Shock/Neff TOUR DIARY: pre-tour day 1

Tour diary time. I know I started a recap of my west coast tour and didn’t get far into it, but now I’m launching into a realish-time account of this little trip to the Midwest and back. This time Radio Shock is travelling with Dick Neff, so since we’re splitting drive time, I’ve got some writing time.

Unofficial night one of tour was a show at Death by Audio in Brooklyn, a place that feels pretty much like home, since I’m there about once or twice a week on average. Life is pretty weird now. But that’s good. It just turned fall and I had this week tripped planned and a break planned from this real job. Then the company writing me checks decided to reorganize, please make new versions of all our website, logo, promo materials, etc. in time for this big event in a couple weeks – oh, and by the way when you’re done with that, you’re fired.

Seems like a pretty dumb way to go about things, but hey I’m not a corporate decision-maker. Just a coincidence this synchronized with start of a tour, but it’s made the last week crazy. Little sleep, didn’t even have time to practice or decide what I’ll be playing, barely got a handful of T-shirts made, and a show the night  before packing and getting out of Brooklyn.

The Death by Audio show was GREAT. Set up by Weasel Walter and featuring mostly bands that are amazing and famous-in-my-mind. I played promptly at 9 (:07) and still at the end of the short set there was a full room. Not packed, but enough people that I couldn’t see the far wall, which is where my standard for a “good crowd” is at. It was definitely a no-practice show, lots of punching buttons randomly, that device just makes a buzzing noise so can't play that song, let’s see how this song goes... but admittedly that’s kind of how it works even when I am really in practice.

Greg Fox and G. Lucas Crane Duo set was crazy and fun. Lance/Dick Neff commented that they should call this collab Fox and Crane, since that sounds like a kung fu movie. Lucas did his super-garbled/scrambled tape loops (plus extras) thing, and Greg did super-fast but loose as needed drums. The styles merged really well.

Xaddax are killer, Nick Sakes of Dazzling Killmen fame and Chryssie of My Name is Rar-Rar fame (-in-my-mind). Hard mathy punk/noise rock. Cellular Chaos, which is the noise-glam band where Weasel plays guitar. It was the last show for them with their current bassist Ceci, so maybe some of the crowd came out to see her off. And up last was Microwaves from Pittsburgh, legendary dudes who are super-skilled and play hard.

Actually, everyone else on the bill was a skilled musician, which is still a little intimidating to me. I don’t even know any chords. But aesthetically, all the bands were kind of on the same page, so it was cool.

There was a really cool contingent of kids at the show who were visiting from South Australia! (I forget the town name) and they were dancing for every band, which is AWESOME. They told me about how Lightning Bolt played in their town and it was the best thing ever and they were going to see Lightning Bolt play the All Tomorrow’s Parties fest later that week. I am SO glad they found our show. It totally made everything that much more awesome. They told me to check out a band called McDonald Duck Éclair, which I can just tell is killer from the name alone.

Lance/Dick Neff showed up for Microwaves’ last song in his enormous van, which is our tour vehicle: The Crimson Juggernaut. Dick Neff wasn’t playing because I just got myself added as the one-too-many-bands late addition myself.  We went back to sleep at my apartment, me for just a few hours, doing more work for my ex-job (why?) into the night and starting the next morning!

END DAY ONE.

Stay tuned for further adventures in which we find out where the Harrisonburg show was moved to and why, and whether Lance's tour van is totally busted or just out of gas! TO BE CONTINUED...