Florida: the Sunshine State
New Hampshire: Live Free or Die
You’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania…
Dayton, OH: What the Fuck?
I mean really, Dayton? What the fuck? It’s not like you’re Balitmore. It’s not like you get points for being hardcore or anything… you don’t HAVE to BE this way! It could be DIFFERENT!!!
This week has sucked. Having Rowan along has made the logistics of our Lives trickier – dividing things three ways instead of two, not to mention having to have the truck. Our mileage is holding steady between fifteen and sixteen miles per gallon. We’re getting slightly better here on the flats of Ohio, but we’ll probably lose it again to the mountains of Tennessee. Still, Rowan is a glowing spot o’ sunshine in our Lives and it’s awesome having him along. Unfortunately, the week has sucked.
Sunday night we rolled into BuzzThru Espresso in Loveland, Ohio – far more out of the way than I’d suspected, still, promisingly hippie. Friendly guy behind the counter, interesting enough humans… who all moved outside as we started setting up. Maybe we should’ve played outside, maybe not. I don’t know… we took it as a paid practice and worked our magic at the guy serving coffee and whoever braved our noise to suckle at his caffeinated teat. To polish off the night, we couldn’t get in touch with the guy we were supposed to stay with for the night and ended up doubling back to Dayton to stay with our friend Sarah – thank God that some of the hearts He fashioned were kind towards last-minute changes in schedule…
So, caught in Dayton we reorganized our plans a bit. If we’d been driving the Saturn, we probably would have still aimed to go visit the Columbus Bar (where we’re playing tonight) to advertise at their open mic – but a 280 mile round trip is a $19 trip in the Saturn but a $50 trip in the truck – and so hit up the Chapter II open mic in Dayton instead. We’d been warned that the place was a dive, but it was actually pretty pleasant (though the cigarette smoke verged on the insane). T’was there that we met AJ who was our guide to open mics for the rest of the week. A good player and a good guy – we met a lot of people who promised to come to our Thursday night show, passed out a lot of cards, sold nothing. We got yelled to by a lot of drunk people.
Tuesday night, at AJ’s suggestion, we went to the Peaches Grill and played THEIR open stage. This was actually a really, really cool night – thankfully, AJ had gotten there early and signed us up – we actually went to the wrong address (I’ve already corrected openmikes.org – but MAN 104 Xenia Ave., Dayton OH is SO not the same thing as 104 Xenia Ave., Yellow Springs, OH!!!), got lost, got stuck in construction, freaked out a bit, and then got to witness some of the most beautful lightning we’ve ever seen. Blue-white bolts leaping from the clouds to the ground and green-white rips in the sky ricocheting from cloud to cloud. Fortunately we didn’t hit any rain until we got to the venue – of course, then the sky opened up and brought us the cold AND the wet and some right harsh pummelling. It wasn’t TOO bad but I was in full “why yes, I AM a drowned rat” mode by the time I’d made it indoors.
Great speakers, friendly host. His name was Rob too. Great pizza. The best part of the night, however, was the people. We reconnected with AJ, but in the audience we encountered the Ogre Music duo from the Faerie Festival! Out of New York, it was sheer coincidence that we’d run across one another her in the middle of Ohio – it was Lovely to see Scott and Samantha (aka the Gypsy Nomads) out and about. They have a Lovely charm to them that you should probably make an effort to witness… even if she ONLY sang in French. We also met another performer from New York: Meg Cavanaugh took my breath away and then grappled with my heart and ran away with that too. I’m by no means immune to the allure of the female singer/songwriter, but she really had me high. It was sort of pathetic. She stepped on my foot. Now we’re friends.
In any case, we met a lot of people who promised to come to our Thursday night show, passed out a lot of cards, sold nothing.
Wednesday we decided to take OFF. We’d seen almost nothing of our host (we slept through her departure every morning and were out when she came home every night) and it was time to go get some Mexican food and go OUT. We ended up eating at a cool little Tex Mex place she and her boyfriend adored and then went to a local dollar theatre – where actually we all went our separate ways again. I was NOT going to see 1408 again, so Rowan and I went to see the Invasion… and Heather didn’t want to do either so she wandered off to see No Reservations. About 2 hours later we all reconvened and were all quite satisfied that we’d have been PISSED if we’d paid full price for any of our flicks. We retired back to Sarah’s, watched Predator II till our brains liquefied and then finished them off with a couple of episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Oh – Aqua Teen Hunger Force. There’s something weird with that going on here. Last time we were in town I wore my ATHF shirt to dinner and we were approached by EVERYONE – the bartender, the server, our waitress… and I was complimented on my shirt and then scolded for not having seen the movie yet. The movie had been out for about a week and was hard to find in theatres. The fact that everyone in Dayton had already seen it sort of weirded me out.
Well, yesterday, I wore the shirt again. I got a lot of compliments and comments on it at Panera, and later at JC Penny. The opening act at the Nite Owl not only thought it was the coolest thing ever, but then went on to play the theme song for us. That was the last cool thing of the night.
Dayton? What the FUCK?
The Oregon District is known for its bars and theoretically for its music. After playing the Nite Owl we were to hook back up with AJ over at the Trolley Stop, perhaps to play, perhaps just to watch. With the evening starting at 8pm but ilyAIMY starting at 11pm, we figured we’d roll in a little after 8 and see what was going on…. and what was going on was nothing. The first band wasn’t ACTUALLY scheduled to start until 10, and really, they weren’t going to start till there were a couple more people in the bar, so who knows… the 8pm time sited on the Nite Owl’s website was something of a lie. And so we waited. I drank some water. I drank a 7-Up. I fell asleep on the couch. I peed. I played a video game on my phone. I explored the back of the bar. I tried walking around outside but there was a homeless woman with a cart full of yarn who kept telling me she Loved me and I didn’t like that much so I went back into the bar. I called my mom. I went back to sleep on the couch. FINALLY the opening act, Chaotic Dialogue, got up on stage. Their lead guitarist was awesome, beatboxing and rapping on top of his really smooth solos. FINALLY it was our turn to play – ilyAIMY hits the stage, empties out the bar and plays hard.
I was hopeful. Though most people left and though no-one who’d said they’d come did, the people that stayed were obviously REALLY into it. The whole night saw people clustered around Sarah and our merch table and the drunk guys who were yelling for SABBATH!!! had departed. At the end of the night we had three names on the mailing list, one CD sale enough from the door to cover gas for the truck and give us five dollars to split three ways. I was frustrated, I was tired. A guy outside wants to carry the drum and someone else asks for money. A guy outside tells me he REALLY connects with me and wants to give me advice – “you know what you’re doing wrong? Music should be free. You should be giving it away!” I want to hit him. I ask him how musicians are supposed to make a Living and he responds that we CAN’T make a Living like this. I tell him – not in Dayton. We’ve been making a Living like this for four years – and Dayton’s treated us like shit. I guess it’s kind of rude of me, he ows me nothing, no-one HAS to buy our CDs, but you don’t have to be a smug little fucker about it. Ugh. I’ve been working hard for the last couple of hours – and he’s going to tell me that just because I get some enjoyment out of it I shouldn’t charge for it?! I know it wasn’t meant that way, I know it was just the culmination of a shit week, but he’d really pissed me off.
Setting up on the raised stage at the Columbus Bar in Columbus, Indiana involved a lot of tiny, tiny stairs. Apparently they’ve had a 6 piece jazz band up there – I regard this as the height of tomfoolery. 
Our friend Adam Fitch (our first friend in Indianapolis, IN) drove an hour south to come see us at the Columbus Bar in Columbus, IN. He was also an excellent maker-of-noise and recorded the show, not to mention the fact that he’s just a fascinating guy. Looking down upon the heads of our audience at the Columbus Bar. They’re not paying attention now, but while we were playing this was one of the nicest audiences you could ask for – though a little creepy sometimes to be in a room full of screamers. Morgan Ostrander – home of the cardinal – is also a photographer. Check out her ork. (this typo being funnier than the correct sentance) Columbus, Indiana is apparently home to one of the FINEST tattoo shops there is. Check out this cardinal on one of our new fan’s feet.
And so we walk down to the Trolley Stop where AJ’s playing and we sit down with all our gear – a) there’s always the chance we’d get to play and b) with the lowlifes coming out to pray on easy drunken meat it seemed it might be safer to take it with us than leave it in the truck. The table next to us gets all excited and starts yelling at the host and at AJ to let US play instead… another artist, figuring he sees a kindred spirit in me comes up and gripes about how he’d been there waiting for hours but wasn’t going to get a chance to play. He goes up and gets into it with the host… on the way back to the truck we have one guy obviously casing us and our vehicle to the point that Heather actually drew her knife. (Rowan and I just loosened ours). Stopped at a traffic light a guy comes up to Sarah’s car and harasses her until we pull up behind her… I mean – it’s DAYTON!!! What the FUCK?
I was not kindly disposed towards the human race last night.
Tonight will be better. We went to the Air Force Museum during the day – it was AWESOME. We’re driving into the setting sun and like many beautiful things it’s blinding, but like with many beautiful things, I’m really okay with that. Columbus, Indiana will treat us better. Frankly, not much it could do worse. Unfortunately, my hope of having enough money in my pocket to purchase one of the locally made lapsteels looks pretty unlikely. This week has sucked.
