tour 4.01
Friday, March 28 1997 Westchester PA
Rex's
Matt- I had a lot of hope for the tour. It was after Come to Sterilized had been out for a few months. Aaron Martinez on guitar and Andre Delbos on bass. But I left my JCM 800 in the practice space. I borrowed an amp at every show. Thank you to everyone who loaned me an amp.
Zeph - First show of a five-week tour. We didn’t realize until the van was almost completely unloaded at the club that we’d left Matt’s amp back in Boston. Timing and gas money prevented us from going back to get it so the tone was sort of set right there. Matt borrowed something to play through. We made our $150 and sold a couple of CD’s and shirts that Aaron made in his living room.
Andre -I was very excited to be both in the band and on the road. Had a naive idea that knowing M/Z for a long time allowed me a certain liberty, but failed to appreciate that tolerance for a drunken prick has its limits.
Dropped some ecstasy before getting picked up, which failed to kick in: very frustrating. Club looks like a cross between manufacturing facility and VFW club. Despite mediocre show, spirits are still light in the van. “Everything is supposed to be cool once we get to W. Virginia.”
Carol- the morning wasn’t as hectic as i imagined it’d be. zeph and andré didn’t show up till 12. got into westchester around 7 pm. rex’s was bigger than i had expected. the club is located at the west end of a busy street. when we pulled in there were a bunch of little black kids hanging out on the corner. we got bad beers on tap for playing there. we are the opening band for Lattimar from Philly. matt left his head at the rehearsal space. i didn’t get paid from MIT. off to a minor bad start. the crowd was very unreceptive and discouraging. i thought we sounded bizarre in a bad way. i have my new korg ds-8 now instead of that crappy casio.
Saturday, March 29 1997 Chapel Hill NC Local 506
Z - Today there were an extra 20,000 people in this very small town to see the Tarheels in the finals of the NCAA basketball championship. They lost. Earlier that morning the local pro-bono attorney and good friend to most of the bars on Franklin St including the residents at 506, had died in a car crash. It was an especially bad night for everyone.
C- we drove straight from westchester to CH after the show. aaron was driving following andré’s directions and they got lost for a long time. arrived finally in CH around noon. found a coffee shop to hang out at. the streets were swarming with people excited for the NCU basketball game. me, aaron and zeph took a walk to a park and smoked out. i wore my new big heavy sandals and they were the most uncomfortable shoes ever! i wanted to throw them away. now i had huge blisters on both feet and the easter bunny was gone when the game began. i wanted to take a picture with it. the headlining band sucked. the club sucked. we stayed with rob from that band.
Easter Sunday, March 30 1997 Richmond VA
the Biograph
M- This place is cavernous. An old theatre in poor condition. Very cool. I’m psyched because the band playing before us is a bit metal, which means I get to use an amp similar to my sound. It didn’t matter. It sounded like shit in there. No people.
Z - Shows on Christian holidays generally do poorly. I book them anyway. This one in particular was typical. We get there and there’s a note in the door saying the venue is shut down. The promoter’s out-going message has changed since the day before to announce that she’s gone on vacation, referring all Biograph matters to some reluctant buddy of hers who comes by to open the place up. The opening band are a bunch of local kids in a compact pick-up. Their friends didn’t like us. We got paid 8 dollars.
C- we got here in the day time and hung out at this coffee joint called “bidder’s suite.” the show sucked we didn’t know whether we were playing or not till the very last minute. it was a run-down theater. we headlined to 2 people, both from the band that played before us. that old theater felt like a set from the Twilight Zone, empty and hollow. so lonely on the stage. we left the posters at this dumb place. oh, well.