Northeast Tour April 2008
The Endless Tolls Highway Ride…
On the way to New York City for our first gig we ended up on some toll roads that cost us a fortune. It was a bumpy toll ride—you would think that the toll money might be used on the upkeep of toll roads, but that wasn’t happening on this ride. Then again, roads in the North freeze up with ice and then crack, and so on…
The Hulk and trailer (thanks Jeff, holla!) said to the road, “Ker-klunk, ka-bow, ker boom,” as we bobbled up and down on our seats. We counted the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike and listened to the History of Rock and Roll according to KHJ Los Angeles, it was a teen radio station back in the day, its broadcasts now on one of our iPods. The Turnpike toll was more modestly priced. Our GPS guided us through some strange parts of Newark.
Five o’clock on a Wednesday is not the best time to roll into New York City. We had trouble understanding the foreigner at the tollbooth of the Holland Tunnel entrance. He said something to the effect that we need to pull up and turn around and go through the Lincoln Tunnel because of our trailer… we were told this as three Greyhound style buses that were way bigger than us were creeping their way into the tunnel as cars were cutting across lanes almost at right angles. It was almost entertaining. We pulled up and waited for about a minute. No one came to assist us and cars were honking and driving by. Dave, who was driving, said something like “F this” and we headed for the tunnel. A good American flashed their lights and let us in. we blazed through the Holland Tunnel, a little nervous about what might be awaiting us at the other end. We saw the light at the end of the tunnel and we were in Manhattan. We were safe for now…
Entering a Madhouse called New York City…
Traffic was crazy—we had just entered a madhouse. Taxis everywhere, hundreds of jaywalkers in all directions, honk, honk, beep, beep, yeah. A white Miata pulled next to us at a stop light and the drive, another good American, signaled with his hands to roll down our window. The Hulk’s windows don’t roll down so we opened the door and were told our back trailer doors were open! Shit. Some of us rushed out to shut the trailer doors. We had to take the keys out of the ignition to re-lock the trailer door. The light turned green and we were still stopped. we drove about tow more bumpy blocks and Jim saw the trailer doors had flung open again! We stopped the van again to re-investigate the situation. Honk honk beep beep yeah. Jim and Mike ended up getting in the trailer to hold the doors shut until we got the venue. We drove a few gentle blocks (Jim and Mike still got airborne inside the trailer holding the doors closed) down Houston Ave. and arrived at the Mercury Lounge. We unloaded and got a sweet parking spot across the street.
We sound checked, some of us walked two blocks to get some real New York pizza.
We played a good show on this sold out night (Radio Exile review of our show– http://radioexile.insidepulse.com/2008/04/24/the-explorers-club-42308-mercury-lounge-nyc/ ) and afterwards I caught up with some raving fans who made my dream come true: A Manhattan in Manhattan, in a plastic cup. Classy. Then we grabbed some acoustic guitars and banjos an our bag of jingles/percussion. We trekked a few blocks to the edge of the Village with a camera woman and some other people from Fader. I was half-twisted and walking with the boys right near a grocery store where Jeff Buckley used to play. We stopped on a street corner and played for the camera and accumulated a small crows. It was wicked fun. We opened up a guitar case and collected some change.
Back at Mercury Lounge some of us hung with our raving fans and developed a secret code which was 1:33. I got some video with my camcorder of us loading our gear, and I think I forgot my triangular keyboard/drum throne in the band gear room. It was messy and unorganized, and we have tons of gear. So if you’re walking by the Mercury Lounge, check to see if my throne is still there.
We drove to Brooklyn near Prospect Park West and stayed the night some friends. The next day ate lunch somewhere in Brooklyn. We then went down and took the subway (where some of the guys sang and played guitar and we talked to a nice lady—who also liked our music—named Rose, who had moved to NYC from Atlanta in the middle 1960s) into the city to 42nd Street.
I got to see my favorite building in New York City, the one that curves like a wave and up makes you feel like you’re falling down if you look up while walking next to it. We walked over to Broadway and Times Square, where we played acoustic versions of some of our songs and covers such as “Johnny B. Goode” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” (a song which we’ve never performed in public) on the island between the lanes of Broadway. We opened a guitar case and made a little gas money, some of the crowds really seemed to be digging us.
We opened a guitar case and we depended on the kindness of strangers to make a little gas money, some of the crowds really seemed to be digging us.
They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway…
They say there’s always magic in the air
But when you’re walkin’ down that street
And you ain’t had enough to eat
The glitter rubs right off and you’re nowhere…
Yelling at NASDAQ and NYPD at Grand Central…
We then walked to Grand Central Station and found a domed intersection that gave us nice reverb. We had a little crowd going when some NYPD officers asked if we had a permit, then cut us off on “JBG.” One of the officers said he liked our music and we could get a $3 license to perform… maybe next time.
We got back on the tube and rode back to Brooklyn to get the Hulk and take it to the heap in Scranton. The subway ride was interesting and the quaintness of the cultural diversity along with the crashing sounds of the underground reminded me of some of the sounds in the Simon & Garfunkel song “Sounds of Silence.” We talked only to each other on the ride back. New York is a lonely city, introverted, and well read. Several people on the subway were reading newspapers and novels—something a South Carolina boy doesn’t see every day….
Leaving the Big Apple…
Back in Brooklyn Dave bought an $8 pack of Camels. We piled into the Hulk and headed for the heap in Scranton. We had to drive through Manhattan. We tried taking the Holland Tunnel again to go under the Hudson River. A nice NYPD officer told us we couldn’t go through with the trailer and gave us simple directions to the Lincoln Tunnel. We got to seem some cool New York scenery on the way out, I even saw the red lights of the New Yorker building. The Lincoln Tunnel did not seem any different than the Holland Tunnel.
About 30 miles outside of the city, we stopped at a brand new but rural McDonald’s. Mike (our new 7th member, filling in on extra vocals and keyboards) drove the rest of the way through the beautiful Pennsylvania hills to Scranton. There were twinkling yellow lights on the hillsides and in the valleys… we had to push the Hulk pretty hard to make it up some of the hills.
Panked in Scranton!
When we got to Scranton we met Brian Langan, our good friend from the Swims. He was disc jockey-ing this bar/annual dance/discotheque called PANKED! At the Bog. He and Mike (also in the Swims) only used vinyls and 45s on two turntables to DJ. We were greeted with warm welcomes by almost everyone, and a lot of Scranton friends were excited to see us again. Once we got to where we were staying with Brian most of us went to bed after a few good laughs. I read an article about the Explorers Club in the Scranton City Paper, I did that interview, but I forgot to take a copy of the paper with me. Maybe it was my boots. Brian pointed out that in the SXSW blog I wrote about my boots, my boots, my boots almost the entire time. Brian and Jim played video games in the basement until the sun was up.
The next day Brian took us to lunch in his new band van to this really good and inexpensive restaurant that ruled. On the way there he kept hitting the steering wheel and jokingly saying, “Come on guys, can’t you drive,” as well as a funny episode where he plays a father who gets irritated with his misbehaving kids on a road trip (look for this in an upcoming podcast). Brian also sang a few Explorers Club songs as if they had been done by Nickelback (look for this in the upcoming podcast too). He also did an Irish acoustic/folk/Celtic version of Green Day’s “When I Come Around,” which is one of the funniest things we witnessed on our trip.
Brian, Jim, Dave, Chris (our new touring bass player), and I went to downtown Scranton to the mall where the guys looked at some video games in the game store. We then went to an excellent coffee shop, which I remember from the last trip to Scranton, and where I got a little cow sticker on my coffee lid which is now on my camera bag. Walking around downtown Scranton was awesome. The Electric City, as it’s called. Chris and I then went to a used record store and looked at some vinyls and CDs. I didn’t find anything in my price range, but Chris found two Conway Twitty records.
Back at the house Brian and his wonderful girlfriend Patrice and her mother made an excellent pasta dinner with salad for us.
Dares in Wilkes-Barre…
I then drove the Hulk to Wilkes-Barre, following Brian and the Swims in their van and barely keeping up with them. The speedometer, for no apparent reason, went from 60 to 0 while I was driving and I don’t think it worked for the rest of the trip. In Wilkes-Barre we unloaded and Dave hopped over one of the incredibly tall parking meters. We played at the Café Metropolis with the Moneynotes, the Swims, and the Spinto Band. We were second in the lineup. The place was packed with tons of awesome genuine indie kids. The sound on stage was strange, and this was also the night when I realized I probably left my throne in New York. So I stood up on this already tight, hot stage. We had a blast playing and the crowd really seemed to enjoy it.
On our song “Freedom Wind” there is a loud rockin’ out part where I jam screeching organ and everyone else blasts guitars and drums, then the song gets quiet for the last chorus with just Jason on lead vocals and me on electric piano. When we got to the quiet part everyone heard what we thought was feedback. Everyone looked at their amps and put their ears close to them as Jason and I finished up the song, with all this loud screeching feedback noise happening during the quiet ending. After the song ended the noise was still prevalent. It was out of control. It was comig from my amp. I turned the volume off and thought I’d really done it this time. I’d blown out my old vintage Kustom amp because I turned it up too loud. But nope, it was just a high organ note on the Yamaha keyboard that got stuck in the down position and kept screeching until I unjiggled the sucker.
Our set ended in a dogpile and Jim got some of his fingers cut by guitar strings. Rock and roll. The Spinto Band and the Swims played excellent sets. After everyone loaded out I had a good keyboard player-to-keyboard player chat with Phil from the Swims. That man can shred some organ.
Back in Scranton some of us at more pasta and I walked behind the house and found an excellent view of the valley, which I showed to some of the guys. It was pretty cool. We watched a funny 1980s documentary about heavy metal fans hanging out in parking lots talking about how good hair metal is. I was about ready to sleep only to find that there wasn’t much room upstairs and that my sleeping bag and pillow were already in use. I went to the basement and hung with Brian, Jim, and Nick and Thomas from the Spinto Band as they played California Games on NES. I went to sleep on the sofa down there. They played games until the sun was up.
The next morning Brian took most of us to a good bagel shop. We packed up and took the party to Philadelphia. We arrived at Johnny Brenda’s in Philly and unloaded, then took some silly pictures on a very patriotic bench.
The City of Brotherly Love Loves Us!
Johnny Brenda’s treated us exceptionally well. They gave us a buyout for food, and they even gave us this little Greek platter in the green room that was gone in about ten minutes. We also got a good amount of drink tickets. We did a fun interview with Caitlin from Soundcheck Magazine. Caitlin even brought us some delicious cookies that she’d made. We also took some silly Philadelphia Freedom Wind pictures on a patriotic bench outside the club.
The Swims played a kick ass show and then it was our turn, they even played one of my favorite old Swims songs tonight, “Sara Jean.” They also played local Scranton hit “Depth Charge,” which rules a lot, along with their newer songs I’m not as familiar with yet. We played quite well and the sound on stage was awesome. The room was pretty full and so was the balcony, where we saw our pal Frank from Philadelphia band Dr. Dog. They rule too. Jason somehow broke the jack on his Telecaster, but Jon from the A-Sides let us borrow his guitar. The A-Sides ruled the stage after us, and they rocked hard even though they were having some trouble getting the bass guitar to make audible sound.
After the show Jim and I went outside and sat on the patriotic bench and ran into Caitlin from Soundcheck and talked with her some. Then it was loud out time. Then I went back into Johnny Brenda’s and hung out with Dave from our band and Brian and Mike from the Swims and Jon from the A-Sides. Chris ended up staying with a friend of his somewhere in or near Philly. We still didn’t have a Philly cheese steak in Philly.Outside on the sidewalk in the rain, Dave and I reluctantly said adieu to the A-Sides as they loaded their van. Then we piled into our van and Mike drove us to a hotel Newark, Delaware that we’d booked earlier that day, which was pretty silly considering we had three different offers from Philly peeps to stay with them that night.
Strange Vibrations in Delaware…
In the hotel room we all were awoken incredibly early by someone’s cell phone (possibly Jason’s—since he’s probably the only one that would have a 1940s song for a ringtone—which is still better than Glen Campbell’s “Galveston” which he had on our tour last year and made me sick of that song because his phone rang way too much) that kept going off over and over without being answered at this ungodly hour.
I asked, “Is that necessary?” quite loudly, and the response I got was laughter from Carl and perhaps from some of the other guys who were also awoken by the phone that went unanswered. It was pretty funny. It ended up being a fun morning for some of us (me and Dave at least) and a panicked morning for some of the others. Everything I needed was in the van, and I had trouble getting through the hotel’s securely locked doors with my hands full and no key to entrée.
Chris got dropped off and we were on the road to Baltimore, well almost. We had some moans of I’m hungry and so on, and this being a Sunday at about 1 o’clock every restaurant had a tremendous wait. We ended up going to fast food, which is fine with me since by this point that was all I could afford (I didn’t even eat dinner the night before, and I don’t think Jim did either).
We rolled onwards, taking this mystic caravan we called the Hulk south to Baltimore and showed up at the venue, Sonar, way early. We took our sweet time unloading gear and setting up merch. They had wireless internet here! This would be the first time on the trip most of us would be able to check our emails. Mike fixed the broken jack on Jason’s guitar. The Swims and the Spinto Band showed up, and so did our pal Beckner, whom we stayed with near Baltimore on the way up to New York.
Danny Bonaduce’d in Baltimore…
Beckner and I hit the streets of Baltimore in search of 7/11 so I could get some coffee and smokes. We were given directions from someone at Sonar, and it sounded easy. We took a left turn one block too early and ended up in Baltimore’s strip club district, a block of nothing but strip clubs and adult stores on both sides of the street, one bouncer even encouraged us to enter his club. No thanks, I’ll do that with my own encouragement if my life ever comes to that point. We ran into Mike and Matt form the Swims, who were looking for a place to get food. They had no idea where the 7/11 was. We kept walking and I eventually saw it, it well cameflaged at the bottom of a skyscraper. Inside I was pouring coffee and a Baltimore police officer standing in the isle looked at me and asked the cashier who I looked like. I said, “Danny Bonaduce?” The two of them laughed, and I think Beckner was standing outside by this point. I checked out and scuttled out of there, all the time thinking I’d just been Danny Bonaduce’d by a black cop in a Baltimore 7/11. It kind of ruled, I was wearing my yellow “shooter” shades, a 1970s looking shirt with butterfly collars out to my shoulders, and a vintage orange/brown leather Nino Cerruti (the guy who taught Armani) jacket from 1975.
The Baltimore Show and Last Goodbyes…
At Sonar there was pizza for the bands, and we chowed down. We were the first band in the lineup, and we played a decent show. I don’t know why I didn’t take off my leather jacket, but by the last three songs of our set I probably could have suffered a heat stroke. The stage was cold at first, then near the end of the set the heat really hit me. The Swims and the Spinto Band rocked as usual. Mishaps! was the last band in the lineup, they had an interesting punk rock sound, and their female keyboard player shredded organ like she meant it.
After the shows all the bands hung out outside on the wet street, and once again I got some sage advice from Phil of the Swims. He told me when we go play Canada on our summer tour to make the venues do all the entering another country legal paperwork. That should certainly take a load off our chests, speaking metaphorically.
Jim and one of the guys from the Spinto Band did backflips on the street, and then we all did a mock end of a youth sports match “Good game, good game, good, game…” run by head on and give high fives routine. Dave ended up making up blues songs for a few tramps since we had nothing else we could give them. We said our goodbyes to our Swims and Spinto Band friends and piled into our van for the long night’s journey into day back home. We stopped in the middle of the night at a Denny’s somewhere and shared good stories and had a good laugh.
And that is all folks!
–Stefan / The Explorers Club
p.s. for more tour photos look here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page=1&aid=2020145&id=136100012
and here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020220&id=136100012
p.s. 2 — Dig Chris’s blog baby, it’s good and that shiz rulez: http://laughingmood.blogspot.com/
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