Day thirteen: Portland

Though tummies were readied by talk the night before of a cheap, good breakfast and almost mythically spunktacular Bloody Marys at some place in nearby Arcata, a bunch of Budweiser after the show ended up getting in the way of an early start today. Fox, ever the taskmaster when it comes to being on time to venues, single-handedly ruins Christmas in April by declaring an immediate departure shortly after wake-up. No Bloody Mary-stop to be had; no fantastically cheap breakfast to be enjoyed. Instead, a lunch stop happens at a Mexican place in Crescent City that rivals Taco John’s (see Day Two) for the title of Shittiest Mexican Food on Tour.

Sniff.

Una lágrima.

:*(

As the van of gas and abdominal pain nears the Oregon state line, it begins to rain. Oregon, it seems, is a very wet (and green) state, and it takes a lot of rain to get it that wet (and green).

One consolation following the dismal lunch is the a-fucking-mazingly gorgeous ride northeast on Highway 199 through the Smith River National Recreation Area. The highway wends its way along the eponymous Smith River, which is both clear and deep (almost mini golf-like) blue at the same time. Mystifying.

Due to the lack of pictures of tonight’s show—and in view of the fact that everyone really likes picture-dotted blogs more than those composed of just a solid masse of text—here are some photos of the area, stolen from the Internet:




Before long, our boys really do reach Oregon and a massive sigh of relief is heard escaping from Fox’s skinny chest as gas prices drop 30 cents a gallon. The ho-hum highway town of Grant’s Pass is where the van hits I-5 and its stride and, up and down the interminable hills of southern and central Oregon, makes its way steadily north.

The bridges and river and buildings of Portland appear sooner than expected, leaving our boys ample time to get lost trying to find the Towne Lounge. The Lounge is part of a former mortuary and plays sort of hard to get vis-à-vis the directions on hand. Eventually, though, our group arrives, though not before noticing an ominous grinding sound coming from Little Bo Van’s brakes.


The lineup tonight consists of Wax Fingers (Portland), Low Red Land (San Francisco), His Mis (Twin Cities – duh) and Ferocious Eagle (Portland), in that order. The show is a very good one, musically, and the legal in-bar smoking and high level of interest in the merch add to the night. As usual, our transcendental tricksters’ sound dominates the small space. Somewhere in Portland, a baby bursts into tears of speechless wonder.

After the show, the van o’ vans makes the requisite beer stop on the way to the apartment belonging to the amusingly inebriated singer of Wax Fingers, his girlfriend, and their dog and cat. A few Tecates, surprisingly, still stand unopened as the night ends, a testimony, perhaps, to the hard drive that day, the hard life of the touring musician or the hard luck of an impending early morning brake job.

-Miles

Day twelve: Eureka, CA

As the gifted are wont to do, the group of groups wakes up late and gets an even later start on the six-hour-plus trek up to lovely Eureka, CA. Tonight’s venue is Auntie Mo’s: in the heart of downtown, Humboldt County’s only gay bar. The drive is gorgeous but demanding; our boys are, of course, up to the task. The Golden Gate comes and goes, as do the rolling hills and vineyards of Sonoma and Mendocino, and our luscious lads soon enter Redwood Country. Brown mans the wheel most of the way, awed by the size of the trees and their proximity to the van’s mirrors.

Eureka! comes earlier than expected, and His Mis stop in at Auntie Mo’s to survey the scene and load in equipment. Given the town’s proximity to the ocean and its history as a fishing outpost, our bento boys decide on sushi for dinner and end up at the Art Deco-inflected Ritz. Though the food is top-notch, our unpredictable ufologists, perhaps channeling last night’s whiskey and beer, spice things up a bit by depositing unidentified upchucked objects into the toilet (Fox) and a cloth napkin (Quinn).

Returning to the bar, The Band begins a fantastic set for the enjoyment of all of 20 people (packed) in a space the fire marshal has deemed suitable for 580. Fox’s fascination with the sound-sensitive stage lighting endures throughout the show.





Local band Tanuki goes on next. Extremely gracious, one of their number offers His Mis a place to hang their hats for the night.

After the show, Quinn does his best monkey-on-the-lam-from-the-municipal-zoo imitation:



Loads of beer and lots of talking keep our superstars warm as the rain falls outside. Thanking the heavens for the plush carpeting underfoot, our boys fall asleep, that same carpet now undercheek.

-Miles

Day eleven: San Francisco: A roof in Hunter's Point

For some, it’s the hot Central Valley sunlight streaming down through the trees that awakens them; for others, it’s the sound of shopping carts and the rattle of bottles and cans from the Sunday-morning scavengers in the alley outside Mots’ window; for Quinn, it’s the feeling of his face sticking to the warm leather of the living room couch. A post-brunch ride is in order, and Fox and others borrow a few I Street bikes and head down for a swim in the cool, murky waters of the mighty American River.

His Mis and friends get a late start on the return to San Francisco. Brown whines that the weather is too warm for him, but as the van approaches the Bay Area, the temperature cools noticeably and the tears dry.

While today was originally scheduled to be a day off, the chance to play on a rooftop like this was too good to pass up:


Even the fact that all of the equipment has to be lugged up an agonizingly long flight of stairs does little to dampen the enthusiasm of the band of bands as they, and Andrew, set up:


Quinn tests out the drums:


Brown retakes his place right before the music begins, pausing to show the camera why all the boys love him:


Attendance is relatively light, due mostly to the reputation of Hunter’s Point as one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. Those who do brave the (imagined) bullets, carjackings and general danger are in for a treat.


With the multicolored, bunker-like public housing on one side and the shipyards and wide expanse of the bay on the other, our Übermenschen light up the ears of all those assembled—plus those of the throng of kids cheering from the windows of the projects across the street—with their breathtaking musical talent. The creeping twilight and the fierce, cold winds can do nothing to stop them.






After wowing them upstairs at the show, Fox and Coleen wow them downstairs with style.


The night ends in the Mission, back at 592, where our boys, exhausted and possibly overserved, drunkenly dream of tomorrow’s long drive north.

-Miles

Thanks to Josh Madson (joshmadson.com) and Nancy Lai for photos.

Day ten: Sacramento

Another painful morning (or afternoon) and resultant slow start greet our weary minstrels. But, luckily, tonight’s show is a scant two hours away, in the capital of the Golden State: Sacramento. The boys and girls of the I Street Co-op are putting on an afternoon and evening of fun they’re calling FOODBEERMUSICMOVIE, and His Mischief will be there to wow the socks off the Sac.

With a couple of friends along for the ride, the little gray van scoots its way across the Bay Bridge, through Berkeley and the East Bay, and then down into the Central Valley on the way to the strange concrete verticality that marks Sactown from the surrounding agricultural floodplain. The temperature gradually rises until, with the lazy American River that bounds the city now in view, it tops 80 degrees.

The barbeque is smoking, the keg flowing and the party is in full swing when our boys arrive. Mots, party organizer and friend of Fox, welcomes our boys to the sweaty Sac. Matt Jacobs, a local folk singer, starts off the music, and His Mis follow suit on the makeshift stage next to the co-op’s compost pile.


Fox’s voice sounds deliciously raw on the borrowed amp. Or maybe it’s the acid that he soaked his shirt in before the show.


Either way, even the neighbors come out on their porches, drawn by the sonic perfection next door.

Quinn, sans mic, is quieter than usual, giving no hint of the bluegrass animal waiting to burst out.


Brown, as usual, wows with his drumming prowess and low-percentage stick tosses.


After the set is done, the titans return to Earth and mingle once again with the mortals. The Sacramento Bike Kitchen sets up a sheet as screen at dusk and the fixie-riding crowds crowd onto the outdoor couches to watch the Sactown premier of MashSF.

Later on in the night, the hippies come out to play, as does Quinn’s inner hippie. Snatching a banjo and demanding that someone dread his hair, Quinn hops aboard the peace train. The debut of his song “Brother, Sister, Father, Mother,” a whimsical tale about family affection, is well received but, unfortunately, is left unrecorded and forgotten at the end of the night.


Quinn channeling folk artist and noted California penal system resident Charles Manson:


Bed is wherever you can get it—floor, grass, couch outside or inside—and the warm Sacramento night envelopes our boys.

-Miles

Day nine: San Francisco: Kimo's

This picture pretty much sums up how our poor boys feel when they wake up in the early afternoon:


Miles introduces them to both Mission Street and pozole, the Mexican hangover soup. After food comes the art of relax, San Francisco-style, which means an afternoon in Dolores Park. Our group spends a few hours looking at clouds and at kids playing soccer, while Fox sends laser messages to the Pope and later runs into a few friends sprawled out on a blanket in the fading light of early evening.

One would think that it might be difficult to play a show after such a strenuous afternoon, but the demigods of rock and roll head to Kimo’s and, after exploring scenic Polk Street and conducting a bit of hobo business (drinking 40s) in the van, prove otherwise.

Stopping briefly at The Cinch after the show on the trail of Ethel Merman, His Mis head back to the Mission to end the night drinking and hanging out with friends on the stoop of 592. At some point in the wee hours of the morning, a brilliant plan is hatched with Andrew, resident of Hunter’s Point, to play a show on his roof in a couple of days, on what was slated to be a day off.

Sleep comes amid the glass and aluminum remains of hours of fun.

-Miles

Day eight: San Francisco: The Eagle

The shining van of liberty’s departure from the LA metro area is delayed only by a stop at In-n-Out and then by a bit of traffic caused by a car that has flipped and burned along the center divider of I-5. The hills along the Grapevine, normally the drab brown of dry grasses, are awash in the purples, oranges and yellows of spring. The apples of our eye descend into the haze of the Central Valley and settle in for the long ride north.

Brown takes a well-deserved snooze:


Let’s take a closer look:


Before long, a shit-smelling breeze chokes our boys, which means they’ve reached the bovine hell that is Harris Ranch in Coalinga, CA. Someone offers the alternate name of Cowschwitz:


His Mis arrive in San Francisco with plenty of time before the show at The Eagle, San Francisco’s venerable leather bar. They drop their bags and personal effects at Miles’ house and then go to the bar. Tonight’s show is a benefit for the Lyon Martin Health Center, which serves the particular needs of women and transsexuals. Included in the lineup is the Opera Lady, who is accompanied by classical music from her laptop.

Note the unfortunate placement of background signage; also note the motorcycle that Fox will climb, guitar in hand, while playing later (see below):


His Mischief take the place by storm. Amid calls of “Take off your shirt!” the boys from the Twin Cities really do a number on those assembled. After Fox climbs up on the motorcycle that is suspended from the ceiling behind the stage, the crowd goes nuts. Miles can barely handle the mad rush at the merch table, as large, sweating men of all stripes snap up the last of the XLs. The testosterone-fueled lust is thicker in the air than is the hair on any bear’s back.

Some amped-up pictures of our little leather cubs:



Mid-set Jaeger shots precede free drinks once His Mis’s finished playing, and by the time The Ethel Merman Experience starts their set, our liquored lads are ready to rock the fuck out to Ethel and company’s classic rock covers. It is difficult to overstate how hot TEME are.

Check them out:


I see a joint tour in someone's future:


After the show: drinks, drinks and more drinks. Then bed.

-Miles

Day seven: Los Angeles

…who do not answer the door or their phones when our (by now) tired puppy lovers reach their place in Hollywood at 3 a.m. Stuffed animals, Nerf footballs and Sauconys are all thrown with varying degrees of exhausted desperation against a lighted second-floor bedroom window, but to no avail.

Perplexed but ever resourceful, our boys park a few blocks away, in front of a house on a small residential street and, after a number of Tecates and a few trips to the unlocked construction-crew Port-a-Potty sitting in a nearby driveway, bed down for a few hours of sleep in the trusty van. At about 9:30 a.m., too sleepy to remember exactly how, our boys get into the house and collapse for some less cramped sleep.

Food follows the hours of catch-up sleep, and trips to a fresh-food deli and Hooters (depending on individual priorities) are made. Our saviors marvel at the Hollywood-ness of Hollywood—the Walk of Fame; Grumman’s Chinese and The Egyptian theaters; Ripley’s Believe It Or Not; Scientology buildings with street-level window displays packed with stacks of L. Ron Hubbard books; actors dressed as Spiderman and Rambo posing for throngs of tourist cameras; the Kodak Theater, home of the Academy Awards—and someone mentions the infamous scene at the end of Nathaniel West’s Day of the Locust where a mob of gawking Everymen go apeshit in anticipation of a star-studded, red-carpeted 1920s movie opening.

Like most world-renowned rock bands, His Mischief decide to drink before their LA show at Spaceland, and choose to do so with friends at Barragan’s Mexican restaurant on Sunset in Echo Park. Unlike most world-renowned rock bands, His Mischief are a little tight in the wallet, so wet squeals of excitement greet the news that the famous Barragan’s margaritas are only $2.50 apiece tonight.

Fox demonstrating his LA-inspired fashion sensibilities:


Devin and Britta, up from Long Beach, join in the margarita-swilling:


After lapping up a few of these salty beverages sent by god like the Mexican kittens they may well be, our angels of sonic splendor decamp to Spaceland in time for their set.

His Mis + Jeremy in front of Spaceland:


And the set is a good one. Fox’s vocals are sweet and sensual, as are Quinn’s. The guitar and the bass: excellent. Brown entertains even more than usual with his energetic work on the drums. Swooning and genuflections sweep through the audience, many of who have already been liquidly compromised by the $3 Dewar’s drink specials.

Here’s what the show looks like after too many $3 Dewar’s:



To ravage the Latin: en vini obscuritas. The sodden van of sublimity somehow makes its way home. His Mis and friends stumble to a chichi Hollywood bar, giving Miles ample opportunity to drunkenly heckle the overly styled clientele. Lights, faces, rooms, Kelly Osborne—these are some of the elements that might compose a blurred photo montage from the experience. Bed, thankfully, comes soon thereafter, and our pop-top princes are down for the count.

-Miles

Day six: San Diego

It’s only a few hours from Yuma to San Diego, so naturally our first loves get up so late as to receive the 10-minute check-out warning from management. The gray carriage of rock needs an oil change and some tummies need filling, so a few more hours are spent in Yuma than one might usually want. A Salvation Army also beckons, a pit-stop whose clear-plastic TV for sale gives Fox the inspiration for a particularly ill-timed prison joke at the show in San Diego later in the night (see below).

The ho-hum-itude of the ride through the hazy desert scenery of I-8 is broken only by a guard from whatever the Border Patrol is called nowadays who, when stopping the van at a checkpoint for the normal Q&A, waves our boys right on through with the question, “You guys don’t have any weapons of mass destruction in there, do you?”

After checking out the venue, the first stop on our pasty boys’ itinerary is Ocean Beach, where they frolic in the sand with a Frisbee. Brown is heard commenting, “Wow, this here ocean thing sure is bigger than Lake Minnetonka!”

This is Lake Minnetonka:


A dinner-stop in San Diego’s Little Italy and then it’s back to Chasers, the bar that Miles’ mom, after reading its write-up on Yelp, refused to come to to see the show. And though he initially scoffed at what he took to be her over-caution, our hometown heroes soon see that Mother Miles might have been right.

And now, a diversion from the story, in the form of some choice excerpts of Yelp reviews of a scary little dive bar called Chasers.

The optimistic: “The clientele used to be a lot of skinheads but it's been better with that lately.”

The anecdotal: “A co-worker of mine loved this place and dragged me there a few times on the premise that this was a great dive bar. He even brought one of the bartender gals over to my apartment after one night of drinking. Only to have her use my bathroom to shoot up drugs and get blood all over my sink.”

The hypothetical: “…this is the kind of place you go if you're looking to load up on rotgut well liquor and get smashed in the head with a beer bottle.”

The puzzled: “Yeah, this place is a class act. How this place hasn't been raided and shut down escapes me.”

The succinct: “Derelict central. You are warned.”

And the best: “One of the few bars in town I'm frightened to go to. And I like to consider myself a pretty foolish and crazy individual. The few experiences I have had here included near-altercations with homeless individuals, talk of knife play, propositioning of meth and lots of flies.”

In the experience of His Mischief, Chasers is pretty tame, in both a good and a bad way: good in that no overt displays of violence and/or drug use occur, bad in that there aren’t too many people there. (At one point, the only person who appears to be paying attention to the set is an old man who, on further inspection, has actually passed out while seated upright in his chair.)

Fox quickly gets the crowd’s attention, though, with a little story about the prison TV he saw in Yuma that afternoon (see above). He explains that the plastic casing is clear so that it is impossible to hide a shiv inside.

Here are a few pictures of shivs:


Fox then goes on to elaborate with a definition of what a shiv is, but Brown suggests that perhaps he’s talking about a shank. Fox is puzzled. Luckily, a woman with experience with these sorts of matters pipes up and yells out the difference between a shiv and a shank. A number of heads in the bar nod in agreement.

Here is the Wikipedia definition of a shank, for those without a (criminal) record:

“…shank can specifically refer to a weapon fashioned from the metal shank of a prison-issued boot or shoe. Since inmates were able to fashion effective shivs out of metal shanks, many prisons no longer issue footwear with metal shanks.”

With Santa’s little helpers done with their set and the other two bands who were scheduled to play having broken up and changed venues last minute, respectively, the winged van of glory is on the road to LA by 1 a.m., bound for a night with some friends from the Twin Cities…

-Miles

Day five: Yuma (rest)

If the good lord could designate an entire day for kicking back and enjoying a cold one, then His Mischief might as well take a day and do the same…and it might as well be in Yuma, AZ.

After waking up well past noon in air-conditioned, stuccoed comfort, the boys of our hearts put in some good shower time, perhaps in hopes of washing off whatever Albuquerque grime might remain. A trip to a taco place and a few hobo photos later—

Sheridan takes a power nap:


One way to recycle:


Huh?


Besties!


—they’re back on the road, bound for the soulless border town of Yuma.

Motel 6 is the lucky host of the objects of our affection for tonight, and they somehow end up with what might be described as the Presidential Suite. Not much happens: showers, sushi, television. A little exploring. Even the shots and beers Quinn and Brown bring back cannot keep our group from their ultimate destination for the day: sleep.

Moral of today’s story: even rock stars take a day off from the rock-star life every once in a while.

-Miles

Day four: Scottsdale

The band of a century awakes where we left them a few hours before: at a highway rest stop, the bright New Mexico sun now beating down on the gray van of glory. They are not alone, however, as a number of trucks, cars and vans surround them in the parking lot. After a round of bum’s showers in the bathroom and a peek at what the walls have to offer in the way of graffiti—highlight: “419 BJ in last stall”—it’s off to Scottsdale for their show at Rogue Bar.

Hunger strikes somewhere around Gallup, NM and, humming the tune to “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” they pull off and eat at Earl’s Restaurant. Green chili, Indian fry bread and Mexican staples are among the offerings, as well as all the Indian folk art and handicrafts one could ever want, and the band leaves fed and happy. A Goodwill pings Fox’s deal-o-meter and the van swerves to make an impromptu thrifting stop. Only then, once clothes have been rifled through and records exhaustively examined, can our boys re-board the van of vans and continue on into that land of sun-desiccated old age: Arizona.

A few hours later, the men of mystery arrive, horrendously early, in Scottsdale. Marveling at the beauty of the surrounding mountains and the number of expensive cars, His Mis makes their way to Rogue Bar, where, not surprisingly (given that it’s 8 o’clock, latest, on a Sunday), there are all of two people there. A taqueria down the street solves the dinner problem and a massage parlor next door offers a happy ending for another sort of problem, but instead it’s back to the bar and free wireless (yes!) before they go on at eleven.

Rogue Bar, though cursed with shitty acoustics, is a cool place. There is a pool table where Miles displays his dazzling pool skills, much to Brown’s dismay. Our sonic pioneers drink for free, and even get treated to tequila shots in the middle of their set. Shalom! Shalom! sounds particularly great tonight.

Some artistic photographs of everyone’s best friends:




After the set, the drinking continues. A creepy, shoeless guy with shaved head and camo hat proves the old adage “going without shoes in a bar will creep people out.” A jovial brother-and-sister duo—he with ginormous hands and she with a 4-year-old sleeping at home—chat with the band. A desperate middle-aged man goes from group to group, offering $20 for a condom. At some point, a Dutch fellow storms out of the bar, yelling over his shoulder, “The Navajos and the Mormons ruined my life!”

Just as the now-tired boys are about to sack up and head to a rest stop for the night, the bartender offers to let them crash at her place. They wait while she closes up shop and then follow her on a half-hour drive through the desert to the stucco-bland housing development where she lives with her sister. An 18-pack and shots of Jaegermeister later, the sun is up and it’s time for bed.

-Miles