With pride, I spent a few mintues getting the gold, Pontiac van ready for a band trip. Not unlike a stable master grooming the stallion before the derby, I went over all four courners with love. This would mark the first time all four Bottle Rocketeers rode in the gold van to a gig, although it has been used for several shows carrying partial rosters and all the gear. For this show, the first of our June tour, we took a jaunt to Indianapolis without our drums or bass rig, for they were to be shared with one of the bands on the bill.
And what a bill...the Uncle Tupelo Revival show. Uncle Tupelo was a band from 1988 to 1993. They are labled as the founders of the “alt-country” genre. They (founders Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy) make no such claim, but acknowledge they were merely poster children; with which I would agree. All the bands were to pay tribute to them.
Getting back to the van, each of us had a captain's chair and the gear was neslted comfortably behind us. I packed the new CDs I've aquired. I put reading material, magazines (Interview, Christianity Today, Spin, and Forbes) in the pockets behind the front seats. The gold van has air conditioning. It felt good: compact, effcient, comfortable, and I made it possible. We talked about the music and magazine articles. The drive down was my favorite part of the this trip. After a brief stop at the guitar center, we found the venue, Locals Only, quite easily.
The club is locals only in name only. It is a rather unassuming building. It inhabits a room at the end of a stucco walled strip of shops dating back to, oh, I'd say the mid '70s. We ordered a spinach pizza. 13 bucks. 2 slices ea.. Money is really really scarce for me these days. The amount of pizza vs. cost kind of put me in a funk. I was restless all night. Right before the first band started, I took a small walk back to Keystone avenue. I saw all the traffic streaming by, “look at all those people not going to our show.” I thought. Even worse, I knew they didn't even care. If they had been reading their InTake magazine, they'd know the Uncle Tupelo revival was in the top 10 things to do in Indianapolis this weekend. There was some encouragement in that. And yet, I continued to think, if that one person came, all my blues would dissapear. It's not like I didn't invite people to come to the show. I did. Two guys we met at the Oddfellows Lounge in Renssalear last week came out. Chad and Eric. They were cool. I'm glad they came.
The show was long. The Tecumseh Flyers were good, but maybe it was my impatience to play, to keep moving so as to forget the pain of real life that made me feel like they played longer than their 40 minutes. After them, Second Hand Poets. They sounded tight in sound check. But I missed their entire set. I was talking to Zika in the parking lot. It was one of the best convos we'd had. It made me confront myself and acknowledge hope.
Dorsey was next, they did not dissapoint. Attendance was at its peak during their set. Our set, like everyone else's had to contain four Uncle Tupelo songs. Two of the ones we had used violin. I enjoyed playing violin live again. I'm actually not bad at it. Of the four songs, I really've been resonating with “We've been had.” Angst upon angst, but good lyrics too. Troy wanted to play longer than our intended 45 minutes. He decided this after “our last song” we had the go ahead, but I felt it was a bad move. The audience had just heard four hours of music. During the four extra songs we played, I counted 12 people leave the bar. Hooray for us. I knew it wasn't cos we sucked, it was just late. We got a lot of nice compliments from people...the mood was genial enough to caution a trip to Broad Ripple for a little after show socialization.
Two things about Broad Ripple, the Alley Cat is loud and dirty, but very Indianapolis. There is a pizza express place. As Troy and I were walking in, a drunk girl was trying to get out. Drunk college girls can either be really funny or really pathetic. This girl was pathetic, but it was funny afterwords. She tried to open the door and whinned, “Eeuhh, this door is f**in heavy, how can anyone open it!?” Troy and I laughed, although, I think I found it to be more heavy.
Fastforward to the ride up to Marion where we crashed on Zika and Anna's living room floor. I got pulled over on 37, middle of nowhere 4 a.m. Reason, driving with one headlight. But the cop asked me where I'd been and if I had had anything to drink. He asked me to come out of the car, walk a line, asked some questions etc to see if I was sober. He asked me what kind of beer I was drinking. “Pabst.” “Pabst!?” He recoiled in disgust. Are cops supposed to critique one's choice of beer? Maybe he was being conversational, probably, anyway, I thought that was funny too.