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Gang Wizard tour diary, Dec. 6, 2003

I'm sitting here in my dimly-lit room, it's 1:00 pm and I'm still a little groggy and sick after coffee. I have just returned from the Knab Qixarth tour and it was something else, mostly in a good way. And before I launch into my retelling of the saga, I'd like to say that the (International) Harvester CD I acquired from Rob is amazing, especially the song "Kristallen Den Fina." Wow!

Going to California

Who better to give me a ride for three hours through the Thanksgiving-clogged arterial highways of Los Angeles Metropolitan than Mike Landucci's mom? In a rented white Mustang? Oh gosh it was kind of crazy but not as crazy as it could have been. I chose the least objectionable of her CD's (a Led Zeppelin 3-CD box-set; apparently I am once again able to listen to the Zep after putting up with far too much of them during my freshman year of college... but that was, gasp, twelve years ago) and we jetted down "the 5." It was pretty smooth sailing until we hit major congestion in Mission Viejo. I stared out the windows of our rented vehicle, looked at Orange County as it was meant to be seen: through other people's tinted car windows. Fashionable young people with good posture, poor people in twenty-year-old Toyotas, homemade signs espousing conservative political sentiments; this is the OC.

We showed up in Oceanside after picking up one of Mike's brothers in San Clemente. Mary's array of food was, as always, near-miraculous, and very tasty, and I played "wall-ball" with the kids in the back yard. Apparently Mike is doing very well with his bookselling entrepenurial venture; well enough to buy house #2 to store more books and more Landucci employees. I played Pokemon Stadium against Linus and Noah, and let me say that Lickitung is my favorite Pokemon ever. I kind of shellacked poor Linus, but then we joined forces to defeat the sinister Giovanni. Hot! I read the emails that Joanie sent me, heart-setting-on-fire stuff and funny too, and went to sleep.

The shows

The next day I went out swap-meeting with Aileen and Christopher. No amazing finds, but it is always great to scour the asphalt mines, look for treasure. I got some horrible 80's sunglasses that looked stunning on top of my eyeglasses. We ate masala dosas, talked, walked, got tired before the show at the Smell. The Smell show featured many visitors: Jordan! Mark! Their friend whose name I can't recall because I am tired! Carolina! Etc! This very bad but very earnestly bad LA duo opened; lord have mercy they were bad, like Cheap Trick with horrible songs, electronics, and only two members, or something. John Wiese made an electronic foghorn sound for three minutes on his laptop. Atole played an amazing amazing set: four boomboxes, sweaty Manny singing, dancing; as always a singular sensation. D Yellow Swans played and Jordan and Mark and their friend and I went to this Mexican gay bar around the corner to drink very cheap Miller Lites and play pool. Good to see those kids! And weird to be in a bar with lots of pictures of semi-clothed white women cradling bottles of domestic lager, but no white people and no women! The pool was 25 cents, though, and everything was pretty comfortable. I headed back after the audible hum of D Yellow Swans came to a close and set up to play. We were a big seven-person roar and we mostly cleared the club but there were a double-digit number of people who were headbanging (!) to the GW din. Wow! We got paid enough to make it to Portland (or close to it): wow. Into the van went all of us save Aileen and Christopher, who had to work and go home etc. We drove to Amanda's place in San Francisco, all night. There was talk radio in the van, some guy talking about how he was a "psychedelic connoisseur" or something; I was drifting in and out of sleep, and I had earplugs in. When I woke up, we were in San Francisco and Amanda's place was gorgeous, cluttered, and kind of smelled like cat pee. This was, however, something that could not be helped by the kitty, who was extremely sweet.

The next morning we woke up and did something, I forget what. I think the kitty sat on my lap and I know I drank lots of tea. Oh yeah: we ate at El Farolito, whose green sauce is descended directly from ambrosia, sweet avocadoey nectar. I ate some tangerines because I could tell I was getting sick. Amy offered me some sections of grapefruit and it was good and it was raining outside. We went to Guitar Center to get some strings (since the nearby store was closed). The only cheap strings they had were called "Fatties." Amy asked about a pickup for her banjo and they said, "maybe you should go to Banjo Center." What a bunch of lunkheads! We headed over to Oakland. I was wet but the heater on the left side of Brian's van's rear seat pumped out the womblike comfort; by the time we got to Rob's loft space I had reverted to blessed infancy. Oh well; we had to get out and hang out. It was good to see Rob again in his native habitat; we talked, played some droney music in the huge warehouse space. Then we headed over to the weird space where we were playing--who knows what it was all about but it was black inside and a little off-putting. Mike was in terrible spirits (as he often is when he is away from home); he talked about wanting to go home since his voice was shot and the bizarre Sunn amplifier he uses was shorting out. KIT opened the show with a brief punk-rock-improv blast; it was kind of inspiring. I forget if we played next or if D Yellow Swans played next, but that's not so important: what is important is that the GW show turned into a wrestling match. People were getting carried around, lots of physical contact was made, it was good and wild and it was loud and kind of liberating but kind of terrifying. I don't know what to make of it! Vholtz (Rob's improv-funk project) played after that and were kind of sub-par; I've seen them better. We went back to Rob's place, and Mike bought plane tickets home. So we ended up losing Grace (who had considered going on with us, but decided that she wanted to keep her job; smart move, probably) but Rob, who had just gotten fired after his five-week Hale Zukas tour, decided, what the hell, I'll join you! So the Qixarth was, at this point, me, Brian, and Rob. Who would survive?

Next day, we drove through rainy Highway 101 raininess to Arcata. We ate some sandwiches in a hippie town in the backwoods whose name I forget, had some pretty intense conversations about life, friends, love, that sort of thing. Brian and Rob are both very open people and it was wonderful to have meaningful conversation while on tour. We showed up after dark in Arcata; the Placebo was in a community center on the beach shrouded in fog, and there were maybe two people there. So we decided to play our set acoustic, in the men's restroom, whose sonics were fantastic and echoey despite the slightly bathroomy smell. The color was sea-green! We played our show accompanied by water, banjo, twelve-string guitar, acoustic. I started singing a story that was based on Rob's story of underage BMX-ers riding through the town of Samoa, packing rifles. The vowels and sibilants in "Samoa" were intense in the reverberant bathroom and it was inspiring. Then D Yellow Swans decided to play in the women's restroom (after some strong lobbying on my part for them to do that) and it was perhaps even better; Pete played a plastic shopping bag as a reed instrument, same with a segment of magnetic tape, wow was it something. I think they should explore that side of their creativity more often since it was boggling. We caught it all on minidisc and hopefully it will come out soon... what a show! Unfortunately, we went and spoiled the energy by playing electrically in the actual venue; it was kind of a mess and I ended up pinning Brian to the ground, hyperextending his knee in the process. Poor kid! I was sorry. Brian walked with a limp throughout the rest of the tour. We headed back to our host's place in Arcata; the TV was on. We headed down to eat pizza, drink beer; the "Ale of the Hawk" I had was outstanding and potent and the walk down the hill was fulfilling. The other three people in our party (Gabe, Pete, Rob) were talking about prog-rock and I couldn't hang with that scene as much as they could, but it was still fun. I had donuts after midnight in the fog, and they were good donuts.

The next day I drove to Portland, since the other two were basically unable to sleep and I had made them get up at 6:30 so I could get back to town in time to meet with my tutee and teach a class. I drove through the mysterious redwoods, Hochenkeit playing on the CD player as I gazed at huge trees and elk, wound my way through hairpin turns and somehow emerged in Grants Pass. Coffee was consumed, grapefruit were bought, Salvation Army women were ringing in front of the Albertson's that I entered, like, four times; after a while she didn't say anything to me. The drive went on and on. It turned out that our show at the Jasmine Tree had been cancelled! No great sadness there since the Jasmine Tree is a questionable venue by any stretch--and we'd been booked at Grand Central Bowl! I met with Nicole at the University of Portland--and remind me never, ever to drive north on I-5 at 5 pm, yuk--then met with my other class, which I called off, since one of the students' best friends had just died and one of the other students didn't show up. How convenient; it allowed me to get back to Grand Central Bowl in time for the show. I picked up Joanie with extreme joy; what a delight it was to see her cute new haircut and witness her endless love and enthusiasm! To the bowling alley: Djin Teeth Fangs opened and were hot, hot, hot in the "Pump Room" bowling-alley-lounge--they sounded way better acoustic than they did amplified, which was pretty great in the first place. I will see them whenever they decide to play again; they are great. D. Yellow Swans did their thing on the lanes; the lanes were hypnotically lit in "Cosmic Bowling" style and it was something to behold. Then GW played and whoa, instant chaos: the drums were whisked away from Brian (who was now playing drums thanks to the gimpy knee); Amy's friends who were recruited as mercenary Wizards had extremely loud amplifiers and overpowered everything; Rob lifted up bowling balls above his head like some sort of Wizard hoisting magic orbs. I sat in one place, rocking my fuzz-wah pedal, like the eye of some crazed hurricane--the calm center of the madness. It was pretty great, though; people actually enjoyed it, which is always a good result for a GW show.

I slept in my own bed, which was delightful after a week of sleeping on other people's floors and auxiliary beds. We headed up to Bellingham, the ever-mysterious city by the Pacific. The drive was long but not trying; we listened to the new-ish Atole record, whose Radiohead cover amused Rob to no end and went unrecognized by both Brian and me. We ate tofu burritos at "Casa Que Pasa", which were not bad at all, and played a show at a former chapel. The moon was large! Noggin played an acoustic two-violin set which was genuinely impressive; these two people have, after like ten years of improvising together, learned every twitch and movement of each other's improv vocabulary, and they sawed together like two old friends having a meaningful conversation. Nice. D Yellow Swans' show echoed in the big chapel room beautifully, and then we took the stage, or vice versa. We were a three-piece at this point, and we thought we'd play acoustically again. For some reason I was obsessed with the phrase "Red Lobster" and took the Language Master around, got samples of people telling "Red Lobster" jokes. Michael Griffen of Noggin's joke, "the last red lobster I met was green with envy!" was perfect, melodic; I repeated it over and over again as a motif during the show. Rob played the organ, and Brian's "earthquake" (homemade electric-guitar-percussion-instrument) playing was as lucid as it would ever be during the tour. It ended up being a sort of vaudeville show, with me singing about Red Lobster, a little bit of polka beat was involved, even some physical humor surfaced toward the end. Very nice. Some guy named Matt played sad electric-guitar songs toward the end, and even if the songs weren't necessarily that great, they sounded fantastic and epic in the high-ceilinged room. We headed out into the countryside to Michael's farmhouse, drank wine, looked at his copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, talked until pretty late in the night, then crashed on comfy beds in a pleasant bedroom.

The next morning I woke up, had coffee with Michael, had a good conversation about improvised music, tried to capture the essence of that improvisatory "fire" that Noggin had had the night before, and I have to say: Michael is a hero. Unbelievably good, kind, and talented, with a warm wit that was definitely appreciated. Brian and Rob woke up a little after noon, and we went into the living room and improvised on Michael's vast array of percussion instruments, cellos, deconstructed pianos, etc. It was good--we were all listening to each other! And that is important! Then we headed down to Seattle. We met up with Steve Anne Billis of luv(sic), who fed us crackers and olives and AJVAR! Sweet Ajvar! Anne and Steve's new apartment is a wonder with hardwood floors, and it was only three blocks away from the venue; sweet miracle of miracles! But the show ended up truly sucking: we had no fire, the audience suddenly decided to take over instruments, the input jack got ripped out of my guitar so I ended up singing about the purity of a mummy's white linen; Brian MacDonald, dressed in toilet-paper-mummy garb, placidly played the Language Master, and then disaster struck: Rob, going through the audience, accidentally dropped a floor tom on an audience member's head, and she was injured. The show was stopped, everyone was bummed out, people were talking about Rob in low suspicious voices, there was hate in the air, a bad bad bad vibe. We loaded out, went over to the organic market with Brian to pick up late-night food, tried to make sense of the evening. Brian drove us home to Portland, and I must say it felt to be at home, three hours removed from the bad, bad scene.

The next day, we hung out at my place, ate Thai food, watched bad Henry Rollins and Black Flag videos, played acoustic guitar songs. We were planning on playing a "redemption/purification" acoustic set at the Meow Meow, but when we got there, the power was mysteriously shut off and the show was cancelled. Bad luck following us? The venue having problems? Who knows, but we ended up going back to my house, eating pizza and playing our redemption music to Joanie in the basement, scented candles burning all around; it was purifying and we played each other's instruments, as one, the quietest Wizard ever, almost silent at points: who knows if it was universal rock but it was a satisfying conclusion to our tour.

So what comes next? I'm not sure... I want to play more acoustic music, concentrate on quiet sounds; I've let my inner moose trumpet quite enough. It was satisfying! But I think it's time to curl up a little bit more inside myself and examine that space for my own benefit. I have to say that I really enjoyed hanging out with all my amazing, creative, wild compatriots--what a group. Who knows what is next for the Knaq QQQqqqixxxrth? We will see, we will see. It is good to be back.