the BellRays/Supersuckers Tour Journal DEC 2017
BELLRAYS TOUR JOURNAL DEC. 2017
Here it is! This is the official journal of our tour with the Supersuckers! It's going to be a pretty dry read mostly. Just the facts ma'am...just the facts.
Dec 1 Friday the Backstage Bar and Billiards, Las Vegas NV
Bernard is flying into Vegas and going to meet us at the club
Marty arrives at the studio 10am with his Dad (Marty) and his uncle (Junior). Marty tells
us he never got to tour with the Faragher Bros back in the 70's. He got to see
Rufus, Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder
We pack the van while Lisa advances the shows
We leave around noon and go to the guitar center in San Bernardino to pick up a guitar
cord and a mic clip for Lisa.
Lisa goes to Staples for some clips for the merch.
We go to In n Out and the line is insanely long and we finally hit the road to Vegas by
2 double doubles, Lisa's has grilled onions, an order of fries and a diet coke
The drive up is pretty easy with light traffic and no accidents.
Lisa falls asleep for about an hour and a half.
We get to Vegas around 4;30 and check into the Stratosphere hotel where our rooms
are comped and that's awesome! We go straight to the club because we think we have to be there at 5.
The club is closed and the SuperSuckers van and trailer is there but the band is not.
The Supersuckers arrive and we talk for a bit and get reaquainted. It's really great to see
Eddie again and we all agree that this is going to be fun.
We find out the club is not going to open until 6 so we walk up to the Fremont
Experience where we find a White Castle.
The Supersuckers go to their hotel to pick up a guitar.
Lisa and I get a couple of sliders each and we hang out for about a half hour before
heading back to the club, which is now open.
Bernard is there and we load in.
The Backstage looks like a nice place. It's big and has pool tables, black light posters,
and a big stage, but it's drink tickets (2 each) for the band and they only get
you Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's cold though so that's good.
The Bomb Pops show up and we meet them for the first time, 2 girls, 2 guys.
The Supersuckers sound check and then we check Lisa's wireless mic.
Lisa breaks down the merch into a single box that can go out on the floor and she and
I set it up at the merch table next to the Supersuckers merch.
The first band finally starts playing at 9:30. They're a country-ish band whose name
I can't remember. They were ok but they played a long time setting the night
The Bomb Pops get on and race through their set. They know what they're doing but the
vocals are buried really far back, so are the solos. It makes it hard to get a read
on what they really sound like.
Our set is a work in progress. At times we sound pretty good. At other times it sounds
like we only practiced 3 times. We hit the wall on "Never Let a Woman' and
actually have to start over. Once we do that we manage to get through the rest
of the set without casualties and even shove two christmas songs ( Mary Xmas
and 'Christmas is Coming') in that come across pretty well. I'm anxious to get
to the 3rd or 4th show and everyone's dialed in.
The Supersuckers are tight and fill the room up with sound. There's a bunch of people
coming while they're playing and they've stopped charging at the door. So
people are wandering in to check it out. Then they wander out. It's Vegas and it
seems like the people are looking for something that they wouldn't know if they
After the Supersuckers get done playing people start settling on the merch table and
a couple of them are really talkative. I don't think they understand how tired I
am and how badly I just want to shut it down and get to bed.
Finally, we're loaded out and ready to leave when we find out that the owner of the club
Eva has offered to buy our dinner at the Claim Jumper in the Golden Nugget so
we go to eat (we haven't eaten dinner yet).
We walk 10 minutes to the Golden Nugget (it's cold) and sit down. The foods good. I
ordered pancakes, hash browns, bacon and two sunny-side up eggs. Lisa got
the chinese chicken salad. We ate it all and as we were getting ready to leave Eva showed up and we talked to her for a bit. She's really cool and a big part
of the LA club scene. She opened the Martini Lounge and the Dragonfly, sold
em and then moved to Vegas and opened up the Backstage.
It was 4:30 am by the time we started walking back to the venue where we picked up
our van and drove back to the hotel.
We woke up at 9:45 and immediately called down to get a late checkout (noon).
We ran a bath and enjoyed it immensely.
We re-packed the van in the parking lot and hit the 93 south.
The 93 is a really beautiful drive. It's about 4 hours of desert scrub, Joshua trees and
saguaro cactus (my personal favorite). The saguaros get thick as you get closer to
Phoenix and they're neat to see how different each one is.
In Kingman we stopped at a Sinclair Travel America and got food. Lisa and I got hot
dogs, a bag of chips and large diet coke (mine).
It seemed to take forever to get to Mesa and the Bar Red and we arrived just before doors
opened, threw our stuff behind the opening band on stage. I found a Stella and
sat my ass down for a few minutes before I helped Lisa do the accounting for the
Right now we're listening to Eddy and Marty learning "Beer Drinkers Hell Raisers' by ZZ
Top on acoustic guitars. Rockin'
The opening band (sorry, I don't know the name) is a rockabilly outfit (maybe more
punkabilly) not too bad but I really didn't get to see too much of them. I was
busy fixing the merch and getting our stuff ready.
Watched the Bomb Pops' set standing next to our drummer Marty and he seemed to be
getting some energy out of it. They were good and the sound was much better.
I could hear what they were doing much better tonight.
Our set was really good! For the second night we brought a lot of energy. Maybe a little
fast, some of the stuff, but there was a really energetic feel to it. I had a good time.
After our set I say hi to Fun Bobby. A really cool guy here in the Tempe/Phoenix/Mesa
area. He used to book us in Hollywood Alley when we first started touring
through Arizona. He's helped us out a bunch and I'm always happy to see him!
Now I'm listening to a bunch of pot heads that have invaded our dressing room tell inane stories about cats and dolls. I remember why I stopped getting high.
Thank god they finally left.
I must've fallen asleep because now the Supersuckers are in the dressing room and they
were just playing on stage when the pot heads left.
We pack up and leave and it's only 1 AM. Yippee!
We check into the Econolodge and find a parking place just outside our the window
of our room (which always makes it easier to sleep).
We ordered a pizza and wings from Zio's and scarfed it because it was really good.
Woke up around 9:30 and took a bath. The bathtub stopper didn't work so I had to wrap it in plastic (the stuff the plastic bathroom cups are wrapped in). That did the trick. Nice
Checked out at 11 and we wandered to the circle K to grab munchies and then to Safeway to get some more munchies while we waited to see where Fun Bobby wanted to go for lunch.
Met Fun Bobby at the Cornish Pasty Co. They make British pasties (meat or whatever baked into a dough wrapper. kind of like a meat pie). This place is great! I got a Reuben pasty and 32 oz hefeweisen and was completely happy. Lisa got a beet salad and a shandy. The bartender/waitress, Brooke was awesome! We had a great time.
We left for Tucson around 2;30 and got there around 4:00. The drive was easy and scenic, if you like the desert...and I do.
Another Econolodge. This one a little less nice than the last one but it was nice to lie down.
We loaded into the Rock a little after 5.
It's a spacious club with a lot of different little spaces coming off the main live music room.
I changed strings and then sat down to type this.
A few minutes later we head to the hotel to check in and chill out for about an hour before we go back to the club.
The room is a weird corner affair that feels like a converted store room. The bathroom is tiny and the shower is...ineffective.
The Bomb Pops have already started playing and there aren't very many people.
I have a theory on how to get a rough estimate on crowd size. Take the number of people who are in the crowd just before the first band starts and multiply it by 3. There will be AT LEAST that many people in the club come headliner time. It almost always works.
My theory works tonight. There are three times not very many by the time the time we s go on. But they're enthusiastic and we get a really good response.
The first show we tended to play too slow. The second one had all energy and the tempos were faster. Tonight we straddled the two and I think we're finding our rhythm, which usually happens around the third or fourth show.
We started using the Supersuckers drums and bass cab so we had to reconfigure how to load our gear in our van so we don't have to pull EVERYTHING out every time. This way our drums and bass cabinet stay in the van. The two heaviest things no longer come into the club. Nice!
We get to the hotel early (before midnight) which is great because we need some sleep.
Bernard and Marty did the driving today and I got to spend the whole ride in the back seat. It was an easy drive.
Had lunch at a Pilot and Lisa and I got Subway sandwiches. I wolf mine. Lisa saves half.
On the way we find out that the Bomb Pops' van has a brake issue so at best they're gonna be late, if they make it at all.
The venue in Albuquerque, the Sister Bar, is really nice.
The parking and load in situation is iffy though. But Bernard manages to snake a spot out front and we load in.
They have a great selection of sour beers and over the course of the night I had two Cascade's. Lisa got a Dogfish head IPA. Really good! The food is good too. I had a breakfast burrito. Lisa had the Frito pie. Tapatio hot sauce, christmas chili salsa...yep, hit the spot!
The Bomb Pops get to the venue about 8:20. They use the Supersuckers gear and start playing really fast. It's a good set for them since they didn't know if they were gonna make it or not.
The minute we start playing the lights on stage go out. The sound is still working so we keep playing while people use their cell phones to light us up. The blackout lasts till the next song. Other than that the set is great.
Loading out is interesting as there's a large contingent of homeless people wandering around or setting up there beds for the night all around where we're parked.
It's getting progressively colder as we head north.
We start out at 10 AM and head straight up the 25.
Once we're away from Albuquerque it's amazing how unpopulated the country is. I expected to see truck stops all along the route but there are hardly any. Towns are spread out.
There aren't very many troopers out either. Just a couple sitting in the medians waiting for speeders, which we're not.
We see a lot of antelope grazing in the fields along the highway.
We stop for gas and eats at a conoco station that has a Subway sandwiches. Lisa goes there. I get a hot dog.
A couple hours later we pull in for a bathroom break and meet up with the Supersuckers who've also stopped.
Bernard takes over driving and Lisa rides shotgun. Marty and I take the benches.
There's still 3 hours to go before we get to Denver.
Denver is officially freezing and the traffic is pretty bad. We lose our buffer hour for the hotel and we have to go straight to the venue.
The Lost Lake Lounge is a nice dive bar/club. The dressing room is small for ONE band and there's 3 in here.
The gig is sold out and the crowd is the best so far. It seems everybody in the place comes by the merch table and tells us how much they liked our set. With how many times we've played Denver I'm surprised at how many people haven't seen us before or even haven't ever heard of us until now.
After the show we head to our bomb ass hotel and sleep.
Did I mention it's fucking cold?