Author: Ira

A month-long tour of the Pacific begins on February 18, 2007 in Tokyo, where we open for Clammbon.  One presumes their fans were slightly befuddled when we were invited to bumrush the headliner’s set for our first-ever performance of the lp version of “Today Is the Day.”   A more spontaneous bit of jamming occurred at the Biarritz disco, the unlikely venue for our greater Tampa visit of 1991.  The drummer for Smoldering Ashes, tired of waiting for us to finish before he started loading out, drunkenly and/or obliviously sits in with our quiet encore as he lugs his unpacked chimes out to his car.   What I find most curious about that day is that Georgia and I played six songs on WMNF in the afternoon.  Six songs!  No wonder we didn’t have time for a lunch detour.

 

“Say something once, why say it again?” suggested David Byrne.  Sage advice, no doubt, but nevertheless I reiterate: Our favorite city to play in Florida was Gainesville (I say “was” because our last show there was in 1996).   We were there for the first time on February 17, 1991, and had a fantastic show at the Hardback Cafe.   Having done one four-song encore, we were brought back to the “stage” (there was no stage), amid numerous requests for “Emulsified.”  Problem was we had played it the night before, and that in itself was rare enough; to perform it on consecutive nights made no sense.  We struck a deal: If someone would sing it with us, we’d play it.  In my memory,  about a dozen people joined in,  probably a sizable percentage of the audience.  Before the evening is over, we did a third and a fourth encore, not to mention taking the photo of Georgia reading the Julie Christie biography that appears in the art work of May I Sing with Me.

 

                                                     Gainesville High School yearbook 1968

In 1991, we worked up a version of “The Reason Why” by the Wombats.  We played it a few times in the first half of the year, including February 16 in Tallahassee, and then put it in mothballs, pulling it out twice in Cleveland, once when singer Victor Halm was in attendance, and once more when he joined us on stage.  And then out of the blue, one other time, in Brisbane 2010 . . . also on February 16.  I know!  What are the odds, right?   Same date, 2001, we’re still in South America.   Every venue is providing us with amps and drums, but that still leaves a mountain of guitars, etc. to check onto each of our many flights, always preceded by a lengthy negotiation by our promoter Marcos.   Today we land in Santiago, Chile, but some of our equipment is either still in São Paulo or maybe somewhere else entirely.  We borrow stuff from the other band on the bill, Enmascarados de Monterrey, while Marcos attempts to ensure that at the very least our missing gear arrives by the time we have to depart for Montevideo (it does).  It’s the best show of the tour, one of favorite shows ever–at some point someone runs on stage, grabs me, and won’t let go, ripping my shirt.  Hard to believe, but this had never happened before and hasn’t happened since.

 

 

February 15 is a day of unexpected encores: opening for the Feelies at the old 9:30, we somehow end up playing one; last year at the new 9:30, Bruce Bennett joins us for “Who Are the Mystery Girls,” an impromptu tribute to the just-departed Shadow Morton.  But our favorite memory of the day occurred in 1991,  on our last tour before James joins the band.  Wilbo Wright is playing bass, and Dave Doernberg is helping out.  We’ve played Atlanta the night before, next stop Einstein A Go-Go in Jacksonville Beach, roughly five hours away.   Our very well-thumbed Real Barbecue book informs us that a mere one-hour detour and we’re breakfasting at Hook’s in Milledgeville, GA.  It’s our first (and to date only) experience at a pull-your-own barbecue place.  We enter the front door, and each of us given a styrofoam container and directions out the back to the pit.  Taking some tongs from the wall, we pull as much meat as we want from the pig on the fire.  Back in the main room, as it were, it’s weighed and garnished with white bread and sauce.   Georgia is first to the cash register.  She orders a drink, and is asked, “Anything else?”  “What else do you have?” she replies.  “Nothing.”

 

 

At shows over the years we’ve acknowledged not only Hanukkah, but Easter, Passover, Halloween, Christmas . . . we even performed “Turning Japanese” in Hannover, Germany in honor of Mao’s centennial.  But I can find no commemoration of Valentine’s Day in the archives.  Not at 1988’s triple bill with the Lazy Cowgirls and Giant Sand in Los Angeles, not in São Paulo in 2001, not on WNYC’s Soundcheck last year.  Nothing.

 

Having learned most of what I know from Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, there’s no place we could have been more excited to find ourselves on February 13, 2010 than Tasmania . . . with the possible exception of Pismo Beach.  (Why do you think we ended up in Hoboken in the first place?)  The concert took place at a winery, and if in some respects it suffered for not being the most rock ‘n’ roll of environments, at other times the environment was fantastically un-rock ‘n’ roll–ever since, we’ve tried without success to once more have a private chalet double as our dressing room.  “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House” as an encore?  Must’ve been a request.  The next day a local took us into the bush; OK, it was more of a petting zoo, but you can bet we heeded the warning: Box With Kangaroos at Your Own Risk.