OK... I'm not a mountain driver....
... YET...
Call me a 'fraidee-cat if'n ya will but something about it still freaks me
out, to the point of giving me this recurring nightmare for the two-to-three
weeks before we left... I must have had it about four times that I can
remember, waking up in a drenching sweat...
In the dream I'm in the passenger's seat of the Touring Vessel or similar
utility-type vehicle and the only part I can remember vividly is the road
curving left... and the vehicle, well... not following the road... we plunge
off this road into the chasm below...
... and I wake up the surrounding block's canine community with my girlish
screaming...
I make light of it now but at the time it was really upsetting.
Anyway, we were headed back into the mountains through the pass and at least
by now the terrain had become somewhat familiar having driven it over a
half-dozen times, but when we hit that downward coast on the other side of
the tunnel I felt my stomach climb into my shirt pocket again, just like the
last several times we had traveled this stretch of road... we may "only be
going seventy", but it seems weirder and more life-threatening at a 7% grade
folks...
It was a beautiful day (again) and the rapidly disappearing snow was even
more obvious in Vail than it was in Breck. We pulled up in front of Garton's a
bit early and after a knock or two we were let into the club... and I was
greeted by the sight of six eighteen inch speakers face down on the floor
in front of the stage...
...where the subwoofers are installed...
...which now just look like unfinished plywood ports on a set for a school
production of "H.M.S. Pinafore"...
... there's grill wire in a heap too... this is NOT a good sight.
The house techs are checking bits of gear, running around in the rafters,
turning music up (sounds thin) - turning music down... and quite calmly I
might add.
At least they're composed, THIS is a good thing.
"What's up?" I ask, strongly resisting the urge to complete my look of idiocy
by inserting an index finger into either nostril, up to the second joint
would suffice I believe... just to complete the "I'm a Goober" feeling I have
from asking such a DUMB QUESTION...
"Subs are blown."
OK, next dumb question.
"Is it serious?" I ask.
(At this point I wonder if I shouldn't maybe have put on my bib overalls
a'for askin' these here stumpers o' questions... OF COURSE it was SERIOUS...
but like a bad dream my mouth just motored on, out of my control... plunging
over the cliff into the chasm)
Turns out the 18" speakers (all six of them) had gotten fried during a "very
recent" show... my guess would be the... er... "most recent one". But when I
say these speakers were smoked, I MEAN smoked... the voice coil on most of
them had been fused by heat... the speakers were literally overheated like a
piston in a poorly maintained engine. This is not something you can do to a
speaker without just the least bit of protest from it BEFORE this happens...
I was in awe... whoever blew this system up was an Artist of Ignorance, and
my hat is off to whoever he/she is/was...
We set up our equipment and I used about three quarters of a roll of duct
tape and a few rags torn into padding strips to make sure various mics would
stay in place... no kidding, I taped the drum mic stands to cymbal stands,
drum stands, drums, anything handy... I taped the mic stands for the guitars
down, I taped the vocal mic stands down, I taped music stands down, I taped
Scott's piano stand, I taped Beau down...
He got in the way, people... I had to...
But one thing was for sure... this Moon-Walk ride of a club stage was NOT
going to get the better of us (me) this time...
As the attempts to salvage the sub speakers failed and our time for a sound
check was dwindling, I was given the High-Mids to work a line check (which is
just making sure there's a mic working on the instrument/vocal, no
fine-tuning work) while the house guys scrambled to pick up some subs to
interface somewhere nearby... To make a long story short (Imagine THAT!) they
did manage to string some subs for me by showtime which sounded fine given
the circumstances.
We got the monitors somewhat squared away, having only one major complication
on THAT front... Mike Maraat's monitor... it was ca-ca.
Did I say "major"?
I meant "we're really pushing it, the house engineer's gonna go postal"...
Picture If You Will: Not only am I tapping my foot on the house guys about
the subs, I'm shaking my head and saying "No No No... this simply WILL NOT
DO" like a hairdresser from Miami about yet ANOTHER aspect of the system...
the monitors...
... I fully expected to be lynched...
Instead there are horns replaced in monitors, internal crossovers checked and
replaced, amps checked, cables checked... what added up to "over and above
the call" by the house guys in my opinion... as the afternoon grew long I was
more and more impressed with the house sound staff's Herculean efforts on my
(our) behalf... and they finally get the monitors repaired to the point that
Maraat is "able to hear something"...
... this is Maraat-Speak for "I understand your pain" and it means he's gonna
lighten my load by not bitching like he wants to...
... and I love the guy for it.
A quick chorus of "Franklin's Tower" was our sound check, and I've never
heard the band play or sing more half-heartedly... it was a beaten, bitter,
"Fuck This" sort of sound and I immediately realized it was no good trying to
do anything further... us folks needed some air after being here for hours
and being frustrated at every turn of the afternoon... so I signaled the
"ALL'S WELL" to the band and beat a hasty retreat myself. As I said before,
at heart I'm a Bullshit Artist...
"So what... done the 'First-Song-Sound Check' before", I reasoned with
myself...
"Shut the fuck up," I shot back.
"Witty... Witty..."
"Look, do you want a fat lip?"
"If I did I'd kiss yer momma..."
I fight with myself from time to time... the rest of the band just looks at
me like I'm crazy at times like these... just like the people around Jimmy
Stewart in "Harvey"...
... only Jimmy talks to an invisible seven foot tall rabbit in that film...
anyone can see that HE'S crazy...
We needed to hit the condo in Avon, CO... just up the road a piece... we can
regroup there...
We hooked up with a few friends from Chicago who were coming out to see the
shows... Liz, Jay, and Rick... and Nej announced that they were all going to
camp out for the night...
We all laughed, but I guess they were serious.
Keep in mind that the temperature was still dipping below the freezing point
and sometimes below zero in the evening... not exactly camping weather for a
bunch of hippies with some blankets and a semi-beat car... the
Strapped-Ford-On-Avon (another poor attempt at a Dennis Miller-style joke...
this time employing Shakespeare's birthplace as a punchline tie-in with... oh
forget it... I'm sorry. The damn thing ain't even a Ford. I feel shame.)
I needed FOOD...
...and we needed to nail down at least one case of beer for the fireplace
gathering after the gig...
On the way to the condo we were treated to a crescent moon of the brand-new
variety, Venus shining brightly just to it's right... wonder what the
elective ought to be tonight?
We were staying in the same place we had last tour... a condo with two beds
per room, one bathroom per two beds, two balconies per three rooms (not
including the living room of course, which slept seven) and a kitchen...
... nobody slept or went to the bathroom in the kitchen... which was nice...
... and the view from the kitchen was nothing to write home about...
WORD PROBLEM (5 Points)
If John leaves the South bedroom headed for the North balcony at 2 miles per
hour and Scott leaves the North bedroom headed for the bathroom in the middle
room at 1.5 miles per hour and Debbie has a question for John that involves
coffee but Scott has to find a roll of toilet paper, how many showers does it
take to drain the entire place of hot water? Will John and Scott rub bellies
trying to get past each other in the narrow hallway?
I'll have the answer to this question later on...
To Wit: We're all living ontop of each other again.
And we can't allow these selfless (and penniless we found out, this being the
driving reason behind the camping idea) hippies to freeze in the harsh
"resort outback". So we demand that they stay on our floor, in front of the
fire...
... this whole scenario stinks of an animated Walt Disney movie plot, don't
it? "Oh pleeeeeese don't throw me in the briar patch..." But that's just the
sort of selfless guys I work for... their last words if I recall, were "don't
worry, Cameron can sleep in the truck... he loves it out there... did it in
Kentucky..."
I'm kidding of course...
... I slept in the closet of bedroom #3. Nothing but the best for the DSO's
Sonic Alchemist...
Let me just say for the record that I believe I was one of the more outspoken
lobbyists on their behalf... I didn't want some of our most ardent fans dying
of hypothermia... not on OUR tour, anyway... people knew they were here with
us... there would be questions...
On our way back to the condo we stopped for beer at the local liquor store,
Beaver Liquors.
Stop giggling... I'm above exploiting such an easy play on words just for a
laugh.
Luckily the thick-necked guys who owned the place weren't. It was their big
selling point, apparently.
They had t-shirts with "I (heart) Beaver Liquors" and every other manner of
play on the name, but it didn't stop there... no no... they had t-shirts that
said the equivalent of "Sit & Spin" with smiling, laughing erections and
such, the Piece De Resistance being their postcards and full-sized posters
featuring a mostly naked woman laying in the snow, a look of bemusement on
her face, and a guy with a poor concept of performing mouth-to-mouth...
... you get it... don't make me explain it any further...
Hey... who knows who's reading this, y'know? My mom AT LEAST... and she's not
too keen on the swearing... imagine if I described this guy with his face...
Never mind... there might be children present, and Average American Mom & Dad
don't want to have to finish MY thoughts...
"Sally, the man is just blocking a leak..."
"You mean like the little Dutch boy and the dike?"
"That's not nice language, dear..."
I'm not kidding about this next bit: You could even buy a "Making Of The
Beaver Liquors Poster" video... yeah sure like I need any further exploration
on the subject... as the first riders of the Ferris Wheel said, "Yeah Yeah...
Up.. Down... I think I got the point..."
We had some sandwiches, and Scott ate the majority of a large can of baked
beans...
Side Note: I believe this is against the Regulations Of Touring Act of 1972
by the way... it was put into effect after David Crosby did much the same
thing, only adding a half-pound container of cole slaw...
... Winterland had to be cleared out for a week and the backstage area was
repainted, but it was never quite the same and the doors were closed for good
just a few years later...
We got a fire built and ready for our return after the show and "in no time"
it was time to go back to Garton's for show number one of two, and
coincidentally Sold-Out Show number four... so far... keeping track?
The answer to our WORD PROBLEM, worth five points remember, is coming up...
We got back to the club about an hour before showtime and there was a healthy
little gathering of folks who grabbed various combinations of us with
questions ranging from the usual "What show is it tonight?" to "What's the
red light on the front of your guitar? Is that like a car alarm?"... by this
time there was a fair amount of "Donna tonight?" questions, which I loved...
Lisa is already a star out here and she's never graced a stage with us west
of DeKalb IL at this point... "Wait until the LoDo show" I kept thinking,
"You ain't heard NOTHIN' yet!"
Due to the bouncing the stage does we couldn't do a Brent show here like we
did last time because the B3 and Leslie speaker will not tolerate that sort
of abuse... they may be big, and sound beefy, made of wood, and tough on the
outside, but they're frail at the core... so Scott chose two Vince-Era shows,
the first night being 12/11/92 from the Oakland Coliseum...
Unlike some folks, I enjoy the later shows... I like some of the material Bob
and Jerry were coming up with in the last few years of the group, I liked
Vince's songs (cover and original) that he brought to the group, and I liked
the rebirth of some of the older songs we hadn't heard in a decade or more...
so I was looking forward to these two shows and had gone so far as to tell
people that I thought the second night had the potential to be the hottest
show of the tour...
The first night opened with "Cold Rain & Snow" which I've explained as a
great opener before, because it allows me some breathing room on my end if
sound check didn't go too well... the "Althea" that night was nice and
slinky, with Mike's guitar dominating but in a very understated way with
curls of sound, John sounding just like the at-the-time refreshed and focused
but-there's-a-cloud Garcia and Scott's key patches thinly fleshing out the
sound...
Most of the first set was perfect because it was so low-key... "Wang Dang",
"Masterpiece", "Stagger Lee"... all pretty laid back. Scott did this on
purpose to remove the bounce factor so they could get settled in before the
"ride started"... which was heralded by the opening riff of "Deal" at the end
of the set...
Mike Maraat later related that it was during this first set where he
developed his technique for not getting popped in the mouth with the
microphone...
"I'd just get my lips up on it and I wouldn't move off it for the whole
song... because if I did, it would start flailing around wildly... so I held
it in place that way..."
The stage started to jerk around, the audience went up and down... the stage
bucked more intensely... the audience got more fueled up, and round n'
round... until the whole building was one shaking, jiving body... John
tossing cup after cup of sonic gasoline out of his guitar onto the audience
fire on the floor... after the song finished up, Mike made with the "We'll be
right back" and we retreated to the band room for a break from the
capacity-sized crowd in the house.
Luckily, the band has it's own bathroom.
Not so luckily, it's down a flight of stairs through several locked doors on
another floor of offices in a building adjacent to the parking
garage/Garton's... and the key is on a big piece of wood so you're like Steve
Martin in "The Jerk", holding the wheel rim for the washroom key... and the
key doesn't get you back into the club... the coat check person has to let
you back in... and she couldn't hear too well over the club noise...
... so yes... I got locked in the hall with this security guard eyeballing me
suspiciously and asking me all sorts of questions...
"I'm serious, I'm allowed out here (knock on the door)... I work with the
band... really... I was (knocking harder)... well, see this big-ass block of
wood? It's for (pounding on the door now) the toilet... look, NO I don't have
a ticket but... I told you... (pounding so hard on the door you'd think Jack
Nicholson was behind me with an axe)... HHHHEEEEELLLP!!!"
Finally I was heard, and Barney Fife went off to make sure no one was
sneaking under the bathroom stall doors I suppose...
... poor Corso...
Second set went beautifully with "Aiko", "L.L. Rain", and "Eyes" before the
song I was waiting for, "Corrina"... it started off a bit rough, Mike's
guitar delay not quite catching everyone but once Scott's keys locked up it
was clear from there on out into "Drums>Space" and a fine rendition of "The
Wheel" before John calmed the floor with "Stella Blue"... "Sugar Magnolia"
got that floor moving again and the encore of "US Blues" did much the same...
After the huddle, the expected "Terrapin" crept into view to comemorate our
sighting earlier in the evening of the crecent moon and Venus, the house
lights coming up half way through it... *KOFF!!!* (yes, that was a clever
attempt at a jibe without being obvious... did my utter contempt show
through?) ... but what I didn't expect was the "Playin' Reprise", a finisher
from the "Playin" at the Fox Theater which was never resolved... a tru ly
nice touch for those of us who had seen the tour thus-far, and I'm not
speaking strictly of the crew... there were a few faces I had begun to
recognize in attendance...
We went back to the condo, lit the fire, and got a healthy glow going,
beer-wise... the last of us crashing around 5am...
How do I know that? 'Cause it was ME...