What, again?
Is that what yer saying?

Jeez, seems like it was only just 10 years ago these guys put out a new record….
These guys are machines!

Heh, fuck you.
We’ve been busy, okay?
After all, it’s not easy trying to work new songs into the set while you bastards keep yelling out Wetspots–even after we’ve played it twice!

Ah, but slowly-slowly!– we accumulated enough odds and ends, Clash ripoff riffs and loopy lyrics stolen off abandoned Mother’s Day cards, to get back into the Studio and grind out some new stuff.

Beside, just count yourself lucky that we don’t subject you to tons of unnecessary and sucky filler every year, yeah?

I’m thinking Green Day here, on the eve of their releasing 3-three!— albums in sequence, each worse than the last–
Uno, Dos and Chúpelo!

And now we stand on the eve of our new release, and we’re thrilled the good folks at scrappy Hostage Records have graciously agreed to work with us, the nasty rumors from former staff members of Enigma be damned!

For this next project, we bypass the usual formats and will release initially as a 7″ single that includes a download card of the 7 song ep—-neat0!

What ya think? Will the kids go for this sort of thing or have we already missed yet another train on the tech railway?

Oh, we were so thrilled when cds came around–oh, the convenience!
Now, instead of hearing our songs skip to the organic flaws in the vinyl, we were subjected to the digital blips and burps when the binary sequence was disturbed.

And then what about that Napster–what the fuck?
Ya mean the song comes over my phone modem? And only takes 28 minutes to download Jealous Again??
Swweeet!

Besides, we all know that you just burn each cd to your pc, which doles out the tracks to your phones and ipods like the recumbent sow connected to so many hungry piglets.
And then what? You throw that cd into the junk drawer, where it will eventually be passed down the trash line until it sits gleaming on a landfill, its half life 2 million years, and that’s if it rains acid!

No, call us, god help us, Green if you need to, but this seems a far better way to inject the music into your little lives!
Oh, I’m sure in a few years we will have a chip that is sent to you on the back of a nano-robotic weasel, or perhaps a handy suppository that downloads the new songs right into your cerebral cortex.
But until that day comes this will have to do!

Another cool item on this release if the Hostage Art Damage series, where a small batch of the records are numbered and given the personal touch.

That’s right, if yer lucky enough to jump on it, you’ll get a sleeve that has personally been signed by the boys–oooooh!

So we gather together, four grumpy old fucks on a Thursday night to do our promotional duties, though we’d rather be home catching up with our beloved Honey Boo Boo….

But we make the best of it, as we always do.
Hey, this signing stuff–it’s not that bad!

And then we think, hey, these are special, but why not make one of these lucky sleeves really special, yeah?
I’m talking golden-ticket-in-the-candy-bar special here!

So we take one randomly out of the stack –lucky number four!– and he comes along with us on a typical CH3 night of adventure:

And whoever ends up with ol’ number four in hand, yer one lucky bastard.
Oh, the time we had… he’s one of the good ones!

Just keep it away from any black lights, if ya know what I’m saying!

And so now we release some new songs into the wilds.

We’ll promote it and tour behind it for a while, and then the new songs become just old ones like all the others.
We’ll sell a few, give away too many to chums.
The harsh criticisms will fly around the internet, and we’ll pretend not to care.

And then we’ll get right to work on that next record, don’t you worry–see you in 2022!

Dear readers:
Sincere apologies.
We return from Summer hiatus only to find the CH3 headquarters a shambles.

The copywriters’ desks are littered with empty vodka bottles and crumpled empties of Parliaments, the staff lounge is a ruin.
The blackened walls of the galley tell of several recent grease fires, and there, up high on the wall, could it be?
Yes.
Twin hand prints, apparently dipped in human excrement, slapped up high and sloped down the wall, like the end quotation marks to a desperate and bizarre paragraph of dialogue.

And the blog?
The once mighty CH3 blog has been hacked by yet another Russian Bestiality site…

Goddamnit! what have you people been doing?

We leave for the season and the world has, apparently, gone mad.
As usual, we were lulled into a near comatose state by a season off the stage.

It was a, yes, long hot Summer, bookmarked by the twin tragedies: The graceless Miami Heat winning the NBA title and the passing of Phyllis Diller.

The Olympics come around, and our twitchy National attention shifts yet again: suddenly every drunk in the bar is an instant expert on the Pommel Horse dismount.

Miles above us a billion dollar RC car wanders aimlessly along the red clay of Mars, while here on Earth we lose a man who actually put foot upon moondust.

And you tell me Russian girls languish in prison?
Their crime– playing mediocre punk rock in a public arena?
Heh- Let’s take a moment to thank our stars that’s not a crime here, brother!

I propose a hostage trade: get those chicks over here for a month-long residency at the Juke Joint, and we’ll send ya a half dozen Long Beach bands that would be better off behind bars!

And when the Dark Knight opens to strong reviews and-truly!– crazed fans, we will from now on watch a movie with one eye on the Emergency Exit, wondering what terrors lurk on just the other side.

But beyond these atrocities, the Summer was long and luxurious, warm gentle nights filled with sweating tumblers of gin and tiki torches flickering down to the wick.

The late night in the backyard with nothing to do but comtemplate the lazy trail of Ursa Minor pawing its way across a purple sky, the lonesome electronic beep of the cricket in duet with the tinkling song of the ice cube kissing the highball glass.

We were only roused from this lethargy by the sight of the once noble Clint Eastwood babbling to an empty chair: The Outlaw Josey Wales, reduced to the crazy man in the subway station, all spittle at the mouth corners and urine soaked trousers.

We’ve spent the last few months underground, save a couple wacky adventures we’ll get to later.
Oh sure, in the past a whole Summer off would’ve driven us to madness.
We should be out there, shouldn’t we?, touring the country in a smelly van with no air conditioning, showing them we can still take it!
Playing for slim crowds of kids who can finally cross another name off their bucket list of oldies acts, eating the terrible foods that are offered to the side of that black stream of highway.

But this Summer, as we read about The Adolescents going on day 79 of their tortuous European tour, we only sigh with contented comfort, and toss another bratwust upon the Weber in the style of every other Suburban dad on a Thursday evening.

Away from the strains of being that guy from CH3, we were allowed to let the hair gray and add a dozen luxurious pounds of carbohydrate-derived calories.
And the days, they passed.

Alfie truly becomes the gramps we always jokingly called him anyway.
Ant, confounded by our laziness, starts a new band.

Kimm and I disappear entirely into the woodwork of family and mundane work, letting the guitars gather dust and the messages pile into post-it note pyramids, although the rare sighting is reported breathlessly on facebook:

But now, as the days have finally started to shorten and the goddamn shadows are finally spilling across the yard by 7pm, it is time to get back at it.

Oh, you’ll be sick of us in a month or so, as we gear up for the promo push for the new record, and you’ll be suddenly assaulted by shameless promotion at every level.

Gigs are booked, artwork is finalized, and we grudgingly go back on our cabbage soup diets, for this vacation is just about over.

But the days are still warm, aren’t they?
And we still have time- don’t we?– to sit in the backyard again, and drain the last of the clear alcohol in the sideboard.
We can use the plastic tiki tumblers once more, before packing them away and getting out the crystal bourbon buckets for Fall.

And we can stare into the purple dusk one more time, thinking of nothing at all, just waiting for the next creature of the constellation to crawl across the sky.

Sunday:

Up in Houston, and the ghost of Saturday night’s cheap whiskey haunts our mouths:

The stubborn bouquet of the squashed skunk in the gutter.
A shrimp scampi doggy bag left in the backseat over the weekend.

These are the things that come to mind.

Thankfully, Houston is on the cutting edge of drive-thru frozen cocktail dispensaries, so we’re soon back on the road, destination New Orleans, piña coladas in hand!

We’d pulled into Houston still woozy from the long lunch in Austin.
It was an uneventful drive, save a couple hilarious piss stops along the way.

Tacky souvenirs are bought, roadside delicacies sampled:

We check in -late- to the Post Oak Hilton, none too happy about the prospect of another night without our beloved nap.

We are consoled, however, by the sight of brilliant couples loading the elevators for the reception floors:
It’s prom night in Houston baby!

It’s a quick drop off, whore’s bath and lace up the boots before we’re back in the ride and heading over to Walter’s and our date with the Stitches and LCB–one more time…!

We load into a non descript warehouse on the edge of town, all abandoned railroad tracks and the lonesome baying of stray mongrels.

We each breathe out a sigh, for it’s a scene we’ve seen a thousand times before.
The bored look on the kids’ faces, the worried look on the promoter’s.
We silently wonder if we set the DVR for SNL properly, isn’t this the night Mick Jagger is hosting?

It is times like these that you need to remind yourself that it is Saturday Night in America, and some of these kids have waited patiently a month for this gig to arrive.

But soon enough, we’re pulled back into the belly of that familiar monster, and the crew is all in fine spirit:

Tonight it’s the Brats that have to headline, so we do our little act and then adjourn to the plywood bar for many doses of that cheap whiskey we were talking about…..

Upon seeing the lousy selection of booze, a smarter group of chaps might just say
No thanks, I’ll wait til we get back to the Lobby Bar ,

But come on!
If we were a smarter group of chaps, we would’ve started a ska band instead, and comfortably be out on the Warped Tour every Summer and get to wear suits and flat tops…but no!

And then, as always, the night comes to a sloppy end.

We take group photos and group hugs, for we have to say goodbye to the Stitches and Brats for now.
Smart fellas they are, they’ve passed on the extra show in N.O., so we each take to the streets in our separate caravans, on the lookout for that late night greasy food that will only complicate matters in the morning.

New Orleans:

Taking to Bourbon Street at a run, we stop only to shoot icy cold doses of Jager and swallow giant Blue Points raw.
We’ve come here straight off of the hellish hungover drive, but suddenly energized by the town, we are unable to sit still more than 5 minutes.

We wear whitefaced grins from too many powdered Beignets….
We are, literally, kids in a candy store.

Beanie has to drag us kicking and crying away from the French Quarter for tonight’s gig.

We pout into our to-go 32ouncers all the way over to Siberia, where the mighty Poots have taken to stage!

And then, once again, it’s our turn.

We ask to borrow strange amplifiers, Alf adapts to yet another unfamiliar drum set.
Yet somehow, we pull it all together again, and give the kind people an idea of what we’re all about.

It’s a Sunday night, a couple thousand miles away from familiar beds, and our bowels have been destroyed by the unrelenting onslaught of cheap booze and barbecued meats.
We feel great.

We get to hang out with the locals and some visiting chums, and the people of this nutty town, they don’t seem to notice that Sunday has somehow turned into a Monday morning!

And double checking the itinerary–yep–we’re done!

The day gets light, we hit Bourbon–the street and the beverage! once again, and before you know it, the day starts to darken once more.

We hit a million bars and talk about a million things.
We come up with brilliant ideas for the band, ideas that somehow no one can remember the next day.

And we’re here amongst friends, and feeling finally free.
One by one, we start to leave wordly posessions on bartops, keys and phones, those beeping talismans that connect us to the responsible world.
Drunkenly misplaced or thrown away in disgust of what we’ve become–leashed to the world at all times!–we suddenly see.

We don’t need these things, not anymore.
Maybe we’ll just stay right here, off the grid, living on the banks of the Mississippi.
We’ll sleep under the smoky stars and eat our fill of mudbugs and wild green onions every day.

We get up and leave, onto yet the next joint.
Some of these things we’ve abandoned are brought back out to us, on the shadowy sidewalk, by vigilant bartenders.

Others are lost, forever.

Tuesday:

Bourbon Street, the site of hilarity so very recently, unfolds serious and hot before us.

It’s Tuesday afternoon, the shows are done, and I’m walking in front of Kimm, behind Ant and Alf, each of us keeping 5 yards apart:

Apparently, there is nothing left to say.

Ah, what is it about a fine hotel?

The chance to luxuriate upon Egyptian 1200 thread count sheets in soft terrycloth robes?
That small yet heartwarming gesture, the nightly gift of a mint on the pillow?

Perhaps you just like to scroll mindlessly through the Adults-Only titles on the 50” LCD monitor, is that it, you naughty rascal?

Heh—if you’re like us on a Friday afternoon at America’s Best Value Inn, East Austin, packed into one room as the other is being finished by the maids, your best values tend to aim a little lower…..

We keep checking the hallway, but the maid’s cumbersome workstation remains outside our door.
The day labororers standing around the front office, 40 oz jugs of amber malt liquor in hand, eyed us warily as we checked in.
We hear a lot of chingas and maricóns muttered in the background as we climb the stairs holding guitar cases.

There is a pickup game of soccer happening in the parking lot at the moment, apparently the drywallers are outscoring the busboys 3-1.

And now, I shit you not, Maintenance has been called to our room-in-waiting.
A big smiling chap comes back out into the hallway, carrying the dorm-sized fridge, and begins happily washing the congealed blood out of it.

Misters, your room is good now!

A quick vote is taken, and fearing to rest our pubis anywhere near the inevitably lice ridden bedspreads, we decide to forgo our customary nap and head straight to our beloved Casino El Camino: Let’s say say hello to the town.

Austin, you slutty drunk of a town, how we missed you!

We head over to Rainey Street, its burnt out hovels reimagined as ritzy dive bar hovels now, a playground for the Docker and Ralph Lauren set…

Foreclosed shacks are now home to 14 dollar Appletinis, and there are ATM machines set up on gravel driveways amongst the clucking chickens and dog shit.
Why can’t we have something like this, say, in Santa Fe Springs back home?!

And then it’s over to Red 7 to prep for the night’s gig with Stitches and old pals Lower Class Brats.

Loading in and setting up merch, the bands meet up and talk about new grandkids and used guitars: Gonna be a fun night!

It turns out to be just a grand time, the bands are all on point and everywhere you look there is a familiar face wearing a goofy smile!

We’re on the outdoor stage tonight, and a warm yellow moon rises above the howling pack of degenerates at Red 7…..all we’re missing is a bonfire and a split haunch of venison and this primal ritual would be complete!

Luckily, Stitches have to close out this night.

Funny, in the old days, bands would fight over the headlining spot, going as far as faking car trouble or ailing Grandmothers to show up late.
Now, like value-minded Senior Citizens lining up for the 4:30 earlybird at the Parasol Diner, we’re at the club early and scrapping for the chance to play first!

Heh—you close out the show Sonny, we got some reruns of Matlock to catch up on!

We sip our final cocktails at last call, load out and call the night.

We get back to America’s Best Value and fall into deep slumber clutching oozing Whataburgers, nary a thought of frozen blood or crab infestation disturbing our blissful sleep.

Saturday:

It’s up and out, and plans are made for a light breakfast at IronWorks BBQ:

And then, clever boys that we are, it’s back to Casino before hitting the road to Houston.

2 shows down and 9600 milligrams of Sodium up, I know we all are at that point in the weekend that we take a personal inventory:
Just need to choke down a couple litres of water, some Immodium and Vitamin C and we’re good, yeah?

But maybe there is an extra gram of tiredness in the limbs, an unfamiliar grumbling of stomach… but nothing we can’t get through.

After all, you’ve done it before: that becomes the true mantra of any man past the age of fifty, I suspect.

We measure our performance against the past, and tend to ignore the added seconds at the finish line, the stubborn top button on the favorite Levis.

Ah, but these little markers become the telltales of time claiming its territory.
And so we get back in and drive on, comforted only by the thought that it’s a Hilton booked for tonight.

Bourbon Street, the site of hilarity so very recently, unfolds serious and hot before us.
It’s Tuesday afternoon, the shows are done, and I’m walking in front of Kimm, behind Ant and Alf, each of us keeping 5 yards apart: Apparently, there is nothing left to say.

Passing the bars and open courtyards, the city gives up its funky secrets in the naked light of day.
Beer is being delivered, vomit is being removed.

Somewhere, another chocolate-dark roux is patiently being birthed, base for the gumbo to be fed to the tourists and, inevitably, delivered back to the gutter later in the night.

Fuckin’ New Orleans.

30 years ago, we bounced through this same route and were hungry for more.
Actual regret at going home, we’d seen this crazy world and couldn’t wait to be back.

Now?

We’re older, me and Kimm anyway, I guess.
A lifetime of sticky bartops and a thousand colorful characters later, we cannot wait to get home.

We are killing time before a 7pm flight, doing the ‘ol walk of shame along Bourbon, trying to collect the things we’ve lost the night before:

Sunglasses, cell phones.
Dignity.

“Here,” says Anthony. He points to an open bar across the way.
“This was the last place we were drinking at last night. Pretty sure.”

We go in and take stools on the zinc bar.
As the bartender goes to check with the manager about lost and found, we sip on cold Dixies and page through the weeklies on the bar:

Ragin’ Roy, twink DJ
Tranny Bingo Wednesdays.
Bear Cave Thursdays—Come to Daddy!

Really?
Anthony goes outside and squints up at the rainbow flags fluttering in the breeze.
“Maybe this wasn’t the place.”

We hit the street again, I sit down on a stoop as the fellas go across the street to check out Bloody Mary’s Voodoo Store:
Potions, Dolls, Psychic Readings: Know your Future!
Sound good to me.

I have a feeling my immediate future involves a 3 day headache and plenty of hydration.

“What you doing Sugar?”
I look up at the enormous brown ass of a stripper standing in the doorway of Deja Vu.
She is bisected by the glittery white stripe of a thong, which disappears into the twin hemispheres before emerging beneath an elaborate rose and thorn tattoo.

I stand up and start to walk off, but she keeps after me.
“Hey, where you going? You get in here and let Delicious give you a lapdance, hey?”

“Well, that does sound, ah, great, but we have a flight to catch.”
I point across the street at the guys. “We do.”

“Oh, well that’s too bad baby. What, lookit the hair on that one!”
She points at Kimm.
He sees us looking at him, me and Delicious, and flaps his arms once: What now?

“Y’all in some kind of band or something?”
“Yes. Yes we are. We’re called, uh, The Stitches. From LA?”

Delicious lights a Newport and coughs out a laugh.
“Stitches? Whooo, that’s funny. What you doing all the way out here Sugar?”

I sit back down on the stoop, suddenly dizzy from the humidity and toxic ingredients swimming my bloodstream.
Across the street Kimm takes yet another call on his Blackberry and paces back and forth in front of the store.
Doing business, God Bless him.

“Well, we’re on tour, Delicious. Did a few shows this weekend.”
“Is that right? Where y’all been playing?”

I close my eyes and see flashes of red, then the images of the last four days come gushing forth.

Thursday:
An easy flight to Dallas on Thursday afternoon, Kimm has been here for a night and picks us up in a swanky 2012 Yukon.
In the passenger seat is our old mate BeenBoy, in from Cleveland, and the crew is set for shenanigans!

Into Dallas to check out Elm St., and hook up with old pal Mouse Ramone.

He directs us to Serious Pizza next to the club, home of, well, serious sized slices!

We’re fresh as daisies, and skip along Elm Street as we wait for The Stitches to show up and start the night.
We’re thrilled to find a gallery down the way featuring the work of Big Boy guitarist Tim Kerr, surely a good omen for things to come in Austin.

And then we start to see various Stitches appear in the balmy Texas evening, and the night has begun!

The crowd at LaGrange is admittedly a little light.
We blame the Stitches, they blame us.

But we don’t really care, as the crew at the club are kind, the bar and backyard awesome, and opening band Dog Company are rockin’ gentlemen…and hell, we’re on vacation!!

We adjourn to The Black Swan next door to cap off the night, and then drive past the grassy knoll a few times to satisfy Anthony’s conspiracy-minded theories.

Friday:

Up at a decent hour, we’re shuffling around in boxers and cranky for coffee when the Stitch crew comes bursting in with their plans for the day:
Hit a bike shop, back to Elm St. for some antiquing, lunch is TexMex.

Heh, not us brother—-we’ve been told of a little gem of a town halfway to Austin, that’s right, we’re heading to the Czech Stop in the swingin burg of West, Texas!

Now, that’s not West Texas, I’m talking West, Texas, ya got me? The town is called West, as in W-E-S-T, as we were schooled by the grumpy locals at Mynar’s.

Full from our Czech delicacies, we wandered down to Mynar’s to wet our whistles and see what the locals were up to.

The screen door slams behind me and I squint a bit against the cool dark of the bar.
There’s beer cooling in a tub behind the bar, stuffed heads on the walls.
The bartender is a gentle faced grandmom sucking on a 120.
There’s a table of locals plopped in front of the projection TV, Natural Lights in hand.

Perfect.

There is that momentary lapse in sound, that cliched’ pause that results whenever you barge into someone else’s turf, a crew of five.
Well, well….Hollywood’s come to town!

But soon we’re yukkking it up with the locals, although they sneer at our Converse sneakers–on men our age!— and our amazement at a working Telephone booth inside the bar.

I’m in the back room with Beenie, taking turns in the phone booth when one of the old locals comes out of the head and up to us.
“You there,” he says, and points at me. “Get over here.”

I drop the receiver and come out of the booth.
He looks like Santa Claus on a five day drunk, all grey whiskers and red skin.
He takes a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and unfolds it, looking at me.

“Read this, go on,” he says, “I’ll bet you can appreciate this.”

I look down at the paper, a printout of an old email that has apparently been forwarded many times.
The paper is soiled and worn at the folds, witness to its many presentations, probably in this very room.

I start reading, and I can feel his eyes on me as I read:

Ole Joke “The Norwegian Wrestler”
A Russian and Ole the Norwegian wrestler were set to square off for the Olympic Gold Medal. Before the final match, the Norwegian wrestling coach came to Ole and said, “Now, don’t forget all the research we’ve done on this Russian… He’s never lost a match because of this ‘pretzel’ hold he has”. Whatever you do, do not let him get you in that hold! If he does, you’re finished’. Ole nodded in acknowledgment.

As the match started, Ole and the Russian circled each other several times, looking for an opening. All of a sudden, the Russian lunged forward, grabbing Ole and wrapping him up in the dreaded pretzel hold. A sigh of disappointment arose from the crowd and the coach buried his face in his hands, for he knew all was lost… He couldn’t watch the inevitable happen.

Suddenly, there was a scream, and then a cheer from the crowd and the coach raised his eyes just in time to watch the Russian go flying up in the air. His back hit the mat with a thud and Ole collapsed on top of him making the pin and winning the match. The crowd went crazy. The coach was astounded.

When he finally got his wrestler alone, he asked, “How did you ever get out of that hold? No one has ever done it before!”

Ole answered, “Vel, I vas ready to give up ven he got me in dat hold, but at da last moment, I opened my eyes and saw dis pair of testicles right in front of my face…I had nuttin’ to lose so wid my last ounce of strength I stretched out my neck and bit dose babies just as hard as I could.”

So the trainer exclaimed, “That’s what finished him off!”

“Vel not really. You’d be amazed how strong you get ven you bite your own nuts!”

I look up from the paper and he’s staring at me.
“You get it? He bit his own balls.”

“Heh. He sure did. That’s great.”
He takes the paper out of my hands and folds it back up carefully before putting it back in his pocket.

He nods his head.
“Yep. I knew you’d get it.”

There was a time, maybe not that long ago, when we would be rolling our eyes at the yokels, luxuriating in our superiority.
We’d cluck our tongues at their little lives as we drove off on another adventure beyond their sad little horizon.

But now, standing here, I feel a twinge of envy as Santa goes back to the table, slapping backs on the way.
And for a moment I wish I was here, and staying here, celebrating a Friday afternoon in my own little town, and letting the world pass by.
But we have to get back into that fucking car and keep driving, another gig tonight, and the night after that.

As we’re leaving the bartender calls me over.

“So you guys are a band huh? What’s the band?”
“Ever hear of the Foo Fighters?”

Her eyes light up. “I have! I just bought my grandson Jake the cd….is that you?”
“Um, no. We’re called…. the Stitches?”

The disappointment flashes across her face for a moment and then she fishes something out from beneath the bar.
“Well, you’re the leader, aren’t you? I can tell.”

I look around, and the rest of the guys have already left the bar.
“I am. I am the leader.”

She places something in my hand, it’s a Mynar’s Bar Beer cozy.
“I’m sorry I can’t give each one of y’all one, but you can share, can’t you?”

We sure can, and we do, all the way to Austin.

The year was 1982, a sensibly-faced Michael Jackson had just layed Thriller on the world,
Al Haig had left the Secretary of State gig after a failed coup, and we were shocked to be mourning those twins of Royalty:
Princess Grace and John Belushi…..!

We’d been riding the unexpected success of the first EP, getting some nice gigs around town and Fear of Life was just now on the shelves!

And so we did the next logical thing:
Late June of 1982 we loaded into the Blue and White, kissed the dogs goodbye and, for the first time in our young innocent lives, Hit the Road!

We drove straight through that scorching Desert, a day, a night….what? Another goddamned day?-straight through to the first gig:
Dallas.

There we met up with our tour mates for the next few gigs, some jolly chaps callin’ themselves Husker Du…..

Wonder whatever happened to those kids, hmm?

Up the next day and it was into Austin, still one of our favorite places on this Earth!

We’d met the Big Boys a few weeks earlier when they were out in L.A. opening for X at the Whisky.
All true gents, the Boys took us in, showed us around town, put us up and even defended us when the crowd started to call us Hollywood poseurs!

Hey–we’re Cerritos poseurs, smart guy!

A fun filled time, and then it was onto Houston.

Perhaps it was there we learned the value of telling everyone in town that it was your Birthday, and also telling all the girls that you were scared and a little homesick……just buy me a drink and hold me!

Oh, you people sneer at our obsession with food and fine tableware nowadays, but things were a little different back then!
We lived on canned beef stew and Orange Tang, and no Paella or Berberé Stew has come close since…..

Rosebud!

And then we ended up at our farthest destination, New Orleans!

Oh man, yer telling me about a place of 50 cent Dixie Beers and heaping plates of Red Beans and Rice, where the bars stayed open round the clock and graves were all above ground and ripe for vandalism?…..we’re home fellas!

We started back West, stopping to play in Tulsa before heading back into our familiar stomping grounds of Arizona:

It was a fairly quick trip, when you think about it, but we came home changed fellas.
We’d seen what was out there, beyond the smoggy bubble of Southern California.

And though my appendix had discretely started leaking sometime on the ride home from Phoenix, and I would be laying in a hospital bed not 20 hours after being home, I was ready to get out there again.

I wrote up a little tour report and submitted it to Flipside….Hey! I guess I was a smartass blogger even then, eh?!—-they ran it and awarded us with an honest to God cover too!

And so, after- what?–these 30 years later, we decided to honor that first little trip with a revisit:
A retracing of that very first tour so long ago.

Oh, we know things will be different, our brittle limbs a bit more stubborn, our punished stomachs far less tolerant, but we’ll give it the ‘ol punker try!

And besides, this tour will fall on my birthday!!

Yeah, yeah—I know we weren’t on the Album, although time and deflated brain cells has convinced many people otherwise.

No, the glorious Beach Blvd compilation was released long before we had even started making a racket in Mom’s garage.
But we never pass up the opportunity to glom onto that classic piece of Punk History!
Shame? We have none!

So when we heard our old mate Jay Lansford was coming out for a couple weeks, the wheels began to turn once again!

Seems Jay was coming in for a reunion of The Unforgiven out at Stagecoach Festival.

Heh, but that’s just one band—Let’s put him to work!

Besides, has it been about 2 years since we celebrated the Summer Solstice with the Crowd and Simpletones?
Time, she files!

As with any proper night at Alex’s, we meet up at Joe Jost’s first for a frosty warmup.

Jay is looking in fine form, and we’re pleased to see that the European lifestyle has not extinguished the So Ca rocker soul within!

And then it’s into the warm cave that is Alex’s Bar.
And let me tell ya, the crowd is in a mood tonight!

This show has brought all the characters out, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen the room packed like this—-

And then, up on stage—it’s the fuckin’ Simpletones!!!

The band sounds just great, the singing spot on.
Though of course we wouldn’t know if the fellas were singing in Mandarin Chinese, as the whole goddamn room sings and shouts along to every word!

Simpletones, the Crowd—weeeee!
People are dancing, singing along, hugging strangers in celebration of the soundtrack of their youth.

And you can just feel the amused gaze of Rik L Rik looking down from above.

Oh silly mortals—enjoy.
Enjoy while you will!

And then, goddamnit, we have to spoil the mood by climbing the stage and doing our little thing!

Heh—but we have Jay on duty as well, so the crowd is soon soothed by the wailing 3 axe attack.
We are now a Southern Rock band apparently!!

A great night— a night out, a night of music—-is there anything better?
To be among your pals and catch up with life, and to take the time to look back.

We mark off the days with a lazy swipe at the calendar, and we look down at the X’ed out blocks representing so many mundane days.

Ah, but now and then a night comes along like this.
And it’s nights like these that we underline as memories, fine jewels found among the mud, and we take them out, hold them up when we need them.

We squint at the ruby light filtered through its prism, and smile.

Thanks to Wendy Sherman for additional photos!

Twilight: we load into the dark cool space of Laundry Room Studio and drop the gear down with a groan.

We’re like chubby first time Mothers, reluctantly meeting at Curves after that year and a half of deserved self indulgence.
Yeah yeah, we know it’s good for us, but the bloom is clearly off the rose here…

In the old days, studios were like cathedrals.
We’d report bright eyed, the songs rehearsed to a razor’s edge, the lyrics in folder, neatly typed in triplicate and phrasing locked down.

And now?
I’m still scribbling lyrics in the vocal booth, searching for pitch and phrase like a drunk blindman navigating his first escalator.
It’s been too long.

Can you blame us?
To try and create something new, only to have them yell for Wetspots night after night….
But really, it’s not about the burning desire to create or express blindingly brilliant thoughts, now is it?
After all, we predictably play those 30 year old songs, the audience leaves happy, we’ve done our job.

No, perhaps we book studio time because that’s what ya do, ya see.
We like the illusion of momentum, gotta have it, lest we go suddenly motionless like life-weary sharks, and resignedly sink to the bottom of the sea.
Just more chum for the lobsters in the end.

Heh.–Not us brother! It’s time to get in there and start a new chapter!
So, hmmm—I guess we need a song first, is that what yer saying?

Step 1: Songwriting
One day I watched my dear old obaasan cooking dinner.
Grandma was as regally brown and stooped as a stubborn pine on the leeward side of a mountain, and she hunched low over the sink, washing the evening rice with her familiar swisha-swish-swish-swish pattern.
In the moment I imagined the rugged life journey she’d endured to arrive here in a suburban Cerritos kitchen.

I’d heard those family stories of the internment camps of WWII, and then I thought of my adolescent Mother, her last night in her own bed, sleeplessly waiting for the dawn that would take them 2000 miles away from home.
Outside her window, she could hear the Okies parked outside, waiting patiently for the foreigners to leave, so they could squat in her childhood home.

I went to my room and wrote Manzanar.

Skip to present day, and that’s me sitting at the Goat Hill Tavern, nursing a pitcher of Stella and eating salted peanuts to the point of nausea.
I am waiting for inspiration.

Let’s see–here’s a gripping subject for a punk song:
My goddamned boat is in the shop again! Ooooh, I hate that, don’t you?!

What?
Too broad a subject?

Ah well, just what does interest the youth of today?
Skinny Jeans? Tickets to Coachella?

Whatever. We tough out the pre production rehearsals, grimly rejecting one song idea after another:
Too Slow
Too Fast
Too Shitty (A wildly common denominator)

I come up with a crazy catchy pattern and melody–just 3 proper chords, no bridge, verse and chorus over the same thing–beautiful!
It will be a masterful exercise in dynamics, and will surely put us in the top 100 of the college charts once again!!

I bring the song in to the fellas, and yeah, they all dig it.
And that’s when Kimm points out that I have just rewrote Bruno Mars’ Marry You

But we finally come up some passable ideas, and the session goes pretty fast, the basic tracks anyway….

We get to background vocals and Anthony rolls his eyes when I suggest more oohs and ahhs, perhaps some handclaps here?
Heh—fuckin kids!

We came from the Poshboy school after all, and if it was us rebelling against a little sweetener back in the old days, it’s our turn to pour on the sugar now baby!!

I think of those old tricks, the doubling leads and abstract backgrounds.
I remember how we would stomp and pout when Robbie or Jay would suggest a new part, something we deemed wildly unpunk and, well, gay!

But I’m in the producer chair now, and the fellas can only sigh a weary sigh as I lower my sunglasses and say the fateful words:
Ya know, call me crazy, but I’m actually hearing a cowbell in here….!