EnemyHogs.com

EACH ONE TEACH ONE - SPRING 2002 (LEG 2)

THE FIRST WAVE

Fri May 10th through Thurs May 16 - Philly - The Kyber + Friday May 17 - The Cat's Cradle

Kid goes and buys a van in Pittsburgh and drinks a lot and sleeps less.

It's not that I'm hung over, it's that I haven't really slept. I'm writing this in Atlanta and last night was our "day off," we spent it here doing a taping for a public access show called "George Burns in Hell" put together by some of the members of Je Suis France + their mostly Athens, GA friends. The group has all recently moved to "Atl" and spent 2 months putting together their first episode - a totally hilarious sit-com with a bear and an Oscars loving chef - but I'll get to all that later on.

So Philly - I left for tour straight from work, arrived at the rehearsal space while Jane and Vanboy were starting to realize that we had too much gear for the van which I just driven to PGH the past weekend to buy. After having toured for 8 weeks over the past year with a borrowed vehicle it was time to step up to the plate.

The more I travel and the more time I spend in vans and at rock clubs, the more I find myself withdrawing into a cocoon-like reverie. I speak quietly to no-one in particular, mumble confusedly to the rest of the band and tend to forget essential interactions and events. People seem put off by me - I'm either too hung up on faux-earnestness or just plain distracted.

So I had driven out to PGH w/ Vanboy, arriving at 3am after having played one of the least listenable albums ever recorded (no that's not a recommendation) - Faith No More's "Angel Dust". We went to my future roommate Juli's apt, fell asleep and got up at 8am to get to the PA DMV - really just this satellite freelance agency that oversees title transfers etc. We were meeting Lowell, the van's owner, at 10am at this place so I could buy the van for $1000 in cash. Everything sounds kind of sketchy, but the van was a beaut. A total conversion gem, white with huge tinted windows, interior stoner lights along the molding, captains chairs, lots of frills. It was also pretty old and had a lot of miles but Lowell was a friend of a friend and came highly recommended. Lowell was a totally stand up fella.

I handed over the cash and had the new Oneida van.

Later I went back to Juli's and crashed for a few minutes, watched some cable and went to this cookout being thrown by a couple of friends of friends. The cookout was in the backyard which was basically a small square concrete patio which was nicely appointed with all this vegan food which, my friend Dan assured me, would give me insane gas. The party was made perverse by the incessant barking of the neighbor's dog - an albino husky standing behind the chain link fence. We threw corn cobs at him and tried to reason with him but the bark went on and on and was truly deafening. It put a damper on an otherwise pleasant party.

I left a couple of hours later to go check out an early show by Rickety scene stalwarts The Viragos. It was good to see Gary and Sheryl. The Viragos were great, their new CD is greater - "Bath and Tea" - the songs are just perfect, the slight studio gloss suits the material to a "T".

I was glad to see everyone in PGH but it seemed like with all the houses that my Pittsburgh friends had recently purchased (at $30,000 - $50,000 - yes its that cheap there), and all the marriages and all the co-habs - I was being left behind. There wasn't even a woman I could imagine starting a relationship with. Terminally single, sometimes it makes me deliriously happy and sometimes it seems to signify an intangible flaw in my personality and sends me into a downward spiral of self-loathing and pity.

So it didn't help things much when I found myself at my friend Dan's surprise birthday, looking around in a comatose state of drunkenness for single women. What's the point? Sometimes I realize how hung up I am - the rest of the time I just wander around oblivious. Which is better?

I was talking to a friend who said he had "given up" on women, because there just weren't many of them in PGH. This struck me as kind of an absurd stance - but I can't criticize.

I chatted awkwardly with this really sexy, trashy woman who had tight jeans on with a large hole on her upper thigh where her skin showed through. She told me she wasn't really an artist but she made art when she "had to" but she doesn't really like working at all. She was also the singer in a band and was good friends with the PGH model who was recently killed in Ft. Greene in the foyer of his apartment bldg. I knew I would meet someone who knew him in PGH.

As the party started winding down and all the beer was gone, I went to last call at Gooski's, a PGH dive which does rock shows on Saturdays (and Thursdays it turns out) where all my local friends were recommending as our next venue. It was a great place, with cheap beers and a great jukebox - I drank another beer which was like 20 ounces of something and was basically running on fumes. This would become my life.

So I hadn't slept much for a week and I left for the Philly show right after work and immediately started to feel stressed out because the van wasn't even close to being packed when I arrived at the space. We had too much stuff and an extra person and a totally fucked seating arrangement owing to the fact that we didn't have enough time to fully prep the van for the long trip we were about to take. All we could do was take out the back seat captain's chair and use the space left over for a bunch of the heavy and large gear and pack the rest of the stuff in the back behind the bench seat. It was a seriously weird arrangement but Oneida has dealt with a lot of fucked up shit over the years - it was just one more thing among many.

We were all a little stressed that we were going to be late for the first show on tour, which was at the Kyber, a small rock club in Philly's "Old City" but then we were like, "fuck it, if we're late, we're late." Philly has never been a great town for us, but the show was supposed to be a great bill with Pleasure Forever and Rye Coalition. I thought I had never heard of P.F. but then I recognized their album cover and realized that this really nice dude in Houston had their record and said they were cool. I thought they sucked, all this stupid drama shit and a singer who was a dead ringer for "Yeah!" rock, grunge, NW crap.

At one point before we played I tried to get a decent cup of coffee around Old City and I couldn't even find a place that sold coffee, except for this crappy cheese steak place which poured me some in a dirty cup out of one of those free standing thermos-style dispensers. That area of the city really changed from 5 years ago when Oneida played at Upstairs at Nicks. Now the whole area is Yuppified and is filled with Sorority girls and Frat boys.

Joseph from Swearing at Motorists and his girlfriend came to the show and we hung out in the van for a while after our set, which was rusty as hell.

Rye Coalition got on stage and absolutely demolished the shit - their songs were all great and they had some rabid fans - they all knew the songs and the lyrics. Maybe we could a learn a thing or two from them and continue to play our old songs - playing new stuff is more fun for us though and we're a selfish buncha twats.

After the show, in which we sold a single poster and nothing else, we drove about 3.5 hours to Jane's Mom's house in Fairfax, VA to cut down the drive to Chapel Hill the next day so we could get to a radio show.

So when we left Philly for Jane's house, Kayrock and I discovered how advanced Vanboy was in terms of tour prep.

Kayrock was like, "I'd really love some whiskey right now."
"Yeah me too," I said with typical resignation.
Then Vanboy piped up, "I've got some whiskey."

Sure enough, in the secret confines of the back of the van we started drinking from Vanboy's stash of Blackbush - which was going down real smooth.

The only problem was that my fucking snare drum was pressing against my head and making it impossible for me to lean back and really get down and dirty drunk. So w/in a few hours on the road of his first tour Vanboy (member of BKLYN's Mannequin) schooled a couple of veterans on being prepared. Turns out that Vanboy was an Eagle Scout - so we had a lot to learn. We were impressed, but not shocked enough to avoid the job at hand: getting' good and drunk so the drive went quicker.

It didn't. I didn't sleep or manage to pass out - too much anxiety, nerves, whatever. There was something pretty devastating about rolling into Fairfax as the sun came up and the birds were screaming after Hertzog's own heart (i.e., "The bird's aren't singing, they're screaming!").

I think I slept for a couple of hours in Jane's sister's bed and we hit the road again for the haul to our Durham, NC radio show with our friends Mike and Jeff. We decided that we didn't want to do any radio performances on this tour 'cause they're hard and we've been doing them for years and we wanted a break, plus Fat Bobby's should was still tender from when he body slammed me (see the Wesleyan entry) and we just wanted to chill the fuck out.

So we brought our new LP into the station and talked shit about Trans Am.

Matt played us this amazing PSA about being careful when you cross train tracks. A guy comes home to his wife and is like, "OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU SO MUCH."
And she's like, "What?! What happened?"
"I . . . I was waiting to cross the tracks and I . . . I thought I could make it through before the train passed. . . I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! I almost didn't make it!" He is wracked with sobs and she wails, "I LOVE YOU BABY!"

Damn - look both ways.

So we went to Bullock's BBQ again - a decent NC style joint to get our pumps primed for the Southern food to come, stopped off at Radio Free Records where I bought Alan Licht's new book called "An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn," and the sales guy was like, "Are you sure you want this? Its really expensive."

It was expensive, and its only 75 pages, but I just met Alan at a party and said I would check out his book, so I wanted to be good on my word.

I enjoyed the book a lot - its basically about songs and videos from the 80's, how some of them still hold up, how they stick with him more than most of the avant stuff he's been into more recently.

We drove on to the Cat's Cradle and met up with Trans Am and saw their amazing and ridiculous tour posters - the trio in all white suits, in front of a supersaturated blue sky backdrop, sand, beach - all the shit. Their new album is called "TA" and is their best by far. The new songs they've been playing during their sets are great and the video projections of animals and sunsets and manic city scenes are hilarious. In one sequence the camera stalks a house cat which is at times obviously bored.

The Cradle is a club set back in a shopping mall, cavernous and unremarkable, but there was a big backstage and we got our rider which next to Trans Am's is kinda silly. Its like, "We want 4 gallon jugs of spring water, 16 beers and a bottle of whiskey. Oh yeah and some towels."

What the fuck? We don't even get it most of the time, but then again we don't do much drawing either, so it's not as if we're getting ripped off.

Like at The Earl in Atlanta on Sat night, we wanted to get food and they were like, "Its half price for bands." This might make us seems like jerk-offs but its like - just fucking feed us - Trans Am is gonna sell it out so don't worry about it. We've been at it for 5 years, which is a drop in the bucket I know, but don't make us assholes.

But back to the Cradle:

Jane started out the set by saying that Kayrock's gongs were going to make everyone piss their pants and we had vintage 40s and 50s wrestling videos projected on the screen behind us.

Our friends Kemp and Kat from Winston were there checking the shit out which was great.

When I was setting up on stage before our set this kid was like, "Dude! Oneida ROCKS! I saw you open up for Bruther Monk." Bruther Monk is this Chapel Hill jam band who we opened up for about a year ago I think. We set up on the floor, played for about 20 minutes and then blew out of there to go to see The Cherry Valence play Kings. Their show was probably a top ten for me.

Paul and Cheetie from the CV were also at the Cradle which was great. I love those guys. Apparently their new album, "Riffin'" is amazing.

Though there was a party after the show and Oneida represented for a few minutes we had to leave Vanboy, well, back in the van 'cause he was puking.

Then I went back and joined him in the van to fall asleep and a few minutes later our great friends Robin and Eric, who now have a house in Raleigh, took us back to their place to crash.

As I was sleeping in the van I almost puked even though I think I had like one beer. Maybe it was because Phil from TA gave me a Crispy Crème Donut w/ little ants crawling on it. I ate it anyway.
"They're nice ants, " he said.

We listened to Cactus and Eric's new EP (Dragstrip Syndicate). Both were kick ass.

Sat May 18 - Atlanta - The Earl

This show was put on by Chunklet Magazine, which published The Biggest Asshole in Rock issue and the latest, "The Shit List" issue to which we discovered Fat Bobby had forgotten his contribution - a couple of disses on The Promise Ring and Ska bands who don't have "ska" somewhere in their band name.

Bobby and I noted that Atlanta is kind of cheesy as we rode into town. Its like they're hung up about being southern.

"The World's Biggest College Town," said Bobby.
But really, what do we know - rock clubs are always in corny parts of town.

There was a great crowd for Trans Am - people were ready to fucking party hard.

Trans Am is really into Mountain Dew Code Red with Vodka - Sebastian in particular.

The Pines of Nowhere who are doing shows with Trans Am as well (they feature Sebastian on bass) play really fast and intense punk rock and kicked much ass.

After the show Kayrock went to hang out with Trans Am and stayed up all night and the rest of us went to with our friends Rippy and Darkness to find this party. The house was dark when we got there - it was 4:30am - so we went back to their place and hung out drinking whiskey for a while and played Boston and Journey 'cause Bobby had heard "Separate Ways" on the radio and was blown away by Steve Perry's vocal performance. Rippy then was like, "We need to cut a rug. Let's cut a rug."

But before all this went down, when we walked into Rippy's house, his roommate Sarah was awake I think because Rippy had a phone call, but it WAS like 4:30am and I never got the story about that fucking call.

Anyway so Sarah was not into cutting a rug initially but Rippy busted out Phoenix who sounded pretty good to me - I guess for Rippy and Sarah - Phoenix spelled dancin' so it was inevitable.

We burned through that bottle of whiskey from The Cradle and Bobby's "Gayest Dub of All" mix which often assists on the dance floor. Then we set into Outcast and possibly more. It was light out when I went to bed.

Pay off tomorrow.

Sun May 19 - "Day Off" Atlanta

Wherein Oneida eat BBQ, buy many Stern Yet True Beats, cause a disturbance at a local bar, tape a live performance for public access and destroy Rippy and Sarah's house.

I suppose this is the day that truly started the Oneida tour in earnest, getting up at like 1pm or so, finding this BBQ joint called Fat Matt's w/ Rippy leading the way kind of. The place was exactly what we needed - the ribs were good, the PBR flowed like wine and the sun was out, but the air was cool. ATL wasn't all bad - Rippy had to go back to the house to wait for the crew to show up for the taping - so we went to the hated Little Five Points to look at records and bought some killer 12" and cassettes for the road (note: don't bother ever buying this cool looking record by Kain - its just wack-ass jazz) and then proceeded to get lost going back to Rippy and Sarah's. We arrived late but it didn't matter 'cause everyone was just hanging out. I guess this is par for the course for "George Burns in Hell" - their public access show - a kind of southern fried Young Ones. It took them 2 months to complete their first half-hour episode.

So we finally find our way back and its like 6:30 and Rippy goes, "We're gonna go to this bar and watch the Simpsons," which sounded perfect.

There were about 10 of us and they kept bringing pitchers until Sketch was screaming that he was going to show us his scrotum. Yes he was really screaming, of course we were ready and willing to check it out so he stood up and was making adjustments but modesty won out in the end because he and Rippy were also expending a lot of effort on the attractive waitresses and they were both looking at Sketch so he decided to cool it.

Around this time Rippy was at the bar, leaning in close to the bartender, trying to convince her to come back to his place to party.

This inspired this woman I was chatting with to talk about short guys. Rippy's kind of short - but he's really handsome. But I guess he's too short for this woman - she was like, "You gotta be at least my height, preferably taller."

"OK," I said.

"I've only ever dated one guy who was shorter than me, I mean he was nice but he had a really small dick so I was like, 'Later!'"

That made me a little insecure for a minute, things being as they are for 'ole Kid.

Rippy didn't get too far with the bartender but they did say that we could fill up a couple of our gallon water jugs from the van with pitchers, 'cause you can't fucking buy beer in Atlanta on SUNDAY! Vanboy did the honors under the table, beer sloshing out onto the floor and running everywhere.

By the time we loaded back into the van to go do the taping Sketch was screaming at everyone - I think he was mad at the waitresses because they wouldn't "fuck him" but that's second hand. I was driving and hadn't been drinking so I was waiting outside at that point.

Shit was in total disarray when we piled back in the van - Stern beats were on the box, Jane was climbing all over me and telling me to love him or something. Sarah got us to a convenience store so Vanboy could buy cigs and I realized that it was the same place I went with my ex when we met up in ATL back in '98. She was from Atl so she met Oneida there and we hung out. Back then when I was coming out of the store we pretended we were strangers and picked each other up.

My reverie was shattered when Bobby stormed out of the store throwing bags of Cracker Jacks at me 'cause they wouldn't sell him beer.

We got back to the house w/o further incident and I took a jug of beer and on Bobby's insistence that I "make him proud" and "catch up" I downed quite a bit. High School flashed across my brain - Bobby's a hard man to refuse.

We started to set up the gear, the shooting lights blew but the professional tech staff managed to fix everything.

Earlier we had decided that we would play for a couple of minutes or so, Kayrock on gongs - the regular Oneida line-up for the last couple of tours. Of course after a full afternoon of drinking, the concept became clouded, the name of the song went from "The Little Pilgrim of Carcasonna and Her Spotted Ass - Aliass" to "Atheists Reconsider" and from a couple of minutes to as long as the tape ran. Kayrock had made us all T-shirts before we left - there was "Van Boy," "Fat Dragon" (Jane), "Fleet Week" (Bobby) and "88" (me). We all wore them for the shoot. I was supposed to start off the song but faltered a few times. Kayrock was on bass, Jane played guitar and insisted that he was "playing against" us. Vanboy brought his harmonica in and shredded like Jon Popper the entire time. By the end of the song I had gotten on top of my drums, threw the loose pieces of the kit across the room and then carried my bass drum over my head towards Gwen - I tried not to hurt her and I didn't but that was about all the presence of mind I could muster. Then I hoarded a gallon jug of beer.

Darkness came up to me after we finished - he was really worried that I was mad. Naw - just a drunk who sometimes gets an urge to throw things.

The scene degenerated further into rare depths of absurdity. I stumbled into the kitchen, Bobby handed me a mug with orange flavored gin and diet Coke and said that we should all toast to boners. Its indicative of my state of mind at the time that I found the drink very tasty. Though the toast may have been in questionable taste, it was nothing compared to what inspired it.

Rippy wandered into my tunnel vision, his boxers on backwards sporting a raging, well, boner of which he seemed at once thrilled and perplexed to be in possession. Then it started to flag and he was really bummed out.

"That's amazing!" I exclaimed.
"No its not," said his roommate Sarah, "I have to live with him."

Fair enough.

So at one point everyone was like, "Let's watch the show!" We piled into the living room and sat through about 80% of their public access show which is destined for greatness. Then the battery on the camera died and we couldn't watch the rest of it.

At this point Sketch really started freaking out and demanded to be spanked and pulled down his pants. Both Bobby and Kayrock were happy to oblige. I can't remember why Sketch wanted to be spanked but he was dead serious.

Later I wandered out into the neighborhood, the waxing moon low in the sky, freaking out, feeling too wasted, too fried, too nostalgic for my ex. I walked two blocks down a hill and ended up on a dirt road, in Atlanta for Christ sake. I walked further down the hill and into a field. I could hear another party happening at the bottom of the hill. I walked towards the light and stood in the shadows and watched the house for about 15 minutes, kind of scared because I was sure if someone saw me, dressed all in white, they would shoot me, no questions asked.

So I walked back to the house and couldn't fall asleep until about 6:30am.

Mon May 20 - New Orleans - The Howlin' Wolf

Breakfast at IHOP - a desperate situation - but it could have been worse. It was filled with babies though.

The Howlin' Wolf calendar listed an open mic Acoustic night instead of the Trans Am show. The turn out was extraordinary for Oneida standards and light for Trans Am I guess - but everyone there bought something from Trans Am so maybe it made up for it.

A beautiful woman had me sign our "Best Friends" single "for a friend in Boston."

We met and stayed in Baton Rouge with Fred Weaver - the author of The Last Dark Days of Don Cabellero from the latest Chunklet that we'd been passing around the van and laughing about. Really strange coincidence.

He's a really nice and generous guy.

I had to keep Bobby awake on the drive to Fred's house by asking him trivia questions. When he said he was running on 3% of his brain power I wasn't nervous for some reason.

I washed my white pants at Fred's house and they still stunk.

Tues May 21 - Houston - Mary Jane's

The next day I drove for about three hours until we pulled off for gas and a place to piss and I noticed a stack of wood and a BBQ sign. We got gas, got great BBQ and I rode into Houston inhaling fumes in the back seat of our van.

We have exhaust problems and it took me a couple of hours to get rid of my headache.

The evening was a total blowout - there were a ton of people - so much better than then last time we played here at Rudyards (you can see my first tour report for more on this). Turned out that the same bartender at Rudyard's that night was tending at Mary Jane's.

"I bet y'all don't remember me," she said.

After our set this guy came up to me and said that he usually didn't like the kind of music we did but this time he thought it was OK. Umm thanks.

But I would say the most remarkable character we met was this 43 year old guy in a band called Rusted Shut who claimed to be banned from all clubs in Houston. He was like, "You just have to keep going." He was totally drunk and complimentary but a complete bore, wouldn't shut up for a second, just wanted to talk at whoever gave him an ear.

This woman suggested that we steal all the Oneida merch and hit the road in her van. I thought that sounded fine but then I decided that the merch wouldn't have amounted to much and passed on the idea. Then she tried to steal our issue of Chunklet.

We ended up staying at Donna's house of The Kants, on our way back to her house her car broke down on the freeway so we had to take her back home. Then because I was the only one sober, I needed to take her to a gas station, get some diesel in a gas can, drive out to her car and fill it with some gas and then try to start it.

Unfortunately her car hadn't just ran out of gas as she originally thought, it was just plain fucked. So we drove back to her place.

At 3am the highway was an obstacle course. First I took an off-ramp too fast and peeled out a bit, then I cut across some traffic the wrong way and almost got run down, then a crash barrier ended up in my lane and I had to swerve to avoid it and to top it off I missed the turn to Donna's house.

When we finally got to Donna's I cracked open a beer, took a sip and crashed out on the floor. This would be a recurring event, repeated the next night in Austin.

So Donna works at the Art Car Museum in Houston and the FBI recently investigated a show there called "Secret Wars," the same name as one of our upcoming EPs. The FBI men arrived at 10:30, before the museum opened and said they were investigating reports of "Un-American Art." Yes that's real.

Donna's band The Kants is playing in New York in July. Let's all go see them.

Wed May 22 - Austin - Emo's

At this point in the tour I started to feel paranoid - as if everyone was getting annoyed with me.

I was thrown off when we got to Emo's and we were told that the show was going to be held indoors because advance ticket sales were so light. We were looking forward to playing the outdoor space and it just struck me everyone as strange because Austin is a really good town for TA.

There is no backstage at Emo's so I felt a little freaked out b/c I just wanted a place to sit down for a while before the show started. Instead I ended up walking along the monstrosity that is 6th St which is basically all the crass and corrupt frat boy idea of fun times rolled into one place. It made me wonder who I was fooling by trying to be on tour when down the street at the piano sing-along bar they were finishing up a rousing rendition of "My Life" by Billy Joel. Sometimes Austin seems like a great town, other times it really seems like an abomination. It's the same with NYC too I guess.

Clark from Those Peabodys was at the show as was Josh from Zulu as Kono, both bands we played with during our tour last fall. It was great to see them representing. I dedicated "Sheets of Easter" to Those Peabodys even though the rest of the band didn't show up, but then again, we all missed their show in NYC w/ Trail of Dead in the spring.

Its funny but there's this large painting on the wall at Emo's which is the height of corn but which always manages to get a rise out of me. It's a pastiche of The Flintstones and S+M. There's a woman in a black, skin-tight body suit, with a whip and Dino is hog tied and looking ecstatic. Then in an upper frame Betty is playing dominatrix to a topless Wilma while Fred and Barny ogle slaveringly in the margins. There's also a lot of Japanese in the painting.

That this bit of cheapo exploitation titillates is just to illustrate the depths to which I've fallen, now five days in.

Thurs May 23 - Ft. Worth - The Ridgelea Theater

The Ridglea Theater was a beautiful Art Deco/Western hybrid theater along a cookie-cutter American chain strip somewhere on the outskirts of Ft. Worth - I never even saw the skyline 'cause I was in the back seat after we came in from Clark's BBQ in Tiaoga. Gene Autry was born there and wanted to rename the town Autry Springs and put in a resort. As it stands it's a charming one-horse town with world-class BBQ. Bobby thought we'd been there 4 times, I was thinking 3 times but maybe I ate catfish the first time before I started eating red meat again.

The theater was huge - over 1000 person capacity - and there may have been like 60 people there? I'm not sure. At one point I asked a security guard how safe the back lot was and he went on a very long and detailed explanation about how safe it was to party back there etc. I just wanted to know how safe our gear was.

"Oh, it'll be safe."

I remembered I had left a back window open in the van so I went back out to close it and a disheveled man with stringy dyed-black hair called out to me from across the lot's wide expanse. I ignored him. I just wanted to shut the windows, get back inside, and chill the fuck out 'cause we had gotten there kind of late and the Pines were about to go on.

But this guy kept coming.

"Hey there, what band are you, where are you from, blah, blah, blah."

He seemed a little drunk and a little confused. When I told him we were from BKLYN he said he used to live in Manhattan and then when I told him that TA was from Maryland he said he had a wife and daughter named "Marylyn."

OK dude. Just get me the fuck out of this situation.

So turns out I had met Ricky, the Ridgelea Theater's drunk crazy - so to speak. One of the staff said to Bobby, "I don't want to sound mean, but its like the hamster's dead but the wheel is still spinning."

He approached me after the show wearing a few layers of Hawaiian shirts, shorts and cowboy boots and told me I was the best keyboard player he'd seen since Ray Manzarek.

So naturally I became Bobby for a few minutes.

I told him I was better than Manzarek but Ricky would have none of it. Most drunks are just bores and most crackpots are a bit unsettling but Ricky was very entertaining for a short dose.

He was like, "I'm trying to get them back together man! It's a tragedy man, a real waste of talent. Jon and Robbie want to do it, so I keep telling Ray to put the band back together. I used to play with Stevie Ray man. Did you see the statue?"

"No," there's a statue of SRV in Austin holding a guitar and cigarette which apparently was a source of much controversy. I guess people wanna white-wash the rockers.

Things started to get more confusing with Ricky as the night wore on, mainly because I had gotten it into my head that I was going to get seriously drunk and didn't look back.

Ricky stepped away and brought back this strange two-sided color photo-copy collage of the outside of the theater, some photos of Ricky with people who were purported to be Madonna, Gene Simmons - but the shots were kinda blurry.

"Tell those people up there that she's Madonna," he said of this photo of a woman kissing him on the cheek, "they need to hear that."

A minute later he pulled himself up to me conspiratorially and drew out a battered cassette of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol 2.

"You heard of him?"
"Sure I love Dylan."
"He's back at my house right now."

So in terms of a souvenir, we have a signed color photo copied collage, "To Bobby - Ricky - FRIENDS FOREVER." Above the shot of the Ridglea he wrote, "Oneida played here." Which is true enough.

But talking about souvenirs, we hooked The Pines and Trans Am with killer maces we found at a truck stop. They were totally freaky and could really hurt someone. Of course Sebastian grabbed one and began wildly swinging it above his head while screaming, "CODE RED!"

Bobby was like, "Hey, be careful, we don't know how sturdy the chain is on that thing."

"Oh its cool, I actually own one of these things."

By the end of the night Chris from Pines and Phil from TA had injured themselves on the maces.

Right before the Pines set I saw Sebastian doing push ups backstage and I looked away 'cause it was like I had walked in on someone changing. I had heard that he did pushups and now its confirmed!

Our friends Shane and Lucy from Denton came to the show and hung out at the hotel room which TA bought for us after the show. Thanks guys!

As TA played the final set that we were going to see I realized (in a drunken fog) how great a band they are - the performances, the songs, their sense of humor - the whole fucking thing is worlds ahead of any other band around. What a pleasure!

On the drive to the hotel, we all piled into two vans 'cause one of TA's vans broke down on the way from Austin. Bobby dropped in Hyper w/ MC Dazzle who's cut "Addicted to Men" has been in heavy rotation lately.

"A-dick, a-dick, addicted to men. A-dick, a-dick, addicted to men."

We hung out with TA until we couldn't stay up anymore. Or well until I passed out and lost all consciousness.

Fri May 25 - Memphis - The High Tone

The opening band set up in a circle and the drummer had his back to the audience and kept kissing his hi-hat. I gotta start doing that. But first I need some hi-hats that aren't totally shredded. Maybe they got that way because I never kiss them.

Someone said that he treats girls badly until they do what he wants them to do. Tommy was like, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Nick from American Death Ray is into Stern Yet True Beats and said he would send me a tape of Detroit stuff, he also took photos of the show with his pinhole camera.

Tripmaker, Jessica, Jeremy and Amy were all there from Columbia, MO.

We played Trans Am's new album "TA" over the sound-system but it was inaudible.

It was a great show - there were a bunch of people there - my playing was off - my arms got tired and I couldn't do what I wanted to.

There was a party later near the swingers club called Discretions - it totally fascinated me. There was no one there though - I think it was closed. We were at a warehouse space within a block of the Pyramid - Memphis' arena which apparently is sinking an inch a year because it was shoddily built. There's something really new age about that building. It's massive and made of glass.

The warehouse was actually next to some horse stables - so the smell of manure was around if you wanted to seek it out.
At one point some people were swinging on a tire swing which was set up in the middle of the room. I heard some stuff break and then went to sleep.

I woke up incredibly hung over and we tried to get a good breakfast and still were thwarted. Not a town of breakfast makers.

Memphis is a great town though - The Lost Sounds were amazing. All our friends really treated us right. I'm not sure why I don't have much to say about this show - I think I was tired again.

Sat May 26 - Knoxville - The Pilot Light

We all stopped at The Sunset restaurant in Wilson County, TN so we could have Kayrock taste their buttermilk pie. It was a great stop. The waitress called all of us "honey."

We were the headliner at The Pilot Light - there were no local bands on the bill - the promoter and good Oneida friend told us that he thought we could bring in enough people to make it work so we were game.

The opening band was from Asheville, NC and were very unusual - they reminded me of Pylon or something = a kind of 80's art rock thing - a good amount of Roxy Music, and a singer who perhaps had the worst stage presence and banter I've seen in a while - he kept saying that they were The Cherry Valence and that they were from the suburbs of Raleigh and I was thinking to myself, "These songs are pretty good, you guys are pretty fun but you are no fucking Cherry Valence to shut the fuck up." But this guy kept saying it like it was funny or they were taking the piss so fuck it. I liked them anyway. They've been around for like 4 years though which blew my mind. They seemed like a very young band w/o much experience. I can't remember their name to save my life.

Afterwards I was talking to the singer and he offered me a caffeine pill. No thanks, I had already started drinking a huge, huge cup of coffee. Over the course of this tour I have seriously fallen deeply into the coffee pit.

Regina, the bartender, was playing great music as usual - The Gun Club, Television, Hawkwind. I put on "TA" again and finally got to hear it - holy shit that record is amazing. I'm looking forward to proselytizing it through NYC.

So I was drinking a coffee in one hand and a High Life in the other which was kind of freaking out Regina but it was the cocktail I thought I needed. When we started the set I thought it sounded good. I wasn't wearing earplugs, but my arms soon lost their strength and I was having a hard time keeping up with our set. Afterwards Jane said I played everything really fast which didn't surprise me considering the amount of coffee I drank.

We played "Sheets of Easter" as an encore which totally did me in - I was a totally cashed out pile of ashes after the set, nodding out, feeling wasted and burnt. Jane and Bobby both asked me if I was OK with concern. Bobby then firmly suggested I go back to the van and crash which I did. Good idea, I kept having these dreams in which peoples' head were morphing in decaying and hideous monsters. Ah touring.

After the show this guy told me that I was holding the band together and I needed to strike out on my own.

"I hope they're paying you enough."

I told him I'd look into it.

Later back at Regina's house, I needed to drink a couple of beers in order to fall asleep. I hung out with her new roommate Charlie and talked about The Cherry Valence for a while. He's from Raleigh and grew up with Nick the drummer.

He also had a guy tell him that Satan would give him a hot dog.

Then we debated the merits of "Tommy" - I hate it, he respects it - then I took a shower and crashed.

The next morning a guy decided to sit down while we were trying to have breakfast and tell us about "Truth."

When politeness wouldn't get him to leave we asked him more forcefully to leave. When he wouldn't Bobby threatened to get the management. All the while he was saying, "I'm just trying to tell you the truth." God stuff. Whatever.

Then Bobby said that we should tell him a little about gay lifestyle. Jane wanted to show him his truth tunnel. I think we could have had a conversation if we weren't so hung over and trying to eat breakfast. Maybe next time.

When we were driving through Nashville the day before we passed a couple of women with a Christian fish on the back of their car. Bobby wrote "Christians?" on a blank piece of paper but I wasn't able to pass them before they exited. Then Bobby wrote "Atheists?" and "Reconsider" on another piece of paper. We never got a chance to use them.

Sun May 27 - Winston-Salem, NC - Project Space 211 (The Wherehouse)

Full moon dance party - one of the most fucked up nights of the tour.

Oneida being foiled on our quest for BBQ we called The Wherehouse and were told that they were having a potluck for us when we arrived.

Beer and insane amounts of amazing food were waiting for us at the revamped PS 211. There were mashed potatoes, potato salad, delicious tossed salad, salmon cakes, fresh strawberries, asparagus, home-made mac and cheese, kale, apple cake, curried vegetables, fresh High Life. So much abundance and quality that it kind of made 'ole KM pause a second, but I didn't 'cause its not like I've got self-control or anything. About food that is.

Our reunion with Chris, Brian, JB, Kemp, Eric and the rest of the Wherehouse gang was so right and so good I had to try to figure out why it was that we had waited over a year and a half to play there again. Of course part of it had to do with all the hassles they recently got from the city to bring their place up to code, part of it was that we pretty much over-played the joint and at our last show I think there may have been 20 people or so.

Anyway - it was great to be back - JB gave us a tour of the changes - things looked great as usual - there was more work to be done but they had just gotten a loan approved for additional work so it was all looking good for things to continue.

I finished my dinner on the roof as the sun went down, warm early summer N.C. evening and beautiful sunset getting me all set to rock during the full moon.

Before the Finks were set to play I met and chatted with their drummer Teresa who caught me off guard with her question, "So how is everything in New York?"

Well, OK I guess - but strangely enough if I've been away for a week or so I stop feeling like I have the authority to say.

The Finks set up in the middle of the performance space's capacious floor, about 30 feet or so from the PA. They were disappointed with the sound. The audience and the members of the Oneida crew were really pleased with them. Their songs were all over the map stylistically and they executed them all with ease.

After they finished and played an encore, we dropped "TA" into the sound system and eventually rocked - everyone was dancing - which is a rare treat. You don't look that gift horse in the mouth.

After the show there was a lull as someone went off to get more beer and the DJ's got lax at the CD player. At the time I thought the night was basically over, that we were just making time until we all turned in. God damn was I wrong.

The High Life arrived and people migrated to the upstairs kitchen area. I arrived as some people were smashing a chess board on which some of the same people had been playing a match earlier.

JB put "Super Freak" on the stereo and a few people started to dance. I was one of 'em of course. Actually it was only me and Rachel and everyone was just sittin' and looking. It was only half-past midnite so that was what was up.

But despite JB's best efforts, and Bobby's Stern Yet True mix, the stereo was behaving very badly indeed, cutting out in the middle of particularly intense jams - but this was a special dance party. Every time the song cut out the people would keep up the beat themselves, banging on shit, clapping - you name it. Then someone turned out he lights, people started break dancin' then a lot of beer was sprayed and poured all over the room and then in a gesture of complete and utter perversity, JB dropped "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath on the stereo and even that wouldn't kill the dance jones. I can't remember the song he followed it with but it was enough to totally end the dancing. But that didn't stop the people.

Kemp decided to throw a chair and then everyone decided that they hated chairs and so every wooden chair in the kitchen was summarily destroyed. Then Kayrock and Bobby started getting people to lay down some beats with the broken chairs and that went on for a while.

I, of course, missed it all 'cause I had left to check my email right after Kemp had thrown the first chair.

When I came back into the kitchen, the place was destroyed and no one in Oneida was in sight.

"Who started it?" asked JB.

I slept in the van that night and then we headed for the beach.

"We have tons of chairs," said Kemp later.

Mon May 28 - Topsail Beach - Day Off

Lots of beer
Ocean, swimming
2 issues of People Magazine
Ethan and I ate a bucket of seafood at the Crab Pot
We rented Barb Wire - I fell asleep
T-Rex beach ball
Sonic Boom beach toys
Empty beach

Alone back at the house, two girls show up on a boat and I run away before they see me.

THE SECOND WAVE

Tues May 28 - Richmond, VA - The Hole in the Wall

We seemed to be running very late for the show but when we arrived at 9:30pm the Hole hadn't even opened, the door was locked and the lights were dark.

We've played Richmond about 15 times at this point and it still feels like its out first. We weren't listed in any paper though there were a few flyers around.

The 1st band took a while to start because the singer had just gotten married and was coming from the reception to play the show. They were called Automotron and were bass, drums and vocals - pretty terrible hard-core but I thought it was pretty amazing that the singer decided to book a show immediately following his wedding. At one point he said into the mic, "Can you fucking believe it? I got fucking married today!"

The bride arrived at the show later - she was wearing a white dress and was covered in tatoos. I went up to her and congratulated her and she thanked me. Like Tommy Lee and Pamela they had gotten tattoos on their fingers to mark the occasion. I was standing near the bride when a friend approached her and said, "Wow, you look great - what's the occasion?"

"I got married!"

"No shit! To WHO?"

"To him," she pointed to the guy in the skull mask.

"OK. How long have you known each other?"

"About eight months I think."

I was drinking a bunch of PBRs because they were free and it was helping me get through some of these shows. There's a lot of sublimated tension going on - we're mostly keeping our thoughts to ourselves.

I looked at a Forced Exposure from 1990 and saw all the bands in there that I had never heard of who were on labels like Jagjaguwar - I wonder if any of them were any good.

That night I had the urge to get beaten up by whatever women were at the show. I told Bobby about it. There were a bunch of punked out women from the wedding. Some of them stuck around, but when I got to the mic to request the beat down I wasn't able to ask for it. I can't be expected to demand a beating just because I know I deserve it.

Which reminds me - when we ate at the BBQ restaurant earlier that day - Bobby was like, "Is there some kind of dominatrix thing going on with this waitress?" None of us had noticed it but maybe it was in the air.

So anyway - the second band on the bill - Mensa Select played a decent Slint-influenced set and then we got on and played "People" to open up. That song almost always feels good to play and sometime I wonder if the set just goes downhill from there - what with Kayrock slamming on the gongs and the rest of us hammering away.

The set seemed decent but I'm having a hell of a time playing "Double Lock" well - I've kind of lost my precision on it and end up slipping and sliding through it.

Earlier I watched about 10 minutes of The Real World and Ethan (Van Boy) commented, "I could just sit here and get drunk all night."

I was feeling that.

We met our friend Ron and his wife and went back to his place to crash. He bought it a couple of years ago, fixed it up from scratch and is about to sell it after he does a couple more final things. It's a great place, too bad he's getting rid of it but he's gonna get another place and fix that up next.

Wednesday May 29 - Charlottesville, VA - Tokyo Rose

I just wanted it all to end at this point. We roll into Charlottesville and get bitchy when we try to find the radio station. The directions were hard to follow and we end up somewhere strange - bad vibes all over the van. I decide I remember where the station is. I'm wrong of course - how wrong? The station moved locations two years ago.

After about an hour we finally find the "new" location. There's our friend Tyler behind the board and he's playing something that sounded really good - so we step up and play Bronski Beat, Hyper and other songs of questionable quality.

After ruining a perfectly good radio show I decide that I want a hot dog and it's all I care about. Bobby does the right thing and takes the van for an oil change and transmission fluid change - he knew that the drive to Pittsburgh was going to be a killer for the van - through all these mountains - so he was thinking ahead. Me - I thought of my own needs - very typical.

So Kayrock, Van Boy, Tyler and I go out to get a hot dog which ends up being damn good. Then we basically hang out back at Tyler's house and watch "The Young Ones" and wait for Jane and Bobby to get back. I can't remember what I read, I just can't - it was starting to get seriously hot down south and I just couldn't think anymore.

The Tokyo Rose is such a kick ass place to play a show - the sushi was half-price for us, the people love the rock and you can always expect an after-party somewhere.

We were joined by our friend Fred Weaver which was a great pleasure - his company is always welcome. We ordered a mess of sushi and then started in on haiku's - included below. They had a daily haiku on the specials menu which happened to be written by "a customer" so Oneida had to take a crack at it. A little context - there was a live band playing mid-tempo ersatz latin-esque jazz - so we referenced it a couple of times.

A sampling of Haiku's at the Rose:

Vessels Overflow
Incense, wigs, and vine imbibed
The ladies love me

Van Boy and Kayrock
With Fat Dragon and Bobby
Or Fleet Week, plus Kid

Oneida's a Rock
Falling on you from a cliff
Positive people

Girl from Ipenema
Is a pretty good song
Once or twice in a row

Positive people
Atheists reconsider
We turn it up loud

People of the North
Invade the Tokyo Rose
Vibrations in May

Nice l'il jazz singer
Possibly an autistic
Music in her head

I gave these haiku's to our waitress and I'm assuming she wasn't amused.

This show was wonderful mostly because it was a bill of old friends. First Grand Banks played some cuts from their new album and then usa is a monster, back from an on and off again nine month tour showed us what happens to your chops after 100 shows in the US and Europe. Basically you start to transcend it all and really start to play music.

That night we mostly wore our Kayrock shirts - mine says "88" 'cause that's trucker slang for "hugs and kisses" - and when I got up to the mic to sing "Upwards at 45 Degrees" - the Julian Cope song - I asked the audience if anyone knew what it meant. Of course I didn't hear any of the responses at the time. It wasn't until later at the 2nd party I ended up at that I learned the weird numerology behind "88."

I guess to some people "88" means "Heil Hitler." Great - so I've been wearing a white power code on my chest for days. Of course it's strange that I didn't find this out until Charlottesville.

Anyway - it turns out that not only does "88" mean "Heil Hitler" because "H" is the eighth letter in the alphabet but there's this whole thing about "Back to the Future" being a white power propaganda picture. First, the Delorian can only jump time when it reaches 88 mph - and then when they get there, Michael J "reinvents" rock and roll by ripping off Chuck Berry riffs and moves. Of course this just acknowledges Chuck Berry's rightful place as the godfather of rock but we're talking conspiracy theories here - not dissertations.

So this very nice woman is explaining all this to me and I'm feeling really bummed out 'cause I just wanted to have a fun t-shirt. I didn't wanna be spreading some bullshit unwittingly. Though I'm probably doing that anyway.

But this woman is like, "No man. Its cool - you're doing your part to take it back!"
So alright - I can get with that - modest mission that it is.

So after the show we all head to Tyler's place 1st and try to have a dance party but one of his speakers is blown and his stereo starts distorting when I turn up the Street Jams tape. The dancing was happening, people were trying.

Rebecca started to get pissed of at the stereo system and she was like - "We're gonna move the party to my house, my stereo works and there's a lot of couches and beds." Tyler's place was kind of short on comfortable places to crash.

So a few of us piled into a few cars and drove out to Rebecca's. When we got there we discovered that there was another band already sleeping in all those nice couches and beds that had been promised to us. But we weren't ready to be crashing yet. We had some dancing to do, cutting a rug to a couple of hip-hop mixes that Rebecca had put together. I was really tired though - I mean I was passing out on my feet - so I went and crashed on this rug in the kitchen. It was starting to get light outside and the birds were singing of course. I felt nothing but dread - pure utter dread at the fact that I just wasn't going to get any sleep. I was shaken awake about a half an hour later and shown a miraculously free bed - so I burrowed into that only to woken a couple more times. The final straw being when two people flanked me and this annoying guy kept putting his arm over me, and then his leg and I had to keep pushing him off. In my groggy daze I was sure he was doing it just to annoy me. Fuck that dude.

I moved a final time to try to get some peaceful sleep, just grabbing a corner of some carpet.

Bobby woke me up by kicking me and taking a Polaroid. I think my total sleep time was from 5:30am-10:30am w/ five interruptions that I can remember.

I smelled pretty good too.

Thursday May 30 - Pittsburgh - Gooski's

We arrived at Gooski's at 9:45pm and started to load in. The club is on a really steep hill, we were really fucking tires as you can imagine but the club was packed, totally packed.

Once I had changed into some clean clothes and gotten a Yuengling Lager Bobby approached me with a cookie from Mike B. I guess it had some pretty special ingredients because it tasted funny.

A few minutes later I started feeling my head-space expanding and I talked with Jim who had made an Oneida t-shirt out of the dirty shirt he had rolled around on the ground with at our last show. He didn't wash it and just scrawled "Oneida" on the back. Fuck yeah.

Pee Pee Dee Bee - or Pittsburgh's Premier Dance Band - played a really fun and rocking set and things started to get really fucked up in my head. Time ceased to exist - piecing together my drum set became a Herculean exercise in absurdity. At that point, between large gulps from my Yuengling, I basically gave up hope of playing a coherent set. I started laughing uncontrollably, stood on my drum stool and screamed at Mike, "I BLAME YOU! ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Mike just looked at me and smiled and said, "What?"

Then the laughter started again because it was time for me to start the first song in our set - "Each One Teach One." It's really fast and difficult technically and I was thinking, "How the fuck am I going to pull this off? I have no idea how fast this should be."

OK so I started and everything seemed to explode. There was an eternity between each drum beat - my mind explored every corner of Gooski's - Oneida blasting away - time became elastic - I was sure I was ruining the set but I plunged on ahead anyway. That's about all I remember of the set to be honest. I am told that we played two encores - one of them was "Upwards at 45 Degree" and I think I sang it correctly.

After the set Ethan was nowhere to be found and I was standing by the merch trying to make sense of what people wanted. I was a lost lamb - nothing was making sense. Ethan rescued me and I went in search of my band because I lost them - they were gone and Gooski's was packed with people. A woman I had met last time came up to me and seemed very drunk. She was like. "Last time I saw your show and again this time your music was very, very sexual. Really."

I was so high I just looked at her. It was too much, too much. I think I said, "I'm glad," and kept trying to find the rest of my band - but mainly I was trying to find Bobby who I think was in a similar head space as me.

I walked all over the place, found Jane, and he was like, "Did you eat a cookie?" looking at me smiling maniacally, starting to fuck with me and making me paranoid.

I finally found Bobby and he offered me some sanity for a moment. He was having just a tough a time as I was but he seemed more together. I couldn't really speak with anyone, he seemed to be holding his own in that department fairly well.

It was at this point that Mike introduced me to this woman. She wanted to talk with someone in Oneida 'cause she had missed our set.

"I'm really sorry that I missed it, I really wanted to see it. Will you play an encore?"

I almost tried to gather everyone together but I knew that would have been impossible.

Later on I saw the city of Pittsburgh from the hills around Gooski's. It's a beautiful sight.

Friday May 31 - Brooklyn, NY - Free 103

We played a show in Brooklyn the next night with Broke Review and Sightings which I barely made it through. Sightings stopped their show in the middle because they seemed to be mad at each other. That was too bad. They're my favorite New York band. The Broke Review was amazing - I especially enjoyed the drummer and Brad the bassist's playing. But I've been meaning to see those guys for a long time now so it was great to finally play with them.

That's about all I can tell you. Thanks to everyone who helped us with the shows, put us up and took us around their cities. If you run into me in the next few weeks and I act weird, I'm still recovering - apologies in advance.

Email Oneida
enemyhogs@hotmail.com

Email the Webbastard
schnores@juno.com

Email Oneida
enemyhogs@hotmail.com

Email the Webbastard
schnores@juno.com