Day Seven: Thursday 9 March

   Greg guides us out of the Maryland countryside where his farmhouse is and takes us to a nearby eatery. I have a crabcake sandwich (it's Maryland, after all) and we all have a good time teasing Andy ISG that he possesses such arcane knowledge as the absolute threshold of sight (seeing a candle light on a clear night thirty miles away) and of sound (an analog watch's second hand ticking in a quiet room twenty feet away -- hey, Andy, how did they measure the absolute threshold of sound before analog watches?). Honestly, part of why we like to play with ISG is that their geeky dorkiness makes us feel more like regular rock band folks, since normally we're always the goofiest people in the room...

   Then we depart for tonight's show in Wilmington NC at a place called the Rawbar. It's the show I feel least comfortable about on this tour, since it's the only place that told us we had to bring our own PA, but it routed ok so we went ahead and booked it. Mattie, the guy who set it up books another actual club in Wilmington but they were full already on this date, so we are hoping it won't suck too much, and maybe it'll lay some ground work for the future.

   Alyson takes a shift driving and we immediately lose ISG's van because she doesn't get into the High Occupancy Vehicle lane. Wilmington's about 6 hours from DC, which is our first long drive in several days. Seriously, if we were a band up north, we'd play big cities all the time: all the cool cities are about two hours or less apart -- DC, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, a little further to Boston... shit, from Gainesville we need to drive FIVE hours just to get to Atlanta! Five hours is our AVERAGE trip to go and play for 30 people and make $50... crikey!

   Anyway, the drive is not terribly eventful, but it takes a while and we get to the place around 11pm, two hours late. We've been calling Mattie the booking guy over and over again, but he never answers. ISG arrives very soon after us, since Andy, the sole ISG driver, has the reflexes and speeding instincts of a dead grandmother. The Rawbar is what it sounds like: a frat bar on Wrightsville Beach (next to Wilmington), an oyster bar without regular live music. They have a stage, but no PA (which is why we brought one), but since Mattie the booking guy has not been around all night, they haven't been collecting any money at the door to pay us. So it really doesn't look like it's much worth playing. Democratically we put it to a vote, with PopCanon split 3-3 on playing, and ISG voting 2-1 FOR it, so we load in apprehensively. Fuck, we drove 7 hours to get here, we might as well rock, even if we'll make nothing and some frat guys will want to punch us for playing in 7/4...

   But here's the funny part: the show goes ok. Not many people in the crowd dig it, but ISG plays first (since they cast the deciding vote) and they smoke it, which revs us up. We play a pretty good show ourselves thanks to their rallying, and then load out with a whopping $15 ($10 of which we give to ISG for rocking our lame asses into playing).

   Now we have a problem -- where to stay? We had made arrangements to possibly crash at the home of Blue Lang, the original Semantics drummer, in Raliegh NC, but that's 2 hours away and we're pretty tired. So while most of PC goes off to enjoy the dark beauties of the beach (I hate the beach on principle, but I do enjoy it sometimes late at night, and I'm looking forward to spending a little time just relaxing in the sand), I go with some ISG'ers across the bridge into Wilmington to find a cheap couple of rooms. Naturally it takes awhile, and by the time we return everyone in PC is already in the van waiting for us -- the beach is in fact cold, and they want to go to the room immediately. As I grumble, we head right back, and for a little comic relief, I persuade Don into doing the Monkey Preacher, where he smacks the bible and condemns you for touching your genitals, all the while howling like a monkey and flinging his arms about. It's quite brilliant and I videotape it.

   ISG arrive soon after and we all sleep nicely in our adjoining rooms, and dream of the possible glories of tomorrow night's show in fabled Athens GA with our pals Ceiling Fan...

On to Day Eight...