The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 14

Time is fucked on the road. It’s all blurry. What happened yesterday is in the same category as your last year in school.

I woke up at ease today. Peaceful. Moving out to Calgary – 7 ish hours. Gotta move.

We pile in the Banyion – some girls are screaming running down stairs. Who the fuck..? oh yeah, Amanda and Max. They came to say good-bye. That’s really nice. That’s something great.

We go for breakfast at a place called Harold’s. This isn’t a good place. They charge for everything here – and don’t tell you when you order something that they will. It’s like a hospital that way. Our server wasn’t happy to begin with but we’re very postitive people. This seemed to annoy her. Okay, we’ll leave her be. We do. Then it’s time to order. It’s all just plain breakfasts for all of us. Alex gets oatmeal and cottage cheese which he dumps ketchup into. I’ve never had it that way so I taste it. Naa, doesn’t do it for me. I like it plain better. Jon gets scrambled eggs and sausages toast and coffee. I have three eggs and hash browns. The first thing we notice is – ABSOLUTELY NO SUBSTITUTIONS!!! These owners must be sooo fucking cheep ass anal about everything. This is so far the only place I know that’s like this – except for down town spots in TO and Montreal. But believe me this ain’t one of those joints. Anyway. I also order sourdough bread. I like it so…Now Zasta has never had sourdough bread and wants to get some toast. But he doesn’t want an extra cost on his breakfast. So he clearly asks. “If I get this breakfast (pancakes and eggs with sausage), instead of the sausage can I get toast”. The waitress says “Okay, I’ll give you kiddy pancakes and that should do it.” Okay. He also wants an orange juice.

She brings apple. He accepts it.

We get our meals. It takes forever by the way. It’s okay. The sourdough is find but not outstanding. Then the bill.

Everything is an extra charge. No substitutions (you can almost hear Herr Gobbles shouting it!) so everything has an extra charge. Zasta’s toast – $3.09 extra, the pancakes are also a higher price. Then the juice 3.95!!! Poor guy’s breakfast cost him almost 7 bucks extra – just for juice and toast.

Stay away from this place. Harold’s Family Restaurant in Kamloops sucks man ass. What’s even worse than all of this – Zasta and Alex go use the wash room. When he comes upstairs the waitress – who things we’ve gone is telling everyone about this asshole who was just in there! Ahhhh! None of us like confrontation but when it happens – WE LOVE IT!!! He goes and stands right in front of her. The bitch turns beat red. Zasta calmly explains that there was no mention of extra charges on the things he ordered. In fact he even, and nicely, asked if their were – and she said no their wasn’t. So fuck Harold’s Family Restaurant. We kick dust off our shoes and leave.
On the highway, we hear a car horn and see a pick up truck with two girls zoom by. They give us the metal sign and wave frantically. The plate is from the Yukon. We pass them and it’s none other than Amanda and Max. One of them told me they were from Vernon and sure enough – they take the turn and wave good-bye for the last time…

Now we’re burning it through the mountains. We stop for coffee at a gas station where Barbara Jean – the most incredibly blond, fully made up, hot 16 year old stripper-wannabe cashier lives. It was like having a cheap Christina Aguliera (in her blond phase) giving you change for buying an apple. Not bad make-up either. Not enough lipstick for my taste though.

We’re on the other side of the Rockies now, descending into Calgary.

We’ve been driving for a while now when we arrive at The Thirsty Dog. It’s a rock bar straight up. We go in and Jess, the woman from The Devil’s Work Productions is waiting for us. She’s so nice to us. These are the kinds of people that make the Indie music biz a pleasure to be in. They’re rare. We’ll stay friends with her. This I know.

So we’re going on 3rd out of 4 bands. Great. Prime spot. We don’t care about the headline spot we care about playing to the most people. The other bands are fine with this. Thanks guys.

So we leave our gear stowed near the stage on this side of the dance floor and bring in the merch and set up.

I see our Tara walk in. We met her in Winnipeg. I give her a hug. She brings her little brother – a hard rocker named Jonathan. He’s looking forward to this. He won’t be disappointed.

Psychotic Episode #4

I’m not feeling great. I feel very alone and tired. Sad and pathetic. I’m looking for some kind of lifeline. I use the phone but there is only a victim of my mania to talk to. I feel my life slipping away. I ball my hands into fists so I stop spilling my life. Hold them in my pockets. Do people notice I’m a wreck? Is there anyone who could help me? I didn’t think I was failing but I think I am. I don’t see the same way others do, I’m a bad man for closing down on you. For being weak. For being a kid. I see creatures descending from the ceiling. Syrupy hands let them stick to walls. They leave red marks everywhere. I hold my head trying to block them out.

End Psychotic #4

Alex has an old school friend Jessy and his girlfriend Erin (who is pregnant, congratulations!) come to the show. Jessy’s cool and takes pics and Erin takes vids.

The first band, Hellrazer were hard rocking metal. They were good. They threw their cut of the door to us. I think that was spectacular of them to do. They know what it’s like being on the road. They know what it’s like to rock hard and get it done.

I ask Jessie the promoter if there was anything worked out with the bar. She said there was nothing – but there could have been… She goes and gets us a 50 dollar tab for food and drinks. Sweet! I have a Caeser Salad. Zasta, Jon, and Alex had the special of the house. It’s a double cheeseburger. They say it was very good! And HUGE! Alex said if it was a single it would have been fine.

The next band was called Bloated Pig. We like these guys a lot. Really great and heavy blues based music. Fuck yeah! And their were more than a couple of spots were I’d have loved to have been toasted, listening to it. Great!

Now it’s our turn. We set up. We had no sound check but the sound was just fine. We kicked into Skeeved from the intro and it was soaring. Everyone moved from the pool tables to the tables. It feels so good to play, like being washed clean. MAN In A Car is deadly. I popped another string! Argh. I grab my Fender Strat. We play PornoZING!!! This is a complex song with non-stop right angles. It fucking rocks! Again we end with Assaholic. Fucking sick!

I’m popping strings on my Elite guitar left and right. I have to file down the saddles cuz they seem to be sharp and cutting through my strings. I use 13 to 56 which are pretty heavy so it’s probably splitting the wire wrap on the string. Growing pains of a new guitar. I love using her though.

Jonathan, Tara’s brother says “This is the most crucial thing I’ve ever seen!” He liked it. Good. We talk about amps a bit. I tell him to check out Groove Tubes Amps. Their kick ass but controllable. And that beautiful tube sound.

We sit and watch the last band. Thrashers called Bravado. And then all the fucked up shit in my head spills into reality…

Psychotic Episode #5.

I get up and see Alex taking down the merch panel (it’s the wire mesh panel we have our merch affixed to). I figure he wants to start loading up. I grab it from him and take it to the Banyion.

Next thing I see is a hyper Alex with the merch boxes. He says something like “We better get our shit outta there cuz their’s some fucking assholes roughing people up.”

I go in to find Jess being shoved around by three or four fuckers. I really gets me when I see guys roughing up dames. Shit, isn’t that what Marv said in “Sin City”? Anyway she looks like she needs some support (understatement) so I go over and stand in front of her with my back to the fuckers. She’s hyper so I tell her to calm down and take a breath.
A little backstory here. This place has a reputation and these guys were SNOWboarding their way to an early grave. Put two and two together. I tell a few I see to call the cops. They look at me like I’m crazy. No, no cops. This has to play itself out.

I see Alex standing on the other side of the gear (that’s where all this is going down, right on top of our precious gear). Tara and her brother are there too. So are a few others – and now more of the Fuckers. Someone comes along and tries to get Head Fucker away. But now, because TGON is standing in front of his need for blood so he’s got us fixed. He’s out for us now. Head Fucker gets away (Jess is holding on but isn’t happy – who would be? Jon is to my left front by the gear. Alex is directly behind me and Zasta is to my left side.) . Head Fucker comes to me and puts an arm around me and speaks in tongues. I’ve heard it before so I know. He wants us hurting. I turn and move out from under him. Tara tries to break things up (this girl has some kind of character – she’s rolling up her sleeves, there is no way the Fuckers are going to touch her TGON! We all think she’s amazing! She has no problem calling the cops – but it’s so loud will they hear her?). I turn and a fist speeds by me and hits Zasta in the side of the head. Sucker punch. I grab his head and look. No blood from his ear. He says he’s alright. Nothing major just a shock at the stupidity of the whole thing.

We all feel it at the same time. We’re surrounded by the Fuckers. The camera spins around the scene, too fast, it’s too intense. We see TGON in the center of about 8 Fuckers who have positioned themselves to let none escape.

The Fuckers are here to make a point. They want to do damage. They want to kill. (later we see the weapons that we thought were baseball bats and lead pipes that they brought with them. These were twined with barbed wire and nails – that’s total darkness). Guy in a blue shirt comes to take Head Fucker away one more time. Musicians have timing. We see the break. We head for the door.

Jon is standing with us and suddenly he goes back. “Jon! What the fuck are you doing get over here!” I say. Alex and Zasta are saying the same thing. Jon grabs two guitar cases and turns. Just as all hell breaks loose. I see him running with the two cases like a soldier with ammo boxes. Behind him a mass of bodies and tables and beer bottles flying everywhere. But this isn’t a bar room fight. I’ve been in those. Those peak and then die. This, this is different.

We duck out the back and get in the Banyion. The only thing we’re thinking is Jess and Tara are still in there! We start up and go around the front while Jon calls the cops and an ambulance. Their will be blood here. I pull around the front and we see MORE Fuckers going in. They’re carrying what we think are baseball bats and lead pipes.

We go around the block and see some Fuckers run down the street. We hear the sirens. One of the running away Fuckers sees us and stops in the middle of the street. I drive by as he shouts something. We go to the front of the place that is now bathed in the fireworks of police lights. (I park in the handicapped spot. I wonder, for a millisecond if they’ll give me a ticket.). I jump out of the Banyion and walk to the door. Out comes the drummer from Bravado. His head is gashed when one of the Fuckers through a beer bottle at him. Then another one came and smashed a chair across his face. The EMT make him lay on the ground while they get a stretcher. He’ll be okay. But I think he’s got a concussion.

I walk in. Is this the same venue? It’s a wreck. A broken pile of glass, blood, chairs, booze and tables. I look around. There’s Jess and she’s is okay. They slammed her once or twice but she’s fine. So is Tara and Jonathan her little brother (Jonathan is totally hardcore. He made sure no one fucked with our gear! Fucking hardcore dude!). And when they see me they are all relieved that we are okay. Fuck, these people are amazing!!! Jess apologizes! Oh my god Jess, it’s not your fault at all, I tell her and hug her. We all do.

We start to load up the gear. The cops don’t question us. They just keep saying “You guys are in the band right?”. We look over to the police cars and there on the back of the squad car were the weapons I mentioned. Spikes and barbed wire. We find out that a couple of them were caught trying to get back into the bar through the back. Geeze, stupid.

Anyway we’re putting the last bit of gear in the Banyion and two girls walk by and in all seriousness say to me: “See what your devil music makes people do!”

End Psychotic Episode #5

We say good-bye to Tara and Jess. Matt her boyfriend buys a CD and a patch and tells us we were awesome. Hmmm, how come we feel like powerless cowards then? I think I’m going to train to be an Ultimate Fighter in my down time. TAP OUT!

We’re all wired as we drive to the hotel on the other side of town. I can’t see sleep at all. Neither can Jon, Alex or Zasta. We decided to blow out of here (excuse the pun) and go to Edmonton three hours away. It’s 3 am right now.

We miss the turn to the 2 north. We see a gas station and I want a coffee so we stop. We’re in there waiting for the fresh coffee when Katie and her friend (Jay?) came in. Katie wanted some attention obviously cuz she comes up and say “Hey are you guys in a band?” We’re on!

We charm the pants off of her – well, not literally (if we only had more time!) we actually charm a TGON hoodie on to her. She buys one and we throw in the EP because she bartends at a local bar that would play it. Cool. (See pic). We take pix with her. Two nice people. And two new important fans for us. This is why we’re on the road.

We see the sunrise as we drive into Edmonton. The Sandman was booked tight so we’re staying at the Windgate down the street on 100 ave. Really nice hotel. Clean and new. We even got a full morning breakfast. And then at 8:30 am we hit the beds.

I fall asleep.

Somewhat Related Entries

• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 8
• The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 6
• The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 7
• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 2
• The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 16