This was originally posted on the chokecherry myspace page @ www.myspace.com/chokecherrympls but I decided it would be a nice story to start out this web page
It was a story that needed to be told from the beginning. By doing anything else, you'd fail to capture the joy that comes from almost endless torturous monotony followed by nightly bursts of enthusiasm and sometimes, only sometimes, cheap beer. This particular tale involves alligators, smelly sleeping bags, and beagles that drink beer, but let me be clear, it's about us.
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Wednesday, June 20th
Hall Mall, Iowa City, Iowa.
We set off from the Belfry on Wednesday afternoon. We'd discussed loading all our shit up at 1, of course Bob refused to come downstairs until he was respectably tardy. An hour and a half later we were zooming down the Interstate in Pam's Ford Windstar, headed for the dark heart of the beast itself, Iowa City. We walked into the Hall Mall in the middle of an art show that involved people in masks, holding long knives, and building a mashed potato altar. We got it. I don't think you would. Anyway, some of the kids from the Infoshop volunteered to help us cart in our gear, we gave them the heaviest amps of course. Then we were hungry. We ate 3$ black bean burgers at the Mill where, coincidentally, the Honeydogs from Minneapolis were playing. Bob wanted them to sign his armpit; I thought it would be rude for us to bring it up first. One of the bands that was supposed to play didn't bother to show up and thus was born our Holy Shit Tour SHITLIST. This asshole is the first entry. Joanna Nemec. Just so we're not veering inordinately on the side of the negative we'll also keep records of good people who went out of their way to help us.) The show started around 10 with an Indie band. We then played to a handful of disoriented people. We sold some CD's and patches and Louis and Margo from Velocipede Infoshop paid us in zines and we abandoned a couple hundred anarchist pamphlets with them that we had lying around the Belfry. A very nice Iowan named Monique offered us shelter at her house and we trekked over there, tore apart the couch-fort that was set up in her living room, and drank beer on their sidewalk. Pam and Jon installed their earplugs and Bob and Chris did their thing, and over and above us the Iowa night sky hummed with the snores of slumbering giants.
Thursday, June 21st
Solidarity! Infoshop, Lawrence, Kansas.
The morning came on us grey and linty. Which really just means that we were hung-over, sore from being folded in half on loveseats to small for even the smallest of us, and already tired of listening to Bob complain about waking up at noon. We said our goodbyes and headed down the interstate. Now, be aware, we were not just naïve Minnesotans traveling through Iowa without defenses. We had, in our midst and unbeknownst to the citizens of Iowa, a man of Iowan ancestry named Tall Bob. He thought and talked like a good Minnesotan but could also stuff himself with tater tots as well as those South of the border (Iowa). The best. A couple hours into the drive we were introduced to our first Iowa Obstacle, consisting of a waitress in Southern Iowa who leaned on us while we tried to read the menu and ridiculed each of us in turn like we'd known one another for years. First, Pam ordered a Grilled Cheese from the kids menu. The Waitress balked, Pamela went down in flames. Next, Jon ordered three eggs over easy. That's it. She smirked and Jon tripped into the freezer case of whopper cake. Finally, our great Iowa hope came up to bat. He started out small with a coffee, she nodded approvingly. Now Confident, TB fired all his guns at once and exploded into space. Tuna Melt. She gawked and Bob actually shrunk in stature right before our eyes. Now only one was left. Chris. She turned on him in his little corner; Club Sandwich with tots. Three types of meat, mayo, bacon, hold the tomatoes. She beamed. We were vindicated. Bob confirmed our victory by devouring a piece of whopper cake, and commenting that he didn't think it had enough whoppers. Ouch for Iowa.
So, onto the music part. We got to the infoshop and were greeted by bright-faced idealistic radicals. It was a sober space, which actually I like and want to be respectful of (Bob thinks rock and roll has nothing to do with acoustic music or sobriety), but we also admit that we didn't want our disillusionment to rub off on these nice kids so we fled to the nearest bar where our friends in Best Friends Forever were playing that night, and there we drank dollar pabsts and watched Waterworld. As the time for show grew near we got an increasingly weird feeling, one involving a deeply powerful pang in our bellies, a sense of unfulfillment, and the dawning knowledge that it isn't a good idea to drink beer without eating. That's what Kevin Kostner will do to you. Pam and Jon went to a little café and got awesome Styrofoam containers full of Vegan Biscuits and Gravy. For only $3.50! Dave, a volunteer there set us up and we watched some ladies from the Dakotas called the L.I.D.'s who sang traditional songs with their very pretty voices, and a local Folk-punk band called Death and Flowers who hopped around with no shoes and sang bouncy catchy songs. Then, we again played to a handful of disoriented people. Afterwards Dave and his friend/housemate invited us to sleep on their floor and eat mini pizzas, Death and Flowers invited us to some house to hang out, all very nice but we wanted to go see BFF in a whole different environment than we'd ever seen them before. And we wanted to get drunk enough to dance. When we finally got there they'd already played. They snuck us a free pitcher of beer anyway, which was very nice. Bob and Jon walked back to Dave's house in the dark, discovering that Lawrence has the most convoluted sidewalk system in the world, essentially consisting of a couple feet of whatever material they had laying around: bricks, rock, wood, maybe even bones (it was really too dark to tell). Somehow we found our way to a house with four or five bikes locked outside, and walked in to find Pam and Chris sprawled as usual in the best places to sleep, and seeing them we decided that we must be in the right place.
Friday June 22nd
Soundpony, Tulsa Oklahoma
On Friday we went to Pam's ancestral home of Okiehoma. After driving up and down "blabla" boulevard and not finding her cousin Joes' house, we went down a block and discovered "blabla" street. Who does that? Joe gave us water and made fun of Bob while we cleaned up and then went out to Tulsa's best pizza place, kind of like Pizza Luce but not as good. Jon and Pam got a giant mushroom pizza and hatched plans to eat it for the rest of tour. Three days later we threw it into a New Orleans trash can and vowed never to eat pizza again. A waiter spilt beer all over Pam's cousin and everyone who worked in the kitchen came out to gawk. He got a free tye-dyed shirt. To make up for ordering the beers that got dropped on him we taught him Jon and Katie's phrase, "porky-pigging-it." Wiki it. Afterwards we went to the bar, the Soundpony, which was described as a biker bar. We were very happy to discover that biker meant biCYCLEist. They offered us bikes to ride around and gave us free beer and Jon wrote a song about Big Jim and his engineer friend who got lynched by honkies in West Virginia. It actually happened, there's a poem about it that's pretty good. The bar held a trivia contest, which Chokecherry dominated, proving the superiority of either Minnesota genetics or our educational infrastructure. In any case no one else seemed to have heard of Fidel Castro. We won a glass. Black Jesus played first. The singer was Pam's first PamFan, which is an interesting situation that someone should do a dissertation on. They wore tank tops and we'd highly recommend their rendition of Hey Ya even though we might throw up if it ever comes on the radio again. We played to a packed house that we seemed to clear out pretty quickly even if everyone swears it was our best show. Shirley and a very nice other girl whose name just slipped my mind danced with their friends in a very Minneapolis way, which it seems like only people in the Midwest can do, it consists of grabbing whoever is nearest and twirling around with them until they escape. Jon read excerpts from our friend Lacey's zines, he even memorized one. Here it is. "Lying in bed with you, and reading the Communist Manifesto, (the reason for your Pa's imprisonment, is not my idea of a wild time." She might be a genius. The beer was good and free but we had a 12 hour drive to New Orleans that we had to leave for directly after the show so Jon and Bob drank their fill while Pam and Chris drank water.
About 2 o clock we got paid and hopped in the van. Jon and Bob did impressions of Pam that consist of, "My name's Pam. Pam! Pam! Pam!." For some reason this infuriated Pam who was driving for the only time during tour. She pulled over after about 10 minutes and Chris hopped in the driver seat and told us to shut the fuck up. Jon and Bob took sleeping pills and passed out only to find that Chris and Pam stopped at the nastiest little Texas shitholes every 15 minutes or so to buy energy drinks and check out the bathrooms. During one of these frequent stops we discovered a strange thriving little community of people who eat breakfast at 3 am at the dirtiest gas station in the world. It was so filthy that Pam couldn't even bring herself to urinate. Somehow, during this period when J and B were finally quiet, Chris drove two hours into the scariest road in the world in Texas, in the wrong direction. Finally they gave up at 8.30am and Jon and Bob took over, taking Chokecherry all the way to NOLA, over treacherous alligator swamps and out of Texas, on just the energy that one Whataburger egg muffin gave them. They were heroic and tragic. And awesome.
Saturday June 23rd
Dragons Den, New Orleans
Man. NOLA is fucked up. It's a criminal tragedy. Too much has already been written but I think the fact that the media has largely forsaken it to focus on other criminal acts, like Iraq, gives us the impression that it's returning to normal. It's not. The scale of official incompetence is staggering. Their social system is based in some sort of fucked up feudal code which is actually the reason that the Hurricane was so disastrous. They abandoned the poor neighborhoods to be flooded out, displacing 250,000 people even two years later, then abandoned them and ensnaring all the generosity of the world to fix up Bourbon street and the rich areas. We went down with Natalie's sister Sam to the lower 9th ward and walked through the neighborhoods, well, they used to be neighborhoods. They used to have the largest percentage of home ownership by black people in the country. Now, there's nothing. The city forced people to sell and then bulldozed it so it now looks like a shitty field in Iowa that might or might not have alligators lounging in the grass. Halfway through it we stumbled over a pile of dirty rags on the curb, and pools of sticky dried blood. Just past it there were a couple houses smashed into each other and a semi and cars flipped over. As we crossed past a No Trespassing sign a cop car drove up to his and told us to turn around, the city had rented out these trashed houses and lots for a movie set.
We did have a great breakfast though. It was at this little place called Caffea. Zydeco music was playing and there was a super cute girl dressed in NOLA punk fashion which seems to consist of jaunty funny little hats and vests. We enjoyed our chicory coffee and pepperjack grits and read the paper. I haven't mentioned this before but if it's before 3 o clock in the afternoon just assume Bob is in the foulest mood of all time. Whoever makes the mistake of trying to wake him up will either hear, "you'll be dead soon," or "you'll be the first to die." If you make the mistake of asking him where something might be you'll hear either, "up your ass," or an interesting variation that goes, "in your rectum." Any sort of request that he do something that he doesn't want to do will be met with, "I DO what I want." He's also incapable of participating in a group conversation, frequently coming out of nowhere to ask about some detail just as the rest of us finish talking about it, even if he's involved in some segments of the conversation he'll drop out of it as soon as he's blathered his share (usually one of the above sayings). This is now referred to as "giving us some privacy." He also refers to everything in the world as an "item," and his backpack as his "bag of many things." It comes from D & D and it's really just nerdy. He just said that we would be a cooler band if we played D & D in the van.
New Orleans is a pretty crazy place. Even the street we stayed on still had half the houses being renovated and piles of trash in the streets (supposedly they just got trash service in January). We lounged around her house and swore in the sticky humidity. The show that night was supposed to be at the Dragons Den, a cool little bar that people had recommended to us. We heard some shit about playing with a hip hop band, we're fine with that. But we got there and dude at the door wouldn't let us load in until 8:30 so we wondered around and ate some Mediterranean food. When we loaded in we realized that there were no bands, no publicity, just a hip hop showcase like in 8 mile. Everyone at the bar was an asshole, not even offering us beer. For a second we got cold feet, but at 10 we said what the fuck and played anyway. Jon started out by saying, "you're going to hate us" and making stupid Walk This Way jokes. They didn't hate us. We met some really cool kids, sold some CD's and even got compliments from some of the rappers. What a nice place! We loaded our van and drove home exhausted. Jon and Pam decided to stay in for the night while Chris and Bob went to Bourbon Street. This is where their story begins, let's just say that it started out with a cab ride and ended with them in bed together and Chris saying, "I'm so drunk. Bob, let's take off our pants."
Meanwhile, Jon and Pam were fighting a battle of their own, against giant roaches. Pam saw one in the kitchen and screamed, Jon screamed and threw his mini Alfredo Bonnano book at it, squishing half of it. It took a while but eventually they shoveled the half dead bug into the trash, just as another one bust out of the kitchen. This one they actually smushed. It was Pam's night for sleeping on the floor so she set up her sleeping bag and, an hour later, awoke to a roach perched on her leg, swearing that it was biting her. She got on the couch.
Sunday, June 24th
A house, Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge was only a couple hours away from NOLA, a godsend considering that we'd driven fifteen hours the day before. Bob, however, was not feeling cordial. He managed to bimble around until pretty late into the evening. When we finally got there we drove around for an hour looking for the street it was on, hoping to just run into it because no one wanted to talk to anyone. We got a little food and went over to the house. They were all super nice. We played and it seemed like people had fun. Ramming Speed, a thrashy metallic band from Massachusetts, came on after us. We liked them a lot. Their songs are about pizza. The singer is Pam's second official PamFan of tour. Someone elbowed Bob in the crotch as they danced. A local bands played and then Justin Bailey (containing the guys who ran the house). Afterwards a very sweet girl named Rachel, or nicknamed Awesome (seriously), put us up and we hung out with her and her friends, Mettalica, Muffins, and a guy who kept on saying racist things without meaning to, who we thought had Bobs form of autism. He might have been racist though. The highlight of the night though, was a little beagle named Rudy. He drank Jon's whole bottle of beer and licked us all on the face, and then licked his ass. But he was cute.
Monday, June 25th
Cell Block, Mobile Alabama
The next day we started out early for Alabama. We'd had a lot of trouble with shows there. We originally wanted to play with the Pine Hill Haints but they never got back to us, but we found a cool band called the Sworn Enemies (check them out) and were pretty sure we were gonna play with them until a couple weeks back when they cancelled. Chris managed to get a show confirmed with Brooke at the Cell Block (a good punk bar that lots of people recommended). She was, however, difficult to get ahold of, not returning phone calls or emails. We got to Mobile early enough to get some food, walked around downtown eating boiled peanuts from a peanut shop (there was a sign in the shop that said, "If you're smoking in here we will assume that you are on fire. And stomp you to death!). We also had our first non-budweiser in days at a brew pub. That's well worth paying three bucks. The Cell Block was closed until like 9 so we decided what to do with the night. Before we left we had to promise Tall Bob that he could stay in a hotel once on tour. Since this had the prospect of being a bad show where no one would take us home we decided this was the day. The waitress gave us directions to a cluster of cheap hotels outside of town so we drove out there. Bob was the hotel liaison, going in to check on prices. He would go into the Lobby and come out 15 seconds later saying that the attendant had seemed rude, or that they were on the phone or that he didn't want to wait in line. So we drove to 3 or 4 hotels about twice each. He also rejected a hotel because they had Full size beds rather than Queen Size. He said he's not spending money to hang his feet off the end of a bed all night. Finally, he settled on one. We brought our beer in and watched cable and napped for a couple hours before piling back in the van and heading to the Cell Block. We were listening to the Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album. I like them. We pull up just as a 9 foot tall guy comes out of the bar and locks it behind him. We ask where the bands and people are. He says, "We're closed on Mondays," and walks away. What the fuck, eh? This sucks even extra because our friend Dee had arranged with Terry, the bassist from This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, for us to play at Sluggos in Pensacola, a place we really really wanted to play, and we had to not do it because the Cell Block had confirmed us twice. We swear at the booker, well she wasn't there, but we directed insults in whatever directions she was and go back to our hotel. Chris sent her a sarcastic response to a super nice email she sent wishing us luck with the show, when he told us we all felt bad for her.
Again, Chris and Bob go waste money and get drunk while Jon and Pam stay in. We had 2 beds and before he left Chris suggested that, in order not to be interrupted when they come in drunk, Pam and I should sleep in the same bed. We just looked at each other in horror and put our earplugs in. Bob and Chris went to Hooters. No, I'm serious.
Tuesday, June 26
Louisville, Kentucky
After the Mobile debacle we started out on what we thought was a 9 hour drive that, with torrential downpours and bowel problems, actually took 12 hours. We got to the Derby Coffee shop at about 8pm and met up with the kids in Hokum County (who play country-ish old-timey with a Washtub bass and Washboard). They played first, we liked them lots. Dave and Holly introduced us to Mathew, the proprietor of said Cafe. He gave us free espresso which, I would swear, is the best I've ever had. We'd highly recommend him. Next this electro-clash type thing played with two ladies singing in German and French. Afterwards we played acoustically. It went fine. Afterwards we packed up and went to the Nachbar in an area called Germantown but which we might call Shnitzelberg. Hokum County played again as we drank free fancy beer from the awesome proprietor James. Afterwards we plugged in and did our thing. Playing to a bar packed with normal people. Normal people, Rosie from the Hexagon, old punks, and bartenders love us. Young punks usually just go smoke. Anyways, it was one of our funnest shows, maybe partly because we had free beer. We just hung out with all the nice folks from Louisville then packed up and went to the house they said we could stay at. We'd been told that the side door was open but when we got there there was no window in it and it was nailed shut so we went to the front door. Holly and Dave were in the process of buying and renovating the house. I'm not really sure how far into the process, let's just say it was not a sure thing. Anyways, there was not only no running water, but no pipes as they'd been stripped during the 10 year vacancy. But it was a majestic old brick house and we were happy to have someplace to stay even if there might be ghosts. In the morning we woke up covered in soot and sawdust, especially Pam, who slept with her head almost in the fireplace for some reason. This led to us deciding to decline the very sweet invitations of Louisville-ians to go get coffee, and to drag ourselves to the nearest laundromat to do a load of laundry where, strangely enough, we saw Dave and Holly.
Wednesday, June 27nd
Skull Lab, Cincinnati Ohio
Cincinnati is on our shitlist. Not the very sweet kid who set up the show, Micah, or even the space, the Skull Lab. Just the city itself. Or maybe all of Ohio. Just kiddin', we like Oberlin, which is kind of to Ohio like Madison is to Wisconsin. You know, it might be within the territorial boundaries of the state but it's just a different world where the hot dog venders sell veggie dogs and instead of fraternities they have cooperative dorms. Well, anyway, we found the skull lab at 5 pm. There were a million people hanging out on the street and Bob immediately came back to the car and washed off his Hood Hound temporary tattoo with rubbing alcohol that he doused in his old underwear, saying that he felt people in the neighborhood might take offense or think that he was a poseur. We went to the University and Jon drank one dollar pabsts at a coffee shop of all places while Chris and Bob took turns occupying the bathroom.
The Skull Lab was an awesome space, the kids lived upstairs and the showspace was downstairs. We were playing with a hardcore band from eastern Massachusetts called Casket who were on a weeklong tour, and who played with no shoes, and all wore short white sport socks. They were fun. And a band called Hallowed Ground from Texas. Jon kept drunkenly showing them the beer cozy he bought in Texas when we got lost there, it's pink. They didn't seem to care. But they were nice and probably smarter than us because at the end of the night we all slept in the space while they took their camper out to a rest stop. After we all played, mostly to each other, everyone was hanging around outside. The neighbors were having a dance party in their room and climbed out the window to dance on the sidewalk while the guys across the street broke bottles, started fires in trash cans, and listened to music. It was harmonious chaos. The main problem with our nights sleep was that every toilet that we knew of in the house seemed to be broken, as well as filled with huge amounts of stagnant waste. Pam swears the urine smell is still in her sleeping bag. Chris and Bob woke up in a daze and waded through it in their bare feet. It was gross (but again, the kids there were super awesome!) and after days of peoples houses and nasty floors we felt horrific so we left for Oberlin as early as we could, with Bob, of course, threatening to murder us all in our sleep.
Thursday, June 28th
Oberlin, Ohio
Driving into Oberlin after Cincinnati was a revelation of sorts. It was sunny and there was free parking everywhere. We wandered over to a coffee shop called Java Café or something. The espresso was $3 and tasted like dirt but they had wireless so we checked emails and called Ian, whose house we were playing at that night. He turned out to be hanging out at the burrito shop 20 feet away. Bob bought a 13 year old girl a pack of cigarettes, an act that he described as an ethical dilemma, and Ian led us over to his house where we unloaded before taking the van to a repair shop. For days the brakes had been squeaking, Bob and Chris swore they were squishy like they were about to fail, although Pamela had paid $600 to get new rotors and pads before we left. The shop turned out to be busy until the next morning so we went back to the house where they were kind enough to let us shower. A couple hours later the hardcore band we played with the night before pulled up, we'd invited them to play with us since their show had fallen through. By that time we were playing catch with a football and a game we called, "throw the weight." The purpose of the game was to throw a 10 pound barbell, which Jon dragged along, as far as we could. Bob and Chris got really into it. I think the other band thought we were weird. Oh well. Upstairs Pam and Jon discovered an awesome living room with calypso playing on the stereo. We quickly claimed the couches and fell asleep under the spell of Lord Invader's awesome lyrics. The CD included a song addressed to the governor of Trinidad that was about how the Governor didn't like Black people so he should "take off his black suit, and black tie. And take off everything black off your back! Layo!" It's really good. Afterwards we all sat on the front porch and watched the co-op house across the street as a convention of drunken violin and violin-bow makers played badminton with old violins. After a while the lure became too strong and we trouped over there to check it out. We discovered a ton of drunk nerdy luthiers, very very drunk. And nerdy in the way that good people with interests other than American Idol are nerdy. We also ran into our friend Scott from North Country Co-op who was catering the two week event. A drunk guy gave him a fake breast (very real) so he gave it to us. We're bringing it home for our friend Sanden as thanks for setting up the Oberlin show, and because he demanded a present. We played violin badminton with Hallowed Ground, I think we beat them pretty bad. They played first, hopped around and did their thing. And afterward, while they had intense band discussions, we did our thing. It turned out to be one of our better shows this tour, people drunk enough to dance around and whoop. The Oberlin kids were very nice but talked about Your Loving Tiger a lot. Jon beat them in thumb wrestling but no one was impressed. Afterwards we sold a lot of merch and headed back to the Luthiers where we got really drunk and sang some songs. Next thing we knew we woke up on the floor and piled in the van for a head-to-head against the city of Detroit.
Friday, June 29th
The Trumbullplex, Detroit Michigan
Detroit pestered us from the beginning. I've heard that as you drive into Detroit you just see huge gas fires like an Iraqi oil field. But it turned out to look a lot like South Minneapolis except for the stupid traffic lights and lack of anything interesting to do. We pulled up at the Trumbullplex after what would be our last horrifically long drive. There were people hanging around but few, or none, who seemed much interested in us. It turned out that no one except the guy who booked it knew that our show was happening. That was a discouraging sign about Detroit after we'd gotten along so well with the guys at the Liquor store and café. We loaded in and he kindly made Jon and Pam some potato soup as Bob and Chris went to look for fast food. We did our dishes and talked to some of the people hanging around, few of who seemed to live there. The other bands showed up at 6 as the flier (maybe there was one copy of it, somewhere?) had said the show started at 7 sharp. For three hours almost no one showed up, we finally started at 930pm to a room of bands. By the time we played we were disappointed and a little cranky. Not to say anything mean about the kids there (especially Clara who was super-helpful and nice) but it was a disappointment to play an awesome space like the Trumbullplex on a Friday, a show we'd been looking forward to all tour, and one that we thought would be a fun Midwestern time like Minneapolis, only to find that even most of the house members had no idea the show was happening. Matt was kind enough to ride around town and spread the word so by the time we played there were more people there, but the energy for us was pretty gone. Too bad. It was partly our fault for playing with bands that turned out not to be from Detroit proper, and also for not sending fliers before-hand. So, in the end it just means a lesson learned. We had a little squabble about whether it was ethical to spend money people put in a hat for a hotel when we could just stay at the space, and eventually, and unhappily, settled on staying on the floor. The next morning we cleaned up and took off as early as we could (early for some of us means One pm). We put the whole city of Detroit on our shitlist, not the people, just the city.
Saturday, June 30th
Raw House, Ann Arbor, Michigan
After the disappointment in Detroit, Ann Arbor seemed very friendly. We walked around the college area, shopped for thrift clothes, and then pulled into the Raw House. We were greeted by about the friendliest bunch of kids you could hope for! They were super-sweet, asked about our tour, and told us about the fire-show they were doing that night. We dropped our equipment in the living room and traded some zines for CD's and then went to eat in an awesome Indian Vegetarian Buffet (even Chris!). We were all feeling pretty good when we got back to Raw House. The kid setting up the show (on relatively short notice) was named Andy, he's in a band called the Versificators that was unable to play that night because of the fire show in Detroit (he gave us some CD's that we listened to in the car, it's super-fun, folk-punk without being irritating and preachy, oh, and with a cowbell!). We mostly hung out in back of the house and wrote postcards, while we talked to a resident named Kelly who was planning to ride her 35 mph scooter all the way to Chicago the next day. The first act was some folk-punk, followed by a teenage hardcore band, followed by us. The attendance wasn't too good, most people had gone to see the fire-show, but the kids were so friendly that we didn't feel disillusioned. Afterwards, we decided to just drive to Chicago to stay at our friend's house. Chris bravely volunteered for the job and led us through 230 miles of cars that increasingly acted like asshole Illinois drivers. Jon slept, Pam sucked in her breath sharply every time we got what she thought was too near to other cars. Jon woke up swearing and grabbing the door handles. We got to their house at 2:30 to find a queen size air mattress and futon pulled out. Those of us who wear earplugs plugged them in, and we fell into uneasy sleep.
Sunday, July 1st
Sylvies, Chicago, Illinois
We woke up in the morning exhausted and our old friends were kind enough to let us hang around their house eating eggs, and egg sandwiches, until it was time to load in for the show. We met some other Chicago people as well as Minneapolis friends Emmawee and Andy at a bar down the street for Sheppard's pie and veggie burgers. At load in time Pam and Jon walked over to the bar and were met by two dogs behind the counter and, after a minute, a guy who looked and talked like him came from the Sopranos came over, introduced himself, and told us that he would "personally be doing the sound for our show." When we got all our equipment in he told Chris that we all better, "fucking be of age," and that we had to fill out some forms. When Bob and Jon went over to fill out a form, it turned out to be a post-it note. He said, "label it 1 to 3 and write in the order of the bands." We said, "We have no idea who else is playing, we think there's at least one other band but we don't know their name." He said, "Just write a 1, put your name, and then a 2, I guess you could put question marks next to it." Bob drew it out very carefully. We set up the stage and as Bob was playing Lowrider on his bass the lights went out all down the street. They stayed out for 45 minutes as our Chicago friends dribbled in. All this time we were being promised drink tokens, but the bartender said we'd have to wait until the owner Sylvie got there. When the lights came back on we played, it felt weird, the stage lights were set to respond to rhythm, and made us feel like we were having seizures, not to mention that our filmmaking friend Andy was videotaping it. When we were done there was a white-haired Eastern European lady across the bar that looked like an owner. Bob took first crack. There was a lot of shrugging shoulders then she walked away. Jon tried next and took the approach of asking directly and insistently about the drink tokens and sticking to it when the subject somehow changed. She took him by the hand and gave him 4 tokens and a glass of ice with a tiny bit of whiskey at the bottom. They were good for Jack and Coke that was much more Coke, or a can of PBR. I estimate the pay for the show at about $2, cost. That's ok, the Norah Jones sounding wedding band after us didn't get anything.
Monday, July 2nd
Breakfast Nook, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
On Monday we woke up in the comfort of our friends John and Josie's house and, after Jon drank a beer and Bob showered, headed for Milwaukee. We quickly found our favorite destination, the Fuel Café, and drank their HTC-like coffee and ate their huge artichoke sandwiches while we waited to head over to the show on Fratley. We set the show up through Aytan, who'd put us up last time we played in Milwaukee, and we had friends in the house itself. It was pure joy to be back in the Midwest where no one made eye contact on the street or talked to you without knowing you, but where people are so relieved when you talk to them that they seem like the nicest people in the world. The kids in this house were amongst the best. They gave us fancy lad Riverwest beer for a dollar and watched our merch for us. We played first and there was no P.A. so we ran the vocals through Jon's amp. Even though it was scheduled to start at 8 o'clock so the show wouldn't interrupt the neighbors on a weekday (something those of us who run the Belfry and know all the bullshit that sometimes comes along with punk shows surely can't condemn) people still danced and had fun! And even though we felt nauseous (from all the coffee and crappy road food) and exhausted, we were super-happy to be around all the nice people. Something we've noticed is that people in the Midwest are more likely to dance, maybe it's just a lack of pretension or the fact that the scenes are so tightly-knit, but people seem to have a lot more fun without worrying about how cool they look. I also attribute it to the heritage of polka dances which, if you think about it, really just consist of people getting drunk and spinning around with whoever is nearest, kind of like a fun punk show.
Our friend and Chris's fiancée Natalie had driven down because she missed Jon, Pam, and Bob. She rented him a hotel, with a space/astronaut theme, and who knows what sort of interstellar explorations occurred. That last part's not true. But it's funny. The rest of us, after hanging out, watching some other bands, and chatting with the nice folks on the third floor, decided to call it an evening and headed over to our friend Isa's house where we dropped off our guitars before heading over to an awesomely weird disco party where drank dollar Pabsts and Jon got locked in the bathroom with three scary disco guys wearing all white.
Tuesday, July 3rd
Kuhl-Aids House, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The final day of our tour we woke up minus one of number, who ensconced in a hotel downtown. So, then, we were three. It felt nice. Chris and Natalie did their own thing which, as far as we know, consisted of going to see the Transformers movie, while Jon, Bob, and Pam hung out at Isa's house and watched movies like Gremlins and Back to the Future. We were all deliriously enchanted with the Mogwai, and hatched plans to find an appropriate puppy for Bob, by that I mean one that is appropriately ridiculous for as ridiculous an owner as Bob. Maybe a cross between a Mastiff and a Shnoodle.
We went over to the delicious Comet Café and ate huge Wisconsin-size portions of sandwiches and Mac'n'cheese and then went back to watch geeky sci-fi at the house until the show. We met at Kuhl-Aid's house at 8 while two bands had already played (including the Sundowners from Minneapolis, who were a pleasure to hear). Standing outside, the fireworks from downtown rocketed over the buildings and our heads, while a drizzling rain fell and thunder and lightning erupted right above us. It was a magical last show. People swam in the pool that had appeared since the last show we played there, right in the place where people had been peeing all over. We were to play after Robocop 3 from San Francisco and Lefty Lucy who were having a record release (who we'd really recommend). We set up and began to play and, on the first song, Jon snapped a string. Oh well, we were happy to be done with tour, and happy that some of our friends were there, we barreled through. People danced, some yelled, Chris did the Def Leopard drummer's handclap. When it was over the warm Miller beer didn't taste so bad. We packed up in the rain, and next thing we know, it's light out and we're headed for home listening to Lord Invader and MPR.
Postscript
Being on a really long tour is tiring, but it's also fun, and it brings people together, both within the band and in the connections we make across the country. I realize that Midwesterner's tend to think that we're the best, but all the characteristics of the people we like here are present in people in the DIY scene everywhere. If there's one regrettable thing it's that so much of the shit-work is done by so few people, who get so little acknowledgement and, in the end so little support. It sucks that the Skull Lab in Cincinnati worked hard to put on a show last week only to have some assholes mess it up by breaking bottles all over their neighbor's yards and peeing in the buildings stairwell. It sucks that some assholes in Tulsa started a fight. But all in all the awesome people outshine all the assholes. That seems to be true everywhere, and if any of our songs have an overarching point, which is debatable, it's that people shouldn't give up hope because of the assholes who, after all, won't be around that long anyways. By becoming cynical and bitter we reward this whole fucked-up authoritarian system because everything in that world is focused on breaking our will to resistance. You can look at it like that if you wanna have a high-minded theory to back you up. Or you can look at it like Kurt Vonnegut did when he advised one rule for living, "Be nice, damnit!"
-Chokecherry (one word) Summer 2007
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