Sitting at Deanne’s house, watching the sun go by. She keeps it dim in here, and we struggle with blinds and drapes in an effort to let some of the outside world in. The dogs keep constant vigil at the door, waiting for their guardian, or perhaps for unwary joggers to bark at. Watching the surprised faces as they veer off their course would be a lot funnier if we set up something for them to whack into while their attention was diverted from their course… then we could let loose the dogs of… hair…. and Abby would bark and bark and bark and Jessie would… well, if they’d been running for long enough to be smelly, perhaps go and try to roll in them.
Ok – writing more. Heather’s mom just called and is scolding me. I’ve gotten some scolding from a couple of other fronts too, I’m WORKING on it!!!!
Saturday, Heather and I made a speed run from where we stayed with Jamie down to our first ever gig in South Carolina.
Now, I had no idea what to expect. Our friends Someone’s Sister had hooked us up with a woman who was “booking a bar called Kickstand’s” in Myrtle Beach… I think they had initially been booked for the night, and then when a conflict came up, they graciously handed the gig off to us… for that I am very grateful.
So, bar in Myrtle Beach. I got in touch with Carrie Stone who was booking the event, told her my story – she’d seen us before and was really enthusiastic about us coming down. Hooked us up with a place to stay for the night, honoured us with the same contract terms as she’d given Someone’s Sister, and in general made it clear she was glad to have us.
The only issue was getting an address.
Now, normally there’s no problem. We ask for the address, generally it’s given to us. If that fails, we’ll google it and find their website and get the address from there. If that fails, there’s the Yellow Pages. This was the first time all of the above failed, and by Saturday afternoon, I was beginning to have misgivings about the gig.
Carrie, who was still unable to give me an address, sort of described the location – I asked her for cross-streets or landmarks, and she told me that, you know – there were a bunch of restaurants and things… there’d be a couple of tents… “oh, are we playing outside?” “You’re playing on the stage at Kickstands.” As if that answered my questions… she clearly thought there was no way I was going to miss the place, and I hoped she was right.
Oh, and she said it was across from the old “Suck Bang Blow”.
I’d also talked to Carrie a couple of months ago about booking in this block of time. Apparently it was biker week or something in Myrtle Beach, and she was always looking for good acts. However, this wasn’t Myrtle Beach, it was Murrell’s Inlet – though it was supposed to have a pretty good tourist market…
…
And so we travelled south and had many adventures. We encountered the frighteningly flamingoed South of the Border with their huge “S.O.B” water tank, and we faced the waterfowl impoundment. Slowly we approached Myrtle Beach, and slowly the presence of bikers on the road became steadily more apparent. The packs grew.
It was around this point that we heard an advertisement for Kickstand’s on the radio. Live music and beer for the 2005 Biker Rally, and they gave an address. We at least got to the right area, but at that point, normal conversation was being drowned out by the roar of engines. We found our place alright – parked and wandered in. No wonder there wasn’t a phone listing…. no wonder playing at Kickstands answers the question as to whether or not we were playing outside… no wonder Carrie figured we couldn’t miss it (and couldn’t give other landmarks). It was like someone had kicked over a woodpile and all the swarming ants beneath were belching smoke and dressed in chrome and leather.
I was too shy to take too many pictures of the aforementioned ladies. Maybe I’ll have a bit more of a wandering eye, an itchy trigger finger, and a lascivious nature when we go back on Friday and have some pictures to … peruse for l… for the Journal.
We had arrived, and now we REALLY didn’t know what we were in for. I had to call Amy just so someone else could witness the noise. I had to turn the radio up to hear it over the engines. All the local radio stations were playing their variations on the top 100 biker songs of rock… there were signs everywhere warning the bikers against carrying weapons, speeding, spitting, public drunkeness, and wearing gang colours. State police were everywhere. It was awesome.
The stage was a flatbed with flat tires set in front of a ramshackle construct built of 2x4s and apparently held together with beer advertisements. Men in wifebeaters and leather, women in chaps and leather, kids with leather caps and mullets. Familiar with goth counter-culture, this is a whole other animal. Every bit as fanciful in dress and posture, perhaps less subtle. A guy, upon seeing yet another sign to remind you it was illegal to be carrying weapons into the grounds remarked “What’re you talkin’ about pig? I AM a weapon!” Biceps rippled and skin glistend and bristled and in general, it was often hard to tell where the bike ended and the biker began. It’s not something I could ever be a part of, though not by choice, but physical size.
Tattoos and chrome and leather, putting to shame all of the pussy 80’s conventions that flaunted bikers as the ultimate evil.
Nancy, the woman running sound for the night was running late, and I’d like to think we were more a help than a hindrance when we showed up and offered to do what we could with the set-up. She was missing some cables and was running late but helping her lift amps was an excercise in chivalry rather than an effective assistance. She could’ve lifted me AND those speakers one-handed. I almost tipped backwards with a PA speaker off the stage onto someone’s bike, and she caught me and set me back on balance.
For all the chaos that went into setting it all up, things went pretty smoothly once they went. We ended up going on first, and going on again later, to massive response. I think no-one quite knew what to make of us at first, but we have a way of working harder when we’re unwanted, and sweating heavily under the stress of duress.
We rocked their leather-clad asses off in a performance that I’m pretty proud of.
