from tom:
we wake up and clean up at the great home of an old promoter
friend of mikes named jim, he is another person that I wished I
had more time to talk with and maybe we will in the future. we
head towards gainesville and a show at a club that bill from the
causey way runs. the gig tonight is going to have three other
bands opening and each group will perform one side from the
minutemens double nickels on the dime record, this sound intense.
as we pull into gainesville we are surrounded by the orange and
blue flags and face paint of their beloved gators in celebration of
their homecoming weekend. what a drag. we find the club and I
clean the dirty grease out of the vans sliding door and start to load
our stuff. were a little early and I do some guitar maintenence and
hang out with some of the causey way.
vince and I run over to an italian place for food before the gig and
walk back to the covered dish to check out the bands. everyone
seems to have done their homework and the old minutemen tunes
sound great after such a long time since Ive heard them played
last. theres a good all around vibe in the room and we play a good
set too and spend a little time hanging out with the other bands
before heading off again. we make it over to bills appartment
where we are sleeping tonight and I hit the sack right away, tierd
from another long day and I know tomorrow will be one too.
from vince:
we're in gator country. the local college team is the big news in
this college town, especially on this homecoming weekend.
everything in town is painted orange and blue, the team colors of
the celebrated 'gators, and orange and blue balloons are
everywhere as are banners of the same colors waving from ariels
on suv's and cars full of ball-cap wearin' 'gator fans. watt shouts a
friendly "howdy gator!" to passers by. he conjectures that we
should create and drive the streets with a gator float with a lazy
susan rotating a scene reminiscent of the "chain drive" sticker we
saw in madison, wi, except with gators forcibly buggering a jock.
the chain drive sticker was a band sticker with the chain drive
name on it and a "tom of finland" gay-porn scene involving
muscled leather bound police looking dudes violating a similarly
muscled "victim" at nightstick-point. there never seems to be
enough time to do all the things one wishes to do, eh?
we get to the covered dish, a great club there in gainesville. bill
from the causey way - button causey - owns the club. he also runs
a fanzine and a record label. this is an amazing individual, finding
a way to do all this stuff. maybe we should build that float,
damnit! I was there at the club in '95 with watt and the crew and it
was one of my favorite clubs and gigs.
the gig is especially cool because the three other bands are
doing
sides from double nickels. three-way-tie is the first group, and
they do their side a lot of justice. they are on the jazzy side, which
is cool, because they are approaching the daunting material their
own way. nonetheless, they don't take too many liberties - they
nail it big time. they're all great musicians. in fact, the drummer is
so friggin' smokin' it freaks me out - I think: what right do I have
playing with watt when this guy is nailing the georgie parts so
well, and adding his own adroit skills to the mix? same old mind
fuck, different twist...anyway, the drummer also does a d.
boon/watt puppet performance that adds some comic relief to the
proceedings and at the end the guitarist and bass player both play
basses with extra strings and tear it up. well done, gents.
the mercury program are next, and they have another great drummer.
now I'm really sweating - I have to get up there and show why I'm
involved in this thing - I have to bring my own gifts to the table.
hayride is next and are the most rocking of the three - the others
weren't less good, they just hit it less hard. matt is the drummer
of hayride, and tom and I got a chance to talk to him a bit - great
guy, and one hell of a rocking drummer.
I got up there intimidated like I mentioned - hey, I'm being
honest here, sorry for the sniveling. I kind of fluffed the opening
get gettin' solo again - as watt says, once is a clam, twice a
syndrome. but the crowd is behind us, so I am trying to shake my
personal gig demons using their good will and spirit. they help me
a great deal and I'm able to get out of my own head and into the
moment for much of it, and the response is great. afterwards jess,
a cool head from the audience, offers chow at his family
restaurant. we arrange breakfast the next day...he and others help
with the load out, which is much appreciated.
we head over to bill's afterwards and we, watt, josh, bill, tom and
I do some herbally enhanced philosophising. tom, tired, hits the
hay first. I'm tired, too, but mike is on a roll, holding forth on
Tesla and whether or not nature is binary (as per 0's and 1's,
computer language...on/off). it's good grist for the brain-mill, but
eventurally it's time to nod...
from watt:
pop and hoof around the neighborhood. the park across from jim's
pad has a little league field. sort of like seabee field next to the
navy housing in pedro where I played as a kid. they have a few
signs on the outfield fence of business sponsors where we had the
names of navy ships that were our sponsors still, it's kind of the
same. makes me think of my boyhood days and all them games. I
played four years in the little league. everybody in navy housing
played. it was a way for us to make up for the fact our pops were
all on boats over in viet nam. the couple of pops left were like
shared between us all as coaches for our teams. I wonder what
happened to all those cats I met over those years, sort of like tour
now where you meet folks for one day and then it's the next town,
the next gig, the next tour. trippy about that. I reflect.
get the paper and it looks like a federal judge is socking it to bill
gates and his twisted empire. good. fucking prick. microsoft sucks
shit through soda straws. imagination robbers, inovation stiflers,
market controllers, you name it. if you want to use free market
words: inferior products propped up by coercion and intimidation.
all those years of cold war against monolithism to make way for
this shit, our own homegrown version of monolithism? fuck that.
another "headline" is about disney profits being down. on the front
page of the paper? I guess disney does run this town. I have a talk
w/the two austrian friends of jim's about my impressions regarding
things worldly and come down kind of hard on some things here
but also regarding their land too. and both of our histories. to
point the finger and not admit your own shit is a trap that will
make you forever self-important. I dig meeting interesting people,
it makes life worth living. it's a journey: finding out things and
suffering from this disease of curiousity. I love it. makes me think,
always thinking and re-evaluating - good exercise for watt's brain
(or mind?).
I drive us north to gainesville, home of the university of florida
and isn't our luck that it's homecoming time. isn't this shit for high
school? the roads are totally plugged, everything saying "go
gators!" we have to laugh. what a way to have fun, everyone liking
the same thing. gotta laugh some more. sports is about some kind
of competition but they line up some weak team so they can beat
the shit out of them for the "homecoming." I'm hoping big time for
an upset. tom and vince marvel at the circus, what a study in herd
behavior.
we soundcheck and then I finish yesterday's interview w/gabe at
some pizza pad. tonight's a trippy show. we're at the _covered
dish_ and three bands are going to open (_mercury program_,
_hayride_ and _3-way tie_) and play most of "double nickels on
the dime," a minutemen record from fifteen years ago. I go to the
van and konk and wake from time to time hearing some of the
tunes. I get weird feelings but gotta let them go cuz d. boon
meant a bunch to a lot of folks and he's not just mine. he touched
and continues to touch many hearts w/his words and playing. it
would be selfish to say cuz we were close, he belongs just to me. I
think it was so sweet of these cats to play for him - and for george
and me too from that time when we were younger that I have to
push down the feelings of loss and sadness. it's a trip for me and
it's weird taking the stage after them.
but take the stage I do and play very much in the moment. the
pliers play great too despite some clams. we blow the ending of
"the red and the black" out of the water but that doesn't sink us,
only focus more. soundman mike does a great job. the folks are
great w/their vibe and I try to articulate the spirit I felt all those
years ago playing as a minutemen by trying find our own sound
and tell our own stories. I think they get the picture. it's about the
potential, not the form. what is to be done? where are we going?
why? a lady cleaning up asks me to sign her broom. lots of good
feeling in the pad keeps me in the now so I don't space too hard.
bill, the boss invites us over to his pad to konk and I talk w/him
and the causey way drummer josh about shvitzs and saunas. the
way you can work your heart like a motherfucker w/out moving an
inch. the shit is intense and takes some discipline but is way worth
it. of course, the spiel diverts into other stuff too like the sins of
the fathers and folks having no tolerance (josh was tripping on me
telling him about sitting in this shvitz next to some old man where
the steam was so thick all I could see was the camp number
tattooed on his arm). mota gets you talking that way, connecting
all kinds of stuff. whisky too but no whisky for watt this tour. gotta
konk now, it's late.
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