thursday may 12, 2005 – WOW this is a long drive, or, things people might discuss on a 13-hour ride from nashville to new jersey

the cows in virginia have it good, at least for a little while. they trot along well-worn cow paths on grass-covered rolling hills, bask in the sun next to large incandescent pools.

adam talked to sprint again, they keep hanging up on him. i think they’re taunting him deliberately.

13 HOURS ON THE ROAD FROM NASHVILLE TO JERSEY

BEARD PAPA’S - al’s looking forward to beard papa’s, a japanese cream puff joint that’s come to manhattan’s upper west side. from their website, muginohousa.com: “the trademark of our cream puff specialty stores is a ‘beard papa.’ we stuff each crunchy puff with whipped cream custard every time an order is placed. you can watch as they are being created in the store.”
FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS – allen popped in the greatest hits cd and the mocking began. carson recounted a story he had heard, that the singer was hired by the other members of the band after seeing him working out at a gym, or perhaps dancing at a club, but either way, without having ever heard him sing a lick. allen was convinced otherwise, or at least was determined to unearth the truth, still smarting from the “phantom of the park” incident. the truth, according to allen’s treo, is that the other members (steele & cox, formerly of the english beat) recalled hearing roland gift singing in an opening act for them at some point, then sought him out and rediscovered him fronting “the bones,” a cover band. he “looked like sidney poitier and sounded like otis redding,” according to the net.
WHAT IS THE PLURAL OF EWE?
listening to another allen choice, lloyd cole, carson accused cole of rhyming “you” with “you.” allen defended, protesting that you couldn’t assume that the homynym “ewe” was not in fact what cole intended. the context of the lyric would have required a plural, hence the need to find the plural of “ewe.” ewes or ewe, like deer & deer, or fish/fish? the treo says: ewes. hence, carson’s criticism of the lloyd cole lyric stands as originally stated.
ANNA NICOLE SMITH’S LACTATION ISSUE
this came up due to another much more sordid discussion about fluids generated by various forms of excitement. i’ll spare you the details, but the upshot is that allen claimed anna nicole smith had some sort of lactation issue, possibly manifested on live television. several treo searches have found tons of excellent pornography and a madcap story about another woman running into a burger king and utilizing the hand dryer, but no definitive answer about smith’s live tv lactation debacle. PLEASE HELP: if you know the answer (whether this happened, and if so, what happened) and can back it up with sources, reply to this blog with all the pertinent information. first verified response gets a 12” gabriel mann promo-packaging cd. really. legalese: many will enter. one will win. void in new hampshire. simple mathematical test administered to canadians. judges’ decisions are final.
REAL MEN CARRY THEIR WALLETS IN THEIR BACK POCKET
wallets continue to be placed on the chevy tahoe’s credenza-esque storage compartment/armrest unit. allen, stirring up yet another hornets’ nest, asked why adam and i didn’t just have our wallets in our pockets. we answered, essentially, that riding in a car with our wallets in our back pockets is uncomfortable, and that any man who doesn’t use his back pocket for wallet storage isn’t a real man at all. in an unusual twist, carson came to allen’s defense in this case, being a front-pocket loader. after some investigation and jibes from gabe/adam re: manhood, the issue remains unresolved. PLEASE HELP: men – respond to this blog with your vote re: front/back pocket wallet storage. feel free to include references to your wallet’s girth/width.
REAL WOMEN LOOK BEFORE SITTING ON THE TOILET SEAT
this may be tired comedian fare, but as i said, it’s a long drive... there was a consensus in the, albeit entirely male, population of the chevy tahoe that women should stop complaining about men leaving the toilet seat in the “up” position. it’s very simple: look before you sit, and you won’t fall in. men need the seat up, we put it up. women need it down, so put it down. why does the responsibility of toilet seat position lie exclusively with the man? is it an issue of gallantry? PLEASE HELP: women – explain yourselves. isn’t a relationship supposed to be an equal partnership? men put it up. women put it down. isn’t that how it should be?

allen decided to bail on the directions at some point, so we had to pull over and ask for help from a few gas station attendants. ultimately arrived at chez ellen/andrew hoch, our gracious hosts thurs/fri nights, in fabulous south amboy, nj. beautiful place, plenty of room to stretch our weary bones. pizza beer spurs game (we lost – ridiculous – but will ultimately prevail, have no fear) on espn hd (oh, and let there be no doubt, hdtv is for real). and sleep. at some point my cuz bogo arrived and we said our goodbyes to tour manager extraordinaire, allen rindfuss, who bogo took to manhattan for an early flight out of jfk. sleep sleep sleep sleep.

wednesday may 11, 2005 – used cows, seale’s keyworks & the exit/in

some activity on the castle property in the morning, various workers doing various things to rebuild the house within the castle walls. “used cows” sign on the road back to nashville, not sure exactly what that means.
called bill to find out if he knew of any place in nashville where i could get a wurly reed, he came back a bit later with seale’s keyworks, which turned out to be perhaps the greatest keyboard repair shop in the history of mankind. amidst wurly guts and rhodes under repair, pianos pulled apart and lavishly painted vintage keyboards sits nikki, nashville’s greatest keyboard tech. vintage keyboards, in case you haven’t discovered from the nearly constant maintenance described in this blog, are beasts. finding someone who knows how to fix them in a way that keeps them close to their original state is extremely difficult, as the original companies no longer make them and offer no support.
nikki is one of these people, however, and in addition to knowing everything there is to know about wurlys, rhodes, pianos, hammond organs, clavinets, and every other vintage keyboard, he’s a jovial & energetic dude.
anyway, nikki found me the right reed and tuned it perfectly for me, then showed me a thing or two to make the wurly more road-worthy, namely adding lead weights to the action. wishing there was a place like seale’s in l.a., but at least i’ve got nikki’s number when i’ve got issues...
then on to the exit/in, one of nashville’s famous venues, and our last show with glenn tilbrook and the fluffers. glenn’s regular drummer (he’s been playing with marco for a few weeks while simon was home with a newborn baby) rejoined the band for this show, which featured both marco and simon on double drums for parts of the show. at soundcheck simon went nuts and hit the drums so hard he fell backward into the curtain. with both of them going at it the band sounded like a freight train. our last show with glenn was a great time, steve large, glenn’s keys player joined in for a wicked organ solo on “over the world” which was awesome. somewhere over the course of the evening in nashville i went across the street for a philly steak sandwich made by a moscow native. apparently i had to go around the world and wind up in nashville with a russian cook to get one of the best philly sandwiches i’ve ever had, after having spent four years going to school in philadelphia.

tuesday may 10, 2005 – gun mountain amusement park & the castle at lexington

slept nice and late, dragged ourselves to the tahoe for the short (4 hr) drive to lexington. there’s a town in between nashville and lexington called cave town (i think that’s what it’s called, at least). we stopped for lunch in cave town at jerry’s, totally empty save for the nervous waitress. near the restaurant is gun mountain amusement park (one can only imagine what happens there), diamond cavern & mammoth cave, making this town a major tourist attraction.
on the way into lexington we passed by our lodging for the night, a place called the castle. apparently the ex-owner went to europe with his bride, she liked the castles, they came home and he built her one. about a year into construction they divorced, and he sold to a random connection of mine. sometime thereafter the main part of the house within the castle walls burned to the ground. anyway, that’s where we stayed the night after the lexington show, outside the castle walls in the guest quarters, which are currently used as construction headquarters. found glenn and the fluffers having a pint outside the dame, the only real venue in lexington, near the university of kentucky. lexington’s a really quaint town of about 225000 or so, perfect main street and city hall, with a hat shop, pool hall, and the dame just across the road.
load in, soundcheck, show (broke reed #30 on the wurly , glenn show, check for internet upstairs at the club and run into vicous wireless internet guard dogs, head back downstairs & next door to check on the spurs game at the pool hall, witness spurs destruction of seattle supersonics, load out, hit the pita pit for late night falafel, and off to the castle.
we discussed the castle with some lexington locals who basically couldn’t believe we were staying there, it’s so interred in lexington lore that the concept of people actually being on the property must have been totally foreign. the reality of lodging at the castle’s guest quarters was unremarkable, other than the fact that carson awoke to discover a roll of toilet paper, a crowbar, and a machete next to his bed...

monday may 9, 2005 – meat & 3, bill & the bluebird in nashville

up late, bbq @ datson’s for “meat & three,” a main course of some sort of meat product and 3 sides (greens, corn, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stewed apples, tomatoes, cornbread, biscuits, etc). this was an incredible meal, al adam and i had fried chicken, absolutely delicious. meander into nashville for some starbucks drinks on credit – nate, who was at all the texas shows, works for starbucks corporate in some capacity and hooked us up with a book full of coupons. at some point during the day adam got on the phone with sprint customer service for a day of frustration as he tried to get them to understand that his text messaging wasn’t working properly or something.
headed over to the bluebird café to try to get on one of the most famous open mic nights in the country, but to no avail – found out too late that we had a connection there and probably could’ve gotten ourselves on. the bluebird has a fascinating system for organizing their nights, involving baskets filled with names, stamps, first 1st and 2nd timers. suffice it to say, i was a first timer, relegated to the audience, watching crazy bird lady and hog man do the south proud.
bill janis, our good friend from the jamie cullum tour last year, met us at the bluebird and took us out for beers at bosco’s. bill is one of the rare people in the world who instantly is at home with almost anyone, and who makes others at home just as quickly with him. he goes out of his way to help me out when i come through town with my parade of rockers, and this time was no different, as he took us out on the town, then furnished us with a place to crash, his girlfriend shannon’s house. to shannon’s, then a random sports bar (at which we were 3 of 5 patrons) to watch phoenix/dallas to check on the san antonio spurs next opponent.
then off to the greasiest of greasy spoons, the hermitage café, classic diner to end all diners with the cheapest menu i’ve ever seen.
of course, the day couldn’t just have been that easy. upon returning to shannon’s apartment (she left it to us and stayed with bill) allen realized that he no longer had the key. frantic searching revealed nothing, so adam went up to the landing and stretched to remove the screen from the kitchen window on the 3rd floor. the indianajonesesque leap and grab from the landing to the window looked a bit too dangerous, however, even with carson/allen as spotters down below. wanting to keep our drummer with all arms and legs intact, we searched for other options, and after an hour and a half of exploring and climbing and bending credit cards and searching for paperclips and neighbors making strange moaning sounds to alert us to their presence we decided to break down and call a locksmith and/or bill. as allen dialed the number adam said “oh, here it is,” bent down in the gravel driveway and picked it up about 5 feet from where we’d all been standing for the majority of the hour and a half. incredible.

sunday may 8, 2005 – kiss meets the phantom of the park & oman’s farm of spooks

we had theoretically planned to get up around 730a and get on the road for our 13 hour trek to nashville. actual departure time around 1030a after a nice breakfast a la agelia mcgowan. carson spent most of the drive reading the squeeze biography they’re selling at the shows, i mostly caught up on email replies, and at some point we watched some of the tenacious d dvd while allen drove. louisiana featured the most picturesque driving over low bridges through bayous. nasty lunch at an arctic arby’s, they can’t all be home-cooked bbq unfortunately. belabored discussion about the questionable “horsey” sauce and its ingredients.
CONVERSATION TOPICS ON THE ROAD TO NASHVILLE
- the KISS movie bet – carson wins two arby’s roast beeef sandwiches in a thrilling victory over allen about the title of the movie. allen claimed it was “kiss meets the phantom of the theme park,” whereas carson was confident in the actual title, “kiss meets the phantom of the park” (no theme). (areas not to bet against carson – kiss, pastaroni, michael jackson, lionel richie & atari 2600)
- kentucky fried chicken in kentucky (carson was on a quest to discover whether there was something unique about eating the fast food chain’s fare in its home state); still haven’t been there, but there could be a chance on the way to nyc from nashville
- ABC, the band, not the network. allen has a cd of their greatest hits, which are more numerous than you might recall. poison arrow, the look of love, how to be a millionaire, be near me, when smokey sings
- sweet emotion & “the rabbit done died.” allen explained that this a reference to a woman getting pregnant. an old way of testing for pregnancy utilized rabbits in some way, but we couldn’t figure out exactly what they would do the rabbit for the testing, and what might lead to rabbit death. quoth allen from some snopes.com. “claim: in the days when the ‘rabbit test’ was used to determine if a woman was pregnant, the rabbit’s death was an indicator of positive result. status: FALSE. true story: in the olden days, they used to inject the urine of a woman into a rabbit. if the rabbit died, the woman was definitely pregnant. if the rabbit lived, she was not.” in case you’re confused, it is true that this used to happen, but it is not true that inserting urine into a rabbit is a determinant of pregnancy.

arrived outside nashville around 1130p, where we stayed with college friends of allen’s on a 70 acre farm in a small town called franklin, site of a civil war battleground that’s under some controversy. developers want to build a golf course or something. the property we were staying on has several homes on it, a pool, and a large paddock for the horses. totally dark when we arrived, making the huge house totally spooky. we did some exploring, lots of beautiful old furniture, 4 fireplaces, 69 chairs (according to carson, excluding sofas and hassocks) and tons of nooks and crannies where ghosts hang out. oman’s (al’s friend) mom lives in the house we were staying in, he and his wife and kids live in another home on the property, and his brother in yet another. father of oman is an ex-football player and jazz pianist, bought the property in the early 70s, developed a small portion and kept the rest for the family. why do we live in l.a. again?
watched the crappy remake of the 60s film “the thomas crown affair” with pierce brosnan and rene russo, just awful. went to bed late night.

saturday may 7, 2005 – early morning ball, engine room & chez mcgowan

up at 830a for a 915a ball game with a lineup of allen/adam/gm/brent/ryan. carson bailed after a game of chance with adam, who was trying to convince him that bball was in order after 5 hours sleep. met up with brent adair, austin singer/songwriter for 2 on 2 + a sub, constantly interrupted by some scary frisbee dog dude’s (with a voice like the evil dude in silence of the lambs)
dogs who kept bringing their frisbees over in hopes of a toss. brent’s excellent, got a great shot and good moves, but the power duo was adam and ryan – ryan’s like a bull underneath, and adam pretty much can’t miss from anywhere on the court. after the game we all relived the time-honored teenage texas tradition of post-game carbonated beverages in massive plastic tanks from the corner store. back to the house, shower, bagel/fruit, wait for allen who disappeared (possible he forgot we had to go to houston - wait, did i have something to do today?) at some point.
finally on the road to houston, stop in bastrop for more good bbq (cartwright’s) – not quite as good as vitek’s, but solid. drop stuff at chez mcgowan in fabulous houston, texas, arrive at engine room to find a sign for glenn of “the sqeeze” (sic) and no gm on the marquee. classic... more wurly surgery, i’m getting pretty decent at it at this point – pop the hood, put in the new #37 reed, file off enough solder until it’s in tune. this takes FOREVER, but it works. your basic nightmare of an instrument to fix and tune, probably not the best idea to take it on the road, but it does sound great...
sack dinner courtesy mcgowan, our own personal catering for the evening, replete with 1/4 lb. cookie. there was a bank of video games in the back of the engine room, and after soundcheck we found glenn playing the twilight zone pinball machine and working it for all it was worth. houston friends jodi & michelle arrived backstage before the show, then justine a bit later... pleasure to see some friendly faces in the audience. during our set carson thinks he blew a speaker on his amp, haven’t checked to be sure at this point. added alan parsons project’s “eye in the sky” to the set to rave reviews, love playing that song. at some point i was at pico bowl in santa monica, ca & heard this playing, hadn’t thought of it in so long and loved it so much, so we learned it soon thereafter and play it every once in a while. we’re playing a slightly longer set on this tour, about 45 min, so we get to stretch out a little bit so it feels more like a satisfying show. allen wrote the set list with wish this love away on it twice, so we had to improvise toward the end... he’s losin’ it! soon he’ll snap. actually, he may be getting sick, so we’re trying to stay far away... glenn gave us a very public thank you during his set, that was nice, but a very serious fan of his (wasted) kept harassing carson, saying that he (glenn) wouldn’t stop until we paid attention (not sure what that meant, and neither did carson, but she was quite adamant). at some point during the evening i had my go at ms. pacman, high score.

friday may 6, 2005 – the vitek gut pak, austin’s famous antone’s, & kerbey queso

slowly but surely arise in the mansion, all take luxurious showers in the oversized bathroom, tour the outdoor bbq scenario, pool, jacuzzi, dining room with oversized wine glasses, chevy tahoe tetris and head to austin.

at about 2p on our way down, we hit vitek’s bbq in waco at duncan clowe’s (another alamo heights high school san antonio native) recommendation. he suggested the gut pack, which none of us actually got, but its contents are fascinating:
THE VITEK BBQ GUT PAK (WACO, TX)
fritos
cheese
chop bbq
beans
bread
optional sausage, pickles, onions, jalapeño peppers
essentially a frito pie. mr. vitek had recently been to l.a. and brought us the business card from the hotel california, where he and his wife stayed for the kitsch factor, as proof.

back on the road, passed right by the dr. pepper museum, where allen’s been several times, mostly for the shop, with lots of good dp shirts and blow up plastic dp floaties and such.
arrived in austin through some texas traffic, straight to antone’s on 5th, just down the street from the one-2-one bar where i had joined a bunch of l.a. singer/songwriters during sxsw in march. tried to tune up the wurly a bit, wound up breaking the out of tune note during soundcheck – a few phone calls to music stores in austin led me to the resident wurly expert in town, bob overton. ryan & katha melton, our hosts, picked up the requisite #37 reed from mr. overton, though i wouldn’t have time to replace it before the show, so barry (monitors at antone’s) supplied tape so avoid the offending key during the show.
great sound, thanks to barry and steve (everyone on this tour’s named steve – glenn’s keyboard player & merch guy as well). nice to play for friendly faces in austin, threw in artichoke by request and remembered why we used to play it all the time. gogo dancers appeared from out of nowhere– one blew a kiss to the stage, & i thought i recognized her, but tried to concentrate on other things.
spoke with ilse the swedish merch lady about our eurotour with alanis which made her long for stockholm. chevy tahoe tetris with the gear yet again, then out to kerbey lane, an austin tradition (packed into the clown car, 6 people & all our gear), where the skipping cd player began to slowly drive us nuts, kerbey’s menu is incredible, and they’re open 24 hours, which is ideal for austin’s student crowd.
allen: queso (this elicited taunts of “freak” from one of kerbey lane’s more emotive staff)
gm: kerbey scramble
adam: hummus taco
carson: hummus & pita
shasta (al’s girlfriend): some other scramble with some sort of meat product
ryan: blueberry pancakes
after sufficient sustenance at about 3a, collapsed at chez ryan/katha somewhere near san marcos, tx

thursday may 5, 2005 – 1st tilbrook show in dallas at the gypsy tea rooms, lodging at the parker mansion

on to the next tour – 5 shows in the u.s. (dallas, austin, houston, lexington, nashville) with glenn tilbrook of squeeze, then 2 on our own at new york city’s living room (stomping grounds of norah jones) & my alma mater, the university of pennsylvania alumni weekend extravaganza in philly.
plane to dallas via salt lake city, where a lovely woman reminded us, repeatedly, to purchase snacks in the airport ‘cause they don’t serve food on the planes anymore.
rejoined allen after our brief 5 day pause in l.a. for a short break and the cd release show at the key club (great time for all, lots of friends and a good show featuring our friend steve mazur guesting on guitar, in spite of massive jetlag having arrived the previous night from frankfurt and, of course, an honor to hear sara bareilles open the evening). allen late to the dallas airport, used his mom as an excuse. box of cds exploded in baggage claim, taped up by a slightly overzealous airport attendant, many thanks to him...

packed up the tour vehicle (a life-size game of tetris), allen’s dad’s chevy tahoe, filled to the absolute rim with a wurly, full drums, bass rig, boxes of cds and all our suitcases, leaving just enough room for 4 to sit semi-comfortably. headed directly to the parker mansion, where chris parker, a friend of allen’s and mine from alamo heights high school (yes, that’s really what it’s called) in san antonio, texas, lives. massive house, many bedrooms, huge beds, bathroom the size of many people’s bedrooms, pool, jacuzzi, wine cellar, you get the idea. oh, but the kicker – massive flat screen tvs everywhere, including one tilted downward to face you as you max and relax in the tub.
“tin star” for lunch, kind of a gourmet taco place with cheap/excellent margaritas. then off to the venue, dallas’ gypsy tea rooms, where we met glenn for the first time (what a nice guy, very chill, indicated that they run a relaxed ship - quite a change from the alanis tour’s layers of administration). muse and the stereophonics were playing there the night before in the two-room venue, and actually played just before us at antone’s in austin as well (they’re a day or two ahead of us on the texas circuit it seems).

glenn tilbrook, for those of you who don’t know, was one half of the pop phenomenon, squeeze. chris difford wrote the lyrics, and glenn wrote the music to songs like tempted, black coffee in bed, up the junction, pulling mussels from a shell, goodbye girl, etc. they basically made it big by the time they were 20, having been writing and playing together since the age of 15. elvis costello produced one of their records, which included tempted, perhaps their biggest hit. anyway, it’s a wonderful thing to see him out playing old squeeze songs and lots of new solo material each night, really enjoying himself out on the road after so many years doing it. more on that later...

glenn’s drummer marco & adam negotiated sharing the drum kit on the gypsy tea room’s small stage, and carson the same with lucy, glenn’s bass player of the fluffers, his backing band. spongified furniture in the dressing room (easy to wipe clean with a damp cloth in case of unusually moist activities), soundcheck, hang for a bit, then play our show to a throng of texas squeeze fans. wurly reed on its way out, massively flat note indicating reed #37 (a above middle c) would soon be history...
glenn tilbrook and the fluffers play long double sets every night, sprinkled with squeeze’s greatest hits, and an occasional nancy sinatra cover & keyboard/vocoder solo. 2nd set finds glenn and the fluffers standing on the bar doing acoustic versions of black coffee in bed and goodbye girl to the delight of the crowd – lucy (bass) plays a pineapple maraca for these songs, and steve (keys) plays melodica solos.
chris parker funneled jack/cokes my way all night, leading to my certain demise halfway through glenn’s 2nd set. at autograph timeafter the show i’m lying supine on the aforementioned plastic furniture. pack up the gear and hit café brazil courtesy of chris (bring me that coffee!/adam drinks salsa through a straw/gabe naps a bit), & back to the mansion late late night.
SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS AT THE PARKER MANSION
carson – freddy krueger room just off the oversized bathroom
adam – king size overlooking the pool/jacuzzi
allen – guest suite with 4 post bed
gabe – mattress on floor, passed out instantly