WARM COLA #1
"BEER AND LOATHING"
RICAINE CHICANERY IN THE U..S OF
A.
Flying to America.
My name is Neil Thomason and I am a member of Melbourne
three-piece guitar rock band Ricaine. In March of
1997 we flew to America to play some shows and make a
record. With us were our Rubber Records label mates Even,
Rubber head-honcho David Vodicka and audio engineer/all
round nice guy Tim Cartin.
I stand six feet four inches tall in the old scale. It is
my firm belief that Boeing 747 jet aircrafts have been designed
to carry people three feet tall and under. Easily the
most uncomfortable eighteen hours of my life. With my bandmates
Brett and Tom either side of me and two “boisterous” (read
“drunk”) Even members in front of me, I got no sleep. Not a
whisker. There were two good points to the flight,
however. One was that I got to see the film “Shine”( I still don’t
know
about Noah Taylor though - I just don’t know) , the other
that they started serving American beer almost as soon as we
were in the air.
Yes sir, this Buds for you.
Los Angeles, California: Fri 7th - Wed 12th.
We arrived in LA around 10 am on a Friday morning, two
hours before we left Melbourne on the same day - I didn’t
bother trying to figure it out, I just enjoyed the reverse
aging process for what it was. We were concerned about going
through customs as no one had work visas (cost cutting)
but no one got stopped despite a plethora of guitars (mostly
Even’s). From there we picked up hire cars and went our
separate ways. Tim, David and Matt from Even had flown into
LA a couple of days earlier and were somewhere out there
in this huge city. Ashley and Wally left in their car to find them,
leaving the three of us on own.
Let me just say if there’s anything in the world that will
curtail one’s hoonish driving habits it’s being forced to drive
on the opposite side of the road. Despite assurance from
David that it would be “a breeze” I was shatting myself as we
inched out of the Hertz parking lot on to the right hand
side of the road . After rolling warily down a freeway (or four) we
ended up missing our exit and immediately got lost in what
looked like a “bad” part of town (unlike Australia the hire car
companies do not supply a street directory with the
vehicle). After a sweat-inducing half-hour-or-so cruising the
streets of
God-knows which LA suburbs we eventually found the place
we were going to be staying at. Located in downtown LA,
what is called the “wharehouse” district, basically a
pretty run down, mainly industrial part of town. We stayed in a
converted wharehouse (complete with iron fire-escape)
which was actually an excellant place and more comfotable than it
probably sounds. Our host, Rita, was an equally excellant
source of information for three dumb-arse Australians who had
never been overseas before (not counting our sensational
Winter ‘96 tour of Tasmania). At this point we had clocked up
around twenty four hours without sleep but this didn’t
stop Rita taking us to the Museum Of Contemporary Art where we
stood, quite stupified, in front of many very large, very
simple paintings.
Later that night we met up with everyone else at some
crazy Mexican restaurant somewhere in LA. On the way there
Rita took us past the building used in the final scene of
Blade Runner(Gotta love those cheap thrills - hey, This is LA ,
Baby). We had to wait an hour for a table and a huge
security guard with a .44 magnum hand gun ( you know, “the most
powerful handgun in the world”) kept everybody in line. I
couldn’t work out if he made me feel safer or more scared.
Despite still not having had any sleep, my spirits were
buoyed by the ever amusing David Vodicka who, upon arriving at
the restaurant, managed to lock the keys in his hire car
with the engine running. Hello?! This is the guy running our record
company -doh! At this point Sherry Rich, yet another
Rubber Records artist, appeared mysteriously out of the chilly LA
night. Turns out she had recently finished recording her
next record in Nashville and just happened to be in LA at the time.
When we finally got seated I looked around the table and
couldn’t help thinking we had enough Rubber-related people to
start our own tyre-factory but that’s a bad joke and I’ll
move on to something else now.
We played our first show the following night at a club
called Spaceland in an area called Silverlake, somewhere in
LA. Even played first to basically no one and played
quite well. We played last, to a fair-sized crowd and played quite
horrifically. Personally, I played like a inept, one
legged mule blaming tiredness, strange equipment and the LA bands
(all
of who were abysmal) who played in between Even and us for
these problems. On the way home around 2 am we drove,
literally, through the middle of a movie shoot, just near
Rita’s house (she says it happens all the time). Within metres of
these huge trucks and giant flood lights were cardboard
boxes containing homeless people asleep for the night under a
bridge. It was very cold and more than a tad surreal.
Sunday we slept and ate, a pleasing Homer Simpson-esque
combination that we were able to repeat a number of
times over the course of the trip. Late afternoon saw us
head down near Santa Monica for a bbq at the place where Even
were staying, a friend of David’s called Doug Erb ( an
excellent artist who drew the covers for the two American Pie CD’s
on Rubber). We ate, drank and generally had a good time
watching Americans being American with Doug’s house-mate,
Brian the archetypal jock, a particular highlight (To
everyone: “Dudes, I just got back from the snow, dude, it was
awesome!!!” To Ashley: ”So, dude, did you get out on the
mountain bike, or what?” Ash: “Err, no. Sorry.” Brian:
“DUDE! What are you doing? It’s awesome on the bike,
dude.”) And so it went well into the evening until David got a
posse together to go see a movie called “Waiting For
Guffman” featuring Christopher Guest of Spinal Tap fame. This is
a very funny movie which will probably go straight to
video in Australia but none the less gets three thumbs up from
Ricaine.
Monday we cruised to the stinky and polluted Santa Monica
beach where real-life “Baywatch” lifeguards in their
bright red trunks reigned supreme. After lunch we
discovered a cool record store where the first of many buying sprees
began. Man, stuff is so cheap over there. Vinyl LP’s are
about $9US and CD albums are about $13 and that’s new.
Second hand stuff, of which the range was pretty good in
the right stores, even cheaper . Even after converting back to
Australian dollars it’s still a steal compared to what we
pay here. Needless to say, over the course of the trip we bought
up big-time. Later we cruised Venice Beach in search of
“Zeek” from the Blu-Blockers info-mercial, but to no avail. As
we walked around the cheesy beach market sleazy drug
dealers would repeatedly brush past you obscurley muttering the
question “smoke?” in your ear. We wern’t buying but
elsewhere Brett did purchase a rather sensational Duke’s Of Hazard
tee-shirt. La-la land indeed.
Monday night Even played at this tiny club called, rather
appropriately, “Smalls”. I wish we could have played there,
it was excellent. All red velvet and sleazy booths, very
Martin Scorsese, with just a vocal PA. Two of the guys from the
Dirty Three (the two older-looking guys who look like they
could be your uncle) turned up and before you could say “I
come from a land down under” Even played an excellent set
to an appreciative gathering.
We played again on Tuesday night at a place called The
Alligator Lounge in Santa Monica. It was the reverse of the
previous Saturday night whereby we played first and Even
played last, again with crap bands in between. I thought we
played really well and it was quite a relief after such a
disappointing gig at Spaceland three days previous. All up,
contrary to what I had been told to expect from LA I quite
enjoyed our stay there.
Austin, Texas: Wed 12 - Sun16
We flew down to Austin via Denver. The pilot from Denver
to Austin was some kind of comedian-cum-Texas good ol’
boy who kept making bad jokes and saying things like
”...and for those of you who are flying home to Texas today, don’t
worry we’ll be back in heaven in just a coupla
hours.....”. I would have preferred it if he had of concentrated
more on
flying the damned aircraft. After the huge, polluted
concrete mass that was LA, Austin was a welcome relief being much
smaller and far more pleasing to the eye (unlike LA, grass
and trees abounded) with a brown river running through the
middle of it - no wonder it reminded me of Melbourne.
The initial idea for coming to America in the first place
was to play at the South By South West (SXSW) festival here
in Austin. Basically in excess of 500 bands nobody has
ever heard of (with a few exceptions eg. Archers of Loaf, Fear
Factory) get “invited” to play under the guise that the
whole thing is some sort of record company feeding frenzy where
A&R people try to find the next Smashing Pumpkins.
And can I just say right now that with a scant few exceptions I saw
plenty of vegetables up on stage (if you’ll excuse the
analogy), and none of them too smashing. With no exaggerations I
can say the majority of bands we saw were pretty much
below par and completely forgettable. Believe me, I’m not
simply sludging these bands for the sake of it, most of
the ones we saw really were very average, the likes of which anyone
could see at any given Melbourne venue on any given week
night. This was somewhat disappointing at the time but in
retrospect I guess it’s understandable given the sheer
number of bands asked to play in the first place.
Having said this I did witness an extremely memorable set
from a country out fit headed by a rather sensational
Texan singer named Wayne “the train” Hancock. Yes, I just
put the words “country” and “memorable” in the same
sentence. Don’t be alarmed, I was as surrprised as you as
I stood entranced, watching the diminutive , soft spoken, soft
strumming country crooner they call “the Train”. Backed
by only a bass player and two nimble-fingered guitarists (one
sitting who doubled on lap-steel), Hancock and band
proceeded to play a bunch of tunes inevitably involving wicked
women and whiskey, with “the Train” actually yodelling in
most of the choruses. Sounds weird? Well, it kind of was but,
hell, sometimes times you find yourself enjoying the
strangest bands and this was one of those occasions. The
axe-slingers, who looked like brothers, fired off
lick-after-scorching-lick from either guitar or lap steel as Wayne
called
out for solos after practically every verse he sang. If
country music has a Dave Graney, Wayne Hancock is that man.
What he lacked in dance movements he made up for in teeth
and hair, sporting a pair of pearly choppers the likes of which
I’ve not seen since Liberace and perfect slicked back hair
that made Ray Martin look like a scruffy Gen-X-er just out of
bed. Add to this Wayne’s lilting, syrupy-southern drawl
and it was a set to remember no matter how many Lone Star ales
you may have consumed.
Aside from Wayne and his buddies, I saw little else to
raise an eye-brow of interest, let alone appreciation. The much
hyped Canadian band Sloan were, well, annoying in that
“look at what crazy, goofy, nerdy rockers we are” way. Matthew
Sweet played to a huge crowd at an outdoor venue and
sounded just like his records. I guess some people would think that
was a good thing. I tried to see the Archers Of Loaf but
they were playing an hour before us on the other side of town.
That didn’t stop me walking there to try to see half their
set anyway, only to find a que around the block and then some.
Doh. Definite highlight for the young Brett O’Riley was
having his picture taken with Beastie Boy Mike-D at the Grand
Royal night, although this experience was tainted by
having to tolerate a Ben Lee performance whilst waiting for the
Mike-ster. Double doh.
Speaking of Ricaine, we played on Saturday night, the last
night of the festival. All the Australian bands invited to
SXSW (Even, Regurgitator, Glide (Syd) and The Dream
Poppies (Bris)) played at the same venue on this same night at a
pub called Maggie Mays. My hopes were up for a good set
as all the other bands that I saw were received enthusiastically
by the crowd. Playing last, we pretty much cleared the
room in three songs as our blend of good time harmonies and
retro-influenced three-chord progressions met with
disapproval from what was apparently a largely red-neck Texan
audience. Triple doh.
Well, if the bands themselves in Austin proved to be some
what of a dissappointment the same can not be said about
the food. At least not about the bbq food. Well, at
least not about the free bbq food, of which we managed to partake not
once, not twice, but for three consecutive evenings. If
you think you know ribs - think again. If you think you know beans,
think again. And if you think you know barbeque sauce,
once more my friends, I humbly ask you to reconsider. Whilst
Australia itself is some what well renown for it’s bbq
culture, it’s an entirely different slice of the cow, to coin a
phrase,
down Austin way. Allow me to explain;
Night 1. It’s Thursday night and David declares “I’ve
been in Texas for twenty four hours and not yet eaten bbq. Let’s
rock.” He knows of some schmucky label who’s hosting a
meet and great night at a place called Ironworks which just
happens to be a bbq restaurant (of which there are many in
Austin). I politely enquire if any of us are actually invited to
the schmoozefest to which he replies ”Invited?! Of course
not, but who cares? I’m hungry, let’s go.” We arrive to find a
que at the door and names being scrupuously marked off a
list. It doesnt look good for the three starving Australians
(Dave, Tom and myself) with no ties what so-ever to which
ever major lable has enough money to do this sort of shit, but
we’re hungry enough to give it a shot. Somehow Dave
sneaks in ahead of us and leaves us for dead outside in the cold.
This is the cuntish action that bbq-depravation has driven
him to. I try fast talking while Tom tries looking important and
suprisingly we manage to get our skinny white butts
through the door where not only free food, but free beer AND desert
awaits us. Thanks for coming! Basically you take your
plate and que. We eventually get to file past a smallish salad
section (I get the feeling you don’t come to Ironworks to
eat salad) before you come to the carvery section. Oh my! Here
you are served your choice of ribs or off the bone beef,
baked chicken and beans, all with the almost mandatory spicy bbq
sauce. From here we progress to the free beer section
where a variety of beverages are on offer. But before you bolt with
your cache of bbq bonus, don’t forget desert! A tasty
pecan pie no less. We find a table upstairs and chow down like
there’s no tomorrow. But there is tomorrow! Read on, my
jealous friends. Night Two: Friday.
My stomach tells me it’s dinner time and David tells
me it’s barbecue time for the second night running - mmmmmmm,
steaky. Back to Ironworks we go, except this time we have
Even in tow - even the vegetarian members! How eight people,
none of whom were invited, managed to sneak into this bbq
flesh-fest I simply don’t recall. It was all heat, light and flash
- I stole some major-label’s bbq and hit the road! If I
remember correctly the evening was suppose to feature Carl
Wallinger (you remember, The Waterboys, and later World
Party) but we were out of there before you could say “washed
up has been”. ‘Twas a smooth operation of the eat-and-run
nature any red-blooded, meat eating Australian would be
proud of.
Night Three: Saturday.
After spending quite a few hours throughout the day
at a record fair, and with tonight being the night we actually got to
play we definitely needed something chunky to line the
stomach. Barbecue was that chunky something. A brave decision,
you say? An insane one, perhaps? One word for you here
folks - ‘freebie’. Never underestimate the lure of the free feed
when it comes to musicians. Bare in mind also that David
and I were sharing a queen size bed back at the hotel and let me
tell you the stench in that room come morning time was
truly quite remarkable. Whilst after the LA lock-the-keys-in-the-
car incident I’m not able to vouch for the Dave’s
brain-power, I can certainly state here and now his bowels are in A1
working order - more’s the pity for me. I must admit
while I haven’t double checked our Rubber Records contract to make
sure, I’m fairly confident he doesn’t have the right to
suffocate members of the rock group known as Ricaine at will!
Anyhoo, amazingly for the third night running
Ironworks was the scene for flaming meat freebies - except this time
we
were border-line legitimate invitees. The night was put
on by some Australian hot-shot promoter who’s name escapes me
who was publicising his intention to hold a SXSW-like
festival in Sydney next year. Tee-hee. This time it was just the
Ricaine members and David and by now the doorman greeted
us all like old friends. Whilst we chowed down there was a
video presentation running telling everyone about hot new
Aussie rock acts like Midnight Oil and INXS and how Sydney
is the hub of the Australian music scene. It was all
pretty funny seeing how as far as I’m aware Sydney currently has a
mighty THREE live venues booking original music. As Mike
Moore would put it ,“hmmmmmm..........”. None the less,
like moths to a flame the starving musicians would not be
deprived of yet another free barbecue feed - INXS or no INXS.
Sunday was our last day in Austin with a 4.00pm
flight booked for New York. Believe it or not, after three
successive
nights of meat, meat and more meat, David Vodicka still
had not had his fill of cooked cow. Yowza, that man’s gotta be
sprouting hoofs at this point, but no, the quest for bbq
was not yet over. Yes folks, it was time for the Sunday bbq
breakfast.
Such is the reputation that Texas has for being bbq
capital of the world there was a local newspaper feature which
David had discovered talking about the REAL bbq venues.
By real I mean the out of the way, small town, been-open-
since-Adam-was-a-boy type bbq house. The article told of
several such establishments most of which were a short drive
into the bland county-side surrounding Austin. For no
particular reason we chose Black’s Barbecue in a tiny one-horse
town called Lockhart.
By now the bbq devotees were back to the original
three-some of true-believers; David, Tom and myself. On a bleak
and rainy Sunday morn we cruised some anonymous highway
through equally anonymous Texas waste-lands, passing the
occasional run-down farm house and a remarkable number of
churches given the apparently sparse population out this
way. There was certainly no shortage of vehicles
gathered around the multiple places of worship, but stop we did not;
we
were on our own spiritual quest for a holy breakfast. The
cattle were lowing indeed.
The rain had not let up as we rolled into town and
though we knew not what awaited us at the establishment called
Black’s, we let our noses do the navigating and quickly
found ourselves parked outside a dark and windowless old wooden
building with the simple sign “Black’s Barbecue - est.
1932” creaking as it swung in the icy breeze. As we stepped from
the car on to the wet, deserted street, I felt like a
gun-fighter from the old west, come to town to do battle with the
crooked
local gang. Yes Mr Cow - you’re goin’ down.
The restaurant (and I use that term loosely) had two
doors going off the street, one marked ‘entry’ and the other ‘exit’.
It gave the impression we were entering some kind of
eating process line where by you get in, chow down and get out
again; no socialising or casual chit-chat here, boys - the
mission is meat. And let me tell you I wasn’t far wrong.
As we pushed open the swinging door my eyes took a
second or two to adjust to the dark and smoky interior. For a
moment there I thought we had come to a church after all,
such was the quiet and sombre atmosphere but, no, it was simply
the reverence those already dining had for their iron-rich
breakfast that made speaking seem somewhat out of place. I
could sense a strange kind of a common bond, almost
prayer-like in nature, had settled over the Sunday morning
carnivores gathered here at Black’s. Whilst some chose to
worship God that morning in Texas, those gathered at Blacks
were quietly contemplating the sacrifice made by a
different kind of martyr - the kind that goes “moo”.
Once again the token offering of salad preceded the
actual carvery section and I selected a small portion of coleslaw to
help wash down the meaty goodness. Unlike Ironworks, at
Black’s one orders his meat selections by the pound (or
increments there of). And so it was I boldly stepped
forward and ordered the half-poundage of beef, a similar serving of
pork and some tasty chicken , mainly for variety’s sake.
Mmmmm, meat - the corner stone of any nutritious breakfast.
Black’s are ‘barbecue’ more in name than nature and
actually specialise in the smoking method of cooking. And as
those familiar with the style will know, it lends a
distinctive woody fragrance not found in the more popular frying or
baking methods. Speaking as a major fan of the cooked
breakfast even I was out of my league on this occasion and must
confess I was unable to finish my meal. Perhaps it was
because it was barbecue for the fourth day running, or perhaps it
was the early hour, either way I hanged my head shamefully
as we left the establishment with meat still on my plate. Ah
well, ‘twas none the less a dining experience I’m not
likely to forget for many a meal.
But enough of barbecue (finally), for it’s onwards to New
York City!
New York, New York: Monday 17th - Thursday 20th
We left Austin late Sunday afternoon and eventually
got to New York (again via Denver) around midnight. I finally
had a window seat on the plane and the flight coming in
was pretty surreal. After about forty minutes of seeing lots of
lights on the ground we bank sharply to the left and
suddenly I find myself staring straight out the window at the Statue
of
Liberty. After nearly clipping a baseball stadium we
touch down at La Gaurdia airport, New York, where the pilot tells
us the temperature outside is below zero.
Our accommodation is a hotel in Manhatten and the
taxi ride there is equally as surreal as the flight. Icicles hang
from
overpasses while steam comes out of manhole covers in the
middle of the road (yes, this really happens). It’s St. Patrick’s
day on Monday (today) and the taxi driver thinks we are
Irish. When David tells him where we are actually from he’s
pretty stoked to get the chance to talk cricket with
someone (I think he was Indian). David, sitting up front, holds up
his
end of the conversation better than any of the Ricaine
members could have.
The hotel is okay; near the corner of 5th ave and
31st street (practically next door to the Empire State Building)
although our room’s view of a brick wall ain’t so hot. It
really is freezing outside and the streets are deserted, but this
doesn’t stop the eight of us retiring to an all night deli
just around the corner for a 3 am hot-chocolate and snacks. Yowza,
somehow we’ve made it all the way to the middle of New
York City.
When I arise later that morning at the more civilised
time of around 11 am, David has already left for the day and I
leave Brett and Tom to their beauty sleep and hit the
pavement of NYC. I head up 5th avenue past the Empire State
Building and come across three different guys playing
Three Card Monty on card board boxes in the middle of the
footpath. For those unfamiliar this is the game where you
have three different cards face down with the guy shuffling the
cards back and forth, occasionally showing you the card
you have to pick. Eventually, for a twenty dollar stake you can
guess which is the right card. If you get it right you
get twenty bucks - wrong and you lose your twenty. I actually saw a
guy win but I also saw a guy get suckered three times
consecutively for a total of around eighty dollars. There’s one
born
every minute, you know.
St. Patrick’s Day is a really big thing in the
States and 5th avenue is blocked off just a couple of streets up from
the
hotel. It’s still really cold outside but there are
people everywhere, the footpaths are packed with crazy New Yorkers
going
nuts. There is a massive street parade already happening
- marching girls, marching firemen - everybody marching!
Welcome to New York. Some of the people are really
getting crazy, yelling out stuff at the top of their voices, everyone
is
clapping and cheering and I can see people up in their
offices looking out the window at the spectacle below. After trying
to take it in for a while it all starts to freak me out a
bit and with some difficulty I make my way through the throng back
to the hotel to see if anyone is up and to find some
breakfast.
Later the three of us make it to the top of the
Empire State Building (photos are taken, snow domes are purchased)
after
which we cruise down Broadway and check out Times Square.
Here we see people queuing outside the Ed Sullivan theatre
for a taping of The Late Show. I was keen to take in the
David Letterman experience but unfortunately it was tickets only
(like-wise for the Ricky Lake Show which Young Brett
O’Riley made phone enquires about the next day). Later that night
we saw the rather average Howard Stern flick Private Parts
with David. The four of us then cabbed it down town to The
Village district where we dined a late night meal and thus
completed our first day in what they call The Big Apple
(although I’m still none the wiser as to why they call it
that.....).
Tuesday was gig day and sight seeing opportunities
were limited though I did mange a stroll in Central Park. I liked
the
squirrels. We played that night at a club called Coney
Island High down in The Village, a cool little place that reminded
me of the down stairs section at The Club in Collingwood.
We were on first and played to only about twenty people, as
did Even who played immediately after us. We played a
good show but unfortunately later on Tom had his bag stolen
from the venue which bummed us out. We all went to dinner
later and missed the other bands, though we did see the
headlining band soundcheck and that’s kind of why we went
to dinner, if you get my drift.
We eventually got back to the hotel around two am
where-upon the Even lads, Tim, Tom and myself retired to a small
bar called O’Rielly’s just down the street from where we
were staying. Expertly drawn pints of Guiness formed a liquid
sound-track while Ashley waxed philosophical about pretty
much anything well into another freezing New York morning.
Wednesday Tom, Wally and myself took on the subway
and headed down to see the Statue of Liberty (cheesy I know,
but it had to be done). Thanks to Tom we caught the right
train but got there only to see the last ferry for the day pull away
from the dock, leaving us to stare through the
pay-per-view binoculars from the shore. Damn. Once again it was
absolutely freezing.
We hopped back on the subway and I got off somewhere
down town and headed over to the Village area. My mission
was vinyl records and I was not disappointed. I also
found an excellent T-shirt shop and finally scored a long
sought-after
Polvo t-shirt. My only regret was not having enough cash
to also purchase a black t-shirt which contained the phrase
NEW
YORK
FUCKIN’
CITY
in large white letters across the front. Ah, well.
By this point in the journey I was really keen to get
to Chicago and start recording. As far as I was concerned this was
the main point of the whole trip. The new songs we had
been playing in the set so far had been going pretty well and we
were all looking forward to checking out the scene in what
is easily one of the most productive cities in terms of musical
output at this time.
Thursday was our last day in New York and we didn’t
have time to do much more than pack and get out of town. We
bid farewell to Tim, David and the Even chaps, who were
all remaining in New York for a few more days before heading
home, then hopped in our limo bound for the airport.
That’s right, I said limo. As in limousine. As in streeeeetch
limousine. Yes, at the expense of all so-called indy
credibility we actually caught a stretch white limo back to La
Guardia
airport (you should see the photos). Actually, it’s no
big deal. Limos are everywhere in NYC. You can hire one for a set
price of around $40, ours coming with a driver who bore a
distinct resemblance in both appearance and speech to actor Joe
Pesci eg. “Yeah, of course you can smoke back there, go
nuts! You want that girl over there on the sidewalk, huh? We’ll
get her too, no problem!”. This worked out cheaper than
hiring two taxi’s which is what we would have had to do with all
our equipment. So here we were, loading bags, amps and
guitars all inside this stretch limo, then us climbing in on top of
it all. With the Dern Rutlidge demo cranking in the
cassette deck we cruised Manhatten for one last time before heading
for the Lincoln Tunnel and on to La Guardia for a four pm
flight to Chicago. Truly another Gillette great moment in rock.
Chicago, Illinios: Thursday 20th - Friday 28th
We landed at O’Hare airport in Chicago, one of the
world’s largest airports, where weary travellers
are welcomed with a bizarre display of coloured
fluorescent lights and weird electronic music that defies
description. We
were later told this ties in with the airport’s current
‘futuristic’ advertising campaign. If we weren’t freaked out enough
by
this, trying to get a cab was a nightmare. By way of
comparison, the scene outside O’Hare made Melbourne’s humble
Tullamarine look like parents picking kiddies from an
after school program. It was madness here.
As in New York, we were trying to avoid the expense
of hiring two cabs, so I rang a cab company and booked a station
wagon. Cool. I was given a cab number only to find when
it arrived it was a sedan - hmmmmmm. When the female driver
found out where we were going she starts abusing me for
booking her cab, as only certain cab companies are aloud into the
greater Chicago area - evidently her company was not one
of those (even though I’d told the guy who took the booking
where we were going). All the while there are other cabs,
buses, and limos flying around the place - it was freakin’ crazy!
Finally the cabbie calms down and agrees to try to take us
any way, so we start trying to fit all our stuff into this sedan. Of
course it doesn’t fit and the cabbie takes off in a huff.
I then go back into the airport and get back on the phone to find out
how much a limo costs in Chicago. It turns out that
they’re way more expensive here so we resign ourselves to taking two
cabs. Dang!
After queuing at the taxi rank we finally have all
our shit loaded into two cabs, with me in one and Brett and Tom in
the
other. The driver of their cab suddenly cracks the sads
and won’t take them on account of all the baggage (this is so
fucked, it’s not like he had to lift any of it), so they
then unload it all again, wait for another cab and load it in again.
Yup.......
By now I’m on the freeway and it’s an absolute
shambles. It’s around six-thirty pm now and even though we’re
heading into town the freeway is bumper to bumper. I’m
watching the meter tick up and up, cringing as we sit in traffic
going nowhere. In addition to these problems I’m also
concerned that the cabbie will try to rip me off so I’m trying to act
like I know all about Chicago and have some idea of where
we’re going. Thankfully the guy turns out to be kind of a wild
man and starts heading down the emergency lane and pushing
in all over the place - I like his style and happily tip the man
his due when we eventually arrive at our destination.
The destination in question was a studio called
Electrical Audio Recording, the place where we would be mixing our
record and where we had agreed to meet Bob Weston, the guy
who would be recording us. The other cab containing Brett
and Tom arrived soon after and we finally loaded all our
stuff inside. I’d gathered from our fax correspondence with Bob
prior to this point that he was a good guy, and so it was
in the flesh. This was a double bonus given that we were staying
on his floor for the next week.
Bob was completing the last day of mixing with a band
called Delta ‘72 so later that night after taking all our stuff back
to Bob’s house we went out for Mexican with him and the
Delta ‘72 band and a whole bunch of other people. We were
tired and damn hungry, but none the less excited to have
finally made it to Chicago, home of the blues, home of the Bulls
and home of the sacrilicious Touch & Go record label.
After dinner we were all nearly dead on our feet but
emerged from the restaurant to find the semi-famous Lounge Ax
club right across the street. We were due to play there
next week and according to Bob a couple of the guys from Tortoise
were suppose to be playing there tonight. Tom and I are
big Tortoise fans so naturally we decided to check it out. Indeed,
Tortoise members Johnny ‘machine’ Herndon and Dan Bitney
formed part of a atmospheric jazz impro-type group who
sounded excellent. Unfortunately we only got to see about
twenty minutes before they finished, but a great twenty minutes
it was.
We were scheduled to head in to Chicago Recording
Company (CRC) to start the record late on Friday afternoon, so
we took the opportunity to take in some of down-town
Chicago Friday morning. We caught the train in and Tom and I
made a b-line for the Sears tower, the second tallest
building in the world, topped only by the Twin Towers of
Kualalumper (but as Bob put it ”The tallest building in
the world you’ll ever see!”). And what a view it was.
When we got into CRC later in the day we only really
had time to set up our equipment and get our sounds. Things
were sounding great and we were all looking forward to the
next two days of recording the basic ten tracks for our record.
CRC is a very fancy studio and the only reason we could
afford it was because Bob gets a discount rate on weekends. For
instance a couple of the mikes we needed weren’t available
because the Smashing Pumpkins were using them! To our
surprise Chicago locals the Pumpkins were some-where else
in the establishment doing some recording (I think there are
eight studios in total at CRC). Tom was keen to bump into
Billy Corgan at the coffee machine and put in a pitch for the
drummer’s seat, but no dice. Further more, we even had an
assistant engineer who I ended up dubbing ‘Burger Boy’
‘cause all there was for him to do was go get our food -
nice guy though.
We finished up around midnight and headed back to
Lounge Ax to see a brand new three piece called PW Long’s
Reelfoot containing the promising line-up of ex-Mule
guitarist/vocalist P.W. Long, recently departed The Jesus Lizard
drummer Mac McNeily and a bass player whose origins I
cannot vouch for. Naturally, they rocked! Some guy in the
audience kept yelling out for Jesus Lizard songs; “‘Mouth
Breather’?” replied PW dryly, “isn’t that an Urge Overkill
song?” Great to see that crowd morons aren’t restricted
to Australia..... Bob had been playing a cassette of a recording
they had just finished, so undoubtedly you’ll hear more
about them soon.
Saturday turned out to be an extremely productive day
in the studio. By the time we left we had about seven of the ten
songs recorded. We were pleased to be making such rapid
progress, given the relative newness of most of the songs. By
way of comparison the majority of the tunes on the Regret
album had been in our live set for quite some time. With this
record it was pretty much the opposite.
When we left the studio around midnight there was a
lunar eclipse happening, something I couldn’t recall having seen
before. I figure it had to be some kind of sign regarding
the outcome of the record - I just don’t know specifically what yet.
We checked out Lounge Ax again later but didn’t see
anything spectacular - must have been something to do with the
moon..
Sunday was our final day at CRC and we finished
recording the rest of the songs with enough time to make a start on
some vocals. Cool. By the time we loaded all our stuff
out of CRC and back to Bob’s house it was around midnight, but
Bob was keen to check out Delta ‘72 who were playing at a
place called The Fireside Bowl. This is an actual bowling alley
containing a stage set up in the corner where bands play
most nights of the week (they stop the bowling when the bands are
playing). As is the norm in the ‘States there is a bar
attached to the bowling alley which makes it the perfect venue - beer
and bowling and rock ‘n’ rolling!
The Fireside Bowl is literally around the corner from
Bob’s house so we walked there in time to see about the last half
of the ‘72’s rockin’ set. We were going to be playing
there on Tuesday night too, so it was cool to be able to check it
out.
Monday to Thursday we were booked in to the
aforementioned Electrical Audio Recording, a smaller, cheaper studio
where we would be finishing the vocal tracks and mixing
the record. Thus Monday and Tuesday were passed uneventfully
until it came time to load up Bob’s van to take our gear
to the Fireside Bowl for our show there that night. We were
supposed to play first on a bill also containing two bands
on the Kill Rock Stars label, they being Long Hind Legs and The
Thrones. We had everything in the van only to find the
transmission had chosen this particular moment to fall to bits.
Both parties (i.e. the band and the van’s owner) were
fairly distressed at this outcome. None the less, in what was
typical
of Bob’s ever-helpful nature he got straight on the phone
and managed to talk a couple of his friends into coming over and
driving us to the venue. Bob’s friends turn out to be a
couple of interesting fellows; John Upturch and Archer Prewitt,
both formerly of the now defunct Chicago band the
Coctails. John is now the main man behind Fireproof Press (famous
for printing, amongst others, the Tortoise and Shellac
album covers) while Archer now sings and plays guitar with Thrill
Jockey lounge-popsters The Sea and Cake - everybody’s
somebody in Chicago, baby!
We finally got all our stuff down to the bowling
alley but we were running so late the other bands had already
started.
Thankfully the guy running the place was cool and let us
play after the other bands had finished. Of course, most of the
crowd had left by then and we played yet another show to
practically nobody. But we didn’t really care, we still had fun
playing. I mean, what are you going do?
When we finished we had no way of getting our gear
back to Bob’s, even though he only lived around the corner. There
was a guy there who had been recording all the bands
playing who I saw about to leave in this van. Thankfully he was a
good guy who ended up taking all our shit back to Bob’s.
As for the Kill Rock Star bands, they were both crap.
We mixed all day again on Wednesday and again Bob
organised some friends to take all our gear down to Lounge Ax
where we would be playing that night (again with the Kill
Rock Star bands). We had a lot of fun playing this show even
though, once more, we were first on and played to a more
or less empty room (are you seeing a pattern here yet?). But
what the hey, we were in Chicago playing Lounge Ax and
almost finished our new record - who gives a fuck if anyone’s
watching?
Thursday we did finish the record and very pleased
with it we were. We celebrated by going home to Bob’s, ordering
delivery Italian and watching TV. Each night when we came
home Bob had forced us to watch multiple Simpson’s
episodes, which was no problem with us. That night we
searched through about four tapes for the episode where the
Simpson’s go to Australia (a favourite of Bob’s) but to no
avail.
Friday was our last day in town, our plane leaving
around four pm bound for LA then onto Melbourne. We spent our
final morning going on one last record buying spree before
Bob drove us to the airport where we checked in our shit-load
of baggage for the final time. Chicago had been a wicked
experience, so many excellent people and places but none the
less we were all glad to be heading homeward.
I’ll spare readers the details of the flight home
except to say it was better because we all got some sleep between LA
and New Zealand. On Easter Sunday morning I stood in the
Auckland airport watching the sun inch up over the horizon
and contemplating the trip. We were only three hours
from Melbourne now.
Picking up our baggage and getting through customs
was an excellent feeling and it was good to be back. We’d only
been away about three and a half weeks but it felt like
longer.
So there you have it, folks. A blow by blow account
of our trip, albeit done retrospectively. It’s now July and it’s
taken
me since we got back in April to finish this. It’s not so
much that I’m a slow typer it’s just that I don’t own a computer so
I’ve been forced to either do this in small chunks each
time I drop in at Rubber Records HQ or in even smaller chunks at
work. I sure hope someone gets a kick out of it all.
Cheers, NT.
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