San Francisco at last...

We only had a three hour drive to San Francisco after stopping at one of those roadside motels where people either collect money for their kidnapped victims, or dump their bodies. That was our reward for braving Grant's Pass and the death-snow the night before.  We were just happy to have made it down the mountain alive.  The idea that many people never made it out of this particular motel alive never swayed us one bit.  We were tired and there was no reason to continue.  I had made the trip from northern Washington to San Francisco before, laying in the back of a truck.  I mean laying, too... not sitting.  I was traveling with C.O.C. and the only room for me was on top of the speaker cabinets.  To put it bluntly, it blew!  Needless to say, I missed the view on that trip. This time I tried to soak it all in.  Just before you get into San Francisco the hills and trees begin to look like miniatures for a movie adaptation of a Dr. Seuss story.  The hills are really pronounced, but perfectly soft and smooth like green gumdrops with an even blanket of grass.  Trees grow in clusters here and there, but there is nothing like it anywhere I have ever been.  It looks like someone from another planet was trying to imagine what things here on Earth might look like.  Very strange, but captivating in a strange and curious way. 

Seattle, WA and Haunting Thoughts of The Donner Party

We made it to Seattle and checked into our hotel by about six o'clock Monday morning.  I got up around eleven and had just enough time to get some coffee and something to eat before we had to meet the other bands for load in.  Thomas met me while I was finishing up my breakfast on the fly and we talked about how the trip was going.  I've known Thomas since I was sixteen and it was great to be able to travel with him again.  He and I were in a band called Bloodbath back in high school.  We were kind of like a crossover band before the term existed.  Punk roots tempered with a touch of Celtic Frost and Iron Maiden. Regardless, my first band experiences were with him and it has been wonderful to have them again almost... gulp... thirty years later.

I had been looking forward to the show in Seattle.  It seemed like it would be a good one and I spent a long weekend there some years ago and had a really good time.  Unfortunately we didn't have much extra time because our drive after the show was about fifteen hours down to San Francisco, and believe it or not, it rained a lot while we were there.  Our hotel was not far from the University, but not close enough to take advantage of the kinds of stores one finds around campuses.  We did need some things from the Radio Shack and UPS stores that were right down the street when we left the next morning but other than that, coffee was the only thing nearby that I benefited from personally.  Rain and coffee... welcome to Seattle!

Next Stop: Bellingham

I was out of the hotel before anyone else every morning.  I have to be at work at 7:00 during the week, and I was always the one walking around town whenever Confessor traveled, so it was no surprise to find myself alone in the mornings.  Also, two of the guys often end up awake until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, but I can manage on less sleep than most people.  I knew I wouldn't have time later in the day to scope out our surroundings, so if I wanted to find things to photograph I had to do it before load in or whenever we left for the next town.  It's camera brain.  I had already checked out things around the hotel in Portland, but coffee and a surprisingly good cheese danish seemed a nice way to start the morning.  I used to drink coffee only when I would visit family.  It seemed kind of special, and I associated it with people I cared about.  A few years ago I had coffee two mornings in a row at work and I've had a cup every workday since.  Twice is all it takes sometimes to start a lifelong habit.  Ask any substance abuser!  My cup isn't always great, in fact some mornings it's downright disappointing, but every morning I have high hopes.  Wow!  I guess the "Brown Lady" really does have her hooks in me!

Embedded Reporting: Arriving in Portland for the Sunn shows...

Showing up to your airport terminal before the first shift airline employees report to work was new to me.  I can tell you that there are other things in life that are far more awesome, but we checked our baggage pretty quickly once people showed up to man the ticket counters.  I always choose window seats.  I can halfway escape my surroundings by soaking in what there is to see from six miles up, and I always wanted to be able to fly when I was a kid.  I was pretty jealous of birds and wondered if they took their superhuman powers for granted.  Birds get to see things like this shot of us landing at Chicago's O'Hare Airport for our connecting flight all the time, and you don't have to work if you can simply fly to wherever food is.  Like being able to fly wouldn't be cool enough on its own!  And unlike us people, birds don't have to pay for tiny bags of peanuts or worry about plummeting to their grisly demise.  Nor do they have to save for months to fly, which is good since they don't need to keep jobs.  Yep, I enjoy getting to fly every now and then.

Challenges, pt.3: Performing on a kit other than your own...

It is not always practical to travel with something as monstrous as a metal drum kit. They tend to take up a lot of space, and airlines charge twenty five bucks for your first checked bag, thirty five for the second and one hundred for every bag beyond that.  My own kit would have to go in eleven cases, so you can see how impractical it can be.  I have had to play on rented drum kits before, and it is always awkward.  Even setting up my own kit at shows can create some difficult playing environments.  My drums move ever so slightly away from me at the practice space so sometimes at shows I end up setting them up closer to me than I may have grown accustomed.  I'll know within a song or two because my shoulders will get tight right away. Kick ass!  Ten songs to go and I'm already fatigued!  Yes indeed, playing on a kit other than your own provides some interesting challenges.

Back from the End of Days...

Well, we managed to get back from our travels in one piece, and just in time to have Christmas with two different sides of the family.  Monica was pretty sick for about a week and is just now feeling normal-ish.  I made it through the last couple of weeks without catching cooties from anyone, even as the kleenex piles grew and grew.  I'm just now catching my breath while enjoying some solid down time after so much rock and holiday food.  It's nice to not have anything big looming on the horizon just yet.  

The shows with Sunn O))) went really well, and they were great hosts.  I've thrown a few photographs together while I try and piece together our trip.  In the meantime, thanks to Sunn, Pete, Randall, Dead in the Dirt, Ben and everyone else who helped make things run smoothly.  There was only one incident in which a band member went missing overnight, which is not that bad when you compare that to the kinds of things that can go wrong.  He did mysteriously pop up at the next city and the show, as they say, did indeed go on.

Click to see more photos from our trip.  I'll have more to post about our adventure in the days ahead.  Our homecoming show here in Raleigh is just a couple weeks from now, so hopefully I'll have some decent live shots of us after that.  For now I hope you will enjoy these...

When "rock" calls...

Well, we're off for our week long West Coast stint!  It's hard to believe that after twelve years of writing music, Loincloth is actually taking its magic show on the road! Fortunately for us, Rock knows no boundaries, so a group of four crusty musicians like us can still contribute to the world by kickin' our own peculiar brand of instrumental metal for the soul.  Thankfully, science provides us with pills to help with the kinds of things that never used to bother us! Not recreational pills mind you, but the "doc-in-a-bottle" type pills that make rockin' out a little less painful the next day!  Hell, if the The Rolling Stones can do it in their early 100's we should be able to kick some walker-'n'-caned ass in our 40's, right?

The adorable dog in the photo is Jasmine, and she's probably going to be a little mopey until I get back.  She'll forget about me when it's dinner time, and every time Monica takes her for an r-i-d-e ( if I type it as a word she'll go nuts! ) but she will definitely be on a pity trip for a few days.  Aww, who am I kidding?  I'll miss her too!  Almost as much as I'll miss her mother.  Monica, it's up to you to make sure that Jasmine feels loved while I'm gone.  I'm the bigger sucker between the two of us and she has grown accustomed to a certain level of spoiling!  Oh, note the framed photo on the wall behind Jasmine.  It's the original photo that the cover of "Iron Balls of Steel" was cropped from.  Maybe I'll post it and the missing image from the inside of the cd some day.  Right now I have to figure out how to cram all of my clothes, a bunch of Loincloth shirts, cd's, vinyl and some drum stuff into a suitcase. Here's hoping the Christmas rush prevents the TSA from deciding to pull every garment out of my bag out of boredom!

What tales there will be to tell once I get back!  Assuming of course that the End of Days doesn't really happen on 12/21/2012.  I've made a flag for a new nation..."Stevetopia", just in case the excrement hits the fan while we're in the air on our way back.  Someone has to start over, and I'm up for the challenge!  I will be a benevolent dictator, unless of course someone dares to disagree with my decrees.  Then Jasmine here will whine and pester my enemies into submission.  She is merciless in her pitiful cuteness!  Her dead bird breath is merciless too.  She's a self contained "good cop, bad cop" interrogation team.  No one can take her one on one.

More when we return...

Merry Christmas, everyone!  And safe travels!