Pete got us lost. It was about 4:30 AM and them folks is gettin' right cranky. Me too. We went around in a circle for awhile and finally pulled into -- the wrong hotel. Yay! Pete was beside himself and ended up making a wrong turn again. My California passengers were vocally laying the blame on my own home state's less-than-magnificent highway system, but just for a change the NJ highway signs were NOT to blame. I took the lead and had Paula call the hotel. She got good directions but didn't understand them -- the concept of a highway called "One And Nine" did not register with her. I told her I knew what it meant, and eventually we got there. And I'm thinking, yes, THIS is what my new Californian friends are seeing of New Jersey. We took that famous route up the Turnpike (which is quite lovely till you start getting near the airport) and past the eerie glow of the lights at the horrid-looking refineries and such. A glow which performs the singular feat of managing to be both yellow-orange AND gun-metal gray. And finally, now that they've reinforced their opinion of What Jersey Looks Like by feasting their avocado-steeped eyes on all that, we come to our even uglier destination: an ugly building at the end of an ugly, forbidding driveway in an ugly industrial park in an ugly gray pre-dawn hour in an ugly mood just outside an ugly airport. Ah, well. Next time I'm bringing them all home with me.  There, now, that's better, isn't it? And once we got inside the hotel -- well, it figures. It's almost 5AM, we have to be awake by 9, and of course for a change we're in a place with wonderful, huuuuuuge rooms which we will not be able to enjoy ONE minute of. Whee.......... "Leeeeeee's Come To Boston, |
Plenty of room along the side, and lots of space to put the vans. That's a nice change. And several very helpful employees who assist with the load-in without being asked. Inside: well, looky-here. It's a dinner theater! Not a bar-with-tables-and-hey-we-can-also-serve-food-if-we-want-can't-we? But a real honest-to-goodness long-row-tables Dinner Theater. Doesn't seem the kind of place where Arthur's fans would normally be found -- and when I look at all the lovingly-displayed posters of shows past, I'm even more convinced this is so. I'm surprised we're even allowed IN this place without a brand-new Music Man bass with the tag still on it, seven acoustic guitars, two mandolins and some Big Stupid Cowboy Hats. Getting the picture yet? But, I'm just being a smartass. The people were all really nice and really helpful and therefore -- once again -- what do *I* know?
  When I really really REALLY have to wake up at a particular time, and that particular time is three or four hours after I went to sleep, I've developed a procedure that is positively foolproof but does NOT require the participation of a second human and a bucket of ice water. See, first of all, I want to actually LIVE through the event -- and second, the bucket-of-ice-water method is a self-defeating thing in that it requires that the other person already be awake. This is a lot simpler. It assumes you have a clock radio, but that's easy enough. I used to sell these things, and similar devices, for a living. People would constantly complain that the alarms weren't loud enough. So use the radio instead and turn it way up, I'd suggest helpfully. "Oh, no, no, that son of mine, he can sleep through anything." And I'd grit my teeth and ponder offering out loud, "Gimme fifty bucks and I'll come to your house and smack the little douchebag over the head with a manhole cover at whatever hour you specify." Instead I would tune the radio slightly off-frequency and then turn it all the way up. This, dammit, WORKS. You can bring dead girls back to life this way. It came in real handy back in college, more than once in fact. But never mind that. Anyway, there are probably still a Mike-Shaped Hole and a Pete-Shaped Hole in the ceiling of the lovely Days Inn near friendly Newark Airport. But we're AWAKE. This whole trip has been kinda loose on details. One of the consistently loose details is: how do we get to the next place we're going to? Well, we're about to leave and nobody has hammered down this particular little folded-up edge. Paula and all her humming, throbbing electronic devices are in the room next door (our wall was glowing all night, that's how I know) and so I went and stuck my ear against her door like some sort of degenerate listening for an imagined pillow fight. Heard voices, so I knocked. Yes, Paula would be happy to raid MapQuest for the answer to this little conundrum. No time for an Actual Breakfast Experience of any magnitude, but the hotel has one of those little courtesy breakfast rooms where you can get coffee and juice and cereal and other stuff nobody has to cook. So we all piled in there. Shortly thereafter, we're off and headed for Boston. This particular trip up I-95 will take us over the George Washington Bridge and through the Bronx before it veers north again through Westchester and into Connecticut. It hasn't occurred to me that there are some folks on board who have never seen the New York skyline, so I forget to point it out and all Dan knows is There's Some City Or Other off to our right. Oh well. Paula, apparently, is from Connecticut. She was sitting up front and pointing out invisible landmarks -- but that's fine, it makes the trip more interesting. At one point she gestured and said "Yale." It might as well have been Xanadu or Mrs. Falbo's Tinytown for all we knew. We stopped at two more highway rest-areas en route, and this is where I learned a heretofore unknown axiom of Interstate Highway travel: Heather Always Wants Yogurt And Can Never Find Any. Just in case that ever comes up when you're driving, understand. If you're tooling along an Interstate Highway and you're going to feel a Pressing Jones for yogurt, well, be advised. Fairly uneventful trip other than that, and it didn't take as long as it might have. We made it there in the late afternoon and went straight towards the venue. I can't speak for everybody, but I myself was in fairly good shape for someone who had spent ten of the last sixteen hours driving when he should have been sleeping for at least half. So anyway, we're at a place called The Paradise. It's a very gray New England afternoon in October, and there's a persistent misty precip that's been plaguing me all day. Christ, either RAIN or DON'T. Well, I'm not in charge of the weather anymore, okay? I just wanna get this van parked and get these poor cranky people inside the place. But first, of course, Gene gets us lost again -- and I have to make a K-turn in the middle of a very narrow side-street, on a steep hill, in this big white behemoth of a vehicle. Okay, fine. Finally, there's the Paradise. And in order to get there, all you have to do is drive across some trolley tracks in the middle of the street -- tracks which bear actual trains without any actual gates or actual flashing signals. You wanna turn left across the tracks, pally? Fine. Just watch for the train behind you, which you can't really see on account of the big fence on either side of the tracks, and best of luck. Well, no problem. Made it. And some helpful soul who works at The Paradise has coned-off two parking spaces in front of the venue, by meters. We park. We are told that we'll have to feed the meters till six. WTF?? We're just poor weary travellers, sir, and we have no quarters..... Pete and I conclude that we are better off slinging the vans into an alley behind the venue. The other side of the alley seems to be a school building of some sort. There are several other vehicles parked there. So we stick the vans there, unload, and are promptly told we'll have to move 'em. Any other day, apparently, would be fine. But today there's some sort of Boston Educator's Conference and only educators' vehicles can park there. Important work they do, of course, teaching kids to beat up Jamaicans and ignore the letter "R." So we had no choice but to move the vehicles. Which was not easy, given the size of this alley. Now I have to drive all the way around and through the trolley tracks again. This time, of course, there's a train and I do not see it as early as I would have liked to see it. But, hey, that's why they put brakes in these things. No problem.
This stage isn't so very large either, but it's good enough. The room itself is very interesting. All dark wood, a U-shaped balcony, and a couple of little "sub-balcony" areas tucked up against the stairways on either side. And out by the front door, there's a whole 'nother room that they use concurrently for smaller shows or something. To get to the "actual" room you go through what can only be described as a tunnel. Strange little setup. Sound check was fun, as usual. I finally made good on my threat to strap on Arthur's SG and re-create that twin-guitar solo at the end of "A House Is Not A Motel" with Randle. He loved it. Then it was on to the usual "Alone Again Or" and half of "Old Man" and half of "You Set The Scene" with the orchestra.  There was even time for something new, an impromptu "Que Vida," which the band always tries to get Arthur to play and for some reason he won't. This is why you see Your Boy holding the maracas, which I would not otherwise have touched.
Backstage is pretty tiny, but adequate (as you can see in the accompanying "Arthur's Angels" photograph.) And this is where we spent the rest of the time before the show. No opening act this time. I went out and walked through the various balconies and such, a couple of times. And for the life of me, I cannot remember where, when, or how I ate. There was the usual small pile of coldcuts in the dressing room but I know I didn't have any. Oh well, it's a mystery, but you needn't let it concern you, it's behind us now. Wait. I remember. And now I remember why I didn't remember to remember. There was a McDonald's on the corner, next to In Your Ear, I think. I got something or other in there. I have nothing against fast food, mind you, but I do studiously avoid McDroolies. Just don't like it. Yet here I am in Boston, and hungry. So there you go. I don't remember what I ate, still, but certainly I lived to tell about it, since I'm telling you about it.  You can tell when people have been on the road too long, even when it's only five days. They start grooming each other like bored chimpanzees. Though I do think Heather did a lovely job on Randle's hair, as you see here.
During the show, I think I saw Paula's mom doing the hully-gully on a table-top, but I may have imagined this.
 Anyway, the show. This was the best one yet. Arthur was on fire. He threw in at least three songs that hadn't shown up in the other two sets. And at one point he even stepped off the stage into the audience for half a song. He was having quite a bit of fun, and relating to the audience instead of just telling jokes between songs. Arthur is given to mess with the set list quite a bit -- and as I said, this night was no exception. I inadvertently thwarted him once, though. They finished a song in which Arthur plays guitar, and when the song ended I took the guitar to re-tune it. Having gotten a good chance, finally, to watch him work, I finally realized why his guitar never stays in tune. He has a tendency to yank backwards on the neck while he's playing, and that pulls it all out of whack. So I always made sure he never put it down without my grabbing it and fixing it. Except tonight, while I had the guitar, he decided he wanted to play another song. He turned around and -- no guitar. He looked back, saw me tuning it, grinned, and said to the audience: "Well, uh -- I wanted to play another song for you fine people, but Dude stole my guitar." Dude's sorry, man -- he just wants ya to sound a little bit less like Sonny Sharrock Plays The Harry Partch Songbook, y'know? I managed to get some pictures, something I'd had no time for at the Birchmere. I was even able to slip out into the club and wander back and forth across the audience, so I got shots from both sides. I stayed in the back, though -- just in case I had to jump up there and grab an errant guitar quickly, I didn't want to get stuck out in front of the stage. But the place was so full that, in order to get from one side to the other, I literally ended up having to go up to the balcony and all the way across and back down.  After the show, I realized, I pretty much had to stay with the revelers till a quorum wanted to go back to the motel. Well, not exactly "back" to the motel, since we hadn't actually been there yet. Well, no problem. Everyone wanders into the bar next door, where -- to our surprise --the World Series is still on and into extra innings. So we got to see our team lose AGAIN after missing two wins (the only two) in a row. Grrrrr.
Well, when those girls dance you don't wanna get in the way. It's kind of like being surrounded by chainsaws, or cannibals, or cannibals waving chainsaws. So there was never a dull moment. Chapple had bought me a beer -- he was still feeling slightly remorseful over having given me a dirty look by accident during the Birchmere show -- and I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to protect said beer from Flailing Goddess Limbs, dozens of 'em, or so it seemed. Finally, it's off to the motel. There's some difficulty here. As I walk in, Chapple is besieging the guy at the desk -- a guy who obviously had been expecting a quiet night and was instead being forced to "Do His Job." Apparently Dave wants to move to a different room. Whatever. I go up to the room reserved for Pete and me, and I find -- well, how about that -- ONE bed. Um, this won't do. Pete arrives shortly thereafter and he agrees that this, um, won't do. So we go back down, run into Chapple, and arrange to swap rooms, and we get Uncle Surly to re-program our keys. This, of course, is when we find out why Dave didn't want the room. It smells. Well, there you go, eh? Stinky room or Sleep With A Man. Stinky room it is!
But, after all, he CAN have us tossed out into the street -- or, at least, into the van. So we hush up. One amusing conversational twist: Rusty has never seen an iPod, and is wondering about them, so I go next door and get mine. My Xmas recordings are on there, so sneakily I punch up "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'." He decides he needs an iPod, but he still doesn't know it was me he was listening to. Ha. Well, there's no percentage in trying to sit quietly in a hotel room when half of you are Over-Amped String Goddesses, who are so revved up from dancing that they're practically vibrating audibly. So eventually we all retire. And I wake up with my sinuses burning from the Evil Room Waft. And suddenly Caravan Week is almost over........ A. Lee Glows In Brooklyn
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When we get out front a different Venue Guy is there, and he has coned off two spaces in front of BROKEN meters. Which is what his assistant was supposed to have done in the first place, but didn't. This cost us half an hour -- much of which I spent screaming at poor Pete, who's a very cautious driver. "JUST KEEP BACKING UP SLOWLY, DAMMIT!! YOU'RE IN A BIG RED VAN, THREE TIMES HIS SIZE!!! HE'LL MOVE!!!" Anyway.
After sound check, I wandered outside. Turns out that a semi-legendary used-record store called "In Your Ear" is two doors away from this place. So I went in there and nosed around for a little while, and then back to the Paradise.
At each of the previous shows, various String Goddesses have re-connected with friends in the audience that they hadn't seen in some time. Tonight was the Big Deal, though. Paula's entire family was coming to the show, her parents and her brother. I didn't meet them, but I heard them talking as I was buzzing past, carrying something or other. Nice folks. And any fears we may have had that her dad would throw a pillowcase over her head, bundle her into the back of the car, and spirit her away to protect her from boys -- well, they proved unfounded.
Well, this marked the first evening of the tour during which the String Goddesses got turned loose in a bar with a very loud DJ playing very loud music that they very much liked. (I liked it too, in spite of myself. The guy was playing all stuff from the late 70s/early 80s era -- he even slung on the Psychedelic Furs' "Mr. Jones," always a favorite.)
As per usual, a sizeable cadre of us ends up in Paula's room. The difference tonight is that the String Goddesses have been slamming themselves noisily against walls, floors, and each other for an hour prior to this, and they are still somewhat "amplified." (Also, Julie's apparel has come apart during the earlier violence, creating what they call in showbiz a "Photo Op.") Anyway, it's no more than a few minutes before Uncle Surly comes banging on the door like the DEA, informing us not just to keep the noise down but that we are all Terrible People and we shouldn't be allowed to stay in nice places like his, and our parents must be very ashamed of us, and this is why we lost the Vietnam War, and y'know. Piss off, Uncle Surly. You're the graveyard-shift desk clerk at a motel in the ass-end of Boston. Sheesh.
So off we go. Paula takes the front seat, and all is not right. John Lee Hooker once described her present condition very well, even though he was talking about something completely different. "Because it's in him, and it got to come out." She's in a foul mood, understandably....the kind of foul mood that can only be shed via a prolonged and satisfying bout of Reverse Peristalsis. I'm nervously eyeing my collection of toll receipts, iPod, book, and my small overnight bag -- all of which are well within Technicolor Yawn Range, should such a thing take place.
The band and orchestra left for the hotel with Pete, after being advised to be standing on the sidewalk at 8:30 so I could pick them up and bring them back for the show. This was going to be interesting. I was gonna have to dive off the stage and right into the van.
Well, now I'm pretty much off the hook for keeping the dressing room clear after the show. Our security has already been alerted, and I now don't have to deal with Edgar. So, I can do Arthur and the band a favor, get their stuff cleared off and packed up quickly, shovel them into the white van and get them outta here at a reasonable hour. I think.
(This picture doesn't really belong here, but it will certainly serve as a catalyst for the Proper Dramatic Pause.....)
Well. I have loved writing about this stuff almost as much as I enjoyed the tour. What an amazingly nice bunch of folks were My Babies, and how pleasant a surprise is THAT? The law of averages dictates, especially with professional musicians, that there absolutely MUST have been at least one complete asshole on the tour. But My Babies were and are magnificent people, every one of 'em. So who's the asshole??
