(Your hero live in the forests of Northern New Jersey; self-shot)
Hello, dear reader. I have just returned from a 19-day tour of the Eastern Coast and Midwest of the United States of America, playing synthesizers and bass guitar for the progressive rock band GA'AN.
(Ga'an live in St. Louis. Photo by the great Charlie Vinz.)
It sure did rain a lot - half-submerged trees and telephone polls were a common sight while driving across the near-South. We visited a couple places new to me, like Providence, RI and Carbondale, IL, both of which provided their own brand of excitement. Carbondale is a fantastic place to play if you are in a touring band; many thanks are due to the friendly folk at the Skihouse. In Providence, I was happy to play with Wolf Eyes and Black Pus, as well as see the building that formerly housed Fort Thunder. The next day, we caught a 2D screening of Thor with Misters Chippendale and Forgues inside of a gigantic mall. Despite severe disappointment at missing the extra dimension, I found Thor thoroughly enjoyable, and was happy to revisit the movie's extra-psychedelic scenes through closed eyes as we played intense sets in the following days.
(Outside the Olneyville, Providence compound that houses a large portion of Providence's art weirdos. We played at Soft Approach, a building a bit left of this picture. Picture taken pre-Thor.)
In beautiful Ithaca, NY, we played in a large ballroom with beautiful acoustics. I ate bad, "healthy" "Mexican" food, and we had all become cranky toward each other. However, we met some great people - one of whom was Bubba, promoter of the show and sleeping-place provider. He took the below video of our band performing "Arms They Speak":
Ithaca is gorgeous, and since we had missed our one chance for camping in Kentucky earlier in the trip (due to foul weather), we woke early to hike up Buttermilk Falls. It was, as my mother says, a sight for sore eyes.
(Your protagonist attempts a buffalo stance at Buttermilk Falls; Ithaca, NY. Is this a buffalo stance? Photo by Seth Sher.)
(Lindsay skippin' stones.)
(A rare, smiling photo of Seth.)
(The falls fell in short bursts.)
The next night, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we played with Richard Pinhas, of Heldon. Immediately following our set, Mr. Pihnas (who is, on this tour, performing with his handsome son, Duncan) immediately asked Seth to accompany him on drums.
(Richard Pinhas with Seth Sher of Ga'an on drums and Duncan Pinhas on electronics. Richard's main piece of equipment, an Eventide guitar synth, had broken earlier that day. Perhaps as a result, the sound was incredibly muddy.)
But hey - I've started near the end of the trip - let's go back to the beginning.
Not too much worth noting happened in Iowa City, IA, except Seth and I drank whiskey on some train tracks, where whiskey tastes best. I was afraid we'd play as poorly on all nights, but in a swampy basement in St. Louis, MO, we played quite well to an audience that included my Magical Beautiful bandmate Charlie Vinz and his temporary art partner Theaster Gates, as well as a confusingly-inebriated man quite out of his element. The latter can be seen, shirtless, in this long, VHS-edited video of our set. (I am not embedding the video here because it is quite long and my bass falls off my back early in the set, causing some tuning problems later in the set.)
We then had the day off, spending some time watching Seinfeld at our most gracious host Josh Levi's house, then driving through the rain to Louisville, KY, where we stayed with Cropped Out organizer and Sophomore Lounge-running Ryan Davis. We made the cover for the cassette version of the new Ga'an album ("Black Equus") and watched Curb Your Enthusiasm. I will never get enough of neurotic Jews!
(Here's Ryan in his parent's basement with a self-portrait pillow he made as a younger man.)
Ryan's sweet Grandmother awoke us early to do a ton of laundry, so we were off to Lexington, where we played one of the only rock clubs of tour and had some serious hang-time with Robert Beatty, famed member of Hair Police and Three Legged Race. After the after-party, as we hunkered down for sleep, Robert promised to be Ga'an's Roger Dean.
(Robert Beatty's cover art for the first Ga'an LP. His art for the second LP is forthcoming.........)
In Richmond, VA, we played a venue not suited to our sound nor size - Sprout, a vegetarian restaurant. Before our set, as I worked the merch table, a man named Dave wearing a shirt proclaiming himself "BEER-NEVOLENT" struck up a conversation. When I mentioned Chicago, he asked if I knew Bruce Lamont, mentioning that they had played on an album together called East West Blast Test. My ears perked upward, and I said, what did you say your name was? He said, "Dave Witte" and I said, "Holy shit! We were just listening to Human Remains yesterday!" A part of me reverted to the 1996-Tyson, when Ryan and I would sit around listening to the Human Remains 7" on Happy Days and freak out over the drumming. That part of me stayed alive for the next day, as Dave took us back to his house on the park and showed us his Beer-nevolence by sharing some highly-alcoholic drinks and allowing us to crash at his house. The next afternoon, he took us to The Black Sheep, home of the infamous Battleships - 18-inch submarine sandwiches as delicious as they were large. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture, but I can share this awesome Human Remains video! (Dave has also played in other metal bands I like: Discordance Axis, Melt Banana, Burnt By The Sun, Black Army Jacket, Exit 13 and Circle Of Animals.)
In Baltimore, we played at Emerald City, which is on the same block as about 100 other artist/musician/weirdo spaces. Perhaps you've heard about the weird Baltimore scene in the past few years? Emerald City was notable for being quite clean, friendly and well-run. We were happy to play with our friends and fellow Chicagoans, Deep Earth. Tony, the synth player, and I go a ways back to when my other band Magical Beautiful played a couple of shows with his former band Tirra Lirra on the East Coast a few years ago. Deep Earth specialize in a repeative, dark groove with floating guitar melody and synth oscillation.
(Deep Earth in Baltimore. L-R Tony, Otto, James.)
The Ga'an set on this night was probably my favorite of the whole tour. We certainly played tighter later in the tour, but I was flying pretty high during this set. Out music hit me in waves that overtook my body and made my brain feel electric.
Also on the bill were Deep Earth's tourmates, Food Pyramid, from Minneapolis. Very kind gentleman, I did not really get Food Pyramid on this night, but a few nights later in Brooklyn with a proper sound system behind them, they made a lot of sense. Mysteriously dance-able grooves rearrange themselves in unexpected ways.
(Food Pyramid live in Baltimore.)
Baltimore, in case you haven't been, is a unique city on the American landscape. I've been there a total of 6 days over the past 6 years, so I cannot pretend to know much of anything about it, but I do know that operates in a different rhythm and law-system than most of the country. Down the street from the weirdo art district is a beautiful, old cemetery, which we toured in the morning:
(Baltimore, in a cynical nutshell.)
(Facing the facts: no matter how much I love metal, I will never look evil.)
(Don't know if I've taken a better photo - Lindsay Powell of Ga'an, Festival & Fielded doing stand-up comedy in front of a comedy club-looking tomb.)
In Philadelphia, I hung out with my friend Yianni of the Hermit Thrushes. We played a poorly-promoted show in a basement record store, though of course there were some great people there. We drove that night to Lindsay's parents' home in the forests of New Jersey. Lindsay's gracious mother left out a meal of lasagna, salad and bread. There's no better place to sleep on tour than a bandmate's parent's home. I woke in the morning only to eat, watch a portion of Terminator 2, shower, then go back to sleep. When I woke up, it was early evening, and I took a walk in the drizzling rain. Within a few steps, the rain cleared, and I caught the following pictures:
(Half a mile from Lindsay's childhood home, I was reminded of the Head Of Femur's Vietnam song, "Jack and the Water Buffalo" with the lyric, "Oh-woah, twenty shades of green / The most beautiful country that he had ever seen.")
We then headed to New York City for our first of three shows in Brooklyn. I want to give a shout out to the dudes from Vibes Management for managing some serious vibes at our first show at Shea Stadium. While I am a big fan of Chicago's underground and all the people that work to make it work, Brooklyn's DIY spaces, (at least the ones that last), really outshine spaces in any other city I've seen. Things are generally run professionally, with a large crew of people hustling to make things happen, and an environment which encourages show-goers not to turn the venue into a garbage can. The night at Shea Stadium was part of a Midwest Showcase that featured our friends Deep Earth and Food Pyramid (remember them), Bones, and a great set by Radio People. Ga'an did not go on until 3AM, but when we did, it was great and sloppy:
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Afterward, we danced to songs I cannot remember and slept at my most gracious and wonderful friends' Ted and Kim's apartment in my favorite Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint.
The next day, loading out of Shea Stadium, we overlapped with a Dan Deacon rehearsal. He was playing with Liturgy's drummer Greg and some other dudes. FUN FACTS.
I only mention that because the rest of the night was a bit of a dud. We played the Charleston with Wizardry and Brooklyn Raga Association. Wizardry is a super burly metal band that I greatly enjoyed, and I snapped this pretty cool picture of Brooklyn Raga Association, who had their own crystal-manipulating light-and-incense dude:
I felt a bit weird spending three days in the hipper sections of Brooklyn, so I got lost on the trains making my way to Manhattan. There are worse places to get lost, however, and I heard some incredible music in the subway stations. You will be able to hear some of that music on a forthcoming episode of I Hear A New Radio. I was hoping to meet a High School friend (what's up Sivan?), but communication logistics kept that from happening. Instead, I did the honestly awesome tourist run of Central Park and the super rich areas of Midtown Manhattan.
(Chicago's parks are one of my favorite things in the city, and I know everyone is like "Oh, Central Park - whatever. I've seen New York movies before", but Central Park is the best.)
That night we played at the longest-running DIY space in Brooklyn (as far as I know), Death By Audio. I had played there a few years earlier with Magical Beautiful and loved it, but since then, the neighborhood has changed, and so has the artwork:
(Each wall of Death By Audio features a mural from a different artist. This one is by the lady from Screaming Females; former Magical Beautiful cover artist and Antimagic main-man Ted McGrath is currently doing the opposite wall.)
(One-time Ga'an tourmates La Otracina also performed that night with a new line-up that wonderfully highlighted the classic prog elements of their sound.)
Goodbye New York. Thank you for providing so much stimulation over my brief visits that I will never have to move there and pay your ridiculous rent.
Where to next? Ahh...Providence. I already talked about you. Then Boston. Did I talk about Boston? No? Well, Boston is the first city outside of Southern California and Utah which I was allowed to explore on my own. This was back in early 1995, when I was a gangly, greasy-haired straight-edge dude in training. Good thing my discovery of Converge and Cave-In (two fantastic Boston-area hardcore bands of the era) was a few months away, otherwise, I would have gone crazy scouring the streets for a glimpse of Jacob Bannon and Steve Brodsky.
Last time I was in Boston, my dad came to see Magical Beautiful play at the Middle East. Boy, am I glad that he wasn't in Boston for this show, for we played a totally disgusting basement. No offense to the denizens of the Problem House, for you were wonderful hosts whose excellence is duly noted, but the actual basement that acted as showspace was a hellhole. I left my keyboard setup out over night (in a corner I scouted as safe from drippings), and my synths still smell of ungodly sewage pipe drippings. Again - Problem House - I am not complaining - I had a great time; I'm just painting a mental picture. Skimask played, and we all LOVE Skimask.
Next was Northhampton, Ithaca and Pittsburgh, and I already talked about those places, too, which leaves the three midwestern C's - Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chicago.
In Cleveland I met Frank Sinatra, the cat, and was served wonderful food by John from Clan Of The Cave Bear's partner, whom I owe much more than a mere remembrance of her name (I'm sorry, the food and hospitality really was first class, I just can't remember anyone's name).
In the morning, we planned to swim Lake Eerie. After descending the trail to the main beach, we were greeted by an insanely huge sewer drain. Thereafter, the area became known as Sewage Beach, and we came up with an album name for fictional in-joke tour band Gutter Helmet: "Mental Sewage". With knowledge of the sewer drain coupled with several dead animals along the shoreline, we avoided the water and made our way to Cincinnati.
Along the way, we stopped for lunch, and I drank my first Bud Light Lime, perhaps the greatest beer I've yet tasted. Don't get me wrong - BL Lime is an awful beverage, but under these particular circumstances, I've not tasted anything better.
In Cincinnati we had some crazy interpersonal shit go down, which we solved by show time at this crazy-ass place:
(Cincinnati's The Mockbee - a former brewery-cum-party place that stayed around 50 degrees without air conditioning, while it was at least 90 degrees and humid outside.)
After the show, at 12:30AM, an impromptu decision was made to immediately drive the 300 miles back to Chicago rather than risk van/equipment theft in the sketchy neighborhood in which the Mockbee was located. I took the first four hours of the trip. Items on my iPod which kept me awake: WTF With Marc Maron; Comedy Death Ray Radio; The Clash "london calling"'; Minor Threat "complete discography"; coming very close to hitting a deer in weird Indiana fog.
Seth took over for the last hour of the drive. When I woke up, we were driving down my street at dawn. The mystical early-morning light coupled with the new Spring foliage which had grown in my three-week absence filled my soul with warmth. That warmth was compounded upon entering my home and seeing a copy, (actually, 500 copies) of Magical Beautiful's "here come the wild waves" LP for the first time.
It was also my 31st birthday, Memorial Day and new Ga'an cassette release day. I happily slept through most of it, right up until Leslie brought me some Memorial Day veggie dogs and potato salad. Ga'an played the Empty Bottle that night, and while I was happy to be around so many friendly faces, I was overwhelmed. Tour is my time to disappear into myself, my music and my bandmates, and to immediately be thrown in front of just about everyone I know in Chicago and have my birthday cake brought onto stage midset was a sudden reappearance that freaked me out a bit. That said, turning 31 was way easier than turning 30.
