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As we were driving up the NJ Turnpike on Friday night, with Manhattan off to our right, I wasn't sure what to expect. I hadn't been here since the breakup of KM, and my anxiety level about being back was just a little high. I got to Rob and Dave's apartment in Jersey City at about 3:00am. Here I was, back at the scene of the crime of that bitchy AOL posting to the KM board, which consequently was also the last night that I spent in NY, over 1 1/2 years ago. Fortunately, I felt a world away from that. After being greeted by the guys and their psycho-kitty Fluffy, I crashed on their couch for a few hours. In the morning, we all just hung around the apartment, caught up with each other's lives and just kept the stress level pretty low. It was great to see Rob and Dave. They are one of the things I miss about NY, though there are not too many. Then at about 3:00 PM, I got my shit together and walked to the PATH train, like I had done hundreds of times before, to get into Manhattan and meet everyone at the club.
I couldn't believe how great the experience was at Tramps. Everyone on the staff there was extremely helpful and nice, quite un-NY. In fact, this experience has rivaled most I've had throughout the rest of the country, much less blows away any NYC club/staff/even a fucking meal...experience. I guess Poi had a good time too, 'cause there were no technical problems and they finished their soundcheck practically on time, I think for the first time so far on the tour. This meant we got our first official full soundcheck since joining up with Poi Dog. Prior to this, we had been just setting everything up on stage in 5 minutes, maybe get a song run through, then the doors of the club would open and we would be playing our set a half hour later (and that was on a good night!). Then, after our set, we would strike our gear and be done. Total work time: 1 hr and 45 min. (average). It gets kinda crazy packing all of that stuff into that amount of time, especially night after night. Last night however, it felt great to be able to take our time, make sure there's enough room on stage, get our sound exactly how we needed it, run through a few songs and get comfortable with the situation, then leave the stage in a good place to pick right back up and go at showtime. Directly after our soundcheck, we were led to the restaurant part of the club (unheard of in NYC) for a fabulous dinner. We even had enough time to digest this great food.
After dinner, Victor and I headed around the corner to a little shmoozefest party that Poi's record co. was throwing. I hadn't been to one of those in a while and had forgotten how completely ridiculous they can be. Fortunately, there were these great brownies on the munchie-tray that I scarfed on, so between that and the open bar, we had great time. After hanging with Brent for a little bit, relating some of our previous shmooze-party experiences to him (he's kinda new to this stuff), we headed back to the club to get ready for the show.
I was a little nervous because there was a good size crowd there (at least 600 when we hit the stage), yet also somewhat relaxed because of all the great treatment we had received. Since this was really Poi's show, I didn't feel like I was playing host to all my friends. I didn't even encourage a lot of them to come to this show. I'll probably do a lot of hosting when we headline our own show in NYC on Wed. at the Mercury Lounge. Therefore, the crowd was just like every other city, where they didn't know us for shit. When we got on stage and I said 'Hi, we're A Great Laugh and we're from San Francisco', I felt so disconnected from NY, it was amazing. Over a year and a half away, combined with the treatment we got from the club and not going crazy with seeing friends made me feel a million miles away from a lot of my negative history in NYC. Well, little did I know that my emotional bungee cord was stretching to max, and was about to snap the other way hard.
We played a great set and had most of the crowd there with us. There was some definite magical moments for me during the set (the end of 'New Mexico', 'Angel Tattoo',...) and was actually blown away by some of the crowd response too. The pacing, the performances, just about everything felt great. It was definitely our best set of the tour so far. Fuck, I was so glad to hit those kids over the head and get them to respond the way they did. We hit 'em hard and square! After striking and packing our gear, I got my shit together, yet again, and headed off for The Knitting Factory and my second gig of the evening.
Alison Faith Levy is a singer/songwriter I've been working with since I moved to SF back in '92, though I've known her for over 12 years. We originally met while she was attending NYU and playing in a band with two of my best friends from high school. Recently, weave been collaborating in her band that does gigs locally in SF. By some weird irony, she happened to be in NYC over the last week and even more consequently, got herself a gig in 'the small room' of The Knitting Factory on the same night that I was to be town. She was scheduled to go on at midnight here, and since AGL was on at 10:00pm at Tramps, this probably couldn't have been better planned if we tried. For her NY band, she recruited Dave Rick (former KM guitarist and another old friend of mine) to play bass and our friend Peter Walsh, formerly of the great NY band Hypnolovewheel, to play drums. Chuck Marcus, our guitarist from SF, flew out for the show, since he's also an NYC ex-patriot and connected to the other guys in the group (Chuck and Dave played in this great band, Wonderama, and still have this ongoing project called Shapirorama). Alison wanted me there to sing my background vocals, maybe shake a tambourine and play a couple of songs as a duo, one of the other things we do. I play bass and sing while she plays piano or guitar and of course sings.
I arrived about 15 minutes before her set was to start. That was enough time to realize that there were a lot of my old friends, some of whom I've known 15-20 years, at this show. All of these people are a part of this NY circle of friends that Dave, Alison and I are a part of. These are people I grew up with and first starting playing music together. I haven't seen a few of these friends in over 2 years. Probably my oldest friend, Steve, was there with his wife Danna. They are expecting their first baby in a couple of months and I was very excited to see them. I mostly spoke with them prior to the show. Steve used to be a part of Hypnolovewheel also, so I was relating some of the stories from this tour and Steve was pretty much just shaking his head, saying he was happy it wasn't him on the road. On one level I understand his reaction, but it kinda saddens me to see Steve reject what used to be a big part of his life. He's been a great songwriter and somewhat of an inspiration to me. I hate to think he's given it all up, but I think he has. He seemed real distant and not too forthcoming with whets going on with him, especially creatively. I guess I always knew this would happen at some point, but realizing you've become estranged from your 'brother' is not the greatest thing in the world.
Alison's gig here went pretty damn well. Dave and Peter sounded great, especially considering they had only one rehearsal, but I always knew they could pull it off. I'm actually more impressed that Alison put it all together and it went as well as it did. Even through the little weirdness with Steve, it was great to be able to play for him, as well as all of my friends there. I was feeling the distance between us, yet was still able to get close, and, bottom line, that's what it's about!
After the show, I jumped around from friend to friend trying to catch up as much as I could, but unfortunately missed a couple of friends, since they left just after the end of the set. Finally, it was getting late and we had to get outta there. As I was leaving the Knitting Factory, this little freaky scene happened in front of the club. Alison and Dave were loading their gear into cars and I was about to get in a cab with Terry and Ricki (more of my high school friends) when suddenly Dave Max from Poi gets out of a cab with some friends to enter the Knitting for a late night drink. Max and I hugged and talked about our shows. Max was really impressed with the AGL show and thought it was our best so far. He also said their show was the best so far too. I was sorry I missed it. Then all of a sudden, I realized that there on the sidewalk was my past, present, and future standing all around me and all a huge part of my life at that moment. I'm still spinning from the whole scene. Boy, am I glad there weren't any of my ex-boyfriends there or else I would have passed out right there!
We drove through the night Tuesday to get here from Boston. Back there, I left behind a great show at the Paradise, and six beautiful bears, some of whom are old friends, others new ones, including a net/bear friend whom I hadn't met in person before last night. This guy stood 10 ft. from the stage and stared at me the whole show. This kinda intimidated a little since I wasn't sure who he was, yet I didn't mind too much 'cause I thought he was real hot/cute. Too bad we didn't stay. I coulda got laid for sure, probably several times. Damn!
After a small early morning van parking fiasco, I got five hours of sleep and was on the streets having another great day in NY. I had lunch with one friend, and visited several others at their offices before heading down to the Mercury Lounge. My connection/disconnection with NY was still freaking me out a little. Walking the streets and riding the subway feels so familiar to me, yet no where near as comfortable as SF. I'll never regret leaving NY, but I do miss my friends here, and the pizza.
Since we were headlining our own show here, we were done with soundcheck somewhat early in the evening. After making a few phone calls, it ended up that none of my NY friends were available for dinner. I wanted to make the most of my time here, so I made one more pass through my address book. I came across a friend whom I haven't talked to in a while. Now, the last time I was parked in NY, almost two years ago, this friend and I had a unfortunate misunderstanding take place, hence the lack of communication. Yet, when I saw him a couple of months back while he was on holiday in SF, he seemed rather pleasant and friendly. I thought I would give him a try and call to say 'hello', especially since it was a local call. When he answered the phone, he was quite glad to hear from me, and consequently invited me over for a beer. It was so great to catch up with him, since it had been a while. He's one of the sweetest and one of the hottest men in universe. After a while of hanging out, a few beers, a couple of cigars, and the next thing you know... as Cheap Trick says 'rollin' numbers, rock 'n' rollin...' though no Kiss records. I sure do miss my friends here a bunch....Oh yeah, the show. We played pretty well to 13 people at midnight for about an hour, we got a parking ticket, it was a full moon, I got a slice of pizza from Stromboli (St. Marks and 1st Ave), ... I had a great day!
Imagine, if you would, that you worked 12 days in a row, at least seven of those days were 18 hour days,.... There, now you know how I feel this morning. Actually, not that bad, though a little tired.
I've played in this college kid/hippie/lesbian town several times before, and last night's gig was pretty standard fare. They liked us, and that's all that mattered, even though we did our mid-tempo set. Lotsa cute guys at the show, one even cruised me, but for whatever reason, I didn't go for it. It may be because I'm spending my night off in Philadelphia tonight. I'm very excited about it!
Holy Shit! I have a lot of catching up to do. It's been an incredible five days. I spent Friday night in Philly. There was the possibility of another gig there that night, but it fell through. Since I had told a bunch of friends that I would be there, I had decided to split from the band in NYC, where they were spending the night. It felt great to be on my own and regain my independence. Basically, I met up with my friends Brian & Dennis, had dinner with them, went to the Bike Stop, saw ----, got frustrated that I couldn't go home with him (long story), picked up some other hot dude, had my way with him, slept, then left town Sat. morn.
While in Philly, I hooked up with one of my best friends from SF, Regi. He had come east for several reasons, of which a couple were to hang with me and catch a couple of AGL gigs (he's one of our biggest fans). I rode with Regi and one of his AOL buddies from Philly to D.C. When we reached D.C., I split from those guys and met up with one of my co-conspirators, J.S. Adams, and his lover Joseph. Brian and Dan from Pittsburgh drove down for Saturday evening's festivities, and arrived at Jim and Joseph's place just in time for dinner. It was great to be surrounded by family and a home cooked meal.
Our show, at the new 9:30 club, turned out real great in spite of some technical problems. It was great to look out and see my crew of friends. During our set, I also saw this boy in the audience standing right down in front of Victor singing along with every song. It was weird since it was the first time I had seen that happen for us. I noticed Victor and the boy speaking along side the stage just after we had finished. I think Victor has a fan. Too bad! Victor's got a boyfriend back home, though I don't think that would have stopped him.
After our set, myself and 'my crew' headed over to the DC Eagle for a drink, and while there I ran into another old friend of mine. I met this guy over two years ago and he 'hosted' me during the Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend back in '94. He's way cute and way nice, in a fireplug sorta way. We talked, caught up and even made out for a while. I was a little surprised since our last encounter had a strange vibe to it. Eventually, I needed to get back to hanging with 'my crew'. We left shortly after and went back to Jim and Joseph's to crash. I was a pretty big drunken/horny mess, just ask Dan if you ever see him.
The next day, after a little drama of not knowing where John was (he ended up on the Poi bus), we headed to Virginia Beach. The most exciting thing about this gig was not the gig at all, but the go-kart track next to the club. Us and a bunch of the Poi guys went over to check it out and have a laugh. The young guys running the track realized we were from the club next door, so they let us all ride for free if we would put them on the guest list for the show. No problem! Riding those go-karts was the biggest rush I had in a while. Leddie and I had one really great race where we just kept passing each other throughout the whole race. Other than that, the only other notes for the evening is that is was Easter Sunday, Billie Holiday's birthday and Victor's birthday, but we had plans to celebrate his birthday on Monday.
Almost immediately after our set, we (actually I) drove out from there to set up camp three hours away in Raleigh, NC. My friends, Jeff and Doug, live just on the outskirts of Raleigh in an over 100 yr. old farmhouse with their nearest neighbor over a 1/2 mile away, and a great porch to hang out on. Now back in NY, Victor bought a very good bottle of brandy and I bought my favorite J&R cigars in anticipation of utilizing the porch. This was how we were to celebrate Victor's birthday.
We pulled into Jeff and Doug's around 4am and crashed 'til noon. The guys had taken Monday off from work, so we all lounged around and took it easy for most of the day. That evening, John, Jason & Greg went off to see Fargo, Doug had a meeting, so Jeff, Victor and myself hung around the house and drank beer. Jeff is one of my dearest friends in the world. It made me real happy to see Jeff and Victor hit it off. I think they bonded in a big way. After a few hours, the guys, minus Greg, came home and we had a great home cooked pasta meal, great conversation and music, and just a real good time. After dinner, Jeff, Victor and I did the brandy/cigars/porch thing. Victor was in heaven. I'm glad 'cause I was almost worried I didn't get him anything for his birthday.
Now Greg, after the movie, had stayed behind at some brew pub next to the theater. He sometimes likes to sit alone at a bar and drink beer. That's just the way he is and I don't question it. J, V, and me, in our very relaxed state, had to go and fetch Greg from the pub. When we arrived, Greg was 'very excited' to see us. So then Jeff, in all of his wonderfulness, suggested that we stop by this new gay bar in town. Looking at Greg, the only straight man in the bunch, he said 'Sure, I'll go wherever you want to.' OK! Monday night, Raleigh NC, The Flex, here we come!
We got there and it was hopping with Monday night-drink special drunks and a couple of cute guys too, though I usually go for those easy targets. I stayed back and watched the action while Victor and Greg bellied up to the bar for a beer and a shot. Apparently Victor got hit on by one of the drunken fools, though I missed it. Too bad it wasn't Greg. That would have been funny.
We finally got back to the house, and we just kept going. We walked out to the little family graveyard on J & D's property and smoked a joint during a light rain storm. It was a pretty magical moment, with Jeff explaining some of the history he knew and supposed about this whole piece of property. After a while, I was getting a little creeped-out standing on these people's graves, so I went into the house and crashed. Victor and Jeff stayed up talking past 3am. The weird thing about that is Jeff is usually in bed by 9:30pm. He must really like Victor.
Myself and Jeff woke up relatively early on Tuesday morning to drive over to Durham, where I was to spend the day visiting our friends Ed and Jeffrey Michael. Now these guys are some more of my best friends in the whole world and it made me real happy to see and hang out with them. As we were sitting around their house talking, some more good friends stopped by, including Regi, fresh in from visiting his parents up in Winston-Salem. I've always considered living in this area of NC, and being around all these great friends was giving me that feeling once again. I'm pretty sure that I will move here one day soon. We all just bs'd the afternoon away, then headed off to Chapel Hill for a great dinner at this great place called Crooks Corner, just down the street from the club, Cat's Cradle.
I was real nervous about this show, mainly because there was so much of my 'family' there. Fortunately, the club hadn't brought our case of beer backstage 'til just before we went on. I proceeded to down one before we hit the stage, one during the set, and I pounded one whole beer during the 45 second intro of our song Rocket Fuel'. We played a great set, probably one of our best ever, which made me extremely happy for the 'hometown crowd'. In fact, one of the first things I said when we got on stage was 'It's great to be home.' I finally felt like John and I had locked in like we had never before, especially during the last 3 songs (Robert, Sister & Me, Rocket Fuel). We were all pretty jazzed about it and I knew the crowd really dug it.
After our set, I started pounding beers pretty hard and probably had ten or twelve by the time the night was over, which is a lot for me. I was just so excited to be around all of my friends that I guess I got a little carried away. So much so that I ended up on stage during Poi's set to sing background vocals on their cover of 'Changes' (Bowie). It was a ton of fun, and during the end of the song, Frank came over to me on stage, gave me a hug and said 'You're doing this every night.' OK!
Poi's set was the best one I had seen so far. The band was playing at their top performance level, the sound was great under the adverse sound-system conditions, and the film loops projected on and behind the band were absolutely magical. Luke, Poi's film/lighting guy, improvises the sequence of some of the loops most every night, and he was really 'on' here. Toward the end of their 2nd encore, they broke into a version of 'Suspicious Minds' with Eric the tour manager doing his best, and a very good, Elvis impression. Since this is one of my favorite songs of all time, I had to get up on stage again and sing the Jordinaires background parts along with Jim the crew guy, who was already up there. During the slow waltz part in the middle, Jim and I turned, looked at each other and started waltzing up there on stage. It was so funny and a little weird since I find Jim kinda cute. I know my friends were getting off on it. We both weren't quite sure who was leading, but then Jim dipped me. I couldn't believe it was happening.
Wow, I finally have something to write about. However, first let's recap Charlotte from a couple of nights ago. It was a pretty abysmal gig in an old diesel truck garage turned into a punk rock club. We played as well as we could with a very poor sound system that was also poorly operated. Although the sparse crowd didn't react much to our set, afterwards many people came up to us and said they enjoyed it. One guy caught me in the bar area and the conversation went like this:
Guy: Hey, you all were really great tonight....(blah, blah).....you gotta excuse me, I get all nervous around....(paraphrase for musicians, performers,...).
Me: Hey, don't worry about it man. I'm no different than you.
Guy: Oh yeah you are! What you do makes people feel good.
Me: Well I'm sure you could do that too. I'm sure there's something...
Guy: No way. I could never do that. There isn't anything I know how....(blah, blah, blah,)...
I wasn't going to continue arguing with the guy, so I introduced myself, shook his hand, and said thanks.
Now the real drama begins. Apparently, back in Raleigh, John and Jason had a big blowout argument while I was visiting my friends on Tuesday in Durham. What sparked it really doesn't matter, but basically John railed into Jason hard enough to make him cry. Whets bugging John is the same as what all of us are a little (actually a lot!) uptight about. Jason is a junkie. Now I know this is a big thing to come out with at this point, but I guess I've been trying to down play this situation. Jason has been using junk on & off (more or less) since I met him over a year and a half ago. We had a drug related incident happen with him last year, and at that point we read him the riot act. He cleaned up then, but I remember friends telling me that he wont quit until he totally bottoms out. I'm afraid to admit their right. A few months ago, Jason broke up with his longtime girlfriend/fiancˇ, and that ended up sending him back down. We all saw this happening, but we were in the midst of planning this tour and there was no turning back. We all spoke to Jason about his problem as well as and in relation to our need for him to be physically with us. He assured all of us he would work it out and deal with his problem because he really wanted to be a part of this tour. This is the first tour that Jason has ever been on and he was somewhat excited about it, or as excited as a junkie can get. Well, I've never had to deal with a junkie before, much less on a touring/day to day basis. The way he ended up working his problem out is that he is on 'maintenance'. What this means is that he has a heavy duty script for codeine that he has to take in substitution for heroin. So even though he is not doing heroin, he is still completely fucked up and sluggish, doesn't remember details from day to day, and always asks the same questions over and over even though most of the time he knows the answers, yet asks the questions none the less. He's completely self-absorbed, always announcing his opinion from his narrow perspective or how things effect him alone, as though the rest of us don't even exist. As you could possibly see, this type of behavior could wear down anyone who would have to deal with it on a day to day/minute to minute basis.
What I found out today is that just after John & Jason had this big blowout, Jason booked a flight to NYC for the day after our last scheduled gig with Poi, in Kansas City. Now we all had been talking, since the beginning of the tour, about AGL playing a couple of gigs on our own after splitting off from Poi that would be on the way home towards SF. It's the main reason why we haven't been exactly sure when the tour was to be over and we would get home. Now throughout this tour, gigs have been coming together (or not) as the tour progressed. This has made it kind of crazy to make any plans concerning the end of this tour and consequently thereafter, yet I know that my main focus here has been the tour and I (and we) are not done until we pull back into SF and I walk through my front door. Unfortunately, Jason's main focus has been something else.
Needless to say, I feel completely dissed by Jason due to his actions here. I can't believe I gave up my job, much less most of my life, for this to happen. I guess this will teach me never to go out on tour with a junkie ever again, among many other lessons.
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