July '05
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Old Shit
7/15/05
Billions of people were killed but eventually humans beat the aliens and through it all Tom Cruise learned to be a better Dad... That's pretty much it. But Hell, I loved it. But, part of the reason I loved it was that I saw it at my favorite theatre... Grauman's Chinese theatre. Even really crappy movies are great at this place. The interior is huge and beautifully ornate. I'm guessing 1500- 2000 seats maybe more. The screen is fucking giant... and the sound is the best... they play it loud too.
Billions of people dead... I fantasized about this as I drove to San Diego today. It's about 120 miles or so from LA I think. It Took me 5 hours. It was stop and go traffic almost the whole way. I was wishing for a Martian attack or maybe a good plague or just an old fashioned, planet killing meteor to thin the herd. Too many damn people.
I drove to San Diego cuz I'm doing a Tenacious D show at the convention center. There is a comic book convention there called Comicon. Like in that Jay and Silent Bob movie... Chasing Amy. Lot's of nerds dressed up like storm troopers and Chewbacca... maybe a few dressed up like they're favorite x-man. Should be kinda cool though. I'm gonna go down a little early tomorrow and wander.
Back before I started working in rock and roll. I ran a snowboard camp on Mt. Hood and every year we'd make the trek down here to San Diego to a trade show called ASR... Action Sports Retailer. Half the huge ass convention center was skateboards, snowboards, surf, and shit like that and the other half was bathing suits. Oh dear... it was chaos. All the booths on the skate side were parties... most serving booze. So all the hottie model chicks wearing next to nothing would come over from the bathing suit side and get drunk.
I'm sure it will be a similar vibe tomorrow with hot girls dressed as Lara Croft or Supergirl walking around hading out pamphlets to try and get you to come to their booth.
It was KG's birthday last night... it was at a goofy little Italian joint in the valley. I got him a remote control fart machine... "the fart machine 2" yes, 2. New and improved from the original 1 version. I also got him a Willie Nelson box set and a Brad Paisley CD cuz Brad's guitar player is probably the best guitar player on the planet. Also the saddest song ever written is on the new record. Whiskey lullaby... featuring Allison Krause.
I'm packing up my LA house on Sunday and driving home to Portland...
So here it is fuckers... My band "Joe BB and his Fistful of Babies" is playing a show at Dante's in Portland on September 24th. So mark it on your calendar. Come down and heckle. The first 20 people to buy a t-shirt at the show will get a free lap dance from my pedal steel player, Paul. The show WILL sell out so get a ticket early if you can.
Smooches.
7/11/05
Oxygen went well... another vocal crowd. Singing loud as fuck.
Taylor Movie 1 Taylor Movie 2 Taylor Movie 3 Irish Movie
Taylor's song is getting really tight... however, every day he introduces it as a country song. Dammit it's an insult to his song and more importantly... an insult to country music. His song is kickass... really well written... it's just not anywhere near country.
We finished loading the truck at about 1 am got back to the hotel at 2 and asleep by 2:01. Our lobby call to go to the airport was at 8:30am so I was stoked I was gonna get 6 whole hours of sleep in a row. The fucking maids decided to have a church meeting right outside my door at 7am. I'm not a yelling kind of guy... but this was the straw... I let out two weeks of frustration on the poor ladies. Another crap European style hotel with paper thin walls... no A/C... no internet... not near anything... no gym... no room service after 8... Fucking one person elevators... and employees that treat you like they're doing you a favor by letting you stay there. People just don't get it. This tour booked about 15 rooms per night... bigger tours can buy a hotel out. That is alot of dough and a good reason to treat our kind well. 90% of the hotels that we stayed at this trip will not get another chance to take our money.
Waiting for the elevator on the fourth floor with my bags really finished my stay up right. 5 lift stopped... all to full for me to get in. I walked to the stairs and just let my bags tumble down... It's a good thing no one was coming up or down the stairs... there would have been fatalities. It's a wonder, what a good tantrum will do for a guy. Sean had a couple tantrum as well over the past couple days. His ended in wet carpets and broken lamps and power outages though. I'm so glad this tour is over...
But equally excited to get out on the next leg... a short trip to Japan then a proper bus tour across Canada. So stoked about that.
There's two and a half weeks off for most of us... I've got to be in LA to do some restocking of supplies and get some proper flight cases built for all our guitars... and at the end of the week I've got a couple of days with Tenacious D. Then on Sunday I'll be packing a moving truck and moving back to Portland. WHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I'll get a little over a week off!! I've been home for one day in the past seven months. So excited.
7/10/05
Thanks to all for responding to my plea for web help. I'll choose someone to help me and eventually make this all easier to view... as soon as I can... for now y'all will just have to deal with it. Also to address those of you that shoot over to me after someone posting that I updated over on the Foo postboard only to find that you cant get on my site due to high volume or it's slow to view.... sorry, too bad... I need to start selling alot more t-shirts to be able to afford a real web server on a faster line.
I love Scotland! Even in our tired stupor... we managed to enjoy our very very long day there. We loaded in at 8am, were done setting up in an hour then had about 12 hours to kill until we played. Normally we would have a bus to go hang in. Sleep, watch TV, play bunk puppet theatre, or whatever... it doesn't matter cuz it's air conditioned. That's kind of another reason why this tour has been hard... no where for us to be at all these shows. Tour manager and production manager don't want us hanging in the dressing room... messing it up, and taking up space. They certainly don't want us in their production office... distracting them from the solitaire they play all day. We don't want to hang on stage unless we have to... we hear enough loud music and crappy bands. We sit in catering alot... which at euro festivals is a hot or humid tent... with crap food, warm drinks, and cold women.
So a few us snuck into the dressing room to take naps before the band showed up. I just started nodding off when this dude...
started warming up outside our door.
The thing is... I actually love the pipes... just not at 9am on no sleep.
It didn't stop there though.... this particular festival every year hires band gear rental company that sets up in the "artist compound" where the dressing rooms are. But they actually set the shit up and make it functional... so people can jam right there in dressing room land. Believe me... it's not a good idea. All the people you wouldn't want making noise... are making noise. Punters, roadies, security folk, and VIPs. It goes on all fucking day. Dude's are pulling out their best wanking thinking that maybe they'll get discovered by one of the famous people there. This one tool, wanked on the bass for about 6 hours... I wanted to kill him.
The show was kickass... these UK crowds are the best... Scotland especially. They rock out so hard... and sing so loud. Scotland... I salute you... you win.
Scottish movie1 Scottish movie 2
Oh yeah... I'm a rangers fan... yes, a hun. All you dirty feinian (sp?) bastards can suck it. Wank, wank, wank, wank, .... good guy.
Here's a shot of my dumb ass playing a couple of bass notes on IYH. What a dork.
We took our last trip on the Foo plane to Ireland after the show... landed in Dublin at about 3am... then the crew was sent on an insanely frustrating wild goose chase to find the band/crew luggage and guitars we flew with. It took about two hours to get out of the fucking airport. We finally got to our hotel at about 5am... strangely, the bar at the hotel was going off. It sounded like a football game. The whole bar singing together at the top of their lungs... people stumbling drunk through the lobby. I guess snoop dog was in there earlier with his entourage getting fine Irish girls to show their boobs. I want a job with that guy.
We were supposed to have an 8am lobby call which would have meant we'd sleep for two hours. I love Rodney... he said "fuck it"... lobby call at 11am... so we got to sleep for 4 or 5 hours.
The scene this morning getting on the bus to go to the venue was ugly. Grumpy, grumpy, tired roadies.
So here I sit at the Oxygen festival in Ireland with no where to be... work done... killing time till the boys play. Wishing I could lie down and stare at the back of my eyelids.
God I'm homesick.
7/8/05
The Iceland show was strange... good but strange. I think maybe something to do with hangovers, lack of sleep (it stays very light here 24 hours a day), and the pressure of everyone's family being there. It seemed they played AT the audience instead of TO the audience. During one of the guitar changes... Dave thrust the used guitar into my hand only saying "it's covered in blood". Hmmm... just a little more info please. He cut himself open somewhere during Stacked Actors and was leaking. Apparently ignoring the red liquid dripping from him, he continued to tear through the songs. Chris got fed up with his in-ear monitors... and decided to kick them to the curb.
The Queens of the Stone Age's set was killer as well, mesmerizing the crowd of Icelanders in a rich and hearty wall of sound.
The best part of the day for me was finding a bunch of gymnastic equipment behind a partition in catering. Sean put on an uneven bar spectacle that will never be equaled while Yeti and I tried to hurt ourselves on the trampoline.
Certain doom 1 mpeg Certain doom 2 mpeg
After the show we hauled ass back to the hotel cuz we had a 5am lobby call to catch a plane to Norway. In the van ride back to the hotel Wiley was saying how he was gonna go to the after party... I told him to be careful and try and get at least a couple hours of sleep... even an hour is better than nothing. He reminded me how he is never late for lobby call unlike some of the other roadies.
It was about 1am so I quickly nodded off for 3 and a half hours of sleep.
In the lobby after our short sleep... Wiley was no where to be found. Phone calls and door poundings ensued. Nothing.... we tried to open his door but he had it locked and bolted from the inside. Oh well... we all left... making bets if he would make it to Norway on his own and when he would arrive.
I said goodbye to my Radisson room and jumped in the van with a bunch of tired, grumpy roadies.
Our hotel in Norway was surreal. It was way out of town for some reason... A Quality Inn. Not like the states Quality Inn though. This was a children's resort. Yes, a motel for kids. All the hotel staff were dressed up al pirates. All or our rooms overlooked the kiddy pool and playground with many many screaming kids....Sweet. In the bar was children's karaoke and dancing to creepy Norwegian children's music while parents put away drink after drink. The menu in the restaurant was pretty much chicken strips and french fries. The rooms were a million degrees with no A/C. I thought Sean was gonna have a stroke. It was funny seeing him stomp around the hotel in bare feet... looks of fear on the kids faces. The only redeeming "quality" of this motel-resort was that the costumed hotel staff were amazingly beautiful. Smoking hot Norwegian girl pirates and some hot dude butt pirates for our light guy, Nathan.
As predicted after a sweaty sleep we were all awoken at about 6am by screaming kids in the kiddy pool.
At lobby call I was surprised to find our pal Wiley... he did... he made it in on his own at about 1 am the night before. Poor guy... kinda embarrassed... and stressed. A few of us lost some money. Geoff made a killing.
The gig was fricken gorgeous. Reminded me of the Pacific Northwest. The stage sat right on the beach of this little cove on what looked like Lake Washington. The dressing room was a tent right behind the stage with one side of the tent drawn to show the water.
Before the show... a few of the guys went for a wade in the cold ass water.
David said... "fuck that".
Long day... but great show.
I think little Wiley had a hard show... probably caught a lot of shit from band and crew and production staff. When the band leaves the stage he usually comes out and clears the unused towels and beers. Well, tonight as he cleared them... he pounded them. 6 or 8 beers in about one minute. Props little buddy. He's earned a new nickname.... "Spalding"... y'know from Caddyshack. Oh my god... so hammered. I felt bad for the kid.
I gotta say... he's been doing a great job out here and working five times as hard as he used to. He's definitely paid his dues and deserves to be cut a little slack. So next time you see him at a show... it's hug time.
After the show we jumped on the band charter to head to Scotland. Crew wiped out... most of us slept on this short flight to Edinburgh. Especially Wiley.
After landing, the crew jumped on a bus and rode for an hour and a half to the Glasgow airport Holiday Inn.... why didn't we just fly to Glasgow? I think it had something to do with the charter plane and the time we were to land. The UK is all hopped up cuz of the bombings and getting out of the airport and into the hotel took a little extra time.
So here I sit in the Glasgow Airport Holiday Inn writing this post. T in the park tomorrow.
Many have complained about the format of my site.... from the resolution size to pictures not opening up in their own windows to high traffic errors. I will remind you all that I pay for this site... My server sits in my house in Portland with the highest speed DSL line I have available to me with static IP addresses... also, I barely have enough time to update the site as it is. Every update takes me a few hours of precious sleep or relaxation time. Also, My html prowess is lacking... I'm proud of myself for even getting this damn thing up in the first place. All of the ideas I've been sent are good ones... I just don't have the time or skill do make the changes.
If anyone would like to volunteer to help me change it... I'll gladly accept the help. Hell, I'll even pay someone for the help. Write me if you're into it.
7/5/05
So we finally got to fly in style on the Foo plane. Depending on where you're flying out of... sometimes you can't just drive up to the plane and hop on. You gotta do some security bullshit. Flying out of Belgium and this time we had to go through a security station at the airport. We couldn't ship or truck our gear to Iceland so we had to scale down and bring a bunch of gear with us on the plane. The Qotsa guys were invited so we had their bags as well. We were actually a really full plane for the first time I think. Nathan and I had to climb up in the belly of the plane to load everything in cuz there was so much of it we had to make sure we packed it high and tight to fit it all.
The flight was nice... smokers love it cuz they can puff... but the non-smokers hate it. There were alot of smokers on this flight. They should do like the old days and have a smoking section. But a good time was had by all regardless. By the time we landed in Iceland... roadies were either loopy from sleep depravation or fucking drunk.
By the time we got to the hotel... there was some serious gibberish coming out of some mouths.
Hotel was good... Radisson. Thank you very much.
everyone was looking forward to the day off to follow.
10am lobby call took the few that bothered to wake up to an amazing spot just outside of town called the blue lagoon. A natural hot springs turned into a spa-resort kind of vibe. Driving out there thru barren tundra, I wondered what winter must be like. We passed a kickass golf course with fairways and greens carved right into the lava rock. No mistakes on this course. Miss a fairway or green... lose your ball forever. No trees anywhere though. all trees and soil here are imported. Off in the distance you can see plumes of steam rising up were the hot springs are.
Pulling up to the resort the first thing you notice is the milky blue/white water standing in and amongst the sharp rocks. In Hawaii this kind of lava would be called a' a' . I don't know what the Icelanders call it. In the main pool area they put down a sand bottom. In the middle of the pool the main geyser sprayed out steam and hot water and the muddy silica which every one had smeared all over their bodies. There are buckets all over the pool filled with this mud that has supposedly has magic curative properties. The fountain of muddy youth so to speak. I did it... the mud did make your skin feel buttery. But I'm still grumpy... fix that, magic pond.
Across the middle of the lagoon was a rock divider... signs posted to not go on that side... I can only assume cuz you'd boil yourself alive. I couldn't get very close to the divider cuz it just got too damn hot.
There was a cute girl wading through the lagoon with a tray of drinks for those partying... Back at the reception center... there was halfway decent food at their restaurant and a very expensive gift shop selling cosmetics made of the muddy goo and tourist mementos.
A nice and relaxing way to start the day.
We all drove back to the hotel. Sean and I went for a walk. We found the best Mexican food in Iceland (no, I'm still not eating solids). Sean loved it though. Walked around... spent money. It's fucking mega expensive here... bad exchange rate to boot.
The next lobby call was at 6pm to take our huge party to a restaurant in a small fishing village about 45 miles outside of Reykjavik. It's a Yurt placed right on the safe side of a water break at the top of a rocky beach. The staff at the restaurant decorated it for us with American flags in honor of the holiday. Cute.
Everyone had their families out for this adventure... I love seeing the boys with their boys.
Dave made a nice toast to begin the evening.
The Icelandic kids loved Sean... must be the Viking within. He tried to be tough, threatening to break their arms and legs then leave them at low tide... but he lightened up after a few drinks. He's so cuddly.
A bonfire burned away on the beach as the first shots of Dave's favorite booze called Brennivin. It's an Icelandic schnapps that if you asked me... tastes like Clorox and buttermilk. Dinner was was they call lobster but is actually langoustines. Tiny lobster the size of prawns. They serve piles of these to you in a pot with garlic, potatoes, onions and herbs... swimming in what was probably a half gallon of melted butter. Feeling guilty... I ordered a rich lobster bisque, without the lobster of course, but I have been paying for it ever since. I can't wait to eat again.
Next door to the yurt was a warehouse lookin place at the end of a pier. An art gallery resided there. Last visit Dave and I spent a bunch of dough on these cool tin things. The artist used an awl or something to draw on the tin by denting it outward. Then rubbed and polished the tin to create shading effects... pretty cool stuff. Paintings without paint. This time however there was no tin... everything was glass art... which probably would not make the trip back to the states. Oh well.
Also in this warehouse lookin place was what I thought was a bar... I was told it was a youth center... hehe. The kids must drink and smoke alot there cuz it was a bar. A small stage with a small PA sat in the corner with band gear set up and ready to go. The stuff belonged to a band we made friends with last time called Nilfisk... it means "no fish". Appropriate for a bunch a kids that grew up in a small fishing village. Dave and Tay dove right in and the jam session ensued... for a long time. Oh.. did I say it was a long jam session? It was. But it was also so fucking amazing to see the kids of a small fishing village so stoked and flabbergasted that they were jamming with the Foo Fighters. Dave and Tay were loving it as well.
Also, behind a curtain in this bar / youth center was a haunted house... you know... like the kind that schools set up to raise money around Halloween time. This one was huge though. It was all themed around Icelandic ghost stories. You had to wear headphones cuz it was kind of like a tour... and every couple of rooms you went through... some jackass dressed up in scary fishing clothes would jump out and scare the clams right out of you. It was pretty random.
Last visit... sitting around the bonfire getting drunk... we saw the Aurora Borealis... I think that's how you spell it. It was magic.
Back at the hotel I climbed into the sack and tried to sleep... which is hard seeing as it never gets dark here this time of year. But the worst part was nightmares... no... it wasn't the crappy haunted house. But after about 9 or 10 nightmare jolts to consciousness, I started to wonder if the damn Radisson wasn't haunted... yes, Haunted Radisson... or maybe haunted lobster bisque.
Big rock show in a few hours... I try and post tonight about the show as an addendum... I've got more pics too... if I'm not to tired.
7/4/05
The Denmark festival was certainly better than the Swiss one. Jimmy Eat World, Green Day, and Duran Duran. The local stage manager had a much better handle of things. It helped that all the crews for all the bands were friends and had worked with one another before... with the exception of the Duran guys. They were nice too though... well... the guitar tech hates me but everyone else was nice.
In a festival situation... the stage real estate is valuable. Most festivals... you don't get the prime stage real estate till it's your turn to play. Then you roll in, make noise, then get the fuck out. Up until you play your gear is set up in the back ready to roll out in the order of which you're scheduled. Well... guitar tech dude, first thing in the morning, put his tech cases out on the stage right wing in the prime spot that every band's techs are gonna want to have. Hiding behind the side fill with a direct sightline to what's gonna be happening on stage. Duran Duran was to play last... So dude was going to inconvenience all the other roadies throughout the day cuz he wanted to make sure he got his spot which he was gonna get anyway cuz they play last. He didn't even unload and set up his crap... he just put his cases there to mark his territory. A meeting between what I thought was a representative from each band ensued and it was decided to backline the tech worlds... so as each band finished... the tech world was struck and the next tech world would roll into place. Basically what happens at every festival. 15 minutes later the dudes shit was still there. I moved it... yes, I moved it four feet then I set Sean and I up in the spot. He came over a half an hour later and read me the riot act. I calmly explained the situation and apologized for touching his shit... he said "The rest of our equipment had to move... that's the one thing that had to stay there" to which I replied "Why did those closed cases have to stay there?"... "it's none of your business" he said angrily. Then stormed off... I apologized again as he stormed off... Oh well, ya can't win 'em all I guess.
***Speed bunny... I know these are your pals... I really tried to be nice... I swear... I don't want a post from you cussing me out now... I'll send the guy a "sorry cake" or something.****
Even when the Foo Fighters headline festivals we don't play that "our gear doesn't move" game. It's lame. If it was our show... it would be different... but we're still extremely accommodating to the opening acts. But it wasn't our show... and it wasn't Duran's... it was a crappy Euro FESTIVAL... key word... FESTIVAL.
Great crowd though... amazing. The Foo's really riled 'em up good.
Roskilde AML Mpeg Roskilde Stacked Mpeg
Strangely, I don't really remember how we got to the next gig in Belgium... The sleep depravation had us all in a zombie state. Oh.. I think after load out we hopped in a van and got a proper roadie hotel at the airport... a Radisson or some shit like that... and caught a commercial flight the next morning early. I think there was four or five hours of sleep involved.
After landing we hauled ass to the Belgium gig and had the gear set up and functional in a couple of hours... which left much time to kill. I was excited about this gig because my childhood best friend was gonna be at this gig. Bob Whittaker, REM's tour manager. I grew up with this guy in Honolulu. We went to a weird little tiny elementary school called Hale Mohala. At the time it only had a student body of 60 kids. He and I were inseparable till he moved back to Seattle when we were about 15 I think. His dad is Jim Whittaker... the first American to summit Mt. Everest.
Me and Whittaker...
Man it was good to see him. Shitloads of memories flooded back. He also had hired another old friend of mine as Stipe's personal assistant. What a nightmare job that would be. It's really weird how Bobby and I ended up in the same business separately and by completely different paths.
The boys put on another amazing performance. The crowd did their part, feeding them piles of frenzied energy.
After the show we headed to the airport to jump on the Foo Fighter Airlines to Iceland... this is the first time we've been able to fly with the band on their plane this tour...
We had a great flight and a great day off here... But the rest will have to wait till my next post... It's late here and I've got an early load in... Although it's still light out and it will never really get dark... makes it super hard to sleep... really fucks with me.
Gotta try though.
Nighty night.
7/2/05
Before I start on this entry I want to preface the immense amount whining I'm about to do with this: Alot of people are reading this column these days. Friends, Co-workers, employers, and fans (some even of my band). Since this is a public accounting of my travels and experiences... I worry some times that I will offend someone with an opinion of mine or even worse violate someone's privacy with a story that I might think is cute and humorous but interpreted as damaging and embarrassing to someone else. I really try and weigh all factors when I'm deciding on what to say and not say in here. It's kind of strange... not drinking and drugging or eating at the moment has left me with a lack of ways to blow off steam or vent. This column has given me that. It's kind of been a way for me to voice some of the things I bite my tongue on every day. Having said that... .
On the last day of rehearsal in LA before we left to Moscow the boys were running over some possible songs to throw into the set. "Ain't it the Life" came up. Chris used to play a lap steel guitar on this song at the end of the NLTL tour cycle. So he asked me to set it up. While I was hunting it down in our warehouse they dove into the song with Chris just playing guitar. By the time they finished I had the steel set up and ready to go. Chris says he likes playing his regular guitar on this song but he thinks that I should play the lap steel on it... Dave said "what do ya think Beebs? You wanna do it?".
O.K. my discomfort exists on many levels. I know it's just one song, and it was just a small offhanded remark by Chris. It's kind of a huge deal to me. You'd think that being asked to play with your favorite band would be nothing but a good thing... hmmmm. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing to be asked but it adds a dynamic to the Band/Crew relationship that could make things awkward. Me playing with them makes extra work for my fellow crewmen. Extra inputs, mixes, and even lighting (I know fucking Nathan would make a point of trying to melt me with some crappy light as a joke). During that song I would not be able to do my job, Sean would have to cover me.
The more important and bigger issue is... The Foo Fighters are one of the best bands on the planet due in big part to their chemistry together. The four unique individuals with different personalities and musical influences and backgrounds. I would never dare to walk on that sacred ground. I know it's only one song and I was not asked to join the band but still... here's a couple of examples of making waves.
When Chris suggested my participation maybe he put the other guys on the spot. I dunno... What if Taylor, Dave or Nate thought this was a terrible idea?
My second example has to do with my actual part... That night after I packed up the rehearsal I was quite excited and nervous about the prospect of performing on one of my favorite instruments with my favorite band. I hightailed it out to a music store to buy myself a new lap steel (Chris's steel is kinda crappy). Even though I was flying to Moscow the next day, I stayed up all night playing with the CD, trying to come up with a part that wouldn't step on anyone else's part. I'm listening for places where the song takes a breath to insert in that spot something tasteful and flattering. Man, that's a tough one... when Dave wrote and recorded this song, he filled up all those spots with great guitar hooks and catchy riffs that do the job. So If I'm to play on this song... it seems to me that I'm either gonna be muddying it up with too much noodling or stepping on Dave or Chris's part OR they'll end up giving me one of their parts that they play. Either way... it's something that I'm not sure a dumb roadie like myself should be doing. The musician in me hopes I get to do it... but the roadie and fan in me is a little reluctant. You know I'm not gonna say no though... Ack... whatever... Maybe I'll get to, Maybe I wont. I'm sure I'm making too much of this.
I sure had fun trying to come up with a part in the wee hours of the morning though. I already covered "Next Year" bluegrass style... Ain't it the Life is next for sure... It will sound so good all minimalist on a lap steel and maybe one acoustic guitar. Genuine "cry in your beer" shit.
There are other instances of roadies playing with the bands they work for... sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. I got to play with Everclear sometimes at the end of they're set. They would play Sin City and Craig, the Bass player would throw me his Bass and he'd grab a mic. When I worked for Weezer I played maracas on "Island in the Sun". That was kind of embarrassing. I even got to be on the Jay Leno show doing that. But the most fun for me is getting to be part of the show with Tenacious D... Sometimes I get to sing harmonies on a Neil Young song.
Some of the other crew guys have told me some horror stories about crew guys in other camps getting to play then turning into insufferable prima donnas. I won't mention names.
The other thing that came out of rehearsal was some extra guitars I needed to fly with to Russia. Our gear had already left to Moscow days before so I had no choice. I had suggested real anvil-style flight cases months ago but was vetoed at the time. Due to budgetary concerns I guess... I am always nervous about flying with guitars but this time... more than usual. Our flights lately have been crap and this trip was no exception. Plus I was checking in alone... no one to split the "extra baggage" up with.
I've worked for bands that travel alot this way... just checking in all the band gear as luggage. One of the things that you do when you travel this was is find a skycap, and tip him big... say one or two hundred bucks. Almost always, they will just slide it all through. Even if they don't slide it all, they'll do most of it, and only make you pay for one or two extra bags. But not this time... I greased the guy a hundred... and what does he do...? Fucking nothing. $640 in excess baggage fees.
I didn't think of this at the time I was checking in but... we had American to JFK then switched to Delta to Moscow. American and Delta aren't even buddies... y'know... in the same alliance. Like if I fly Hawaiian airlines I can get my United airlines miles... I think that the United one is called the star alliance. But Delta and American aren't related. So does an excess baggage charge for American transfer to Delta?... I doubt it. The I'm really not sure why our travel was planned this way... it's asking for trouble. I got even more worried when I landed in New York and discovered that the Delta gate to Moscow was on the complete other side of JFK... it seemed the trip across the airport took longer than the trip from the west coast.
Moscow customs was a nightmare... we were just about first in line and ended up last out of customs... go figure. I waited at the baggage carousel only to have my fears realized when absolutely nothing of mine showed up. Not even my personal luggage. I filled out the lost baggage form then grudgingly sauntered off to get my next cock punch. My newest pet peeve on this tour cycle is after a long flight... to not have enough seating in the transportation from the airport to the hotel which In this case was about a two hour trip. The Foo Fighters have the fattest crew in show business. A "15" passenger van is really a 7 passenger van. The last thing I want to do is cuddle with Yeti for an hour and a half after traveling for 15 hours.
Our hotel was tolerable aside from the crappy attitudes and service from the staff. It was called Mezhdunanarohdnaya or some shit like that equally unpronounceable. There was a giant "cuckoo clock" with a rooster on top in the lobby that went off every hour quite loudly. I could hear it perfectly well in my room with the door closed. The annoyed factor in me was steadily climbing.
I thought the Germans were stern and humorless… The Russians kick the Germans ass in this. No one smiles here. Everything is a hustle… haggle or die. I got really sick of that. I went out and did all the tourist crap… red square, Kremlin, Gorky park… cool… but lifeless. Beautiful women… ugly men that dress really, really nice.… and loads of traffic. It makes driving in LA look like driving in Enid, Oklahoma.
This is the view from my room.
Prostitution is illegal here but you'd never know it. Every night at about 9pm the hotel bar and lobby would fill up with 10 to 20 girls. These girls contract with the hotel. I heard the going rate was 100 to 200 American... depending on your haggling skills. I was told by another roadie that he charged it to his room. The prostitution was everywhere... at every bar it seemed. Some of the women were stunningly gorgeous. It seemed so low key and commonplace. Just another job.
Day two in Moscow my luggage showed up. Surprisingly... all of it. However, Chris's white flying V and my brand new lap steel were casualties. The V was completely snapped in half and my lap steel had the selector switch broke off and some pretty heavy dings... just bought it the day before... damn. I got a call the next night telling me to get real flight cases made for everything. Hmmm.. day late, dollar short. So you know American airlines will blame it on Delta and Delta will blame it on the courier that delivered it to the hotel... It just ate away at me. 640 bucks to first of all NOT GET MY LUGGAGE and second to GET IT BACK BROKEN.
Someone will have to pay... even if it's the American Express card I paid for the baggage fees with.
The show was strange... Good bill though... Queens of the Stone Age, Garbage, and us. It was a huge arena split in half the wide way. The crowd lacked energy for the most part... Definitely a few kids really into it. No smiles to be found anywhere though. It was nice to hang with Dan Hadley, one of my favorite humans on the planet... the queens lighting guy... and if I may say so... the best LD there is. As much as I love the Foo's I pretty sure that QOTSA won on this night. They sounded and looked sooo good. I was never really a Garbage fan but it was nice watching Shirley. She's a great front man.
I about lost my mind checking out of the hotel the next day. They charged me for ice that I had sent up to my room and worse than that phone calls that didn't connect... busy signals... calls to room service... wake up calls. Whatever... it's only money but I start to freak out at the rudeness of the front desk staff. If you're gonna fuck me at least be sort of nice to me.
Back at the Moscow airport the scene was grim. We have two complete sets of Foo gear that leapfrogs over each other in trucks so we can play twice as many gigs that are further apart in half the time. However we don't have two sets of guitars so we have to fly with them. Swiss airlines = Southwest over here. Once again we got screwed on the extra baggage.... this time badly....2500 bucks... ouch. The next cock punch was that 6 of us got put in middle seats for the flight to Switzerland. I'm so tired of feeling like I'm swimming upstream.
So happy to be out of Moscow though... customs going into Zurich was super easy and all our luggage showed up. We loaded into a couple of vans and headed into the hills to St. Gallien. A very picturesque little town nestled into a hillside. We were told how amazing our hotel was by our driver... four stars she said. All I could think of was that this was a bad sign and it was probably four stars out of twenty. I was right. The Einstein Hotel can suck it. The rooms were 100 degrees and impossible to cool down. The dude at the front desk told Yeti if he wanted to sleep in cooler air he should sleep outside. The room service girl brought me ice in a garbage bag and threw a couple of cubes down my shirt... I wish this was flirting but it wasn't. Four stars out of twenty for sure.
I swear... I'm not asking for much... a room with climate control (a/c), an elevator that holds more than one person, some kind of access to the internet, a shower, and it's nice to have 24 hour room service seeing as our hours are so weird... and the most important thing is cooperative hotel staff... I don't care if it's motel 6... those things are not hard to find for a reasonable rate.
Pulling into the gig today it looked like Seattle in 1990. The long line to get in that lined the street into the venue was a full on grunge revival. They let you bring whatever the hell you want into concerts over here. I saw groups of kids with shopping carts with full kegs of beer in them. We passed another dude with a cart full of lumber... 2x4's and shit... I guess he was building a fort. Everyone was hauling multiple cases of beer. US festivals suck ass compared to this... I guess if they let folks do this in the US... we'd probably kill each other.
As soon as we got our shit set up it started pouring rain... figures. The whole place was a total mud bog. Euro festivals always are. The line up was kooky... pretty much reggae bands all day ,then us, then Fat Boy Slim. Weed... Rock... Disco... whatever... works for me.
The fellas played fucking fantastic. I loved the song line up. Especially the start... IYH straight into All My Life... Powerful. The crowd went nutty... After listening to reggae all day... they earned the rock.
During the encore, Tay grabbed a guitar and Dave jumped on the kit and they knocked out "Cold Day in the Sun"... Taylor's song. To the lucky ones that get to see this live... check out the ripping solo work Chris does towards the end of the song. Very tasty.
Little Wiley saying hi to all his fans.
This is Rodney... our new production manager... I gotta say... for just stepping right into the middle of this machine already in motion... He's doing a great job. If you see this guy at a show, pinch his butt.
We finished up the Swiss show at about 1:30am and got back to the hotel around two. Our lobby call was 4:00am to go to the airport to catch a 7:00am flight. Some of us slept for 2 hours some of us drank for 2 hours.
This kind of schedule continues for about another week.
Don't think the band isn't working hard too... doing press all day then a show every night is stressful and hard as well.
As the crew we're paid for results, not excuses. My bitching is about unnecessary hardship and poor planning. It doesn't have to be this stupid. Moral is kinda low right now in crewland... But everyone here has alot of pride in their jobs and cares so much about this band... and the people involved. I'm sure most of us would work for free if asked. We are a pretty fuckin kickass team. So if you see one of us at a show give us a hug. (or a handjob). Except for Nathan (LD)... just give him a bitchslap.
So this is up to the minute now...
Here's a shot of us loading into a luggage van in at the airport in Denmark at 9:30am this morning on the way to the gig.
A bunch of crusty, grumpy roadies.
As much as I bitch... I fucking love it. I'm invincible... you can't hurt me with a little confusion, hard work, and sleep depravation. I'll still kick you're ass.
"if you strike me down, I will only become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."