The Hurricane Lamps Blog

Chicago, home

2004-12-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

2 days to drive the 17 hours to Chicago. Not much happens except for numerous bathroom breaks and long drawn out conversations about various movie subjects and best of lists. Best time travel movies, best episodes of The Outer Limits or Twilight Zone, best Rolling Stones riff of all time and why.

The Abbey Pub was a nice place to play. The staff there, while a bit cynical, was on their game. The soundwoman, April, could easily have a 2nd job as a dominatrix. Her cheery name was in stark contrast to her dictator like control over the load in process, placement of spare gear, and sound check. My type of girl.

Eric was a bit nervous to play his ever improved solos in front of our friend John Troutman, whom he holds in very high regard as a guitar player. He seemed a bit shaky at first, but everything went smoothly during the set. Afterwards we got to hang out a bit with John downstairs and catch up on old times. Not a bad evening for the last night of the tour.

On the way home, Eric had his wallet stolen. He left it on the counter of the convenience store at a rest stop and by the time he noticed, someone had take it. He got lucky though and someone found it in the trash the next day, sans $40 that he had just taken out of the ATM.

Seattle, Albuquerque, OKC, Austin

2004-11-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

This is gonna be one big diary update. Sorry it took so long to get up... J.

After spending some time in Portland with Eric's brother Adam and his wife Stacy, we headed up to Seattle. The drive was relatively short - a welcome relief considering the long drives we had made up to that point. We arrived in Seattle on Halloween evening and stayed at our friend Greg's house. The on-air at KEXP the next day went rather well. Eric played guitar like a man posessed and his soloing had the perfect mix of J.Mascis-ey sloppiness and creativity. After the on-air, we made our way up to the venue and killed some time shopping for records and watching a movie. The show that night was less than spectacularly attended. The show was at a good place, but not many people came out - we figured it was a combination of the rain, the post Halloween night, and the coming election night.

We had 3 days of driving to go the 1200 miles to Albuquerque. Sadly, the most beautiful part, driving through Moab, was done at night. At the various rest stops we alternated look at the millions of stars which were visible in the night sky. Amazing what you can see without light pollution. At one rest stop, I was approached by a native american man. He proclaimed that he was drunk and just wanted some change so he could get some food. After giving him about $2 in change I had, he continued to pester me for more money, asking me to buy lunch for him and spouting out weird drunk indian pseudo-philosophy at me. We had to get going, so we got in the van and just left him standing in the parking lot, staring at us intently, continuing his rant, apparently mad that I would not give him more money.

Albuquerque was a bust - the headlining band had van trouble and the show was cancelled. This was relayed to us in an email about 4 hours before we arrived into town, thus we didn't get the messgae until after we pulled up to the venue only to find it closed up and nothing on the schedule for the show that night. We contacted the club owners and found out the scoop and drove onward to Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma City show was pretty cool. The bands we played with sounded great and the turnout was good. After the show, as we were waiting to get paid, we sat in the corner and watched two girls flirt shamelessly with members of the headlining band. It was pretty much a free 1/2 hour show on flirting techniques. One girl, when feigning boredom, kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, lifting up her skirt in the process. On our way out of the parking lot, she stepped in front of our van and performed a Karate Kid crane style leg lift. Though we never spoke, I felt like I knew her for a long time.

Onto Austin where we met up with our friend Beatty from Fivehead. As always, the show at The Carousel went well. Afterwards, we went over to Davis's house (drummer from Fivehead). He wasn't home so we let ourselves in and grabbed some beers. It was odd starting a party in someone elses house, but Davis was late getting home from a Holly-Go-Lightly concert and told us to let ourselves in. In the back yard we were greeted by a half empty keg and a large metal sign that said "Hot Freaks". More people showed up and by 2am it was a full party. A good time was had by all. After the party we went to Beatty's house to crash. I promptly fell asleep but was greeted in the middle of the night by one of their cats who crawled inside my sleeping bag and cuddled up next to me.

The next day we stopped off for some Thai food and I swear I saw two members of the Barenaked Ladies come in and sit down near us. Checking their website I'm not so sure now, but there were definitely two guys in full on 'we're rockstars' gear eating with a really attractive woman. They had on the requisite Ben Sherman shirts, one with spiky hair separated into various tufts, the other with blonde highlights in his short hair. Both with sunglasses, nice watches. A bit too much for noon on a Sunday. They were there with a purpose.

Chicago entry coming soon.

Denver, Boise, & Portland

2004-10-31T13:23:00.000-08:00

The show in Denver could have been better...well, it would have been better if we had actually played. The original plan was that we were the headlining band on a late show that would start at 10:30, after an early bill which was supposed to start around 7:30. But as we all know, plans are for suckers. The sound guy was wayyy late and the early show didn't start until 9:30 or so. If we were to stick around, we would not have played until midnight or later. That fact, combined with the apparent lack of promotion for the show and our 13 hour drive to Boise the next day led us to bail on playing and pack it out without playing. The only positives were the Sox winning the world series and having a few drinks with my good pal Joey before we left.

Boise was good if only for the fact we actually got to play. The show was at an all ages space called 'The Venue'. The family that runs the Venue was really nice and made us feel welcome even with the lack of a crowd. It was a great space, but seems to be more suited for shows aimed at younger crowds and hardcore/goth type bands.

Portland was a different story. The show was a benefit show for Orlo and was held at the Bossanova Ballroom in downtown Portland. The opening act was an art/marching band with everyone in full costume. Dancers, stilt walkers, 8 person drum line, horn section and more. It was pretty cool. The sound guy at the ballroom let us run line outs from the sound board to our portable recording equipment so we could record the show. Our set went well and was well received buy the costumed crowd.

We're just about to head to Seattle now. We'll be playing on KEXP at 1pm PST on Monday and later that night Sunset Tavern. The good part of the tour seems to be kicking in and hopefully we make up for the not so good shows we encountered on the first half of the tour.

Denver, CO - First entry

2004-10-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, on slow news days, TV newscasts are replete with stories about orphans finding homes, cats getting rescued from drain pipes, and, if you're lucky, something that includes monkeys and flying poo at the zoo. My friends, if this blog were a newscast, we'd be at the flying poo portion of the hour.

Not much has happened on this tour so far. We left DC at noon on Sunday, drove for about 12 hours, slept at an overpriced TravelLodge where the clerk creeped me out with his lazy, wandering eye when we checked in. Before Monday nights show in Lawrence, we were saved from absolute lack of anything to discuss here by the simple question of a 4 year old girl. As we hung out in front of Replay Lounge, a mom and her daughter walked by. The daughter asked, referring to a bunch of Replay regulars, "Mommy - what are those people doing in that store?" The mothers reply was nothing short of perfection. We all were expecting something along the lines of "Sinning and killing themselves slowly", but we were treated to a much more thoughtful "Well, honey, they're um...enjoying their beverages." The show went along those lines as well. As we played, people, for the most part, enjoyed their beverages -- on the back patio. The smattering of polite applause was gratifying for a while, but we packed it in after 45 minutes. The next band, "The Low Flying Owls" didn't have much better luck. They played a pretty awesome set of droney buzz pop akin to Calla or The Jesus and Mary Chain, two bands I dig pretty much. Near the end of their set more people came inside from the porch to listen, but for the most part the nice weather and ability to smoke outside kept people out there.

We're in Denver now killing time before our show at Larimer Lounge this evening. We're playing a late show at 10:30 and hopefully people stick around after the early show. Though these first few shows were really setup to get us through to the west coast, it would be nice to have a good crowd. We know we can bring the rock.......

Galaxy Hut show w/Fivehead

2004-07-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

We played at Galaxy Hut in Arlington, VA on Monday night, 7/19. The schedule was supposed to be our friends Fivehead (from Austin, TX) first and then us. The Van Gods thew a monkey wrench in that plan. Fivehead were coming from Boston or somewhere up north and had to get a brake job on their vintage 1980's Ford Econoline. After that delay, they blew a tire in New Haven, CT around 5pm. This put them about 6 hours away from DC for a 9:30pm show. Lucky for them, we're crafty and resourceful. The logical thing to do was to stall..stall...stall..then play first. The first few songs threw me for a loop as we played some backup songs to pad out the set. After the 3rd song or so I settled in and think the show went pretty well. Fivehead arrived at 11:40pm and quickly loaded in their guitars to play a short but spirited set before the midnight music curfew.

Updates - New blog!

2004-07-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I've moved the blog from our website to blogger.com for stability sake. I had been running it on a custom PHP/MySQL app that I designed, but I didn't really feel like re-designing the wheel when better blog software is already in existance. Plus, blogger allows comments, which should be fun to read.

Here are some updates since you last read a diary entry:

*We finished our new record and it should be back from the pressing plant any time now. In case you didn't see the front page of our website, it's called "More, more, more" and should be out this fall.
* We're in the planning phases for a late October-Early November tour. Possibly 3 weeks.
* I got married in June and love it.
* Eric and his wife had a baby. We'll see if we can train baby Dash to take my place on reunion tours a-la John Bonhams son.
* Greg got his 'free' 1984 corvette running. All that is missing is a worn out cassette of REO Speedwagon's greatest hits. Somewhere out there, Rod is smiling. Ask us about it when you see us.

This is the end.....

2003-09-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Athens, parked the van, and headed to eat at a Thai restaurant we had been to the last time we were in town. Eric called our friend Dave Barbe, formerly of Mercyland and Sugar, who had invited us to tour his recording studio. Dave met us for dinner at the Thai place. During dinner, Dave told us some stories of life on the road with his bands, as well as how he dealt with being in a touring band and being a father at the same time. This part of the discussion was if interest to Eric, who has a baby due in about 2 weeks. After dinner, we headed down to Dave’s studio where he gave us a tour. Studio tours are always interesting – every studio does things a little different, and it’s always a good way to pick up a few recording/engineering/building hints or tips. Most fascinating was the control room, which Dave had rebuilt with a control room specialist to minimize room reflection and even out the sound. It’s amazing how much goes into that.

After the tour, Dave headed home to tuck in his kids (he would return to the club to catch our set) and we loaded in. There was some confusion as to who would play first, but we worked it out. We expected more of a crowd – we were hopeful that we weren’t playing against Rainer Maria and Denali again, but those that were there dug the set. It turns out we were playing against a much bigger show at the 40-Watt Club down the street – Hayride was playing, and since they are local favorites and don’t play that often, most people in town, including the Caledonia locals, were at that show. My Education played after us – they played a great Mogwai-ish instrumental set that sounded great. I listened from the patio outside the club – my ears were a bit worn from the constant noise of the past few weeks. A local band played after them.

After the local act, we packed up and loaded out. We gave our thanks to everyone, said bye to Dave, then hit the road. The original plan was to drive 2-3 hours to get a head start on our way home, but we ended up driving all night. I napped in the back seat and woke up in time to take over driving duties from Eric and Greg. The sun rose, the fog cleared out, and soon enough we were back in Virginia. A few hours later, we pulled into my driveway. The work was not over as we still had to unload the van and return it to the Airport, but the tour was officially over.

Overall, this was the best tour we had been on. As a band, we really tightened up and it was evident in the increased crowds and crowd reaction during the tour. I don’t recall anyone flipping out too much over anything – all in all we’re a pretty amicable bunch – and, most importantly, we made it home alive.

Whew.

Days out: 17
Shows played: 13
Miles driven: 8250
Average miles driven per day: 486
Games of Civilization II played: 5
Games won: 0

Damn you, Dairy Queen.

2003-09-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

The show in Tallahassee was another last minute addition. We would have had a free travel day to get to Athens, but once again, a show fell into place. We were to open on a bill with 3 other bands. The band that played after us, The Vinyl, had a few people who were well connected with the Tallahassee/Florida rock scene, having toured with or supported with some major label bands that came from the northern Florida area. We made acquaintance with Drew, the drummer from The Vinyl, who was a real friendly guy and made us feel at home in his town. We were listed on the bill as ‘tba’ and played first, but the assembled crowd was into it. After our first 5 songs, we noticed a decline in interest from the crowd, who were mostly there to see The Vinyl. Things picked up again at the end of the set and we left the stage feeling pretty good. The crowd was a lot more interested in The Vinyl and they packed the area in front of the stage. Their set was pretty good, albeit some of the songs were a bit too much on the ‘Modern Rock’ side of things for me.

We hung out for the remainder of the bands and chatted with a bunch of locals, mostly college students. We caught up with Drew and he invited us to a party at his house. We made it there right as the party started, and before we knew it, we were smack dab in the middle of a college party. We were entertained by the scene for a while and met a few cool people, but Greg wasn’t feeling that great and we had to take off before we ruined any chance of making Athens in decent shape.

I think there is only one ‘highway’ into Athens. The rest of the roads are country roads, and the combination of slow drivers and traffic lights, as well as 35mph zones through small towns made what would have been a relatively short drive a tiring one. In one town we passed a Dairy Queen and, for some reason, I decided that I must have a DQ Blizzard. I enjoy Ice Cream every now and then, but my body wasn’t ready for the shock of the monstrous, sugar filled, dairy creation (640 calories, 23g fat, 74g sugars) and I soon found myself in a hyperactive talkative state, followed by the inevitable sugar crash.

We Can't go on...We'll go on

2003-09-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

After numerous wrong turns and missed exits, we made it to the Mermaid Lounge. The show was setup as a 3 band show, but a 4th band had been added at the last minute. We weren’t to enthused with the idea of going on at midnight, but at least it gave us time to catch our breath and eat something. We headed down the street to a local bar that was still serving food and got some grub. At the bar were these two hippie kids who were living in a van and following the String Cheese Incident around. They were playing Galaga and PacMan on the arcade machine behind our table, and, while they were super nice and chatty (mainly due to the copious amounts of Ecstacy and Acid they constantly mentioned they had taken that day), their smell was less than endearing. We finished up and wandered back to the Mermaid Lounge where we waited for Pacific UV to setup their stuff.

The crowd in the club had dwindled down to about 10 people – most people left after the local opening band played. I thought that Pacific UV might assess the situation and give up on their lights and overhead projector show, but they plowed forward, taking half their allotted set time to setup their gear. We were all a bit worn out from the previous night in Austin, the drive, and the wait. Pacific UV’s lush, dreamy, melancholy set didn’t help much and, while I really dug their music, had to step outside while they played for fear of falling asleep. They finished up a bit late, around 12:30 and we found that they were not the third band, as we had thought, but the second band. This left us and The Like Young to hash it out as to who would play. The Like Young were very cool and ceded the stage to us, giving up their slot so that we could play to the remaining 3 people in the club. We asked the 3 girls sitting at the bar, Jill, Kelly, and Judy, if they planned to stick around and they said yes, so we proceeded to play a set dedicated to them. It’s too bad that there weren’t more people there – from the stage and judging from the girls reactions, we played pretty well. The money collected at the door was not very lucrative though, and Pacific UV was nice enough to give us their share of the $5.00.

After the set, we loaded out and headed east on I-10, once again missing some exits. We made it to the Motel 6 around 2am, just in time to see a cop escorting two scantily clad ladies out of the lobby.

God bless the Republic of Fivehead

2003-09-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

East of Houston, Texas: We arrived in Austin and made our way to Tomboleo, the bar where Davis, the drummer in Fivehead works. It was a really nice setup there, with a lot of space, couches, art and such. I got a phone call from my fiancée Linda, who is currently in Bolivia on business, and we got the chance to chat for 15 minutes. We exchanged many ‘I love you’s’ and played the ‘bye-bye’ game where we said goodbye but stayed on the line. She’ll be back in DC 5 days after we get back, so not only do I get to miss her on the road, I get the honor of missing her for a few days when I get back to our house. Sigh.

We hung out at the bar for an hour or so until our friends Beaty from Fivehead, his wife, Susan, and John Troutman from Lowry 66 came by. After a failed attempt at dinner somewhere (too crowded) and a near accident (John, with Eric in his truck, almost hit someone making a left turn), we headed down to Starseed, a diner where John from Fivehead works. At dinner, Susan was especially entertaining. I think I fell for her when she made reference to the excellent Kids in the Hall sketch ‘Girly Drink Drunk’. I am not aware of anybody, besides me, making that reference before.

We headed down to the Carousel where we loaded in. The crowd at the Carousel was pretty good. The first act was Toby Scroggin, who played a nice acoustic set. We played second, but had to cut our set short a few songs due to time constraints. I made the mistake of wearing my ‘do not drum in these shorts for they are very hot’ shorts, and was thoroughly soaked with sweat by the end. Our set went very well and we were appreciative of the applause and support by the crowd. Fivehead played next and rocked us hard as usual.

After the show, we headed over to John Troutman’s house with Beaty and Susan. We had some more beers, chatted about music, and listened to some new Lowry 66 recordings (including a kick ass cover of the The Who’s ‘Eminence Front’). Sitting around with good friends, talking about and listening to great music, traveling, and such is what makes touring worthwhile. Playing shows is great, and that’s the main reason we go out of course, but it wouldn’t be ½ has fun as it is if we didn’t get the chance to hang out with friends and share the experience. Greg eventually crashed out on the couch. I stayed up late and fixed Johns wireless connection on his computer (of which he said there had been 3 techs from the cable company out to fix with no luck) before we went to sleep.

This morning, we headed to Magnolias for breakfast with John and his girlfriend Nina. Beaty met us there and we had a superb meal (I won’t bore you with the details) before we hit the road. Right now, we just crossed into Louisiana and all traffic went to shit. We have 3 hours to drive what should take 4 hours to make a show in New Orleans by 9pm. There are two bugs having sex our windshield, which is a good illustration of how slow we are moving.

'Psst. Turn around. Turn around. Turn around you asshole!'

2003-09-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Greg shaved off his mustache this morning, putting to rest our good friend Rod. I’ll miss him. Rod Thompson, we hardly knew ye.

We made it into Oklahoma City sometime around 7. We found the Hi-Lo club and loaded our equipment in. Eric and I headed out for dinner while Greg waited at the club for a friend of his who happened to be in town for business. While at dinner, I got a call from my friend Rich, who let me know that he had just quit playing drums for his band, Phaser. They had been out on tour a few weeks ago and apparently things just weren’t working out between him and the other band members. It was kind of a bummer to hear, but band politics are always a tricky phenomenon. When I was younger, I thought that being in a band and touring was the coolest thing that one would ever want to do. The idea of quitting a band that was on the way up, releasing records, getting national airplay, and touring the US, would have been crazy talk. But after doing it for a while, I can see where it’s important to do what you have to do to keep happy. If you’re playing in a band but don’t like the people/music/schedule, then it’s just not fun. He’s a great drummer though and I’m sure he’ll find another band.

Back at the club, Greg let us know the show schedule for the evening. First band at 10:30, then we were to go on at 11:45 and play for 2 hours. We have over 2 hours of material, but we’ve not practiced most of it for a while. We compromise and decide to play two 40 minute sets. The bar started to fill up and before long, the place was pretty full. The first band played a ½ acoustic, ½ semi-loud set of moody alt-countryish songs. The stage setup was kind of weird – it was more of a room off to one side of the bar, with a doorway in the middle and two openings on either side. Aside from some problems with my drums slipping away from me (the carpet they were on was moving around), our first set was pretty good. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and the crowd was really into it. During the break, I was having a drink and talking with Eric about something or other when he said to me, first quietly, then louder, and finally screaming “Turn around. Turn around. Turn around you asshole!” I turned around quickly and was greeted by the sight of two rather attractive women feeling each other up and kissing in the middle of the bar area.* The second set consisted mainly of older songs we had run through once in practice the in the weeks before we started the tour, and was a bit sloppier, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. We all schmoozed with the crowd a bit before packing up and loading out.

A few minutes ago we were sitting in traffic in Dallas on the way to Austin, but we aren’t anymore and I don’t know why I just mentioned that. Tonight in Austin we get to play with our brothers Fivehead. We are all excited to play with them again.

* The Hurricane Lamps would like to ask forgiveness for our ogling. Our response to the aforementioned sight was due mainly to a combination of our natural heterosexual male instincts, combined with the fact that we have been sans women for 2 weeks.

Is there anyone on board who didn't have the fish and can fly a plane?

2003-09-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Tucumcarie, NM: So where did we last leave off? Oh – yeah. We were all enjoying a ½ day of rest at my ‘rents house in Los Angeles. Greg and I woke up early on Sunday and spent the morning chatting with my folks and watching the early east coast football games. Imagine that – football at 10am. While I was fixing the dent in the bumper of the van, my dad milled about, asking questions and trying to help – the same thing I used to do to him when he was working on things when I was younger. He showed me his new car and all the neat toys in it. Why my parents need a rear seat DVD player is beyond me. Eric slept in late, waking up sometime around noon. My sister Megan, who also lives in LA, came by to say hi and have lunch with us. Lunch consisted of fresh fish, which my dad picked up at the market earlier in the morning, zucchini, and pasta salad. Events of that morning also included the obligatory ‘fix my computer’ session, where I fix everything that my parents seem to have screwed up on their computers in the past ½ year, and catching up on some email.

We packed up and said goodbye around 4pm and started our long trip back east. Originally, the plan was to head south on I-10, stopping in Tuscon, Arizona for the evening and catching breakfast there at Café Poca Cosa, a tour favorite. We had a gap between the San Luis Obispo show and the Austin show on 9/24 so we were going to take our time. To our surprise, Steve Brydges at Copper Press got us a show in Oklahoma City on the day before Austin. Apparently, he saw there was a date open and managed to find something for us on the 23rd. With the Oklahoma City show booked and confirmed, we adjusted our travel schedule to head east on I-40 instead.

Highlights of the trip include a pleasant conversation in a long bathroom line with a 70 year old man who was complaining about his prostate (I was tempted to let that SOB cut in front of me but, screw you old man – I gotta piss), Greg and I both getting sour stomachs (was it something we ate?), and hearing from my friend Kevin that the hurricane in the DC area didn’t flood my basement (but that my house has been without power for a week – I look forward to the pleasant surprise in my refrigerator). Not much else happened and we forged ahead to Williams, Arizona for the evening.

On Monday, we drove to Flagstaff, Arizona for lunch. We are officially at the “Hurricane Lamps Crash Diet” stage of the tour, where we all seem to start losing weight. It’s only been a week and a half on the road, but we’re all getting tired of heavy, greasy restaurant food and we always start ordering salads and lighter meals. Eric and I ordered….wait a second. Should I bore you with the details of every meal here? Ok – so not much is happening. But I can’t just make up stories to make this dairy interesting, so I guess I’ll just let you know what really happened. As I was saying, Eric and I ordered a grilled Albacore Tuna Salad. I got the Lemon Tahini salad dressing; Eric got the fat free Raspberry Vinaigrette. I believe that Greg had a Hummous wrap. He also ordered what turned out to be a very delicious Cherry Chocolate Almond Latte. There was also juice.* After lunch, we found a record store, where Greg bought a bunch of Pat Benetar 7”’s, and Eric found a George Harrison rarities bootleg. I found 2 interesting CD’s in the bargain bin for $0.99 (My Life In Rain and 9353, both from DC) but decided against buying them for some reason. Later on in the van, Greg would give me shit for passing up 2 decent CD’s for that price. Back on the road, we passed through Albuquerque, where we all split up for dinner. Eric went to see Underworld at the movie theatre and ate at the Brazilian Barbeque next to it. Greg went to a Sports bar to watch the Monday Night Football game. I ended up having a few beers in a “Gentlemen’s Club”. I don’t know why I went there. What am I saying – I know exactly why. After my hour there, I met up with Greg at the sports bar. He pointed out that I had glitter on the end of my nose. Eric soon showed up and, since the Raiders were being blown out by the Broncos, we hit the road before the game ended.

* I thought about making something up along the lines of meeting Clay Aiken and his size 13 1/2 feet to get my mother all riled up as she has turned into quite the Clay Aiken fan. From her growing Clay memorabilia collection, which she insisted on showing us at every opportunity, the numerous Clay Aiken website bookmarks on her computer, and her mentioning the cadre of middle aged women around the country she chats with on a daily basis about everything Clay, I'm assuming that there will soon be the need for extensive re-education programs.

"I get older, they stay the same age..."

2003-09-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

We woke up late, around 1pm, and met Greg and Judy for lunch. Approaching with Judy was a guy who looked like Greg, walked and talked like Greg, but instead of a scruffy 2 week old tour beard, had just a mustache. I decided that this was not our Greg, but a clone sent forward in time from the 1980’s whose name is ‘Rod Thompson.’ Rod drives a 1984 corvette and wears REO Speedwagon t-shirts, says ‘Fuck Yeah!’ a lot, and has an affinity for 18 year old girls. Eric, Judy, Adam, Greg (I mean Rod), and I ate a late lunch at ‘We Be Sushi’ somewhere in SF. After lunch, we hit the road to San Luis Obispo.

For some reason, I was expecting to roll into San Luis Obispo and see bikini clad college coed’s partying in the streets-throngs of college students begging for some live music entertainment. I guess I’ve been watching too much of ‘The O.C.’ or something. It was your standard college town, albeit with nice weather and an upscale downtown. We loaded our equipment into Zpie, a gourmet pot-pie restaurant that has shows at night, and grabbed some dinner at a Thai restaurant. Highlights in people observation there included a 20-something guy stopping mid-sentence in conversation with his date to stare at and look over the cute blonde woman walking by their table. Either his date didn’t notice or she was just so used to this type of behavior that she didn’t bat an eye. Any help here ladies? Do you routinely catch us doing this? If so, I’m in some deep trouble.

Back at Zpie, Tin Teardrop played a cool set of tunes that reminded me of early Dismemberment Plan, and Eric of early Elvis Costello. Our set was really well received and we had a great time playing. Eric was a hawk selling merchandise – our 4-tiered pricing structure seems to be working now. (7” - $3; CD’s - $10 each; our first two CD’s - $10 for both; $10 for t-shirts; $30 for super saver deal that includes everything.) We’re planning on implementing some inventory controls and licensing technology from Amazon and Wal-Mart, but that’s a bit in the future.

After the show, we tried to find a hotel in San Luis, but every place was booked solid. It turns out that it’s the weekend before school starts and we figured that most parents are there, dropping kids off and such. So instead of searching for a hotel, we hit the road and drove to my parents house just north of LA in Granada Hills. At 4am, after a few wrong turns and missed exits, we made it to the “Mom and Dad Merriman’s Bed and Breakfast”. My dad was expecting us and was standing out front of the house watering the lawn or something. The best thing about my parent’s place is that we each get our own bedrooms that have private baths. Nice. Tomorrow, we have to perform some minor van repair to bang out a dent in the fender we got when Greg curbed the van in Nebraska, then we’ll be treated to a home-cooked lunch by my dad. Sleep…comfy sleep, with a relaxing day ahead.

Pink Polyester

2003-09-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

Oakland, CA: We woke up early to tackle the 9 hour drive from Portland to Oakland. We all were a bit out of sorts from the prior night but amazingly made it to Oakland without any incidents. At a rest stop on the way, I overheard a woman in a FedEx outfit berating someone on her cell phone about turning down a job. “This just proves that you aren’t interested in doing anything and just want to lay around all day while other people do all of the work. Goodbye.” Not really that exciting, but something interesting to break up the drive. We had hoped to gas up in Oregon somewhere before hitting the California border, and thus the higher California gas prices, but I missed the last town before the mountain pass crossing the border. Gas out here is around $2 per gallon and filling up the van runs somewhere around $45. I remember on my first tour with my old band, Durian, that we found gas in the Midwest for around $0.70 a gallon. Those low prices are nowhere to be found out here.

Halfway to Oakland I called my parents in Los Angeles to let them know where we were. The answering machine picked up, so I decided to have a little fun. “Mom, dad, it’s me. I’m kind of in a jam and need your help. We got picked up speeding in Oregon, going 90 in a 50 zone and apparently they can put you in jail for reckless driving up here. I need $1000 for bail and they have some rule that says you can’t bail yourself out of jail, so…” This was followed by the sound of a phone receiver being picked up and both of my worried parents saying “What’s wrong? Are you Ok? What’s going on?” I knew I had them there and let them know I was just kidding, but it took them a few seconds to figure out the joke. Turns out my dad was on the other line with his boss and had to hang up hastily with a “Oh crap –gotta go. My son’s in some sort of trouble.” We all had a laugh about it, my parents have always been very easy to get along with, and I let them know our schedule for Sunday, when we would be passing through LA.

We soldiered on and made Oakland around 7pm. The Stork Club is an old country joint turned rock venue. It’s run by an older lady who was wearing a 70’s style pink polyester suit. She was super nice and seemed really interested in helping bands out. The walls in the bar area were decorated with a hundred or so special edition Barbie dolls – Harley Barbie, Beach Barbie, Wedding Barbie, Princess Barbie – you name the Barbie and it was there. I saw evidence that the Dragstrip Syndicate and Helicopter Helicopter played there recently – two bands that are friends of mine. The strip the club is on appears to be undergoing gentrification of sorts – some new buildings and rehabs sprouting up amidst crumbling store fronts and liquor stores. Throughout the block were Korean restaurants and markets. We grabbed dinner at a Korean sushi joint down the street from the club. Greg’s friend Judy met us there and we caught up on things, catching glimpses of some odd and confusing Korean soap operas and comedies playing on the TV in the corner.

“The Hurricane Lamps and the Curse of The Bigger Out of Town Band Playing Some Venue Across Town”

A One Act Play.

Scene 1: The Hurricane Lamps roll up to a club in their rented Ford Windstar. Jason, Greg, and Eric exit the van. Various stretching movements by the band members. Jason walks over to a newsstand and picks up a local entertainment paper. He shuffles through the pages to the music listings.

Jason: Hey – Band 1* and Band 2* are both playing separate shows across town tonight. (* Pick two of the following: Rainer Maria, KaitO, Denali, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Steve Malkimus, Bad Religion, Sebadoh, The Melvins)

Greg and Eric (in unison): Shit.

Fin.

Eric’s brother, Adam, was at the club when we returned from dinner. He was there with two friends, Jason and Yuen Yuen, who were both really cool. We played with Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers, a band from NYC with members from DC who are friends of Eric’s, and the Viennese Noise Choir. The show was decent despite the deck being stacked against us. In attendance were mostly friends and band members, but we played well – things are really coming together with our set.

After the set, Greg headed back to spend the night at Judy’s place. Eric and I piled into Adams’ car with Jason and Yuen Yuen. We crossed the bay bridge into SF and headed to a late-night Burrito joint. It was kind of a freakshow there, but the food was great. We dropped Jason and Yuen Yuen off and headed back to Adam’s apartment, where we watched some DVD’s before going to sleep around 3:30am.

"I am perfectly capable of being a dick without your help."

2003-09-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

Portland, OR: In Portland, we stopped at the house of Greg’s friend Brett. Brett is the proprietor of Top Shelf Productions, a comics/book publisher. They have a 20lb cat who is a whore for attention and granted all of us the honor of purrs and cat belly rubs. Eric and I took a walk down to the club to check things out, after which we grabbed some Indian food for dinner. The couple at the table behind us appeared to be on a first date of sorts. From the conversation and body language I don’t think it was going too well. Back at the club, we loaded in and setup for a sound check. Greg wasn’t there yet so we sound checked without him. After we sound check, Palatine Hill, the headlining band, showed up. I told one of the members the band that we had sound checked already and asked if they needed a sound check. Eric overheard this, apparently thought I was being rude or prickish somehow, and cut me off. In fact, I was just a bit tired and only wanted to let them know what the situation was and figure out if I was going to have to move all of my drums off the stage and then back on. I’m normally not very confrontational about stuff like that, but it didn’t sit well with me and we had a tête-à-tête about it later. So – to the guys in Palatine Hill – sorry if I sounded like a knob.

Our friend Tonia from Moscow, Idaho (now a Portland resident), and some more of Greg’s comic publisher/editor friends showed up before the show. We had a good time chatting before the show. The show went very well – we’re getting tighter every night. The sound was great – we’re having some good luck with sound guys this tour. After the show, we sat around and chatted with friends some more before Greg headed back to Brett’s house. Eric and I followed Tonia back to her house. There, we listened to some Johnny Cash, had a few more drinks, and listened to Tonia play some Hank Williams songs on Ukulele before going to sleep.

“We Will Rock And You Will Join Us” Eric makes an appearance.

2003-09-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Seattle, WA: I am always amazed at how the landscape in eastern Washington goes from stark and treeless to mountainous and covered with huge evergreens in a very short period of time. Usually I miss it – I’ll be reading a book and one moment there is nothing, the next, we’re in a giant forest. I caught the evidence of the transformation for the first time on the ride from Salt Lake to Seattle, evidence that the trees don’t actually just appear, but slowly fade in as if someone has their finger on a fader marked ‘green trees’.

We arrived in Seattle at night and headed to a friends house in South Seattle. Our friends, Greg and Shannon, were out at a show that evening and told us there would be a key under the door and to let ourselves in if they were not there. We pulled into a narrow driveway, flanked on either side by concrete walls, leaving only a few inches of clearance on either side of the van. Greg was trapped in the van and barely managed to get out by the side door. Eric checked for the key under the front door mat but couldn’t find it. At this point, Eric suspected something may be amiss. We called up Greg and got the correct address. I can imagine what would have happened if there were a key under the mat at the wrong house.

The next day around noon, we headed to KEXP for our on air interview/performance. After loading in and sound checking, Greg and I ran down the street to eat at a local greasy spoon named ‘The Hurricane’. Eric went and got some Sushi. I think Eric made the better choice. The staff at the station seemed pretty excited to have us there. They had been playing songs off of our new record for the past few weeks and promoting the show a lot. The interview and performance went rather well and we got a copy on CD for the road.

Around 3pm, we loaded our equipment into the Crocodile and took a long walk to Easy Street, a local record store. Eric bought Consonant and Ron Wood’s first solo record. Greg bought something by Capture the Flag. I bought the new record by Mogwai, as well as a copy of Maxim - UK Edition (with nipples) for the road. It’s not that we don’t have enough stuff to read in the van, just that we don’t have anything with half naked ladies in the van.

We had some more time to kill after setting up and sound checking at the Crocodile. Time was spent reading the local entertainment rags and drinking. The two opening bands, Plum Street, and Vegas in Flames, were both friendly and sounded great. Before our set, Eric and I ran into Ron Lewis, an old friend from the DC area. We caught up for a bit over some more beers and hit the stage. At this point, we had been drinking for about 3 hours and Eric had transformed from “Self-depreciating Rocker” Eric into the commanding “We Will Rock And You Will Join Us” Eric. At times, this can be cause for concern, but the new Eric was a hit with the Seattle crowd. The set went off really well and we were all shocked to see that there were as many people in the room at the end of the show as there were at the start. Being that it was late on a Wednesday evening and that there were two really good competing shows in town that night, we must say that the night went very well.

2003-09-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

Salt Lake City, UT - Arriving in Salt Lake City, we find Club Halo. My first impression is not good as it looks like a locals bar and not a real music venue. The outside is plastered with beer signs and the crowd inside, all 10 people, are intently watching the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Giants on Monday Night Football on the projection screen TV. The door guy, Nate, is pretty cool though and tells us to setup on stage. We’ll be playing after the game. We load in and grab some dinner at a Thai place down the street. The game is still in the 3rd quarter when we arrive back from dinner. We grab some beers and settle down to watch the game. The game is pretty exciting – the Giants comeback from 15 points down in the 4th quarter to go ahead by 3 with a field goal with 11 seconds left in the game. The ensuing Giant’s kickoff rolled out of bounds, giving the Cowboys great field position at their own 40 with 11 seconds left. Just enough time for Quincy Carter to complete a long pass downfield to place them within field goal range with 4 seconds left in the game. The Cowboys kicker makes the long 52 yard field goal, sending the game into overtime. By now, it’s about 11:00 and, though we’re enjoying the game, we’re anxious to play. The Cowboys kick a field goal on their 2nd possession in overtime to win the game and we start tuning up to play. Shortly after we get on stage, Nate asks us if we have microphones. We don’t. It turns out that the bar does not have any microphones yet. They usually expect the bands to bring their own mic’s, stands, and cables. There’s not much we can do about the situation and we break down our equipment and load out. 3 hours in a bar wasted. The bartender tried to get us some cash for our troubles, but, since they also neglected to promote the show at all, there weren’t any door paying customers in the bar – everyone there had been there to watch the game. To make this shit pie even tastier, the club owner did not even put dates on the posters we had sent them. They were sitting on the counter at the entrance – the people at the bar thought that they were there as label promotion for our band. That, combined with the fact that there were no other bands on the bill, lead us to believe that Club Halo really does not have their shit together at all. Nate is nice enough to give us 10 bucks out of his own pocket and we give him a t-shirt in return.

Out of 10 ½ years of shows as the Hurricane Lamps, we have only run into problems with no mic’s twice – both happen to have been in Salt Lake City. At least the last time, the bar manager was able to scrouge up some cheap Radio Shack mics and an amp to sing through. I guess we could call this a lesson learned, however, this is definitely not on par with clubs we are used to playing at. – J.

Rock and roll cookout

2003-09-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Cheyenne, WY - We arrived in Denver at 6pm, an hour early for the 7pm load in. Entering the club, we see a band tuning up. They announce “We’re gonna play extra long because a band didn’t show up.” Turns out that we were supposed to be on stage at 6pm. The venue is holding an all day cook-out/rock party with 8 bands. We clear up the confusion with the booking guy at the club and he admits that we were given incorrect information. The situation is not all bad as the band on stage, Apollo Sunshine, plays a great set, akin to The Beatles meeting Ween, with some Led Zeppelin thrown in for taste. We play our set to decent response, though mainly from members of other bands that are there to play that day. It turns out, of the 40 or so people at the club, about 30 are in bands. My good friend Joey who lives outside of Denver near Boulder, showed up near the end of the set. We chat it up for a bit and enjoy some cookout food. After the next band, we load up and head out of town to get a headstart on the way to Salt Lake City. Not a great show, but not a horrible one – the people there, though mostly in bands themselves, were pretty cool and it was really nice to see Joey again.

Just driving.....

2003-09-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

Grand Island, Nebraska - We were woken up rudely by the wake up call at 11:30 after way to little sleep. I was in one of those bad ‘fuck you…I’m groggy’ moods and proceeded to gripe about everything from the way we were packing the van, Eric’s handling of a left turn with oncoming traffic (he was being cautious), and the stale beer-cigarette smell of the Bennigans where we ate lunch. After lunch, we fueled up and headed out into the hinterland towards Denver. I don’t have much to say about the drive because I started playing a game of Civilization II on my computer and didn’t pay much attention. We ate dinner at a great Indian place in Omaha, Nebraska and checked out a local CD store. We hit the road with the intention of driving about 2 hours. One thing we didn’t know was that the Nebraska-Penn State football game would be letting out in Lincoln right as we were passing through it. Every hotel within an hour of Lincoln was booked and we had to drive through midnight until we reached Grand Island.

My turn to sleep on the floor.

City on the edge of nowhere.....

2003-09-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Dixon, Illinois. We left DC at 10pm on 9/11, drove for about 4 hours and slept somewhere east of Pittsburgh. The road into Chicago from the east is somewhat depressing. Passing through Gary, Indiana, the skyway takes you through a very rundown collection of public housing units, factories, and power transmission lines. We arrived at Schubas, parked the van, and had dinner at the Harmony Grill, the restaurant attached to Schubas. The staff was pretty friendly and very accommodating, having the foresight to block off parking on the street next to the load in doors. After waiting for the early show to let out, we loaded in and stashed our equipment on the side of the stage. The show was well attended, pretty much a full house. The show was given a good recommendation in the local entertainment papers and more than a few people were there to see us. The two bands we played with, The Emily Shrine, and Sleeping at Last were both pretty good – tight melodic rock with ‘Post-Emo’ influences. Sleeping at Last have a record coming out on Interscope in a few weeks and are just about to set out on a 6 week tour. We had our merch right next to theirs and they had the whole getup – 5 different types of shirts, 6 or 7 different stickers, buttons, postcards. Ahh – the benefits of being a young band on a major label. The sound at the show as great and a nice guy named Adam let us record the show off of a line out from his recording gear he had setup in the room. Aside from playing a few songs a bit fast, we seemed to play well.

After load out, we had some nachos at an all-night Mexican joint across the street from Schubas. There was a jukebox and I managed to somehow kill the up tempo vibe of the place by playing Lionel Richie’s ‘Three Times A Lady’ and a new Liz Phair song, which we all agreed was shit. We hit the road around 2 am, hoping to find a Motel 6 somewhere outside of Chicago on I-88. Unfortunatley, this section of highway takes you pretty much into what I’ll just refer to as ‘the ass end of Illinois’. There was nothing for miles and miles. We ended up driving for three hours before stopping in Dixon, Il, the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan. By the time we got there, we were all pretty tired and delirious. With the time change, it was 4am, but it was 5am by our clocks and we had been in action for about 20 hours.

The next two days will be spent driving to Denver – about 14 hours total. Pretty much all farm land on the way there.

IndyJr and shopping lists.

2003-09-10T18:59:00.000-07:00

I've been toying with the idea of replacing the map with IndyJr. (Available at http://www.byranboyer.com/indyjr/.) I am currently using animated gifs and PHP to determine which map to display, but IndyJr is a bit easier to update. Check out the Indy-ized version here here. Send an email to jason@thehurricanelamps.com and let me know if you have a preference for one or the other.

Had a good practice last night. Today and tomorrow will be filled with packing and getting things on our shopping lists. One thing I need to get is a stick holder that clamps onto my hi-hat stand. I bought one a few years ago, but somehow managed to lose it in the time it took me to drive from the store back to my house. I never did figure out where it went and even went so far as to practically accuse my roomate of stealing it. For the longest time I have put off buying a replacement stick holder, maybe under the false impression that my old one will magically show up somewhere. - J.

Waiting to hit the road

2003-09-09T19:33:00.000-07:00

Preparing to hit the road on Thursday evening. The plan is this: Pick up van at the airport on Thursday evening, pack up, take off at 10pm or so, drive 1/2 the way to Chicago, get some sleep at a Motel 6, drive the rest of the way on Friday.

I should be getting my cell phone connector for my laptop so that I can update the tour diary from the road. - J.