tour 5.04
Saturday, June 28 1997 El Paso TX Debut Records
Todd - I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, there is no good reason on this earth to ever play a show in El Paso. We got to that hell hole in the mid-afternoon and the temperature was nearing 115. Our only hope was to spend the day in shopping malls, which we did. The simple pleasures of air conditioning and Orange Julius got us through until the show. I don’t remember what the club was called, but not ONE paying customer came. We played for the other band and they played for us. After a lengthy argument with the promoter, we wrangled fifty bucks or something from him for gas and headed to LA. This drive was going to be hell; 800 miles, usually 13-15 hours through the desert with no air conditioning. We were five grumpy, broke and un-showered assholes in a tin can.
Sure, Black Flag used to do it, but they got immediate gratification every night. This was tough.
Zeph - We got into town in the early afternoon with no money and no place to go and it was so fucking hot. We hung out in a couple of shopping malls to get some air-conditioning and walked around and didn’t end up having that bad of a day. Mikey and Todd and I got reprimanded in Target for playing with the sporting goods. The club was the Attic but they’d changed the name and it was still so bad. They called it a record store but they only had about twenty or thirty CD’s on a couple of shelves and otherwise it was exactly the same. We played poorly to the bartender and the opening band who were from Ohio I think and we drank Shiners and ate pizza. They made nothing at the door so we had to lay our big sob story out on the girl who was supposed to be paying us to get fifty bucks out of her. We got out of Texas as soon as possible and headed straight for LA.
Carol - el paso was really really depressing. it was fuckin hot. must’ve been in the 100’s. we got there super early so we killed time and stayed cool hanging out at malls. at the first mall we met these 2 teenage girls who told me i was beautiful. they were cute. one of them was half korean. Todd was all googley-eyed for them and wanted me to invite them to the show. so i did. Zeph and Mikie hung out at the arcade and Matt and i helped Todd pick out sneakers. we spent 5 hours here and moved on to the next one and killed another 3 hours there. the other band was already there when we got to the club. i couldn’t believe their set up. they traveled like canned sardines. i thought we had it bad with no ac but these boyz from cleveland were touring in a tiny little van and there were like 7 or 8 of them and i don’t think they had ac. it was just unbelievable. it’s a wonder they are still alive. their faces were cherry red from walking over to juarez to score pills. that’s a 2 hr walk in the desert under the bloody sun. i think they are insane. they were nice kids though. smoked us out and gave me some pills. no one, and i mean zero person showed up. i can’t believe we are back in el paso knowing what we know about this god forsaken place. our morale is at its lowest. we had our first band meeting cuz everyone was mad at each other about something. can’t remember exactly what.