Day 17 - March 28th 2009
http://myspace.com/boywonderrocks
I was particularly excited this morning Bang Camaro was taking the circus to Ithaca New York and my friends were finally gonna see the band in person. I was pretty stoked.
I’ve been talking about home a lot lately, I apologize for that. There may be a portion of you that read this that may view me as generally ungrateful for the experience I’m having. Nothing could be further from the truth. You couldn’t ask for better people than the 12 guys I ride in van with everyday. But I do believe that if I truly want you guys to know me through these words on a computer screen then Philly has to be a part of the conversation. We’re talking about a place where we threw snowballs at Santa Claus at an Eagle’s Game, Philadelphia does not suffer fools gladly, so if something sucks my people will pull me aside and tell me straight away. So I was especially nervous about this particular show.
We piled in the van and left Allentown around noon. They mentioned that they’ve been on-time pretty much the whole tour which is new for them. I left a CD, Bryn’s Pillow, and some food in the room when I came down. “There’s a moral to this story.” Morgan says. We pull off and I’m told we’re gonna be goin to Guitar Center, the kid in me is jumping for joy, you know the part of you that wants to go into a place and touch everything. We get there and the first thing I do is pick up a strat. Bryn sits near me and starts shredding his balls off laying the smack down on my candy ass. I missed playing electric guitar too much not to play so I strummed along my merry way playing some rhythm stuff while Bryn played over me.
Some guy showed me this Digitech Vocalist Live Pedal. Basically you plug your guitar into it and it analyzes your chord progression, you sing into it and it gives you the proper harmonies. Be a nice thing to have for someone like me that’s had trouble with background singers, I file this in the back of my mind. I start singing 3000 Miles away through it and Glen tells me we have to leave. I totally could have made us late if left to my own devices. I bought some strings and we were on our way.
We listened to some great boggie rock on the way, I’m not sure who’s Ipod it was but I wanna get some stuff off them before tour is over.
We meet up with Nick Given (Bang Camaro Vocalist) on the way there. I hadn’t seen him since Boston. He was the singer there for my audition, really nice guy, 6 foot forever, the kinda guy my little ass is taking with me to a bar fight. We got to the club for sound check and Dan (Sound Guy/Tour Manager) plays the usual Radiohead song. Sean asks me “If this is another band you don’t like or understand” I start to laugh as I answer yes. For those of you who don’t know here’s my official stance on Radiohead
I’m not a fan. I don’t like Tom Yorke’s voice or lazy eye, the music itself does nothing for me at all on any kind of level. Kid A actually makes me yawn sometimes. Are they excellent at what they do? Of course they are. Yorke’s probably some kind of genius. But it wasn’t my cup of tea , I like a certain type of viscerality (pretty sure I just made that word up) in my music and they don’t give it to me. I was happy to just let it be, as a consumer I don’t have to buy it or listen to it. The loathing came from fans of the band trying to convert me. The Radiohead faithful that I’ve met remind me of Jonas Brothers fans, actually that’s an insult to Jonas Brothers fans, those 12 year old girls are too busy enjoying the music to try to force me to do the same. Actually they’re a lot like Jehovah’s Witnesses they knock on your door with their pitch and then get all pissy when you tell them no. Alex and Sean are going to try to convert me here too, they’ll have better luck with John Lennon. lol
Some time passes and we noticed the sound guy wasn’t there. Dan’s tryin to call the manager of the club and he doesn’t get the sound guy on the phone. Dan fires up the PA to try to get sound check goin and then a car comes barreling down the street and whips into a parking spot a la Ace Ventura and the sound guy walks in, gets pissy and leaves Dan to do everything himself. Real professional on his part if you ask me. We check and everything is sounding great.
Sadler starts talking about a movie idea I had and the rest of the guys and I were assisting him in working out the plot. It really made me think about my unfinished feature and the unproduced screenplay I have sitting on my desk and how I might wanna get to work upon my return home. The guys and I talked about just hitting the reset button on the idea and making a better version of it which is definitely possible now but I remembered how much I hated doing anything past the writing stage. Directing and Editing is a true first class pain in the ass.
I ventured to a restaurant for dinner, where I got a few phone calls from some friends who were really encouraging, telling me to stay the course, sing some sweet bang Camaro Tunes, and have fun. I ate my prime rib and got back in time to catch The Everyday Visuals, sweet band. I met a few of Sean’s friends, they seemed like great guys, I would expect no less, someone like Sean would keep really good company.
Leslie was on fire as my buds walked into Castaways. It was awesome to see them. I was complimented on the blog and bought drinks. I realized as the set approached I may have had one too many. Great, how professional is this shit? Doing an entire set with booze coursing through my veins. We warmed up and the Conan intro came on and as Thunderclap ended I prayed to God that I’d be able to get through it.
By the time Out on the streets was over my body and burned all the alcohol anyway and it was ass shaking time. We encourage the crowd to come up front and we commence to rock their faces off. Jason Fox (Leslie Bassist) seemed to have everything down which is awesome. The band is really starting to gel and it’s really sounding great. I enjoy the on-stage banter, they’re slipping some of the Paul Stanley stuff in there (Bryn has about an hour and a half of banter by Paul Stanley from Kiss on his Ipod, hilarious stuff) all in all I think it was the best show so far musically. My friends enjoyed the show and the spectacle of it all, but said they’re looking forward to my homecoming.
I met Bryn’s mom and step dad, very nice people. I was a tad plastered by show’s end though and wasn’t much use for the load out. I napped in the van until I was awoken to a game of Movies vs. Candy. I like this game I’ve yet to come up with one though. The best one I heard was Ghostbusters vs. Sour Patch Kids, that’s a tough one.
With no microwave at the Ramada, Rod and I ran to a supermarket and grabbed some hoagies. While in the store I heard Rod on the phone go, “Does this religion need a pope” “ I guess I could be pope” I don’t even wanna know. Sadler was right behind us. We got some stuff then ran up a steep hill back to the hotel. There was mention of Calzone but I was passed out before that went down.
Goin to Buffalo tomorrow. There’s talk of Niagra Falls in the AM. Very excited.
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