Occupy Wall St: Day of Action

Live Updates (occupywallst.org)

• 8:23 pm: There is now a people’s library, a marching band and a projector on the Brooklyn Bridge, according to @occupywallst people on the ground.

I was supposed to be in that band, or one like it among the many tonight, but I am in Chicago. I never expected that if the Revolution came I’d be stuck inside nursing a wound. Nevertheless, I’m following as well as I can online, whatever it becomes.

More posts coming soon, but there are far more important things to follow on the internet.

Get off your computers and out into the streets!

Four Days of Halloween

I fled New York for warmer weather, a show in Austin, and a reunion with my winter clothes back in Chicago.  This post has been sitting on my netbook, nearly completed, for about a week now. Now it’s 11/11/11 and I’m realizing Halloween was nearly two weeks ago! Alas, I also have barely any photographs to show for it. So, without further ado: my absurdly long and busy Halloween weekend.

As if three or four big shows wasn’t daunting enough, the weekend started out with a television shoot. We had to be at the Knitting Factory at some ridiculously early hour like noon. I pre-gamed at a nearby cafe with my band notebook and some coffee. Television is so permanent and I had more squeaky reed issues than ever before – a bit unnerving. We finished just in time to hurry over to Irving Plaza and get ready for the evening show. Once we’d loaded in and soundchecked, the viola player and I ran off to trim her bangs at a friend’s apartment while sipping wine out of a bottle, grab some takeout noodles, and rush back over. I also had enough time to go to Union Square and see off Critical Mass as it took to the streets. It was surprisingly small for a Halloween ride, but NYC mass is generally alarmingly underattended. Meanwhile, RMO was playing a conflicting event at Tompkins Square Park. It was all a bit confusing.

Irving Plaza, NYC

A small rant before I get to the show… Why is it always these high-profile NYC shows where boys rudely wound my heart? I suppose it’s better that it happens at times such as these, when I’m surrounded by friends and endless positive reinforcement. However, twice in one year is excessive. Next time, can it please not happen while I’m on stage at least? That would be awesome. I managed to not let it ruin my night and nobody noticed my anger and devastation for what it was. In fact, I held it in with unparalleled maturity. Plus, my livid anger during our encore apparently came off as passionate and alluring. Note to self. Moving along…

The Irving Plaza show was generally fantastic on the whole. There were rough spots for sure, but it was a ton of fun. Not only was it Halloween weekend, so our stage show had been designed well in advance, but the venue was perfectly suited for the audience. I don’t recall seeing a single bouncer the entire show. Of course, all the frantic fun of stage diving and crowd surfing has its downsides. Within the first few minutes of the set, a kid bashed my mouthpiece straight into my lip. Usually fog machines go hand-in-hand with me getting hit in the face, but somehow there weren’t any at this show. Somehow, none of the massive cutout trees got knocked over on top of us, although the lead singer almost got dragged off the stage with crowd surfers a couple of times.

The whole monochromatic, black and white, greytones theme worked out quite well. The audience went with it in stunning form, one girl even handing out little bags of grey-scale candy corn (which tasted as awful as they were cute and thoughtful). A lot of kids showed up wearing awesome clown and dia de los muertos face paint, but there was also a team of beautiful ladies painting willing faces throughout the crowd. Everyone looked anywhere between zombie, gargoyle, and unnaturally pale. The band got our faces and shoulders painted upstairs before the show. It was such a calming way to get ready for our set, sitting in a chair while someone sponges chill fragrant paint onto your skin.

One of the nicest surprises that night was the arrival of three members of the band who don’t play in the new lineup – drums, tenor sax, and accordion. It was the first time all of them have seen the band in its present form, so it was really cool. Honestly, I was a little nervous during the set, knowing that one of my personal sax heroes was in the audience watching. Now I was extremely glad I hadn’t tried to get the band to let me play the alto parts in the waltz on clarinet. All three of them really liked the show and had lots of good things to say. I imagine it was their first time seeing the band from the outside. When we went offstage before the encore and were debating which songs to play, the tenor sax player got stuck in the middle of our debate on his way out of the bathroom. He said something along the lines of “Not this again!” and locked himself back in the bathroom… which I can totally respect.

After our set, I ran around saying hi to people, getting hugs, etc. As I passed by the coat check, a friend of mine was there dressed in a chicken suit. I never did bother to ask why, although I guess Halloween is a likely reason, but I’ve seen him in it other times of the year. “Did someone really check a tuba?!” – I heard in the line behind us.It was a sousaphone and it belonged to that friend, of course. My night ended in typical fashion. The band headed off somewhere else and I stayed local and drank with the bar staff.  Two handsome gentlemen, one a bike courier and the other a German, kept pouring me Jameson until I finally ran off with someone from the opening band to find a squat party. I am so predictable. Those bartenders remarked that there should be more shows like this there and praised the band to no end. Chatting with them and relaxing at the bar was an ideal way to end the night at the venue. I certainly had nothing left in me for a crowded bar or a bunch of company. A long walk and a few people to talk to at my friend’s place finished out the night perfectly.

The Met, Providence (Pawtucket, really)

We had a harrowing drive up to this gig. It had been getting progressively colder in NYC, but nothing prepared me for the massive storm that hit on Saturday. The boys at the place where I was staying were incredibly endearing and hilarious in the morning, although also distracting enough to make me tromp back from the train to get the things I’d forgotten in the ridiculousness of our morning. I’m not a big fan of the rain, especially if it’s cold and dense, so I was not a happy camper. It was hard enough to get out of bed and meet the band in Brooklyn only a handful of hours after I’d gotten to sleep, but getting off the train one stop too late and tromping around in the elements without breakfast in my slowly deteriorating boots did not help matters. If you think I sound cranky now, you should’ve seen that morning. The rain changed to snow as soon as we were out of the city and our van driver did a stellar job of not killing us all.

We arrived plenty early for the gig, but of course there was nothing to do that wouldn’t involve getting completely soaked. Usually I go for a wander after soundcheck, but I wound up basically doing laps around the venue. I had neglected to invite anyone from What Cheer? Brigade because they were supposed to be playing Bike Kill in Brooklyn that day. I found out backstage that they had cancelled their tour because one of them was incredibly sick. However, Apocalypse Five and Dime was playing in Providence that night, so I imagined anyone in our shared social scene who braved the storm was headed to their show anyway. It barely felt like a visit to Providence at all.

I was really glad about the lineup that night; it was the perfect complimentary mix of costumes, whimsy, circus punk, attitude, and debauchery. I had never seen The Army of Broken Toys before, despite our worlds overlapping on many fronts, so I was eager and curious. I was also glad to see one of the other ENSMB sax players, who subbed in Inferno before my time, as well as his awesome ladyfriend who is also in the band. The Swaggering Growlers were the other opening band, and they always bring the party, usually beginning in a vehicle outside. This time it was seasonal – pumpkin cider and maple flavoured bourbon. It was good to see them play now that their new album is out, but also a treat to hang out with the guys and their sassy entourage. Both sets were a ton of fun and I danced like a fool with all of the other fools who were brave enough to dance.

Our set was a lot of fun, especially because of the energy of the crowd and the relatively smaller venue. The highlight for me came when a scuffle between the kids and the bouncers broke out in the pit. Our frontman stopped the set and told them to leave the kids alone. When they began to drag a guy out by his ankles, along with a chain of other kids who had latched onto him for support, he added that we weren’t going to play anymore if this went on. The entire band then walked off stage, not to go back into the greenroom, but to stare down the bouncers. Finally, the frontman found out that the kid had instigated a fight – which doesn’t change how much the staff was overreacting, but isn’t simply staff roughing up the mosh pit – so we took the stage again and continued with the set. Some of the fans said it was one of the best Inferno shows they’ve ever been to. It was heartwarming for me to see the band all act as the gang that our lead singer says we are.

A very handsome man in the front row had been smiling at me the whole show and then bought me a glass of bourbon towards the end of the set. The leader of the Growlers had done the same, which went to the frontman of course. There was so much chaos after the show, with the bouncers forcing everyone out of the club almost immediately and the awful weather outside, that I never got to thank him or find out why he looked so familiar. Sorry, guy. The bourbon hit me hard and I was too occupied with my own drama to say proper goodbyes to a lot of people. Lessons learned slowly and poorly.

I let myself get kidnapped (big surprise) and went to the afterparty that the Swaggering Growlers were throwing at their nearby hotel. It was a lot of fun, although considering I’d already been partying with them before the show, I only had so much left in me. Those kids know how to rage, as has already been attested to on this blog countless times. I had adopted the Chicago faction of our traveling fans, hooking them up with a place to stay that night in exchange for an early ride back to NYC in the morning. I had trusted that I could get to the show the next day earlier than the rest of my band and they had likewise assumed a hotel would work itself out. I was also psyched to hang out with some hometown folks. We were all glad for the massive free hotel breakfast in the morning.

Surprise Show, Tompkins Square Park

I fell asleep against my bike mechanic on the way to the next show, which is something that’s never happened on an Inferno tour before and made for a nice change. I had a lot of fun riding with the fans instead of the band between venues, something I’d only done once immediately after getting out of the hospital, so this time was clearly a lot more enjoyable. The highlight of the trip was when we stopped for snacks in a small town strip mall somewhere in Connecticut and… well, let’s just say that the score for giant flags was Chicagomobile – one, local Republican headquarters – zero. The upside down spoils flew proudly later in the hands of their tiny liberator.

My ride dropped me off at my friend’s place and I threw on the dressiest warm outfit I could muster and jumped on my bicycle. I had missed seeing Wood Spider and all of the C Squat acoustic acts, but arrived just in time for Apocalypse Five and Dime. They played on the ground in front of the stage and the crowd snuggled up in the sun and watched happily. It was unusually cold, but at least all of the snow was gone and the sky was dry. The lineup until our set involved a few more bands and a puppet show. I ran off to get a falafel and stopped into the nearby juice cafe, where I felt a friendly tap on the bike helmet hanging off of my sax case. A friend I recorded with a little while ago had followed me over there after all. Given our reputations for unsavory living, especially his, I laughed that here we were spending the afternoon drinking healthy smoothies, later to fall asleep in our respective places at the hardcore hour of 10pm. Rock and roll.

By the time the band went on, I was very chilly from spending most of the day outdoors. I really didn’t have much of a choice, considering I was friends with almost all of the other acts at the show. It was a beautiful day, just a cold one. We played a fun but short set, clocking in at under thirty minutes. The fans turned out like champions in Halloween costumes and the puppets from last year’s show made a guest appearance at the end. It was a show unlike any other, the crowd feeling totally independent from all authority. It was a strange way to spend what most of us had anticipated as a day off, though. Rude Mechanical Orchestra played immediately after us, and I went to a Polish diner across the park with a large group composed of their members and folks who had come out to see Inferno. I was exhausted and headed for bed by about 9pm. The other folks hanging out where I was staying were being awesome and entertaining, but all of it was lost on me as soon as I hit my tired wall.

Hallowmas, Union Transfer, Philly

I woke up about ten hours later, still not terribly eager to get out of bed, and dragged myself back onto the subway to Brooklyn. Regular tour is so much easier; not only is everything taken care of for you, but there’s so much forced down time in the car. True to form, I was early this time and went to get coffee. Somehow, though, it never fails that when I am not on time, I’m the last one there. The ride up was made more interesting this time by some stowaway set pieces that hadn’t been there on the drive two days before. We had added one more passenger and a half-dozen more massive foamcore trees. They almost got eaten by a street sweeper when we were reorganizing the van, but somehow survived our negligence. The drive to Philly was relatively painless, although we did have to stop somewhere in Jersey to pick up more t-shirts and wait for the ink to dry.

We arrived at the massive new venue a few minutes early somehow. Union Transfer is a gorgeous space, done up like an old saloon in a railway station. The main space has a balcony and a large stage set on a giant rolling chassis. The greenrooms were also comfortable, clean, and funky. There was even a large parking lot with a gate for loading in, big enough for tour buses even. I was impressed and inspired. Alas, while we had snacks backstage, there was no catered dinner, so we had to fend for ourselves with our buyouts. I ordered vegan delivery and then went to explore the ridiculously gorgeous old factory buildings around the area. I also stopped into a bar nearby and had a bloody mary and picked at the remains of my bandmates’ meals. Finally, I got a call from my cohort from the Phenomenauts and hurried back to the club to meet him; his delayed flight had finally brought him to Philly from Fest in Florida.

I won’t deny that there’s a rumour we got married in Vegas during tour, started in the San Francisco punk scene and carried over to the Inferno scene. I won’t confirm it either. Regardless, I was psyched to see him, as was the band, and everyone who hadn’t been following us on the West Coast tour was curious to meet him. I had a really fun time before our set seeing all the costumes and snagging candy whenever I got the chance. I had made myself a t-shirt just for this show the night before. Some of the fans have been relentlessly requesting one song in particular ever since the band started playing it again on the West Coast tour, so I made a shirt with the simple response “No. YOU play California.” It went over well. Also, one of the superfans made me the sweetest present ever. He’s been learning to engrave and made me a flask with the image of the rose patch I give out at some shows carved into it – so incredibly thoughtful and clever! I felt like I knew almost everyone there by face, which was a good feeling to have at such a large show. I was glad to see my friend from SFH there, who had only seen the new lineup of the band for the first time the day before. The opening band had gotten hold of him and painted his eyes like theirs, so it took me a moment to recognize him.  I was glad to see Mischief Brew again and had a bunch of fun dancing around to them. They played a really good set.

The highlight for me, though, was seeing Melt Banana for the first time ever. It’s not even my typical kind of music, but there’s no way not to like them. They even had a gigantic pantomime cat wandering around in the crowd before the show. The cutest part was their sequence of short songs later in the set, all of which were about ten seconds long. I was also thrilled to have a co-ed band opening for us for a change. This also might be the first time I’ve ever played a show with a band from Japan. For weeks leading up to this night, whenever anyone asked if I was excited for our show, I’d respond “Of course! I can’t wait to see Melt Banana, they’re the whole reason I’m going!” I usually try to stay out of pits before a show, but I let myself get bounced around quite a bit for their sake… once I put in some earplugs – they were so incredibly loud. I had such a good time during their performance and definitely would like to see them again.

Our set might not have been exactly perfect, but the audience had a fantastic time. It was a really good set list and went over well. There were props, puppets, and inflatable pumpkins. I wore the dress I had used for my Halloween costume senior year of high school, when I was Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors, but this time without a black eye and my arm in a cast. Who knew I’d be wearing it again on Halloween eleven years later. Wow, eleven years. At least I still fit into the dress. In fact, I think it fits me better now. There was plenty of crowd surfing, but very little stage diving. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to push anyone into the crowd, it’s one of my favourite parts of many shows. It was packed in the venue, sold out and then some. It took a few songs for the usual faces of stage left to surface, the crowd was so dense and hard to navigate. The crowd was crazier than usual, stage dives were frequent, panties were thrown, and someone even threw a shoe right at my face (by accident and followed with apologies) which made half of my mouth numb for a few songs, but such things are to be expected on Halloween. It was a big show, it was a fun show, and it was thankfully the last show for a few days. It was such a whirlwind of a weekend, even the fans seemed worn out!

Post-show is a bit of a blur, not for all of the drinking, but the confusion of ending such a big night. I neglected to get a Melt Banana shirt, I’d wanted to find the kid who made me the flask and thank him again, I’m sure I forgot to say farewell to a lot of people. My friend from the Phenomenauts and I ran around scavenging abandoned candy, turning our noses up at the hard stuff (you know, lollipops and such). I gave big hugs to the Mischief Brew folks and awkwardly told Melt Banana how awesome they were. Finally, I piled into my friend from Baltimore’s pickup truck and went to stay at someone’s house a ways away. A bunch of folks from the show had already arrived and were into the swing of a small party. I slightly envied the rest of band, who had gone their separate ways to calmly sleep, while I was bound to be social a bit longer. Of course, I was grateful for the place to stay and glad to see everyone, but the weekend had taken its toll on my energy levels.

I woke up in a pile of people, but warm and comfy. Our hosts, the Chicago crew, and some others all went out for brunch at Satellite. Even Philly is beginning to seem familiar. We texted the viola player and she came to meet us there. The next time I’d see here, we’d be in Austin, Texas. Another friend came by and had a girl from London with him who knew all the places I used to hang out there, small world. I convinced the Chicagoans to give my friend and I a ride to where we were going, which turned into a trip to Whole Foods, leading me to wander off to a liquor store for local Ginger Brandy near the creepy old penitentiary, plus a lot of getting lost in the car. We finally made it across the river to Jersey, which is clearly not on the way to Chicago, but those boys are amazing.

What better way to finish out a long weekend of shows when your assets include a pretty dress, a small envelope full of cash, and someone you’ve supposedly married on a whim while on tour in Vegas? Book it on over to a cheesy hotel across the bridge in New Jersey! What better place to unwind than in a heart-shaped jacuzzi with a plastic pumpkin full of Halloween candy, watching movies on the sci-fi network before sleeping far too long on a round bed the size of most New York kitchens? I should pamper myself like this more often.

Another New York Interim

I will start by saying that I am pleased as punch to be stationed out of the East Village these days. For one, I was beginning to become overwhelmed by Brooklyn after six years of couches, floors, and weird sublets. I’ve also been slowly consummating the romance that’s been going on in my head for decades with this part of NYC. It probably began when I first saw Little Shop of Horrors at the tender age of four (over and over again at a summerstock – a story for another time). All of the slums of New York I saw in movies as a kid and yet never placed on a map somehow all took place on the Lower East Side after seeing Rent in high school, including Annie and every cartoon in an urban setting where folks were poor but clever (or animals, in the case of Oliver and Company and countless others). I digress…My point is that I have been unusually content with NYC, and therefore very busy, since returning. It’s a rare case that I find myself not budging out of the city and happy about it. Granted, it’s only been a week and a half. The band returned to NYC just in time for the CMJ music festival, which I was fortunately not playing. As the band’s tour manager put it, it’s like South By Southwest without any of the good parts like the nice weather and free booze. On the plus side, it meant friends in other bands would be in town, so I got to see What Cheer? Brigade play an awesome set in Brooklyn. A friend from Hungry March Band and I made it there, astonished that we were paying to see a brass band for the first time in ages. The show was a ton of fun and a friend from C Squat was unusually drunk and we did some of the most effective mosh pit waltzing I’ve ever been a part of. I was thrilled to see my drummer friend from WC?B, who has saved my wayward self so many times and still refuses to take credit for it. I’m also really happy for the band, who has gotten a ton of media attention lately for a video they posted online wherein the band plays while one of the members quits his job at an awful corporate hotel. They’re pretty badass. Meanwhile, I somehow kept just missing seeing Hungry March Band play while I was in town, although I spent some quality time in bars with half of their drum section. I also made my usual pilgrimage to the Jalopy in Redhook, although I am overdue for one of my usual visits to Barbes.

My week and a half in NYC filled itself in almost effortlessly. There was some time spent scheming future artistic endeavors, riding my bike, hanging out in a pile of stuffed pandas, you know. The venue where I usually make a bit of money between tours was rented out for Broadway rehearsals this month, but I fortunately found some new work with friends reorganizing a storeroom and painting window murals (which was awesome, as I haven’t done art in far too long). I also attended a very small steampunk craft faire in DUMBO and caught the entirety of the fashion show. It was charming, but nothing so big as what I expected from the people putting on the faire or the steampunk community. I also made it all the way out to New Jersey for a punk show house party which had a lot of cake and many fun people. These weeks also contained a couple of band rehearsals and some fancy rendezvous with handsome hosts. I spent far too much time scouring thrift stores looking for a grey dress for the band’s first of four Halloween shows. On the plus side, I found an awesome circusy dress, a lightup/speaking Batman chest piece, and a LOLcatz book for the friend I’m staying with. Sadly, none of those could pass for a grey dress. Finally, I found something that would work and a seamstress working on our Halloween shows offered to personalize it for me. I felt very special indeed.

Another theme of my past couple of weeks was trying to get caught up on this blog. I tried all sorts of ways to squeeze it into my days, finally trying the old hide-in-a-cafe approach. Sure enough, just as I’d finished eating a salad and was commencing my long affair with a bottomless cup of coffee, set to finish my post before midnight, a familiar face walked past the table. It was the lady from Eden and John’s East River String Band, who I’d first met one cold winter when she used to sell their CDs next to the school bus where I helped my friend sell her wares, on a curb just off of St. Mark’s. I was glad to get a chance to have a long chat with her after years of running into each other, but one of the coolest outcomes was getting turned onto a lot of fascinating neighborhood blogs documenting the goings on in the general Tompkins Square Park area. She’s been writing a lot about Occupy Wall Street lately (check it out – http://www.slumgoddess.blogspot.com). It was cool to talk to another lady doing a personal blog about her unusual life. When I ran into her, she had just come from Rev. Jen’s book signing – another lady with an unusual perspective on life whose writing I need to read sometime soon. I felt energized and motivated after our long chat over my computer, but I still hadn’t gotten a new post up.

I filled out the rest of my weeks with visits to Occupy Wall Street. Mostly, I went down as a performer, which was not as helpful as volunteering or moving in, but still better than your run of the mill gawking and tourism. Mostly I went down to play music with pickup brass bands, occasionally getting snatched up by the odd banjo player or old timey ensemble. I’ve made some new friends there and had many good chats with old ones. I’ve been unsurprised to see the emergence of an Animal Farm kind of class system within the occupation, mostly over the inherent differences between the weekend warrior activists and the radical squatters. I am well aware that I am oversimplifying, but the sentiment has been echoed elsewhere. There was one day where I met up with a group to do a modified version of the king chapter from The Little Prince. I played clarinet under the narration and dialogue and the show was quite well received there. We grabbed some food at the occupy food line afterwards and chatted with folks. I then biked with one of the cast members up to Theatre for the New City and helped make shadow puppets for a show I would never even get to see.During this stay in NYC, I got to have a lot of good conversations with people I like while still making it to several events. It’s hard to manage both, but I’m somehow getting better at it. I continue to be behind in posts, but hopefully the one about the past Halloween weekend is coming soon. In the meantime, I will continue to be distracted by almost everything else.

The Journey Back East (and 4 shows!)

I’ll admit, I didn’t start writing this until I got back to NYC. I’d spent an absurd amount of time at the end of our tour sleeping in the van, and once I got back to town I was still catching up on rest. I did my usual post tour day of sleep and then took off running, letting the rushing tide of NYC pull me away from my computer entirely for days. So, here I am posting about the tail end of a tour that finished over a week ago.

ST. LOUIS – The Firebird (and day’s drive via Topeka beforehand)

It was another strange day of leaving a comfy hotel and having no other destination in sight than another comfy hotel. I know I’m a fool to complain, but I do find all of this quite unnatural. A bed two days in a row just seems excessive sometimes, especially when you’ve done nothing but sit all day. I did have quite a good time exploring the hotel, though.  It was in a cool old building with a massive atrium and I filled my early night with lounging in their chairs, sending my Phenomenauts cohort a “guess where I am” series of absurd photos taken in the lobby, playing the longest game of pinball ever (until the security guard finally kicked me out), and then wandering the empty streets of downtown Topeka while calling the same friend – all blissfully for lack of anything else to do. I went to bed without dinner, but it wasn’t like my body had a chance to burn off breakfast anyway that day. This also made it easier to get up for the massive free breakfast that ended far too early, hit the fountain-ridden pool and hot tub, and explore downtown Topeka by daylight.My main goal was to make it to a shop I’d seen before the night before, but I had an hour until it opened. Right beside it was a music store, so I swung in to look for a shaker to replace my old one. Did you know that the little egg shakers can crack just like real eggs? Tiny black pellets everywhere, it was ridiculous. The guy working in the music store was really cool and gave me a couple of shakers for free since they have the name of the shop written on the side like business cards. He asked the name of the band I was on tour with and searched some videos on the internet while I was still there. It’s a shame we didn’t actually get to play in Topeka. He sent me in the direction of a good coffee shop, but in the meantime some of my band had set their sights on an even better one. I wasn’t hungry yet, so I stopped in just to get a feel for the place. I saw a sign for Occupy Topeka and found out that the girl organizing it works there. Within a matter of minutes, I had met her and was helping carry signs down to the protest site. I waved to my band as they entered the cafe and they looked unsurprised by the state of my departure. The girl was really cool and while she was setting up let me borrow her bike so I could rush over to see the capitol building. It felt awesome to be back on a bike! I hurried back and we were a two person occupation. A security guard had been appointed just for her weekly protest and had greeted us warmly when we arrived. Dissent creates jobs? Everyone we talked to was really kind and genuinely interested in the message behind Occupy Wall Street. A guy from the bank towering over us even came out to chat and gave her a business card for further dialogue - which is what I consider the ideal outcome of a demonstration.

Our arrival in St. Louis was pretty uneventful as there were no familiar faces for the first couple hours, nor was there anything to do in that neighborhood. I looked. The highlight of the St. Louis show for me was getting to see my three half-sisters, who had never seen me play before. We didn’t grow up together, but they have come back into my life in the last several years, for which I am quite thankful. I come from a very small family and am a textbook example only child, so I am now learning slowly how to be part of a larger family. They did all sorts of sisterly things like bringing snacks for the greenroom, buying shirts for my half-nieces/nephews who couldn’t be there, and teasing my ineptness at bandaging my sprained ankle while wrapping it properly for me. This was the first time they’d ever seen me play music, so it was very special for me that they all made it out for the whole show.

It was a very relaxed show, which was good considering how big the next night was going to be. I somehow hadn’t realized that The Stranger was opening for us in St. Louis as well, so it was a nice surprise to see their frontman walk through the door before the show. It was also a lot of fun to meet the four Australians who had traveled all the way to the states just for our Halloween shows and somehow made it out to a couple midwestern ones. The show itself was fun but modest in attendance. The band hasn’t done many, if any, shows in that city, plus there was some big deal baseball game in town that night. Everyone reassured us that baseball does that to rock shows all the time there. Ridiculous, but what can you do…

CHICAGO – Reggies Rock Club

The band stayed across the river in Illinois in order to miss rush hour in the morning. I was sad I couldn’t stay with one of my half-sisters, but also glad to get a jump start on our trip to Chicago. I was psyched for this Chicago show even more than the last, since this time I didn’t have all the nerves tied up in my first homecoming with the band. This was also the first time my mother was going to see me play with them, since she’d been in NYC the last time we played Chicago. I also somehow succeeded in getting a lot more of my friends to turn up for this show than our one at the same venue last spring, so I went to Reggies full of social anticipation.

Fortunately, we arrived plenty early and I had time to settle in before folks I know started turning up. Several members of the staff remembered me from the show so many months ago, which I hadn’t expected at all. I think some of them maybe actually remembered me from my post-tour search for our drummer’s suit bag and maybe even my hanging around in the green room with some of the guys after the MDC/Subhumans show. Either way, it’s nice to come “home” and be remembered. I used my meal voucher early and then spent a lot of my time between doors opening and our set hanging out in the bar with my mother and whichever friends or friendly fans of the band happened by where I’d stationed myself. I ducked into the club a little for the opening band and much more for The Stranger, even finding a dancing partner for a song. I hardly spent any time in the greenroom, which is nowhere near as welcoming as it is spacious.

The show itself went the way they always seem to by the time I reach my blog, fading into a blur of set lists. The venue had a carpet covering the weird manhole cover on the stage this time, which was a relief to all of us wearing heels. The unsettling metal railing was still up between us and the crowd, but a few brave kids managed to crowd surf in spite of the club policies. My lawyer friend succeeded in his trademark move of getting kicked out in a suit and walking right back in wearing street clothes. Most of my friends were lost in the shadows, but I could see the silhouette of my mother and her friend on the balcony above the bar.

After our set, the bouncer came downstairs booming “Is that your mother upstairs?” The band snickered a bit. “Why,” I asked, “what’d she do?” When I went back out into the club, she was waiting for me with my best friend from when I was a little girl, two of her friends that we went to our high school (although not all at the same time), and her mother. They were all raving about how wonderful and theatrical the whole show was. In a very silly way, it meant a lot to me to get their approval. I said it best to one of my bandmates later – “The popular kids from high school came to our show… and they think I’m cool now!” High school popularity really means so little as an adult, but my younger self still did a little victory dance to their accolades.

I was supposed to meet all of them at a bar up near my mother’s place, but it took ages to say goodbye to everyone else I knew who’d come to the show. I was thrilled to see my Mucca Pazza friends sitting in a booth with my Rat Patrol friends at the end of the night. I mean, it makes perfect sense, but I was still running around happily introducing friends to various other Chicagoans they’d somehow never met. I could’ve stayed there all night if I wasn’t so ready to unwind and catch up with my mother. So, in an odd turn of events, I happily left a punk club early in my mom’s minivan. Now my high school self was just confused. On our scenic drive home along the lake, a building downtown had IDEAS illuminated huge across several stories of offices. I smiled at the unlikely reference to one of our last songs of the set that night.It was pretty late by the time I got home, so it wasn’t very long before I’d curled up on the futon and fallen asleep. I had about an hour in the morning to scramble for anything I’d been missing in NYC, sort through my piles of mail, leave behind some dirty laundry, and attend to anything else I could in my only coherent hour at home for the next month or two. Needless to say, I could have done better. My mother dropped me off at the Empty Bottle on her way to work. I invited a friend who had missed the show to grab a bite next door with me while we waited for my predictably tardy band to arrive. He only lives down the street, but I was still honored he woke up before noon to see me. Once they arrived and he headed off, I called over another nearby friend who had also missed the show. I liked how I’d wound up hosting visitation hours at a bar on my one morning in town. The frontman from The Stranger also joined us for breakfast and it was a very slow departure to the next city from Chicago.

PITTSBURGH – The Smiling Moose

It was quite a long drive to the next city, but at least we had a late load in. Of course, this meant we didn’t get a sound check. Those shows are always a special kind of fun. It was a classic bar show – even weirder, a sports bar – and a far cry from the relative luxury of the night before. The stage was small and high up and it was hot under the stage lights and haze of cigarette smoke. The bar wasn’t even giving us discounts on drinks, let alone free ones. We realized as we were approaching the club that there was going to be no food included and no time to sort it out for ourselves. I sent a couple of pleas out to friends of the band and they came through with snacks and vegan appetizers from where they were eating. It was super helpful, nearly necessary. The biggest disappointment of the night was that we’d arrived after the vintage scifi toy store next to the venue closed before we got there. Otherwise, it was a pretty fun show. The band stayed somewhere with five cats and two dogs, but everything was bound to pale in comparison to the night before and the let down of leaving my hometown struck me like a cartoon anvil.

BUFFALO – The Forum (actually in Amherst, NY)

The drive up North was alright. The highlight of the night for me involved resolving some hard feelings I’ve been carrying for a while. I’m very proud of myself that I had the courage to stop avoiding that person and make peace. I’m not proud of how well I hold a grudge, and once the air was cleared we both felt a lot better. There was a lot of time before our set for things such as these, which can be rare when the drives are so long. Once again, though, we were in a strip mall with nothing to do. I found out that one of the kids who follows the band around is going to my old college. It’s quite small and the people who go their are particular in their quirkiness, so it was awesome to meet someone who speaks the same language. I also witnessed a beautiful sunset, so I grabbed a bunch of kids and we ran for the sports field. I thought it would be funny to red rover the boys who were running around the track and one of them full-on pummeled me. Ow.

The show was a little strange. It was apparently the first one of its kind at that venue, which resembled a banquet hall more than a rock club, but the turnout was alright and the energy of the last show of the tour was prevalent, especially in the audience. It was all a bit of blur, what with the calm of the end of tour beginning to settle in already. After the show, half of the band hurried back to Brooklyn and the rest of us stayed in a hotel not far away. There were a bunch of guys already holding down the lobby bar when we arrived, and of course they were musicians. I’d vaguely heard of Tedeschi Trucks Band, but it appears they’re definitely more big time than our band. They were really sweet guys and we all kept the bartender company until she kicked us out, fortunately before we could suffer the consequences of having just been paid out for the tour upon entering the bar.

The hotel beds were insanely comfortable and we had a huge brunch at a funky space-themed vegan-friendly pizza place, plus I had a whole bench seat in the van to myself on the way back, yet I was super tired by the end of the day. I couldn’t get dropped off right where I was staying, but I opted for a twenty-minute walk with my pack rather than deal with all the stairs and crowding and waiting on the subway. I was amused at how I must have looked, massive hobo bag on my back and cute little heeled witch boots, woodwind cases hanging off in all directions. I reached my friend’s place and commenced total relaxation, which lasted until nearly sunset the next day.

Return to the Desert (and 4 shows)

I was in the Northern part of the desert recently for Burning Man, but before that it had been a year and a half since I drove through it and two and a half years since I properly visited the Southwest.

LAS VEGAS – Bunkhouse SaloonWe drove into Las Vegas at sunset and I set my eyes on the Strip for the very first time. We were driving on the highway that skirts around the outside of the city, so all I really got was glimpses between the backs of buildings, although I did catch sight of the fake Eiffel Tower. My big mission was to see the giant neon cowboy, though, which was central in my personal mythology of the old Vegas. Apparently, he was located somewhere downtown, not far from our venue. Although it was only a handful of blocks from the older district, the bar appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. The signage outside was exceptional, though, and the genuine dive vibe in a city so sparkling and fake was certainly appreciated.Once we’d finished loading in, part of the band piled into the van to hit the strip. Those who had been to Vegas many times before were psyched to give me advice on where to go and what to do. I took off on my own quest, wandering South along the gigantic buildings like a wide-eyed child. Almost immediately, I met a cute young street performer who asked me to go catch dinner with him, but I was on a mission and invited him to the show instead. I had only a couple of hours to explore this intimidating wonderland that is the new part of Vegas and was too distracted to be any sort of company for a local. I took a brisk two-mile walk along all the pretty lights and splashing fountains. I met up with the keys/chaos guy from the Phenomenauts down by New York New York, which seemed somehow appropriate, and we went to visit some of the kids who were having pregame for the show in their room at Excalibur – boutique sodas and cake flavoured vodka. We then lavishly hopped in a cab back up to Treasure Island, checking out some lobby art on our way to the pirate show. It was absurd, complete with a full-sized ship which appeared to sail and then sink. The show itself was pretty corny, though. I still didn’t get a chance to see the gondola canals or monorails that supposedly run through the casinos. Some other time.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the venue, we had just missed the opening band, which appeared to be exactly the kind of thing I am into. I did get a cassette tape with a download code from them, but was bummed to miss something involving all the old timey junk instruments I like. They were even wearing goggles and claiming to be music for the apocalypse. Darn. During the second opening band, I ran off in search of cheapish street food, taking a hostage from our wandering group and hitting up a taco truck and then heading to the downtown area. I was glad that our concertina playing friend was my companion for my quick self-tour of old Vegas. I finally found the neon cowboy, as well as a variety of other cool old signs. It wasn’t as retro-feeling as I was hoping, especially with the giant LCD screen canopy running the length of the pedway. At least I got to satisfy my curiousity. We even made it back to the club in time for a decent chunk of the Phenomenauts’ set.Our experience on stage was bizarre, but apparently awesome for the crowd. Everyone was so grateful we came all the way out to Las Vegas, and it seemed to have a pretty thriving DIY punk scene. There’s still nothing like playing a smaller city in a small club for a bunch of kids who really need the release of the concert. Alas, there wasn’t much of a stage to speak of and the sound was awful on our end. The staff was awesome and helpful… except for the soundguy. He didn’t have enough cables for us and we didn’t even get a line check. I wondered for the first few songs if my mic was even on, then didn’t hear a note I played until the end of the set. The guitar blared out from the back of the stage. Much to the surprise of everyone in the band, we got a lot of feedback about how well they could hear everyone. It was probably because the entire band was blasting so unreasonably loud onstage. It was a challenging show to get through, but the line of superfans at the front of the floor-level stage made it all okay. When the viola player and I did our usual kneel and bend back move during one of the songs, I opened my eyes and saw one of these kids leaning over me and making faces. It was hilarious.

After the show, I piled into the Phenomenauts tour bus and we headed to their hotel. I was psyched about the fact that they were staying at Circus Circus, which my band jokingly called “Hobo Hobo” when I kept talking about it. The guys in the band had offered to teach me how to play blackjack and I was game for it (pun totally intended). It was my first time really gambling, and it was perfect. I was wearing one of their jackets, so we all sat there looking like some sort of absurd space gang at the casino, monopolizing an entire blackjack table while we drank white russians and whiskey. I lost fifteen dollars, some of it squandered on hands for the boy beside me who was losing worse than I was, but I was winning for a while at first. That’s how they get you, that and the free booze and lack of windows. Eventually, we were too full of free drinks and out of money to stay any longer. I never did see their one hotel room, as most of us slept on the bus out of habit.

SCOTTSDALE – Chasers

Given the name of this club and its placement in a strip mall, many of us had expected some sort of sports bar with barely any stage. It appeared that way at first, until the lights went on in the back corner to reveal a pretty decent setup. There was nothing else to do around the venue, although some people went to a supposedly fantastic bar two miles away, so we all hung out there before the show. They had pool tables, and it was charming to see the frontmen of the two bands on this tour playing pool together. It was our second to last show with the Phenomenauts.

The show itself was pretty fun. The opening band was Brass Lung Marching Band. Finally, a marching band opening for us! This used to happen a lot with this band, but somehow has eluded us since I joined. This one is relatively new and still needs some polishing, but their spirit was in the right place and they invaded the tables and played right at the people who weren’t dancing. It was really good to hang out with some radical street band folks, especially a friend of mine from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra who had moved down there recently and started the band. She smiled while telling me how boring it is there compared to New York. She was another one of those NYC/New Orleans crossover folks, so I could see how she might like it there better. Our set was pretty fun, although the way the club barricades the under 21 kids on the side of the stage is a bit odd.

The Phenomenauts bass player for this tour actually lives in Phoenix and the drummer grew up there, so we spent the morning – once we woke up outside wherever we were partying the night before – at his mother’s house. The next city was relatively close, so we had some time that afternoon to lounge around in the relative luxury of an adult home. There was even an outdoor pool. I was beginning to think everyone had a pool. There was also a piano, which is even more important than a pool. When I was a little girl, anytime my parents took me to someone’s apartment and they didn’t have a piano, I was upset and almost offended. The drummer’s mother also had two awesome dogs. We headed to the bass player’s house to pick him up – he had a kitten! – and then split for Tucson.

TUCSON – Club CongressI was psyched to be playing Tucson, as it always held an air of mystery for me. I’d spent many long hours on the phone with a friend who I had met on my first sailing expedition when he lived there, back before I had ever been to the desert, so to me it was this mythical place in the middle of nowhere. That friend had lived above the club where Devotchka always played, which made it seem somehow even more magical. We rolled into downtown Tucson and it was just as I remembered from my only other visit there, a year and a half ago on my epic month-long trek by way of trains and other people’s cars from Chicago to Vancouver via New Orleans, Austin, LA, Arcata (by accident), Portland, and Seattle. A friend of friends had driven me from Austin to Tucson in one shot, in the name of adventure, and we had only a couple of hours in Tucson before my train towards LA left. We spent our time having desert or drinks or something in the bar at the Hotel Congress. It didn’t dawn on me until I walked into the lobby after soundcheck that this is where the band was playing that night. I’d been taking a nap in the bus until the moment we pulled up, then had to run inside for soundcheck, so I was quite unaware of my surroundings. When I’d seen it on my first visit, I’d thought to myself how badly I wanted to come back and play a show there and stay in a room upstairs. Well, here I was, about to do just that. I almost cried. It’s one of the more uniformly gorgeous buildings I’ve ever had the privilege of playing in, let alone spending the night inside.The venue hooked us up really well, with a fifteen dollar food voucher and a handful of four dollar drink tickets each. The rooms upstairs were really classy as well. Between soundcheck and dinner, though, I needed a little stroll. I happened by Food Not Bombs, which was a pleasant surprise on the nearly deserted streets, and hung out there for a moment. I brought my boy doppelganger a cup of vegan slop to tide us over outside until the food came at the restaurant. I got ready early so that I could watch the entire Phenomenauts set. It was so much fun! Our fans held down a proper dance party in the crowd, which I’d really needed. I’d never been up front for all their crowd hijinks. It was cooler than I could’ve expected to be front and center for the toilet paper cannon and the fire extinguisher blasts. I hadn’t expected the cold breeze which came with them. Somehow, I didn’t wear myself out before our set.

The show was very special since it was a kind of going away party. There wasn’t even a huge turnout, but that was just fine. Not only was our opening band leaving, but this was the last stop for the core group of superfans who had been following us in varying numbers since Seattle. The Phenomenauts quoted us in their songs and we them in ours. It was a very sweet couple of sets. They’d joked with me that the bands should also swap outfits for this show, but that would be majorly problematic since most of them are the size of our keyboard player and vice versa. After the show was over, we’d swapped a considerable amount of merch, and loadout was finished, we all hung out for a long time at the hotel bar.

The bartender on the venue side of the building was incredible. Sundays are always three dollar you-call-it drinks, so she was thrilled to have the challenge of inventing cocktails for our adventurous palates, rather than the usual requests for top-shelf liquor and boring mixers. The room where we had played was taken over by karaoke night, which we all dismissed until we’d had enough to drink. The Phenomenauts were game for it, but it was our keyboard player’s desire to sing “Let’s Get It On” that really drew our band into the room. The robot from the Phenomenauts started us out, then their Portland keyboard player, then ours. His rendition of that song was immaculate, made even better by the “Phenomenettes” doing doowop backup dances behind him in their matching tour outfits. It was a very hard act to follow, but the keys/chaos kid and I got up and did the most earnest version of “I Wanna Be Sedated” that we could possibly have done, jumping around the room screaming into the mics. Word on the street said it was adorable.

There was more drinking at the bar, but alas the bus had to head out sooner rather than later to get one of the guys to the Phoenix airport at 6am, then head all the way back to Oakland. My cohort gave me the discontinued band hoodie off of his back, as well as a rare and fancy Phenomenauts pin. The band made plans with our tour manager for future collaborations and then had to be on their way. I was the saddest of all to see them go, so I walked them to the bus. They all gave me hugs and then lined up to give me the special “Science and Honor” salute. It was touching in the most amazingly bizarre way possible.

As soon as the bus puttered off into the distance, I was like a kid on the last day of band camp. I sat for a moment on a bike rack, then screwed up the courage to return to my band family. The cocktail at the bar didn’t help distract me or drown anything out, so I stalked off for a while and paced around on the tracks beyond the Amtrak station, plotting fantastical escapes. Finally, I abandoned myself to the sympathetic kindness of my own band, which was the hardest option for my stubborn feral self, but also the ideal one. I’d be over the loss in the morning once I sobered up, surely, and they made sure I settled into one of the comfy hotel beds.

I woke up in the morning just in time to visit a long-lost friend who I knew worked at Chicago Music. He barely recognized me, as it had been about four years and many tours later. I still remember him visiting when he came through Chicago on tour a second time and I still had an apartment, singing songs with his upright bass while I feverishly papier mached a puppet for a show the next day. It was good to see him and find out he’s doing well. I told him I still listen to his old album from time to time. I had a moment to check out the massive instrument parts graveyard upstairs before our van hit the road just after 11am to find a vegan stripmall restaurant. The Phenomenauts had definitely left their mark upon the members of Inferno. The ladies in our van all sat wearing their merch on the long drive to Santa Fe, the viola player and I reading comic books. I’d downloaded a bunch of other comic books from their keys/chaos member, which should serve nicely as glowing nighttime entertainment. I myself was going through major bus withdrawal, hoping that Johnny Cash would talk me down from it. It seemed like appropriate sunset on the desert music, and indeed it was. I returned to my blogging for comfort, having neglected it as of late.

DENVER – The Larimer Lounge (and day’s drive via Santa Fe beforehand)

This is the part of touring, especially in non-coastal North America, that most people seem to underestimate – the long dull drives between shows. We left Tucson around noon and then drove until we reached Santa Fe after sunset. We got there in time to use the pool and hot tub before it closed, which was all I’d had to look forward to that day. Days off in a city where you’re playing are one thing, but when you drive for an entire day in anticipation of nothing but a hotel and another day spent driving, it’s nowhere near as fun. Then again, these are the only times when I get to relax and unwind a bit, as I’m unable to do my usual social flitting and crazy missions. Everyone else went to the all-night chain restaurant across the street, which appeared to be the only thing open in the entire town, and I took this as an opportunity to have a plush hotel room all to myself. It was awesome. I finished up at the pool, took a long hot shower, and laid around the room listening to music and browsing on the internet. I realized it was the first real alone time I had gotten since the tour began. I felt renewed. I slept on the couch, as I am prone to do, and managed to wake up in time to eat free breakfast, post a blog entry, and get to the fitness center before van call. I saw nothing of Santa Fe besides that fancy hotel and the Whole Foods; hopefully there’s more to that city than stripmalls.

We arrived in Denver around sunset, caught in ridiculous traffic as we passed through downtown. Suddenly, my previous visit to Denver in 2007 with March Fourth came back to me. Land of pedicabs, now I remembered. I had found the number for my only friend in Denver, and he met up with me at the venue before the show. We’ve known each other for years, but have only hung out a few times. He picked me up on his rickety little red scooter and I had a ton of fun buzzing around Denver with him. I got to wear the helmet since I was the guest and it was quite mod. He’d just bought an awesome brick Victorian and fixed it up himself, decorating the inside to look very Clockwork Orange. We hung out with his dog for a little while, grabbed some burritos, and zipped back to the club. When I first met him, he was making his living as an adventure videographer, skydive instructor, and then stagehand. I expected he’d be up for seeing the show and staying out all night, but now he works as a high school teacher and has an early schedule… although he still showed me base jumping videos on his phone. He makes a good point, though, about how important it is for people like him to improve the public school system from the inside.

I had a very odd show indeed. I had no friends in the audience and barely any acquaintances, which is very rare with this band. There was also someone there who I avoid when I’m in NYC, so I wasn’t thrilled that this person was one of the only familiar faces in the audience. This was all compounded by the venue not providing us with water on stage and barely giving us drinks, so I spent the first half of our set dehydrated. Needless to say, it was my least favourite show of this tour, but mostly it was a victim of circumstance. The performance itself was good and the crowd was psyched to have us in Denver, a city so out-of-the-way that the band has rarely ever played there, if at all. Everyone I met before and after the show was an absolute sweetheart, including (random!) the younger brother of a guy I dated freshman year of high school. For all of my internal grumbling, it was awesome to play for another appreciative crowd. We stayed a little ways out of town in a very comfy hotel, where the beds had pillow top mattresses, two sheets and a soft blanket, and a double-walled duvet, plus four pillows each. Nicest setup all tour, plus free breakfast with eggs made to order. I’d had an emotionally tiring night, especially because of my withdrawal from our usual tour companions, so I was thrilled about staying in a hotel, for a change.

Supposedly “All of California and Everyone Who Lives There Stinks” (and 4 shows)

… at least that’s what our band has been singing about it all week. In a bold and foolish move such as we are known for, Inferno reintroduced this song just for the West Coast tour. This also marked the beginning of my abduction by the Phenomenauts. I’m always more intrigued by strangers on the road, especially awesome geeks like these guys, plus they have a sweet bus. Give me a rolling bunk to sleep on over a hotel almost any day on tour. I wasn’t terribly surprised that my time spent on this bus full of rocker nerds was spent watching cartoons, reading comic books, making playlists for each other, and having drunken ’90s singalongs. We drove through awesome little tourist trap towns, the superior topography to our North fading away behind us as we headed down the rainy and beautiful winding roads of the California coast.

Throughout the weekend, I was getting updates about Honk Fest in Boston from my friends who were there. One was calling me from shows so that I could hear the bands, some sent me occasional photos, while others texted me to tell me that I was missed. I felt fortunate to have such wonderful friends. I received similar dispatches from the field when everyone went down to Pronk in Providence and the ensuing brass band madness in Brooklyn afterwards. Everyone played a show at my friend’s aforementioned venue in DUMBO with an afterparty at the loft with all the stuffed pandas. I was almost sadder to miss this night than I was to miss Honk. The lineup was Raya Brass Band, Titanium Sporkestra, Hungry March Band, and Environmental Encroachment. My NYC urban explorer friend who I stayed with at the end of Mardi Gras texted me a photo of him between a friend from Seattle and a friend from Chicago and called me “the thread of the universe.”

EUREKA – Show at the Veterans Hall

I had forgotten just how awesome the bars are at Veterans Halls. The show space and the sound system were nothing to write home about, but the three dollar juice glasses of top shelf whiskey made up for it… not that I had to pay for drinks anyway. It was also awesome to play for such a small but enthusiastic crowd. After all, I doubt anywhere else within a hundred mile radius had a band from New York playing alongside such cheap drinks.

The opening band was very cool and right up my alley. The promoter had found them busking on the street and they looked the part – accordion, banjo, striped socks, face tattoos, etc. Our tour manager has my tastes pretty figured out and assured me I’d be into it. I was especially psyched that their lovely accordion player also plays the baritone saxophone – two things I’ve been missing in our band’s present lineup. The night was very relaxed and low-key, with awesome tacos and guacamole for us before the show and a lot of time spent holding down the bar with the charming old bartender. I finished out the night back on the Phenomenauts bus with an epic sing along to the baritone ukulele. I played my clarinet for a while, then switched to washboard. I must’ve fallen asleep mid-song, as someone woke me up to take off my boots and I was still sitting upright, clutching my washboard.

In the morning, I went wandering with a couple of the guys in search of coffee. We found nothing of high enough quality, but did find some gorgeous old painted lady Victorian houses. The bus stopped on the way out of town at an awesome little cafe, where we all got good espresso and fresh food for the road. Their band prioritizes good coffee shops the way mine does vegan cafes. The drive was very beautiful, especially our pass through the redwoods. We stopped the bus for a moment on a quiet little pull off and stretched our legs among the massive old trees. It was majestic. The Phenomenauts lady who was on tour with us for the first few shows doing merch was making a tour cartoon portrait for the front of the bus and drew me into it. I wasn’t on the final draft, since I’m not in the band, but was super flattered that she included me in the early version.

SAN FRANCISCO – Show at the Rickshaw Stop (and day off!)

My drive with the Phenomenauts, who are fun and thus inevitably laid back on the road, took longer than it should have. We also had to swing by the frontman’s warehouse space to pick up some of their costumes. So, we arrived at the venue just in time for me to jump onstage for soundcheck. I opened my sax case and went to get my mic out, only to find that it was missing! I had left it on the “stage” at the venue the night before – a mistake I’ve never even come close to making. The soundguy at the Rickshaw Stop set up a stationary microphone for me and I never did find a clip mic to borrow that night. Fortunately, the promoter back in Eureka did have my mic safely stowed for me. I found out in San Francisco that I really enjoy the freedom of not having a cable hanging from my sax and tangling around my feet, so much so that I decided to try to pick up a wireless mic to try out on the rest of the tour, and have my cable mic sent to Chicago.

The Rickshaw Stop was a cool venue in a fairly unfestive part of town. Every show, they name a drink after the headlining band, so we all drank something called the “Whiskey Inferno” that night. On the way into the venue, I had a moment to say hi to an old friend from college who I hadn’t seen in years. She’d showed up earlier to see me, but then we ran so late that I only saw her for a minute. After soundcheck, I went over to a friend’s nearby place to visit. I’ve known him from the marching bands at Burning Man for years, but he’s always lived in a van. I even did a roadtrip with him before decompression in San Francisco back in 2005, visiting the Winchester Mystery House and sleeping along Pacific Highway One between the pumpkin vendors and the cliffs leading to the ocean. So, it was a big deal to see his new home. Right away, he asked me if I wanted to buy a van.

By the time we found a burrito shop and wandered back to the venue, another friend from college was already waiting for me at the club. It was awesome to see her again and we spent a bunch of time catching up. A very handsome band opened for us, then the Phenomenauts (who are also handsome, of course). I was pleased to see a friend who’d moved there from Chicago, who I’d invited to the show at Burning Man, as well as an accordion player I know from a variety of cities around the country. I had many more friends from the Bay Area who I either didn’t tell soon enough or who had to be up early in the morning, so they didn’t come. Fortunately, we had a day off in the morning and I was hoping to spend it there, rather than LA.

I knew it would be a good show when I looked out at the crowd readying itself for our show and saw a line of girls at the front of the stage ready to protect us from the flailing mosh pit. Normally there are several, especially on our side of the stage with the delicate pedal boards, but this time it was the entire front row. The ladies who come to our shows are always especially rad and sassy. I think it was this show where I met one who had made her own DIY Inferno shirt with paint. Besides our turnout, since we were playing in the Phenomenauts’ home town we played for a ton of their fans. I am increasingly pleased with how well our crowds are crossing over. The ones who are following us on the road have really taken to the Phenomenauts and sing along to their songs at the front of the stage now. Before the set, I went upstairs and our frontman introduced me to Jello Biafra, who was hanging out on the couch in our green room. Awesome. During our set, he made some joke about Jello’s political affiliations before our song about hating California, and when we went offstage before the encore, he challenged our frontman to a verbal duel. So, Jello came onstage and corrected his political facts and we played the song he requested. For fans of both men, it was surely a ridiculous and noteworthy moment.

Afterwards, the fans were so sweet and friendly. A bunch of them came up and asked for signatures and chatted with us. It felt like an East Coast show. It was a really good crowd and a fun room to play in. We milled around for a little while, but soon headed for the Phenomenauts’ Command Center, where half the band was staying. I’d been sleeping in the Phenomenauts bus bunks for two nights, so it was a nice change to have a mattress and a door in a home for a night. Their frontman’s space was incredible. It’s in a warehouse in Oakland, like most good things in the Bay Area, with three levels and all sorts of sci-fi details. There’s even a stage with a hot tub in the middle, a movie screen on one side, and a row of couches flanking the edge. Epic. My band was psyched to be staying there.

In the morning, I head to downtown Oakland with our half of the band for brunch, although they’d be leaving without me to Los Angeles. Our frontman had an interview the next afternoon, but the rest of us had no commitments until soundcheck that evening. So, I opted to spend my day off in San Francisco and take the Phenomenauts up on their offer to give me a ride down there. I had sent out a couple of mass texts in the morning and received more feedback about hanging out from my Bay Area friends than my Los Angeles friends. I was also keen to spend more time getting to know the Phenomenauts, especially the new one who does keys, backing vocals, and general audience participation chaos. A mutual friend in NYC had forecasted our friendship, although my band had all expected me to run away on their bus while they were on tour with us anyway. He was indeed rad and it was like having a boy version of myself to hang out with. We even had almost the exact same haircut and same sized clothing. That morning, though, I ate with members of my own band at Ruby’s diner, which is owned by the bass player from Green Day. They use hotsauce there made by the lead singer of Offspring and our waiter is in Star F*cking Hipsters, as well as a friend of our tour manager. We realized we were on the same album which just came out.

After my band took off for LA, I explored downtown Oakland a bit while I waited for a friend from college who had missed the show the night before. I saw some old buildings and checked out a DIY space. I met my friend at her sister’s design studio, which was another awesome Oakland loft space. It’s called The Moon and they design and handfabricate “slow fashion” there. It was lovely. We then headed to a cafe and chatted over teas while attending to matters on our computers. It was like college all over again. Eventually, I headed out to meet up with another friend back near the diner. On the way, I got distracted by a large independent music store and bought some sax reeds. Finally, I found my friend, who I’ve known from multiple Honk Fests and Burning Man. He plays drums in Loyd Family Players and Brass Liberation Orchestra. He noticed the instrument on my back and suggested we go jam at his house. He’s been learning a lot of tupan and had in turn never heard me play the clarinet, so it was a lot of fun and good practice for both of us. His house was also really mellow and pretty. We vowed to do this again when I came back to town.I continued on my social tour of the Bay Area and jumped on a train and headed one stop across the water to the Embarcadero. I was meeting up with my friend from Extra Action Marching Band, who had come to the show the night before as well. On my search for him, I stumbled upon the Occupy SF space. I’d been wanting to see the different occupations in each city we visited, but this was the first one I’d managed, and by accident no less. They were having a meeting when I walked past and there were a considerable number of people. It looked smaller than NYC, but the tents were set up along the sidewalk, so it was also more streamlined.

I got a ride with my friend over to the Mission District and met up with my wonder twin from the Phenomenauts at Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club’s headquarters, which was about a block from the club where friends of mine were playing. I couldn’t stay for the show, though, since our bus call back at the Command Center was about 10pm. I got to see the first few songs of my accordion player friend’s new band The Black Hats and say hi to the folks in the Underscore Orchestra, who I played in for a tour back in 2009. I also ran into a lady there who I know from Sour Mash Hug Band and the Hobogoblins, who I’ve pretty much only known at Burning Man. My friend finished up his business at SSBC and we hurried to the subway and headed back to Oakland. The tour bus drove out of San Francisco and got a start on the long drive to LA. I woke up the next morning in the bus on the side of the road who-knows-where.

LOS ANGELES – Show at The Key Club

The Phenomenauts arrived in LA early enough for me to get dropped off at the music store, buy the wireless mic I had reserved over the phone the day before, and walk a few miles down Sunset Boulevard to the venue. It slowly dawned on me that this was almost exactly where I’d played the other time I’d toured through LA. Our show that night was at the Key Club, which was right next to The Roxy, where I had played with March Fourth Marching Band four years ago. This venue was a lot bigger, though. Somehow, I had missed visiting the Rainbow the last time I was there, which was a shame since it is a pretty funky bar. The Key Club was impressive, with a large balcony and a tiered floor. They also got the show poster mostly right, using our second most current publicity photo, and had one displayed in the shadow box out front.

I didn’t reach most of my LA friends in time, doing all of my promo via text and rather haphazardly. I got to see one of the former Hungry March Band dancers who lives there now, who could only make a drive-by visit before our set. We hung out a bit outside the club. The show was quite expensive compared to our usual ticket prices, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the crowd would have been more than twice as big if the promoter had charged half as much. I got to test out my new toy on a really good sound system, with both a board in the house and a stage left monitor guy. The sound guy wasn’t sold on the worth of my mic until I explained that it had no battery pack, and thus no cables whatsoever. He thought that was pretty cool, although we agreed it was not the most high-end of wireless systems. It sounded fine and worked as well as need be, plus I felt incredibly liberated without the cable leash of my old mic. It was like playing a marching band show again!I had wanted to go back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep, but had surrendered to the easier option of staying on the Phenomenauts bus. I was pretty glad about it at first, as we had a rousing drunken ’90s singalong. It was so rocking, in fact, that the club security came and told us we had to move the bus around front because we were disturbing the neighbors. After a little while, I was a sleepy mess and crawled into my bunk. The inevitable happened, of course, and someone moved the bus and we all woke up in Pasadena. Fortunately, the friend I was meeting for brunch in the morning is very chill about everything and picked me up there instead. I missed the epic brunch at the band’s friend’s place, but had a very tasty one at a little cafe with yet another college friend and a nice long drive during which we caught up on the year and a half since I was last in LA. He dropped me off at the fancy hotel where the rest of my band had stayed and I had just enough time to take a long shower and then explore the waterfront and boardwalk at Redondo Beach. I paused to inspect a creepy clown mural outside of a closed arcade. A weird guy offered me free arcade games if I hung out with him. I like skee ball as much as the next person, but walked on like a smart girl.

SAN DIEGO – Show at The Soda Bar

I was psyched about our San Diego show because it meant a chance to hang out with some marching band friends from Burning Man who I’ve never seen outside of the playa. One of them even showed up early to the venue with a ton of delicious Palestinian food from the restaurant where he works. There was no catering and few places to eat around there, so it was an incredible gesture. I stayed at his house that night and the rest of the band went to my other friend’s place across town. These guys made a really good demonstration of the beautiful sense of community that comes out of Burning Man, which hopefully made an impression on my the Burning Man naysayers on our tour.

The venue was small and charming with really handsome bartenders. It was located right next to a santeria and relic sort of store and a few doors down from a place with one dollar eyeliner and flower/feather hair accessories. Some of our superfans went to a local burger place a little ways away that served things as exotic as antelope and still lived to tell the tale. We waited around for quite a while until soundcheck and afterwards my friend and I hurried off in his car to chase the bioluminescent red tide. We wound up at Ocean Beach, where it was too well-lit to see the glowing. I did, however, get to dip my fingers into the ocean and dodge the tide amid the seaweed. It meant a lot to me to get to touch the ocean, especially when we’d been skirting it all week. Ever since I sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii back in 2003, the Pacific Ocean has had a tremendous pull for me. We also got to drive through the old town during our excursion and still made it back in time for the opening band, whose instrumentation had intrigued me earlier.

The show was fun, especially as small bar shows go. It was the fortieth birthday of one of the fans who had been following us this tour, so he was brought up on stage and presented with a cake by his friends and sung to. This is not common at our shows at all, but neither are forty year old fans. The crowd was a good one. A number of people came up and shook my hand afterwards and thanked us for playing a show in San Diego and not making them trek all the way up to Los Angeles to see the band.

I headed out with my friend from Burning Man. He hadn’t told me much about his place, and then we rolled up to what was essentially a small mansion. I was expressing my astonishment and he casually eluded to the pool out back. ”You have a pool?!” He said yes, and a hot tub. I ran out back to look. It had a water slide and a view of the valley below. “What’s that?!” Oh, that’s the gazebo, he explained nonchalantly. There was also a small playground, a fire pit, and a grill. Apparently, his friend bought it and now they all pay rent versus the mortgage and throw ridiculous parties. He was amused I was so impressed. They also had laundry, which was nearly as thrilling as the hot tub. Needless to say, I did not sleep enough and probably made the band slightly jealous with all of my mansion chatter. If we go to San Diego again, we should definitely have our afterparty there.

Cascadia: heartbreakingly beautiful (and 2 shows)

I miss the Pacific Northwest so very much! It is arguably the most beautiful place in North America and so very full of creative free spirits. I spent a considerable amount of time in that part of the country a few years ago and would have probably moved there if other places weren’t demanding so much of my time and attention. I had underestimated how much I’d missed this beautiful place until my return, more than a year and a half after my last visit. The pangs of nostalgia only made my present distaste for the East Coast even worse.

The rest of my band was flying into Seattle on Friday, but I got our tour manager to book my ticket a couple of days earlier so that I could get a little more quality time out in Cascadia. Originally, I’d planned to go out early to see my friends in Titanium Sporkestra, who would be away at Honk Fest in Boston by the time I arrived Friday. I imagined we’d be waving to each other as we flew in opposite directions across the middle of the country. I’d gotten to spend a bit of time with them at Burning Man, but it seemed a shame to visit Seattle and see none of them. It came as no surprise that my plans got completely derailed when I found myself willingly kidnapped by a marching band.

I’d spent a majority of my time at Burning Man with one of the trombone players from March Fourth Marching Band, who happened to be playing in Seattle the night I arrived in town. He encouraged me to try to stow away with them for a couple of days, and since I’d toured in the band for a month back in 2007 and knew more than half of the band, it wasn’t very hard to convince them to let me aboard the bus. The newer members of the band were amused to meet the mysterious sax player in the newspaper clipping taped to the fridge. I was amused to see a press photo of myself on their bus.

Before all of this, though, I had a day of wandering in Seattle. I was incredibly hungry by the time I got to town from the airport. I’d been awake since about four in the morning West Coast time and barely eaten anything. So, first order of business was spring rolls and a leisurely dirty chai at a cafe with free wifi. Eventually, I was met by an old friend from Portland, who I’d met in Chicago and hadn’t seen since Mardi Gras a couple of years ago. We strolled around Pioneer Square – as well as one can stroll with a camping backpack and two woodwinds, made some random friends on the street, then grabbed happy hour Japanese food in the International District. I was soon passed like the social baton that I am to another friend and continued wandering the city with all of my belongings. This particular friend has gotten the short end of the stick recently in my travels, as both of us were too busy at Burning Man and in Seattle before Honk to spend much quality time together. Then, as I toured down the entire West Coast, he got to hang out with bunches of my favourite people from all over the country at Honk and its ensuing offshoots. We wandered past the train station and the baseball park, which was very nostalgic for me after the many months I spent pedicabbing in that city, winding up near the waterfront beneath an overpass. He took out his trumpet and I my clarinet and we had a nice little jam session. We ran through Odessa Bulgar and worked out the harmonies on Kustino Oro. I then walked him to Titanium Sporkestra practice further down the waterfront, wished everyone a happy Honk, and headed back towards civilization. I caught a bus to where I expected to find March Fourth, then spent a considerable amount of time trying to find them. I’ve spent a relatively large part of my life chasing brass bands, but seldom is it uphill with a heavy backpack. I finally caught up to them just as they were finishing their parade, sat on my pack, and watched the rest of their set.

I climbed aboard the bus and joined them for a night of partying. We saw an afrobeat band at the Seamonster, grabbed greasy fast food at Dick’s, and slept in a basement amid racks of independent designer merchandise and naked halves of mannequins. In the morning, I decided to go on an adventure with them rather than run myself ragged trying to visit everyone in Seattle while carrying my life on my back. I missed my Seattle friends, but I also didn’t need to wear myself out before my tour even started. Besides, it was fun to hang out with the marching band on their swank ride, and there were several people in that band that I’d been missing just as much. The March Fourth tour bus is also one of the more stunning vehicles I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping in. It’s been refitted by the clever craftspeople in the band, complete with spacious bunks, an immaculate kitchenette, and even band logos welded into the railings. When I was on tour with them four years ago, they’d named it Razzle Dazzle as an homage to Carol Channing after we performed with her and Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl.

March Fourth was playing in Bellingham on Thursday night, so we got to spend the afternoon laying around a beautiful lake surrounded by distant mountains and then eating an awesome home-cooked dinner. The show was fun and I helped the bus driver with the merch table – two things I enjoy on tours – hanging out with the driver and pushing merch. The show was a lot of fun and it was good wandering around Bellingham while everyone soundchecked. I’d pedicabbed there once before, but I still remembered the layout of the city pretty well. Their performance was excellent and I got a chance to dance with a friend I had made at Burning Man, who it turns out is part of the Lookout Arts Quarry with some of my juggler friends who I know from up there/the streets of New Orleans/Austin coincidences. Most of the band went back to the lake house after the show, but I joined a small contingent and hung out at a glass blowing studio with one of the dancers and stayed at her house. It was hilarious to be sleeping somewhere which housed one of the pedicabs which used to belong to the company for which I worked in the Northwest. Our host made us delicious food in the middle of the night and we slept a bit before rejoining the band in the morning and eating well yet again. On the way to their next gig, the band dropped me off at a highway exit in Seattle and I walked to a friend’s house for brunch. More often than not, I get more personal time and eat better on tour than I do when left to my own devices. I treasured the bit of time I spent with my friend (the same one I saw first the day before) at his quaint house, with its smell of Portland, counters overflowing with dumpstered produce, a record player on each floor, and comfort everywhere you looked. He took the city bus with me to near the venue and we parted ways. I met a man in a full red velvet suit who looked like a real character, with fluorescent orange hair and beard, and he gave me a homemade chocolate. Candy from strangers… It was a part of Capitol Hill I knew well. I still didn’t get to revisit Pike Place Market or Georgetown on this visit, but I had been in or passed through almost all of my other old stomping grounds on this visit.

It was so nourishing for me to get a little quality time in with my “tribe” before tour. It was really inspiring to see how productive the March Fourth folks were with their crafting as well as individually fashionable in their ridiculous outfits. I definitely stepped up my game when I packed for this tour, anticipating the superior style in the Northwest and San Francisco. I miss the Pacific Northwest so much, it’s been about a year and a half since the last time I was out here! It was also good for me to be around people who do circus and acrobatics; I’m going to start stretching and practicing acrobalance again. Tour has been a whole different animal with all of the West Coast influence in the crowd and in my time away from the band between shows.

I arrived at the venue slightly before the others, so I met all the Phenomenauts and talked the bartender out of an infused vodka bloody mary. Everyone arrived looking the way I felt after my flight from New York on Wednesday and I was very grateful I had flown in early. We set up slowly and soundchecked eventually. My friend in NYC was spot-on correct about how well his friend in the Phenomenauts and I would get along. A new friend I met at Burning Man this year was in town from Bellingham for the Amon Tobin show the night before and stuck around for our concert. Once soundcheck was over, we hit the streets for some vintage shopping. Our viola player met up with us in the basement of a massive costumes shop. We wandered on up the street in search of the bigfoot statue at the urban legends museum. We arrived to find that it was no longer there. I opened the door and inquired as to what had happened. They confirmed that it had moved far away… but they had robots! The girls and I were drawn in. The guy was super nice and gave us a full tour of the place, including 3D printers and other fun tools, winding around the geeks hard at work on their projects. It reminded me of Maker Faire. The vending machine carried a mixture of supplies and nerdy snacks. Metrix Create:Space was awesome and if I lived in Seattle I would go there all the time, at least for use of the surgers and embroiderybot. The guy gave us each little LED blinky lights to take as souvenirs.

When we arrived back at The Highline, my friend from Nu Klezmer Army was already out front busking on his accordion. I’d told him I wasn’t sure I had another spot on the guest list for him, but he should come street perform and make back his ticket price. It turned out that he knew the first opening band, who could get him in, so he actually walked away that night with a small profit I’d imagine. My friend from Burning Man joined in with him, dancing and playing the kazoo. I smiled, thinking back to my appearance in the “Don’ts” section of Vice Magazine for being among a group of “kazoo wielding retards” in the NYC subway. Hah, that’ll show them. My friend also brought face paint, so between this and the acoustic dance party, I felt like I was personally responsible for upping the general circus vibe of the night. This made me very happy indeed. Additionally, a friend of mine from the now defunct Yellow Hat Band and longer gone Infernal Noise Brigade showed up at the show. She was the first in a line all down the coast of what I was calling “Honk orphans” – brass band kids who didn’t make it out to Boston this year but instead got to come see our shows out West.

The performance was a ton of fun. I enjoyed seeing the Phenomenauts for the first time ever, totally caught off guard by their use of fire extinguishers and toilet paper. They also have other props, costumes, a set, goggles, and a robot. I asked our tour manager if my birthday had come early. Our set was also very good and I was glad to be playing shows again with the band. It was almost strange to be playing for an American crowd again, but many of our devoted NYC fans had come all the way West for the tour and held down the front of the stage. I was definitely glad to be back in the land of crowdsurfing. After the set, a punk kid came up to me and said that this is the only band that has ever convinced him not to completely hate saxophones. I took as a huge compliment, as I’m sure all of the band’s past sax players would. Our crowd was downright gorgeous in their festiveness. I’d invited some folks I’d met through March Fourth on Wednesday, plus anyone interesting I saw in the time in between.

I somewhat expected I would run off with one of my friends that night, but I had already worn myself out plenty running around on someone else’s tour for two days. A night in a plush hotel with a comfy bed was exactly what I needed. The Phenomenauts bus was hosting a boozy dance party in our hotel parking lot, but I fell asleep in spite of my intentions to do otherwise. On the plus side, I woke up before my alarm even went off, did some stretching and inversions, then headed down to the lobby for free breakfast just before it ended. I realized that the continental breakfast was open season, so I called up my friend who had slept on the Phenomenauts bus and told her to wake them up and come eat some free food. The keys player and the robot (well, he also sings and plays guitar, but his role is “the robot” – mad appreciation for them) made it just in time to get coffee and table-scrounge some pancakes. I snuck them all into the pool, hung out in the hot tub, showered and packed, and was ready to get back on the road around noon.

I was psyched to get back to Portland. I’d spent a considerable amount of time in Seattle, but I have a much longer history in Portland and knew far more people in my time there. I was so taken with ZooBomb bike club when I drove across the country to Richmond for Slaughterama with them (and back) in 2008 that I switched teams from Rat Patrol. My best friend from high school has also lived there off-and-on since the summers between our college years. After the aforementioned road trip, I helped run the pedicab company there for a little bit, so I have many memories and sensational stories from our warehouse existence and late night adventures in the seedy Chinatown of that peculiar port city. It just so happened that the club we were playing was right in the middle of our old tricycle street urchin stomping grounds.

Our viola player was so cute when she asked me to give her a “Leslie tour” of Portland as soon as we arrived. The years of traveling and riding bike taxi have made me an almost uncontrollable tour guide. However, for interested parties, it can be quite entertaining. The viola player is savvy and knows this is how we find robots and wind up in swank hotels for free. So, I warned her it would be erratic and hurried, but we explored every bit of my memory in that part of town. She followed and listened as I expressed surprise at the line outside the now massive Voodoo Doughnuts, wandered through the Saturday Market and saw the same old buskers, bemoaned the gentrification that drove the tent city out from under the bridge, pointed out shops or their former spots, gave a brief history of the Shanghai tunnels and the mining era sex trade of the Pacific Northwest, took a tour of the old pedicab garage and saw the art warehouse upstairs where my mechanic friend lives, got a dirty chai at Backspace, gawked at the old school video games/pinball/craft beers at Ground Control, and skirted the Pearl District on our way back to Dantes.

My biggest problem with the Pacific Northwest during the times when I sort of lived there was the higher concentration of flakiness that permeates the whole West Coast. I knew more people in Portland than almost anywhere else we’re going on this tour, yet only my best friend from high school and my old pedicab bike mechanic made it out to the show. I was very last minute about informing people, but I was still a little disappointed. The two of them were busy until the show, but I got to run my Portland errands with some of my favourite superfan friends who happen to be following the tour. We went over to Sushi Takahashi and I got to introduce them to the kitschy decor and model train that brings the sushi around the counter. A friend who also used to be in Environmental Encroachment with me showed up there with one of our fan/friends and we had an awesome heart-to-heart talk about relationships, despite not seeing each other for years. We all wandered over to the legendary Powell’s Books and I bought a used copy of The Little Prince, which I had only experienced in French, and read it aloud as we meandered back to the venue. I lent it to their traveling group and made them promise to read it aloud in their van.

The show was pretty good. Dante’s was a bigger and better venue than I had imagined, not nearly so sleazy and goth as the reputation which preceded it. My best friend had just flown in from her visit in Boston, coming straight to my show. She hadn’t seen me perform in ages, so I was really glad she got to see me play in this band. She was like a proud sister, it was really cute. My mechanic friend, who is the drummer for the band Chervona, really liked the show as well. We contemplated hanging out at his warehouse space afterwards, but lingered around the venue. I pushed everyone to go get doughnuts. I remember when my Portland friends and I all went to Voodoo Doughnuts every night after pedicabbing. It’s a job that requires an absurd number of calories, something which is readily available in an all night doughnut shop. Now, when I tried to bring them along with me after the show, they said it was like asking a New Yorker to come see the Empire State Building. I think this is part of why I am so hesitant to put down roots anywhere, precious things succumb to hype and drift out of reach so easily. The rest of the band went to stay with friends of the tour manager, while I let the Phenomenauts do the inevitable kidnapping I was bound to enjoy. I had a ton of fun cavorting with them, finally waking up all snuggled in a bunk somewhere behind a grocery store. I continued my quest for a metal coffee mug with a sealing top and a carabiner handle, but to no avail, so I ate a pancake at someone’s house and got back on the bus and partied my way to California with these beautiful nerds.

Coming soon: an unwieldy entry about our four shows in California and the one day off in the middle, including lots of pictures.

more of the East coast

It is ridiculous that I am so behind on posts. We’re already three shows into tour and I’m still writing about NYC. I’ve been having too much fun on our long drives to get very much writing done. Slowly catching up…

THURSDAY

I’m not very good at sitting in one place for very long. So, within less than a week of arriving in NYC, I was off on a bus to Boston. What would a bus trip to Boston be without my saw-playing traveler friend? I walked down to Chinatown to meet him at the bus stop. On the way, I popped into my friend’s swank salon and got a fresh haircut for tour. It was essentially an edit of what had grown out, but much shorter on the sides. I was a little too much of a sissy to go this short last time, but now the sides are practically buzzed. I can understand why I see more girls every day with this sort of hair, it feels wonderful and is so much easier to manage. There was just enough time after my haircut to grab dumplings and get on the bus.

We slept like champions on the way up to Boston, then had a long walk to the rehearsal from the subway. Apparently the few people in Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band who I had told about coming up had kept it a secret, so my arrival at the end of rehearsal was a nice surprise. I was psyched to see everyone, since I’d be missing them at Honk the next weekend. I wound up staying at the apartment where we’d been rehearsing, drinking beers and catching up with friends, then sleeping in the most comfy bed ever. It was so good that it had a guest appearance in every dream I had that night.

FRIDAY

I was so worn out from my nonstop my week that I slept in despite only being in Boston for a little over a day. Eventually, my friend and I walked over to Davis Square before breakfast was over at the Rosebud Diner. It was funny, since we’d also eaten in another old airstream diner downtown on one of our previous coinciding trips to Boston. I adore that diner. We walked over to Davis Square and I found the alleged photos of me in the Honk collage outside of the pharmacy. I had my own personal Honk tour that day, seeing the VFW Dilboy Hall and all of the other venues, then walking down Mass Ave along the parade route with a friend of mine from SCUL. Just as we reached our destination, I heard brass band music in the distance. Surely I was imagining things. In fact, it was the Harvard marching band practicing out in the rain, marching right down the middle of the street. I was ecstatic. The rest of the night was a gig marathon, with soundcheck at Oberon, a benefit show down the street at another venue, then sporadic sets back at Oberon for their cabaret show. The old drummer from Inferno was apparently there, but I missed him somehow. The cabaret show was hilarious and it was also fun to play with Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band again.

After the show, we all hung out for a while and I headed home with some of the band and hung out at their apartments. My best friend from high school, who lives in Portland, was coincidentally flying into the Boston airport at about 2am, so we had planned to meet up after she got to Somerville. She and her local friends picked me up and she and I had a few hours to hang out before I had to head to the bus station. I had rehearsal in NYC at 2pm, after all. That night, the commuter bus was my bed.

SATURDAY

I again booked a Chinatown bus, rather than the fancier buses which arrive in midtown, in order to save a subway ride. I slept almost the entire way to New York and woke up rather reluctantly just before we reached our destination. By the time I had walked over the Manhattan Bridge, I was mostly awake. I had been invited to again play with the Greatest Smallest Band for another Great Small Works sort of spectacle, this time for the massive arts festival which took over DUMBO that weekend. Even I was impressed that I squeezed it into my schedule. We hit the streets at about 1pm, played a small parade, and I ducked out during the puppet show to race to Bushwick for rehearsal at 2pm. We went just late enough that I missed sitting in on an Up Up We Go set at ABC No Rio. Since I was outside of Time’s Up, I at least got some reports of the situation at Wall Street. A city bus had just been filled with arrested protesters and a group of cyclists was trying to stay with it as it drove around the city.

All of the activity surrounding the occupation made it a perfect night for busking, as the law had better things to do that harass street musicians. We picked a busy corner surrounded by bars on the Lower East Side, our backs to an abandoned building. It was a perfect location. We did quite well and I don’t know why I haven’t tried street performing down there before. Even the restaurant staff across from us liked it. It was me on alto sax, my friend from New Orleans, our saw player, and their really good accordion friend from Connecticut. A guy came along and asked if we would like to play down the street in the club where he works. Mehanata?! Yes indeed. I’ve somehow never played there, although it seems like all of my friends have. Somehow they didn’t have a band that night, so they let us come in and busk and drink for free before the DJ set started. Something about the whole situation made me feel somewhat victorious.

I’d been invited by two separate people to things in DUMBO that I would normally never turn down. However, I was exhausted and increasingly losing patience with the bridge and tunnel crowd who were leaking into the Lower East Side at an alarming rate as the night went on. I stopped by my bass/sousaphone player friend’s place on the way “home” and hung out on the roof for a bit. The ambitiousness I’d gotten from the sugary fruit-infused vodka at Mehanta faded away as I stared out at the NYC skyline. There was no way I was leaving the island that night. Once my head hit the pillow that night, I slept for about twelve hours.

SUNDAY

As if the previous Sunday wasn’t wonderful and full of familiar smiling faces enough, the next one was even better. I had gotten asked by my New Orleans friend to play a show with him at some sort of festival on Governor’s Island. I’d had such a fun time at Punk Island that I of course said yes, not caring that I had no information besides set times. Well, it came as no surprise that the event was thrown by people I had previously met and likewise attended by friends of mine. We played two sets as a trio – banjo with kick drum, saw, and clarinet. Despite having our modest busking setup bookended by a large afrobeat band, we went over well. We were providing the music for an art festival, playing on a small stage in the midst of buildings of apartments where work had been installed. My favourite was a kitchen filled with popcorn and broken umbrellas. Afterward, a group of us banded together and took the ferry back to DUMBO. There was still another art festival going on there, after all.

We meandered back along the waterfront toward our friends’ loft, watching the stunning orange sunset and the ferries passing the Statue of Liberty. I made a sudden detour as we were passing Galapagos. My friend from Hungry March Band runs tech there and sure enough he was in. He’d guest listed me plus one the night before for their weekly cabaret show, but I’d been far too exhausted and overwhelmed to make it there. Likewise, I had missed my friend’s loft building party down the street, but here I was the next evening at Galapagos and about to hang out at one of the lofts where the party had been. Of course, what was meant to be a quick hello turned into a drink, but I caught up to my friends regardless.

The plan for the evening was two-fold. We were there to hang out, but also to facilitate a cleansing fire ceremony which had been put off for far too long. I was appointed musical director by the guy facilitating the event, even though we had only just met. We both came highly recommended to each other already and it wound up being an easy partnership which created a beautiful and simple event.

After the first visitor, who burned a document which was heavy in both weight and significance, the music dropped to near silence. The cellist continued to drone in the same key and I suddenly found myself playing a very slow and sad rendition of Ederlezi. It came out of my clarinet almost on its own, beautifully resonating through the industrial alleyway. The music continued to ebb and flow according to each visitor, until finally everyone joined us back there for one last dirge. Only a handful of people had come back to burn things, so it was a pleasant surprise to see about twenty show up at the very end. We burst into a happier song, extinguishing the fire and musically parading the crowd back to the warehouse space while the site was returned to its original state. The music sounded incredible as it echoed in the stairwell on the way back up to the loft.

What touched me the most about that evening was the legacy which we were carrying out. The underground scene in NYC has such a dense history, remnants of which I have been honored to witness and help enable. Performance groups and party spaces have evolved and splintered for years. The Rude Mechanical Orchestra was an offshoot of the Hungry March Band, who used to practice in a similar spot along the same waterfront where we sat that night. I had just participated in a parade for Great Small Works the day before, completely endorsed and publicized by the neighborhood. This night, though, we did our show without permission and hidden away from the crowds of the arts festival. In the shadow of these established artists, we made our own show in the shadows. It was from these humble beginnings in the streets that groups such as GSM got their start, back when DUMBO was far less attractive to the masses. We all reveled in the fact that we could still get away with a bonfire-lit concert in the midst of so much gentrification. Maybe the police were all too busy worrying about Wall Street.

Not only had I wound up being the “musical director” for the event, but I also accidentally booked the music for the afterparty. My cellist friend, who had already been in DUMBO busking and accepted my invitation to play with us, offered to do his beatboxing/loop/voice/cello act and gave us a full set of wonderfulness. Everyone raved about it. He was only in town for a short while with some sort of hiphopera, so it was a special treat for us all. The night ended splendidly with a massive cuddle puddle in a ball pit full of little stuffed pandas. Life was good indeed.

MONDAY

Waking up in a pool of stuffed animals wasn’t as strange to me as having to go to work at 9am. How do people DO that every day? I guess most of them don’t get up to as many antics as I do. I made it to work and managed nearly a full day of manual labour. The space is getting really well organized, so moving boxes from place to place is becoming pretty rewarding in its own way. I got off work a little early, so I was able to stop by Wall Street on the way back to Union Square. My friends from Big Nasty, an old jazz band from North Carolina, were playing for folks at the occupation and I joined in on clarinet. There were a ton of musicians I knew down there, wandering around the park with their instruments as though they’d come down to fight a battle and these were their weapons. The park has shaped up nicely, with an area designated for a Food Not Bombs sort of kitchen and another as a technology hub with power outlets and wifi for laptops, plus the spread of tents and sleeping areas. It was touching to see how everyone had come together and developed this space, as well as how peacefully everyone was interacting with it. I’ve been referring to it as the coolest squat in New York City.

We couldn’t play for very long, as they had to head to Brooklyn to get ready for their show that night and I had scheduled a rehearsal at the place where I was staying. The viola player from our band came over and we had a horn parts sectional for a couple of hours. I then hurried over to Brooklyn to join back up with my friends and see the end of their set. A lot of the radical puppeteer crowd was there and the music was excellent. I wound up having a late night despite my better intentions yet again.

TUESDAY

I need to quit sleeping in ball pits when I have work at 9am. Fortunately, it was only a half day of work, although I wound up racing back to the apartment to shower before rehearsal. Staying somewhere so central and accessible has been really nice, even if I am rarely ever there. I powered through our last rehearsal before tour, although by the end of it I needed to go straight back and rest. The most ambitious thing I did all night was accompany my friend to his brother’s show, which was walking distance (Sidewalk Cafe) and very mellow. We stopped at Ray’s for egg creams on the way back and I smiled ear to ear as I watched a young squatter kid from the neighborhood proudly present his new girlfriend to Ray as though he was his very own father. Classic. We strolled back to the apartment and I did all of my laundry, packed, and managed to get a few hours of sleep before heading to the airport in the morning.

WEDNESDAY

I successfully took the subway to the skytrain, checked my bag, and made my flight in time. Being in a band which has a tour manager has made me a little codependent when I travel, I’ve realized, as I haven’t had to take nearly as much responsibility for the details of my trips lately. The airplane from NYC to Seattle had the highest concentration of slick adult punks I’ve ever seen on a plane. In fact, the airport in general was an attractive crowd that morning. Ah, New York. As soon as we were airborn, I was out cold in the deepest sleep humanly possible, obliviously crossing the vast expanse between oceans – a flight nearly as long as the one to Europe a couple of months ago. I made clown faces at the giggling little girl in the seat in front of me, mixed some instant oatmeal into my coffee, and readied myself for a new chapter of touring.

New York’s Alright (if you like saxophones)

I am quite behind on posts. Here is the first half of my time in NYC before tour:

After an incredible couple of months away, I was not looking forward to coming back to NYC. This happens every time I leave… almost without fail. Yet somehow, the moment I come back, my social life continues right back where it left off, full speed ahead. New York makes me so busy and throws so many friends in my face amid good music that I soon yield, forgetting how much I’ve been criticizing the place behind its back. Fun stupid city.

My only reason for being back in New York was the rehearsals leading up to the next Inferno tour. Even so, I was almost constantly busy the moment I stepped into town, not to mention falling right back into my side jobs and a few music gigs. I would have stayed out West after Burning Man or even at home in Chicago if I could have. As I’d already missed one rehearsal in order to spend a week in Chicago, I decided not to take O’Death up on their offer to stow away in their tour van until they got back to NYC on Monday. Then again, going on someone else’s tour isn’t exactly the ideal way to recover from my own.

FRIDAY

Arrival… I’ll describe my time in NYC day by day, as each was so full and unique. Since my Amtrak train didn’t get into town until the early evening, I hadn’t planned on doing much at all that night. A friend who lives alone in the East Village has been kind enough to let me use his space as a steady landing pad, which has been a wonderful alternative to constantly dragging my stuff around town and trying not to disrupt the lives of people and their roommates too much. It’s not the sleeping in a different place every night that gets to you as much as your increasingly cumbersome belongings. I also enjoy being able to walk to this apartment when I arrive in town, instrument-laden backpack and all. Once I arrived, it wasn’t long before I got talked into heading over to Brooklyn to see a show.

It took a lot to draw me out on that night, but other people staying on couches at my friend’s place were keen to hit the subway and check out an event at a DIY sort of space. I won’t go into too many details now, although I hope to get somehow involved and speak more about it in the future, but basically it was a panel of producers and musicians who are trying to support rock music in oppressive countries where it is censored or even banned. I was very glad I made it out there and even got a chance to talk to some of them afterwards. Especially where women’s voice in music is considered, this is a topic which needs all the attention we can give it. I was exhausted, but managed to stay for most of the locals bands which followed the presentation.

SATURDAY

This was what I had come to town for – an afternoon rehearsal at our usual spot. I was pretty tired, but had some time to kill between the bar and going back to where I was staying, so I stopped in at C Squat, which was having a show that night. I saw an old subway busking friend perform, which was a nice surprise, plus some fun bands. I also got to hear the SFH track I recorded on before I left for Europe. However, I kept getting given drinks and somehow got more intoxicated than planned (likely due to heading straight there rather than eating dinner first), so much of the end of that night is a messy blur. Lesson learned… for now anyway.

SUNDAY

I had a hard time waking up in time for even an early afternoon brunch; the previous night had been embarrassingly rough on my body. I headed uptown to have brunch with a friend and his family, which was a very sweet way to start the day. My main plan, though, was to attend the last day of Maker Faire in Queens. It had occurred to me on my train ride out to NYC that it was already that time of year again. The very first Maker Faire had shaped a considerable amount of my previous fall, so it was a significant milestone to return after a year of touring. It was very much how I remembered it, although with fewer of my friends exhibiting. The timing this year landed it a little too close to Burning Man for some people to do both. Even so, I saw a lot of familiar faces from all over the country. My friend who runs the Gemini & Scorpio parties had booked the music stage, which I’d had a hand in last year, and did a splendid job. The Life Size Mousetrap was there again in all of its splendid ridiculousness too. I spent my few hours there running from place to place greeting old friends, but not getting to see much of the exhibits.

The puppeteer who I had met when we played in Edinburgh had emailed me the previous day to say he was driving through NYC and we should have coffee. I invited him to come over to Maker Faire and he told me to say hi to the guys in GLANK for him. It turned out that I knew two-thirds of the band. They were all pleasantly surprised he was in town. We hung out after the event ended, enjoying the spoils of a weekend freshly over such as surplus paella. Eventually, we hit up the incredible Italian ice place and headed for the afterparty at the marina in Far Rockaway. The friend who had hooked me up with a festival pass for helping him load out lives on a house boat there, which I somehow had never seen when it was moored on the Gowanus. It turned out that other friends of mine live there as well, including that night’s bartender (why do I always know the bartender?). I was glad to see the Boatel, a project affiliated with Flux Factory which has been going quite well. A series of houseboats are docked together and rented out separately as hotel rooms. There are a series of lectures and films on an adjacent dock, plus other artsy perks. The bar on the dock is made out of an old boat as well. The guys who runs the marina seems to be doing it right and then some. The trip all the way out to Far Rockaway was even more worthwhile because Apocalypse Five and Dime was playing in the outdoor bar. Gradually, folks from Maker Faire filled in and we all kept ourselves warm with dancing and cheap grilled cheese sandwiches. While chatting around the bar, one of my friends described me as a “people curator” because of my vast network of talented friends. I smiled and took note of those words.

MONDAY

I took this as a very necessary day off. I slept in for most of it, finally venturing out to jam with a concertina-playing traveler girl I’d met at C Squat. It was nearly sunset and I still found it hard to get off of the futon, although I did get a lot of computer work done that afternoon. We met up in Tompkins Square Park and played on a bench. I brought my clarinet so that I could get better acquainted with it before much-anticipated NYC busking. Within the first five minutes of us sitting down to play, it turned into a theory lesson. She told me that her instrument could only play in two keys and not in minor. I taught her what relative minor meant and how to produce it on the concertina. My musical education has a lot of holes in it, so it’s always fun to find the words to teach folks who have no musical vocabulary. We got talking about places she should visit while in NYC and decided that the first good step was to hit up Blue Stockings for a Slingshot Organizer. On our way, we ran into a couple of friends of mine who were headed to a presentation there. We grabbed some food to go at Punjabi, a Lower East Side institution for cheap vegetarian food, and she headed into the lecture with them. I spent a bit of time catching up with a friend who works at the restaurant next to the bookshop, who I run into constantly in Brooklyn and New Orleans.

My next stop was coffee with a bass player I’d lost touch with but recently run into on the bike path of the Williamsburg Bridge. Inevitably, our hanging out that evening led to getting each other gigs. New York is wonderful and awful in this way. He’d started playing sousaphone recently and as we were sipping our coffees at Mud, my feral busking friend from New Orleans texted me in search of a tuba player for our show on Wednesday. Perfect. I was all set for a low-key night, but wound up showing some new friends from Maker Faire around the East Village, staying out far later than I should have, considering I was working at 9am the next morning. I had met the guy at the end of the event on Sunday, and when I found out that he was from San Francisco and had never been to NYC before, I insisted he come out and see the neighborhood. He brought along his cousin, who makes steampunk hats with him back in California and was vending alongside him at Maker Faire. They were lovely. She is hopefully going to come see my show in San Francisco when we pass through. After much merrymaking, I finally pulled myself out of our meandering bar crawl and got some sleep.

TUESDAY

One of the many houseguests at the apartment where I’ve been keeping my stuff was spending most of his time down at Wall Street, where protesters had been occupying a small park since just after I got to town. They had planned to occupy the actual street, but in anticipation of the protest, the police had blocked off Wall Street itself early on – ironic, since the street is just as unuseable as it would have been had the occupation settled there. So, essentially the protesters took over the street anyway, in addition to the park. I was a little disappointed in myself for not making it down to it sooner, and I still have yet to spend the night there, but definitely something remarkable is happening downtown. I got my first glimpse of it on my way to work that morning, taking a detour on my way to Brooklyn. The park was smaller than I’d imagined, but easy to find behind the long line of cops. Someone spotted the sax case on my back and told me they needed more live music there. I apologized for having to run off, but assured him I would pass the request on to my musician friends.

I headed to work at the same venue I’ve been at since the start of the year. I had such a good time that day, surprised by how much I had apparently missed the old building and its quirks. I also enjoyed getting back into the swing of manual labour and simple tasks. I could only work a half day, as I had rehearsal that afternoon. I went straight from there to rehearsal, then to meet up with my new steampunk milliner friends, then to a cabaret show at a friend’s nearby loft. Just as I’d been sure they would adore the East Village, I knew they needed to see this apartment. This epic loft space is full of my friends’ collections of decaying beauty and knicknacks of bygone eras. It is floor to ceiling with so many old relics that words cannot even describe how it looks. The rooms also have the sort of aesthetic that takes years of inhabiting to cultivate. Friends from the Bay Area and New Orleans performed a variety of musical and dance acts, interspersed with a room full of fascinating creative people mingling. I’ve spent Thanksgiving in their home before, and it is always full of the people you were meant to meet or have been hoping to see again. Again, I stayed out too late, although a friend kept me company halfway up the Williamsburg Bridge.

WEDNESDAY

I somehow made it to work at 9am, but was glad I’d decided to go to Boston for the rest of the week rather than work two more long shifts. I put in more than an eight hour shift this time, meeting up with my saw playing friend afterwards to seek out the rest of our busking crew. The New Orleans pickup band was having a rehearsal somewhere in the subway before our set at the Jalopy that night and finally we found them. I had brought both my alto sax and my clarinet along, but wound up only playing the clarinet in the subway. The guys agreed I had gotten a lot better at it since we last played together. We busked for a little while at a subway stop I seldom think of playing in, boarded the train with our instruments, then had a little musical parade to the venue. Our band had three good bass players in it, but they were playing mandolin, ukulele, and sousaphone instead. We also had guitar, banjo, saw, and me on clarinet. It was my first real gig on that instrument, so it was a big deal for me. Now that I’ve gotten that first hurdle out of the way, I’m sure I’ll be playing it a lot more often. I played my alto for the last couple of songs, partly because I’m a lot better on sax and partly because I hadn’t lugged it all over the city for nothing. A friend of mine, who I’d sort of met when he was in London with the Pleasant Revolution bicycle music tour and had gotten to know during Golden Fest this year, happened to be in town on tour with some sort of hiphopera, so he came out to see us play. The concertina lady from the day before was there as well. The Jalopy remains one of my favourite venues in NYC and it was awesome to be part of another Wednesday Roots and Ruckus showcase. I am so critical of New York when I’m away from it, but when I’m in little bohemian bubbles such as this I forget that the rest of the city exists.

Honk Fest begins (without me)

As though I didn’t feel sad enough missing Honk in Boston this year:

http://calendar.boston.com/somerville-ma/events/show/211394425-honk-festival-2011

There are also two photos of me in the shadow box display in Davis Square.

Weird.

I’m already out on the West Coast, but the post about NYC is coming soon.