mike watt and the pair of pliers
tom watson - guitar
vince meghrouni - drums
watt - thud staff, spiel
steve kaul - the man outside the van
"searchin' the shed for pliers" tour '99
- part five -
friday, october 1 - salt lake city, ut
from tom:
after a couple hours in dense rush hour traffic we get to liquid joe's.
it's kind of a sports bar with good sound and earl is a very nice guy
with good folks running the place. it gets totally packed out and our
playing is improving every night.my high point is when I look across the
roomful of unfamilliar faces and see a friend from home, marc sundeen
(great god pan editor and writer of the soon to be released book: car
camping). it was cool to be surprised like that.
our night ends at mike's friend don's house and I get to sleep on a
waterbed, fun but weird dreams. at 8am we wake up and head along the
rockies towards denver.....
from vince:
I've played in this town a lot with sjb. it's beautiful city cradled in
the mighty wasatch mountains by the great salt lake. on the way in were
slowed by traffic from the I-15 work being done prepping for the oly's
to come.
we arrive at the club just in time for load in and we do the sound
check thing. I hit a thrift store across the way with tom and we augment
the plier uniform collection with some orange vests. there's even a
pocket for my harmonica. (harmonica, you ask? haven't seen the show yet,
have you?)
we stop, wearing our vests, at a chinese chow pad with a pretty good
veg and seafood menu.
"have you been hunting"? asks our smiling hostess. apparently what we
thought were highway worker vests was wrong. dinner is great - green
beans braised with garlic and mixed vegetables including bean threads,
tofu and great mushrooms.
it's a pretty cool gig, but I blow a couple clambos and it brings me
down. mike catches them all usually and the look on his face will make
it harder to feel like part of the cohesive rocking unit. at those
moments I feel more like the waterboy who spilled the gatorade bucket on
the playbook. from moments like that I can descend into negative tape
loops: "when will I not fuck-up", etc. then I stop looking at the
audience (something that takes iron will to do but that connects me with
the crowd which helps me rock more selflessly) and then I stop looking
at mike and tom and gaze at the heads and cymbals. then I miss
helpful-hint nods, gestures and cues from mike and the inspirational
antics of tom.
but, this time I fight that dread syndrome and don't completely suck.
at least that's how I remember it. mike advises "keep a light heart"
regarding the clams and that's good advice. he also advises eating
lighter. apparently he felt tom and I were food-burdened, less focused
and energetic. maybe so.
my friend from slc, jill, made it with a friend of hers. it is great to
see my scrappy little friend with the bright impish smile and
ever-present sparkle in the eye. a true friend by the great salt lake.
and charlie, sorry I missed you, brother - you're a great cat; like you
a lot.
we crash at don's, an amigo of mike's. we have a big drive tomorrow so
we crash without too much fraternizing. we get up and don makes java,
bacon sandwiches and fruit. what a bro. he also gives us cd's of his
band. brother don! time to drive.
from watt:
pop, roust and we're off. the sun's shining bright, sky's blue and
that's happening. the boat glides gently down the interstate through the
potato fields of idaho. we pass over the snake river and then south on
the I-15 into the big ut state. even though a big accident delayed us an
hour (a pickup rolled and rolled but luckily no one was hurt) we still
got lots of time so we stop to have a look at promontory, where they
joined the first rail line from the atlantic to the pacific w/a gold
spike. the story goes that none of the bosses could get the spike in so
they had to have some worker do it. no shit, who built it? the "town"
was actually a bunch of tents w/wooden facades set up just for the
ceremony. in fact, the funny thing was that the government made both
railroads link up cuz they were just gonna try to parallel each other
and grab as much land as they could. fuckers. like a couple a miles for
free each side of the tracks wasn't enough. a trippy thing on the way
was that we passed through the morton thiokol rocket development site.
this is where stuff like icbm, submarine, plane and jeep missiles were
invented. all kinds of magazines, bunkers and test structures litter the
landscape here and you can just feel the foulness in the land and air.
we see some deers chowing near the road and pray for them. weird ghosts
seem to drift about. I've been down this road before but it's good for
tom and vince to see this.
the winter olympics are coming to salt lake so they're expanding the
freeway to make way for the touristas. I went through this same shit
w/atlanta. it takes us two hours to go twenty miles. damn. good thing
w/got extra time. the pad we're playing tonight is one I've never done
before called _liquid joe's_ and it's in the southwest part, a place
they call "sugartown." I'm usually up by the temple. I'm always for
trying out new things. this pad's got an entrance that looks like the
front of a circuit city store and has the vibe of maybe one of those
live bait frat/jock pick up places. I play the funniest pads sometimes
but will not refuse anywhere cuz I want to reach and uplift all kinds of
folks. shake things up some. plant some seeds. the soundman matt saw me
when he was a kid at a pad called _the speedway_ where you had to bring
your own beer in a bag w/your name on it, put it behind the bar and just
drink from that. funny shit, huh? the laws are looser now.
I eat chow across the street at this chinese pad that has a buffet
w/mussels. where did they get these mussels in utah? they taste great
and the pad is all-you-can-eat. damn. I load up on these and soup and
then head for the boat to konk. it's a deep konk and I wake just in time
for the gig, missing the first band. my bud don's there (I went to
school w/his bro at san pedro high) and invites us to konk at his pad
after the gig. the pad is full inspite of what I thought about it before
and everybody's willing to go. we play a good set and I thank both the
house and my guys. we do "fear is a man's best friend," "song for igor"
and "the blue mask" as one suite and I tell the crowd it's for the war
that just went down in the balkans, the shit right now in timor and what
might happen right here in salt lake city. after the gig while I'm
slinging shirts, this lady asks me what I meant by that. I tell her that
folks act funny when they get the mob brain going and don't think right
and she's says "like you and me, right?" and I say no cuz when it's just
you and me, at least it's still two individuals dealing each other and
not going for the herd mind which allows for getting away w/much more
irresponibility. not that people can't be fucked to each other one on
one but it's a different thing. images making things so far away by
hinting you're so close you could never know who you might be giving the
ok to kill is foul. detachment through the phony intimacy of television
hurts. of course we got to learn to be civil individually and that's
where it probably all starts but in the nuremberg rally atmosphere of a
"rock" gig, I wanted to point out the danger of crowd behavior, town
behavior and nation behavior when shit starts getting sick. this to
temper all the cheering that might be getting mindless. remember, I'm a
minutemen and these issues are important to me. hope that lady
understands. the coltrane blowing while I was packing up kind of
prevented us from discussing it further cuz we were right below the
speakers and she couldn't hear what I was trying to explain to her.
damn.
we pack up and the boss earl gives me $250 extra cuz that was alloted
to catering and we didn't use any. I never do, one meal is good enough.
it's funny, young bands think that deli tray and shit like that is free
when it in reality it's getting paid for somewhere. I thank earl and we
bail for don's house. tom and vince konk and me and don stay up talking
about the american civil war. I told him I didn't dig the south bolting
and starting the war but I also didn't like the way the north fought by
trying to burn them all out and not heal the wounds. it was fucked all
the way around, everybody way too proud and not thinking of the kids. we
start talking about core beliefs and how shit always gets twisted into
making good things into clubs to beat other folks over the heads with.
don's a good man w/some sharp shit on the mind and I konk deep into a
pool of some heavy thinking. thanks don.
saturday, october 2 - denver, co
from tom:
we pass john elway ford as we approach the bluebird theater in denver,
a beautiful old place with good sound. I give my cousin buddy a call and
he says he will try to make it. soundcheck, wait, blah, blah... vince
and I chill downstairs and jux county play a good set to their locals
and I keepmy eyes peeled for little buddy.
by gig time my cousin is no where to be seen, to bad. we play good and
find a bed at a friends place and finally get to sleep. not too much
more for me to say, except tomarrows another big drive across the length
of kansas. [it's hammer time!]
from vince:
we are again blessed with good weather. once, with the quartet version
of bazooka in '97 we traveled the I-80 and I-25 in near-blizzard
conditions. we had to stop in los cruces when we were whited-out the day
after our freezing denver gig. but now it's sunny on the way down to
denver. we arrive at the club, actually a theater. it's a good gig -
we're hitting hard when we should and playing soft when we should.
things are grooving better.
we stay at laura's and critters abound. there's a great kitty-cat pablo
who keeps an energetic lab-mix puppy at bay without expending too much
energy - just the occasional swipe of a paw: "calm down, young
doggie!". pablo beds down
from watt:
we gotta pop and bail fast cuz it's one hell-ride to denver. we gotta
do the whole rocky mountains in one bound. the I-80 almost all the way
through wyoming. my ma was born in wyoming so I think about her as we
drive these rockies. she must think her boy's a fucking nut. I remember
her telling us when me and d. boon first started that it was sort of
like art. she loved d. boon and he was an artist, he could paint real
well. she figured it was just something we did as being together and
when we started doing w/george she dug that and him too. she still sees
me play from time to time. her pop did guitar w/a duo w/this young guy
who would sing during the 30s in vaudeville shows. he once told me they
made like two or three dollars a show but this was the depression and
you could do a big chow for thirty cents. damn. they even got to try out
for a columbia records audition but the kid's voice cracked and they
were scissored. trippy shit, huh?
tonight's boss is doug kaufman and he's done at least twenty gigs for
me in either denver or boulder. he's a bass player from san francisco
who always helped me out in the biggest ways. the best. I love having
raps w/him, we relate very much on the musical line both w/notes and
rhythms and w/the bidness. funny how shit goes through the changes but
in a way, stays just the same. when I come off the stage, he hollers at
me "cut the stallion at the mount and stuff it in his mouth!" (from lou
reed's "the blue mask"). he's great. the folks at the _bluebird theatre_
are too and the pad itself is righteous, some old theatre that's small
enough to sound good but have a neat vibe too, like from the old days. a
full crowd w/lots of life and spirit and it's a joy to wrestle the boom
tube for them. we go and go. tom and vince do a great job, much respect
to them both. I never stop and start slinging shirts immediately after
we finish. after that it's time to load up. whew, am I beat.
laura invites us to stay at her pad and we accept. as soon as we get
there I unflurl the blankey and am down for the count. head goes to
pillow in one swoop. folks are talking (it's saturday night and only one
in the morning) and carrying on, vince even smokes some mota and is
talking wacky but I'm beat up, fatigue-wise, to really jump in and join.
spiel after the gig can be really rough on my throat and I have to watch
it, careful. after a while I ask tom to pull on these roses which are
connected to the light switch and it's dark. I know this might seem rude
but what better way to signal the folks that sueno has descended? thanks
to laura for having us over and understanding. good lady.
sunday, october 3 - salina, ks
from tom:
[wednesday is a day off to drive]
from vince:
up and out. the conversations on this long drive go from politics to
history to routines concerning "the war hammer" and variations of farm
daddy, farm boy...well, now it's peg boy - it's a long story. watt knows
much history and it's always great conversation. both my compatriots are
great conversationalists. and when the stream of consciousness gets
going, things turn surreal. that's the way I like it, feel right at
home, yessir.
we stop in salina, ks and eat some sub-standard food at a place that
had some mom n' pop promise. sometimes you get the bear and sometimes
the bear gets you. we go to the neighboring mo-6 and crash.
from watt:
pop and jam to check out the van cuz where we stayed was off colfax,
which is heavy hood for denver. no probs but there is a yellow streak on
the side hatch. construction right near by so maybe some skip loader hit
us? it's sunday and the construction site is quite still, hmmm...
whatever, it's only a mark and a scratch and that won't her much. I
gather the pliers and thank laura much. she directs us to a chow pad
called "pete's" but when we pass it, there's some big line outside and
watt hates to fucking wait so we blow by, right out of denver, east on
the I-70. it's a trip how the town just ends in the east w/out any
'burbs. not used to that in this day and age.
I give thanks for the happening weather that we've had so far,
especially cuz those rockies can be intense but now we're clear of them
and it's all plains. today's our second day off for the tour. we got one
more and that's in the last week. this is what I call the stretch,
thirtyeight gigs in a row. "when you're not playing, you're paying."
we cross the border into kansas and cross another time line. two hours
from pedro now. we see a sign for an "eight thousand pound prairie dog."
this has got to be a fucking cement statue. one day I gotta check that
out. almost do this time. after many hours, I hand the helm over to tom
and it starts getting dark around salina so we dock there. some chow pad
named "bayard's" serves us up some crap. I get chili and have to use
pert-near a whole bottle of tabasco to get some flavor going. tabasco?
where's the habanero? why are the chow pads on the I-70 in these parts
crappy? same thing happen to the boat's crew last year in goodland when
"mazio's" slayed us. well, it was much worse last year, this dreck at
least didn't make us sick.
lights out and we're fartin' away.
- end of part five -