To begin with, let me apologize for the photo-less nature of the blog. My trusty digital camera, which lasted thru 5 years of rough life, from France to drunken college parties, to ride-alongs with 1-800-GOT JUNK, long summer rock festivals and my first two tours, is no longer functional. It was on its last legs last tour and officially died while I was at home. Although I’m almost broke, I’d love some recommendations on compact, affordable, reliable digital cameras. I’ve enabled anonymous comments, ‘cause people were having trouble commenting, so comment away.
The first two shows are out of the way now. On Saturday, we played in Memphis, TN. My dad recommended a couple of barbecue joints and, in the true spirit of my touring experience, I missed out. For those meat-eaters among you headed for Memphis in the near future, I’ll pass along his recommendations:
"Corky,s and The Rendezvous are the two good places to get ribs. The Rendezvous is located downtown in a basement. It has checkered tablecloths and good beer and is reasonably priced. Corky's has 2 kinds of ribs, dry and wet. It is higher priced. Enjoy!"
The morning after our long drive from Michigan to the southwestern corner of Tennessee, I woke up early, determined to get my prescription filled. I’ll never cease to be amazed by people’s underestimation of what’s “walkable.” When I asked the front desk clerk at our hotel for the location of a pharmacy, he explained that there was a Walgreens a mile or two down the road. As I headed off, backpack on my back, he asked whether I was planning on walking and informed me “there’s no way you can walk there,” adding “why don’t I call you a cab?” I insisted I’d be alright, knowing that I had plenty of time before Mike and the band were up. I ended up having a pleasant enough walk to the Walgreens. I think the trip there ended up taking about 30 minutes.
There’s something inherently dirty about the East Coast. I wonder what makes people feel that it’s acceptable to throw their trash out the window onto the roadside? This is a trend I’ve noticed now that I’ve been away from the East for a while. I’m not trying to hold Oregon up as any kind of magical place where people don’t litter, but there certainly isn’t that much trash on the roadsides I’ve seen back home.
One of my favorite walking activities is talking on the phone with my parents. I don’t get much time alone these days, so calling my folks on a walk is the easiest way to ensure that we get uninterrupted time for talking.
I returned from my trip to Walgreens to find that Rob, Ross and Mike were all awake and raring to go. We’ve needed to replace our guitar stand tub since I started working with Tally Hall, but over the course of the last tour it definitely started falling apart. With this goal in mind, the four of us headed for the Home Depot I’d spotted on my reconnaissance march to Walgreens. Unable to find an upgrade, we got a direct replacement and, ceremoniously depositing the old tub in the dumpster behind the Home Depot, we drove off into the hazy Memphis mid-morning.
We headed back to the hotel, where we waited for the rest of the band to get up and about. Around noon, we headed for downtown with the twin destinations of Graceland and Sun Studios in mind. We wandered around a little and stopped at the only restaurant in downtown Memphis that seemed open, a café called “Sauce.” My burger was ok, nothing special, but definitely better than the fast food options. Ross and Andrew opted for some sort of “flatbread,” which, while advertised as a sandwich, turned out to be more of a plate of haphazardly prepared finger food. I know I’m spoiled by the delicious food in Portland, but for a place called “Sauce” to be serving Hunt’s fancy ketchup seemed kind of like a copout. Nevertheless, lunch was fun and we were served promptly enough and the waitrons were kind enough to split the check (always a pain).
After lunch, Mike and the band decided that they wanted to see Graceland. I’ll be the first to admit, I just don’t get the Elvis thing. I just don’t think the guy’s that interesting musically or culturally. I can understand why people might be interested, but it’s just not my thing. Instead of Graceland, I went music geeking. I drove around the Beale Street area, but it was really touristy. It felt like the lamer parts of Austin combined with Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco; lots of cookie-cutter tourist traps and souvenir shops. Outside of the Beale Street Area, downtown Memphis had a lot in common with a ghost town: burned out boarded up hulks of awesome early/mid 20th century architecture, waist-high crabgrass and cracked pavement. As Rob pointed out, “When the largest building in the area is boarded up and abandoned, there’s some kind of problem.” The areas surrounding downtown were hardly different. The boarded up buildings were just smaller, and there were people. Poverty is really a terrible thing, that’s all I want to say about that.
The Sun “Museum” seemed really small, the staff was cranky and I was in no mood to wait 45 minutes for a tour, so I gave up and headed off in the direction of my main interest in Memphis (besides putting on a rock show), the Stax Records Studio. I almost got the Shaft, showing up just in time to Knock on Wood and get the old “Come on In” from the kindly staff. Time Was Tight, so I felt a little hurried getting through this soul pilgrimage, but I had a good time checking out the movie about the history of Stax and the exhibits. Next time we’re in Memphis, Let’s Stay Together and I’ll Take You There.
Apologies for the poorly executed Stax jokes above, I just had to get those out. The Stax Museum is located on McLemore Avenue in the original location of the Stax Studio. It houses a healthy collection of Stax memorabilia along with some poorly planned exhibits and musical displays. The organizers seem to have designed each exhibit in a vacuum and just thrown the whole thing together. Maybe having all of the exhibits’ music blend together into a cacophony was part of a plan to point out exactly how much music was going on at Stax back in the day, but it made for a pretty annoying experience. Apart from the informative exhibits about the people who founded Stax, there were the all important bits of memorabilia: instruments (authentic and otherwise), stage clothes, photos, concert posters and, the crown jewel, Isaac Hayes’ Superfly-style Cadillac. What an amazing monument to movin’ on up. 4” white shag carpeting, purple upholstery, shiny purple paint, peace signs around the headlights, and a TV—unheard of at that time. Blingtastical blingtron!
The highlight of the Stax tour for me was getting to check out the original Stax Studio and control room. It’s amazing to me that these great records were recorded in such primitive conditions. I guess it shows how little equipment matters in the scheme of things. These musicians played well together and the singers sung their hearts out. I’d like to work in a studio like that sometime.
After a nice day of site-seeing in Memphis, we converged on Newby’s, the venue for our first rock show of the new tour. Tally Hall is opening the first few dates of this tour, and then switching with De Novo Dahl, our touring partners, after Dallas. Newby’s is an alright joint; with a dive bar-type room centered between a game room on one side and a big for shows on the other. For those of you from Portland, the venue side is roughly the size of Conan’s/the Hawthorne Theatre, where I mixed my very first club show. Jason, the house guy at Newby’s, was quite accommodating and, since De Novo Dahl were running late, he let us set up and soundcheck, a rarity for an opener like us. The PA at Newby’s was a lot like the ones I used with Aloha Sound, a big JBL trapezoid rig with lots of loud and boom but not much definition or subtlety.
Between loadin and soundcheck, the weather got really gross, and a glance at the TVs in the bar showed us that it was not likely to get any better: there were tornado warnings all around us, and two counties over they were reporting quarter and dime sized hail. Rain was coming down in sheets. It was raining so hard, I was soaked from running across the sidewalk from the venue to our van.
After marveling at the weather for a while, I got dinner from the venue. I generally try to ask the local crew what to eat, since they know what’s most likely to give you food poisoning and what’s actually good. Tonight, both Jason the sound guy and John the bartender recommended the marinated chicken. I opted for the marinated chicken salad, which ended up being quite tasty. On my recommendation, most of the bandmembers ordered the same thing. Unfortunately, during their meal, Zubin saw a cockroach skitter across the bar. Across the bar! So, a note to those going to Memphis: don’t eat at Newby’s.
(I’m writing this from the road between Dallas and Tucson, and we just passed a truck with what looked like two gigantic cheese wheels on a flatbed. I’m talking ginormous cheese wheels, like 15’ across and 20’ high. Amazing.)
Perhaps in spite of the rain, the show only received lackluster attendance. It’s hard mixing in empty rooms, let me tell you. I had a tough time getting the vocals to cut and be clear enough. On the plus side, though, Ross had taken his drums into the studio to cut some Disney tracks and the engineer had helped him retune his kick drum, which sounded fabulous. Nice and thumpy, with a healthy slap from the beater. Yay, kick drum.
Our adventures that evening did not end at the club, however. On the way back to our hotel from Newby’s, our van was struck by a truck wheel while I was driving. I saw the wheel jump over the median and then felt a nice thump with an unhealthy metal “spang.” Fortunately, it didn’t hit anything of vital importance, and didn’t injure anyone in the vehicle. We pulled over and inspected the damage, which is pretty ghastly looking, but fortunately not structural. TM Mike has pictures of the damage, which I’ll hopefully sweet talk him into letting me post in the internets.
So there it is, the first set of adventures this time.
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