tour 5.05
Sunday, June 29 1997 Los Angeles CA
The Garage/Sucker
Zeph - I think everyone was glad to come back to a place where the cops had more to worry about than us. Everyone went and called friends and it felt like we all had more space. The Garage in Silver Lake turned into Club Sucker on Sunday afternoons. So-called “showcase” bands hosted by a black-Schwarzenneger of a drag queen named Vaginal Cream Davis. She got up and introduced the bands and talked to them for a minute after their set and told filthy jokes during the changeovers. There was a full room, we played together in a way that felt good and got a good response. Friends of Dan and Todd’s were living out there, Gordon and Wompus. Instant alliances were forged. Another friend of a friend from New York also turned out to be interesting. The Dandy Warhols played an “unannounced” set after ours and Mikey and I went and stayed with Julie Duffy in Santa Monica and drank red wine.
Todd - We approached LA having lost about 10 pounds each in water weight and listening to Suicide’s debut cassette on auto reverse. Spirits were high as we passed “Palm Henge”, a circle of palm trees somewhere near Joshua Tree. We got to LA and headed to the Garage in Silverlake where drag queen extraordinaire, Vaginal Cream Davis, hosted a Sunday night rock review. The club had a built-in audience, so we took the stage at 5 pm to a rather packed house. Davis’ schtick is to introduce each band while trying to embarrass them. She hit on Zeph, called the birthmark on my lip an “open herpes sore” and asked if Carol was a guy in drag. We played a great show. Dandy Warhols played after us as did Jennifer Finch’s (of L7 fame) new band. It was a great night. Mikey disappeared with Finch, and once we could wrangle Carol away from Courtney Taylor from the Dandy’s, we headed back to the apartment we were staying at and dozed off to the movie, Blood Sucking Freaks.
Matt - So much better to be in LA now. The band has had a few practice gigs, and we are really feeling hot. I thought Zeph was gonna go off with Vaginal Cream Davis, they were flirting so hard. I didn’t want to take off my shirt at the end, but went ahead just to play nice. We were on for real this night and people gave us a lot of nice compliments afterwards and it was such a boost. Maybe this would be the turning point? I’m pretty sure I didn’t see any of the other bands and didn’t know too much about the Dandy Warhol’s but they were nice to Carol and later on when we got back to Boston, they would call inviting us to their shows.
Carol - the drive to la was unreal. the van was an oven. no lie. Mikie and Todd kept making jokes about checking up on the lasagna in the back of the van and it was cracking me up so hard. we made it to la somehow and checked out the scene at the club first then drove over to Rob’s. Rob has a really cute studio apartment. we showered and went over to the club. didn’t know what to expect but it turned out to be our best show yet. we opened for ‘other star people’ and ‘darling warhols.’ vaginal cream davis spent more time with us than the other 2 bands. we posed for a picture with her and the boys took off their shirts. Jennifer finch, formerly of L7, asked me to be in her new band, other star people. that was cool but i didn’t really dig that band. it was a relief to finally have a decent show. Matt, Todd and i went back to Rob’s and watched a scary movie and chilled.
Monday, June 30 1997 Los Angeles CA No Life Records
T - The next morning I woke up and called John Doe from X. He and I had toured extensively in the past and we were looking forward to catching up. He picked me up at the apartment on Vista and we made a b line for Hugo’s. I told him I had an in store to play on Santa Monica that afternoon, so he and I killed a few hours and knocked back some whiskey drinks at the Formosa. We had a day drunk hug and I was off. The in store was poorly attended, about 12 people, but Jennifer Finch was there, watching her new boyfriend, Mikey. We wrapped it up and got ready for the Spaceland show.
Z - Mikey and I woke up at Julie’s and she was gone because she works. We made some phone calls and took showers. On our way out the door to the show we debate taking one of her bottles of wine with us. The reasoning being that, she wouldn’t mind, she was offering us more before we went to bed the night before. There were two cheap looking bottles of white and one good looking red. Mikey grabs the red saying that, we were drinking red when she offered us more, the other bottle was empty, she must have meant this one. He cracked it open on the way to No Life because the traffic was so bad and he was bored and couldn’t wait. This was an in-store and the place was pretty cool. Chuck Arnold who owned No Life also ran the Want-Ads who was promoting our re-release. The store is on the same block that Eddie Murphy got busted picking up his prostitute.
We played pretty well even though we had to turn way down and it was sort of an uncomfortable set-up but that’s to be expected. A couple semi-famous indie rockers showed up and were loving us. I talked to Julie on the phone from the store and it turns out she was subletting that apartment and that the wine we took was an heirloom bottle belonging to the owners. I told her how we had drank it with the cork floating in it next to the dumpster in the alley out back, using it to chase down shots of cheap-ass tequila left behind by the Grifters.
C - Rob drove me, Matt and Todd around la. i think la’s really pretty. i can see myself living here but i’d want to have bullet proof windows in my car. we drove up and down hollywood hills, melrose, laurel canyon and it was just so much fun. our in-store wasn’t spectacular but memorable. i saw john doe saying good-bye to todd from Rob’s car. Matt got to meet him. we met some cool people ie. Chuck the owner. Jennifer Finch was now Mikie’s new girlfriend, so she was there. i left early with Rob. we drove around forever looking for a place to eat then just ended up eating at the same thai restaurant i got pad thai from this morning.