Sakes Alive!! Tour Journal: Part Two

When you’re on the road, suddenly your lifestyle changes drastically. An obvious no brainer. But your perception of time and availability of time definitely changes too. You’d think having most of the day off and long drives would allow plenty of time to do all sorts of stuff. On the road though, you want to go out and see different towns. You meet up with some old friends and want to hang out. It’s so different from anything else I’ve ever experienced.

Read more after the jump.

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So the next day in Ithaca, everyone started waking up and snagging showers. Bubba and Mel were both at work, but left us a spare key so we could leave whenever we were ready. Lounging around the house, making Ramen noodles in a microwave and warming coffee. After we load up the van, I almost locked all of Dave’s belongings in the house. I thought that everything was packed, and slipped the spare key under the door. He wasn’t though! So I had to take a piece of paper and fish the key back from under the door. Oy.

We leave Ithaca for our next show in Vestal, NY, a suburb of Binghamton. Our show was originally in downtown Binghamton. Our friend and promoter Nick of Moneyshot Promotion had booked us numerous times before. However, a week or so beforehand, the show was canceled because the ”venue was closing.” This is kind of a hefty blow on your second day of tour.

So instead, we asked our friend Dan if he could help us put together a show to salvage the date. I’m not sure if I actually believed the venue was closed, but Nick’s saved us in the past under tough circumstances (our van broke down outside of Binghamton and we had to sleep in a town called Marathon, missing the show. The next day Nick met up with us and gave us $50 anyways to help). Dan put together a show at a pavilion in their local park, Arnold Park.

We’re leaving Ithaca. But as stated previously, Ithaca sits in a valley surrounded by huge hills. Vanny Tanner does not do hills well. Add a trailer to the mix? Hoo boy.

Therefore, the street we just have to drive on to get out is also the biggest hill in the damn town. Near vertical ascension. Everyone’s completely tense and Vanny is doing maybe 5-10 mph up this thing. Completely convinced we’re not gonna make it, Vanny somehow does it.

The drive to Vestal is pretty uneventful. Thankfully short though. Through some other hills and questionable terrain (for Vanny), we get to the park. Dan’s band, The Rot, are setting up for the show under the pavilion. The pavilion is simply four poles holding up a tin roof over a concrete slab. Dan’s mom sent him off with brownies she made and root beer. Fucking awesome whenever someone presents you with food!

Such Gold shows up, having stayed in Binghamton the previous night. It takes a while for people to show up. This forces the show to start an hour or so later than expected. The Rot opened the show, and are a cool, younger punk band. The Jims followed, a local band who’s schtick was to be mildly offensive and make fun of everything. For a while I thought it was pretty hilarious. This was sort of how I imagined Ben Weasel and Screeching Weasel to be in their younger years. However, the band started making up songs about how Dan and The Rot wasted their money renting the pavilion and booking the show. Sure, I still felt this would be very Screeching Weasel-ish, but didn’t appreciate it as much. I stopped watching at this point.

Then Such Gold set up, and of course played amazingly. Right when they started though, The Jims packed up and decided to leave the show, after everyone watched them play (and a crowd of maybe ten). Devan from Such Gold gets burnt by this, and begins to tell them to fuck off
over the P.A. An exchange of middle fingers and “fuck offs,” and The Jims drive off. Haha.

Right after Such Gold’s set, we’re to play. But right when we’re setting up, a cop shows up. Apparently some folks in the park called in to complain about the use of profanity (The Jims). Now the cop wants to hang around to see if we’re making a ruckus at Arnold Park.

I’m thrilled. This dude is gonna watch us?! Completely convinced the moment we start playing our screamy noise, we’re gonna be shut down. It seemed to me not even worth trying to play. But everyone is insisting to just try it. Fine.

Halfway through our first song though, the cop gets in his car. What’s this? He signals with a  humbs up that we’re all good! We couldn’t believe it.

After the show we all went to Taco Bell (Such Gold and us) and hung out for a while in the lot. Some of the dudes harassing passerbys. We needed a place to stay for the night (Such Gold stayed with their friend again). Mike, Tim and Kyle know a friend named Bobby who they went to school with that now lived in Binghamton. Bobby said we could crash with him and his girlfriend. Had to get there before it got too late though. They had an early morning the next day.

We head there and it appears they live in the near ghetto of Binghamton. Moose and Mike slept in the van and the rest of us head into Bobby’s apartment. We hang and chat for a while, and they have a nutty cat who wanted to attack our sleeping bags. On the floor is an over abundance of Playboy magazines. Weird, anyone?

Next morning we wake up and go out to grab coffee/tea at the Hess station. Bobby’s girlfriend’s parents from Rochester are coming to pick her up and see their apartment. So although they don’t want to kick us out, it would make for sort of an awkward situation. We decided to leave early for Pittsfield, MA.

The drive, yet again, uneventful for the most part. With the exception of the massive mountains Pittsfield seemed to sit on top of! Vanny was driving so insanely slow up these things, I was convinced we weren’t going to make it. He did though. Always seems to (knock on wood).

When we arrive into Pittsfield, the first sight we’re welcomed by are three local girls on the side of the road waiting to cross. One with a kid in a stroller, one without, and the last pregnant (maybe 7 or 8 months), smoking a cigerette. Classy!

Our alternator belt begins to squeal when we arrive at the record store. This means the damn bolt holding the pulley has loosened up. This has happened to us so many fucking times on the road. First it loosens, then (eventually) it breaks. Sometimes I just want to break the damn thing myself so as to steal any satisfaction that thing gets when it screws us. But instead I just get under the hood and tighten the belt.

Rebel Sound Records seems to be a pretty nice, small shop in the Pittsfield area. It doesn’t have a vast collection of records for sale, but the ones it does have are pretty awesome. Andy, the owner is chatting up a little with us and being very hospitable.

Such Gold arrive, and we’re waiting for both the local bands and people to start showing up. Pretty much around 7 pm (when doors ”open”), the bands show up. However, no people. Honestly, we start getting instantly worried. In the realm of DIY punk rock, if no one shows, you don’t get paid. And this isn’t like, “aw, I can’t get a hotel today” (we’ve never rented our own hotel room). Our gas tank is wholly dependent on cash from the door.

I’m talking to the kids who work at the record store, and one is saying that usually the locals don’t show up till pretty late in the evening. We’re sure as hell hoping that’s the case. I keep walking outside to check the parking lot for cars and inside the store for bodies. People do start to collect (slowly). The first band played and next was Such Gold.

By the time Such Gold played, the max number of people, 20, I think were at the show. So we were glad we weren’t playing to nobody for the night! We played right after Such Gold and had a great time.

One kid, while bouncing around for us during our set, butted heads with Devan from Such Gold. From my vantage point during our last song all I saw was a kid holding his head and walking out. As soon as we were done I ran outside to see what happened. After he and Devan told me, I was very concerned about the kid and any further injury. He insisted he was alright, but I told him if anything feels wrong to let us know and we’d get him to a hospital.

The end of the night was sweet. The kid who originally told us that Pittsfield kids like to show up late (who was correct) invited us over to his buddy’s house to spend the night. Such Gold took off with some other people they met at the show. Drove up some more hills (really?), and made it to some back woods-y area where the dude lived. Everyone but Dave and myself stayed up that night. We spent the night in a converted garage.