Hearing Things

AFFAIRS OF STATE PT. 2

So, back to this matter of mileage logged on land.....I think I'll just run this down alphabetically, and see if there are enough amusing anecdotes I can attach to these destinations to justify submitting this as a blog....

ALABAMA...almost died on the way back from a fORMER gig in Birmingham, when a freak blizzard swept the Southeast. I actually saw our trailer in the van's passenger side mirror as it swung out to the right and nearly pulled us off the highway and into the barely-visible woods beyond....WAY DOWN an embankment. Our 2.5 hour drive turned into 7, and our drummer slept through the whole nail-biting experience, blissfully unaware of our close proximity to the afterlife.

side note: Played the same club(The Nick), opening for Dilana from the RockStar Supernova(CBS TV)show, to a pretty full house.....good times...played a pick-up gig there on a Sunday, maybe a month later, where the bartender paid us $10 out of her own pocket, because she was the only one in attendance by the time we played.....not so good times.

ARIZONA...beautiful. Probably my favorite stretch of I-40 to drive. Tons of cool shops and creepy old ghost towns along the way. I don't think I've ever played here....need to work on that.

ARKANSAS...Played an acoustic set in Fort Smith, in the middle of a bitter cold January a couple of years back, en route to Los Angeles for a pair of Best Of Seven reunion shows. There's not much to look at in Arkansas, but I do remember passing through several years earlier with my buddy Josh, and nearly laughing ourselves into an accident over this "trading post" program airing on a local radio station, where you could offer that old Frigidaire door you've had lyin' around for a set of ATV tires, or maybe 2 cases of Coors Lite for a BB Gun with a broken scope....just whatever. All you had to do was call in and offer up your junk for barter....AND IT WORKED! We were seriously bummed when we lost the station as we passed out of range.

CALIFORNIA...where do I begin? Some of the coolest venues I've ever set foot in, but not always the most fun, and certainly the least profitable(even worse than a Sunday night in Birmingham) club scene I've ever had the privilege of being bilked by.
The Viper Room, The Troubador, The Coconut Teaszer(R.I.P), The Cat Club(also recently deceased), The Gig, The Joint, etc....only a  pizza from The Rainbow afterwards made what was essentially(and often admittedly)paying-to-play seem OK.
Nope, I never ran into Lemmy at the bar, but I have bumped into Stuttering John twice at Tin Horn Flats, and saw Fabio in traffic 2 days in a row once, for whatever that's worth.

COLORADO....bilzzard, wicked cold, snow-chains required by law.....I drove without them in 4-wheel drive for hours through the mountains. My wiper fluid hose popped off at some point, so I had only a narrow sliver of visibility about 5 inches above my dash, where the dry blades kept the glass clear, again for hours. I wanted to get down and kiss the ground when I made it to Denver...in fact, I may have.

Josh & I also ran out of gas one night in the mountains there, and had to jog a mile or so to a gas station we could see in the distance. It turned out to be closed. Luckily they had one pump that was 24 hrs., and I was able to fish a plastic jug out of the trash to dispense enough gas to get my truck started and back to the same station for a proper fill-up. We laugh about it now...we weren't laughing then.

(to be continued)