Note: Photos will be added to this feature after Mark returns from the tour...
Our story begins about six months ago after one of the many break-ups of my other band, Powerglide. I was pissed off at my current musical situation, and started searching for bands to play in. I knew that Porn had sometimes used a second guitarist when performing, so on a whim I emailed Tim Moss to see if he wanted a permanent second guitarist. At the time, Tim was busy recording and didn`t have any definite plans for touring, but he said he`d keep it in mind. A few months, many emails, and many phone calls later, I`m a Man of Porn.
In that time, Brian Hill had quit playing bass for Porn to concentrate on his new family, and Guy Pinhaus had joined to keep the Porn flowing. When tour time came around, Guy had too many other obligations, with the closing of Man`s Ruin and still playing with Acid King, to take off on a six week tour. I`d like to think Tim then immediately contacted me to fill in, but it was probably more like none of his other friends could do it, and I was a last resort :)
Here is a somewhat day by day account of what followed. Keep in mind almost everything written here was done with a heavy dose of alcohol and marijuana, plus I haven`t been keeping any notes or anything, so please forgive me if I don`t remember everything, or forget to thank one of the many beautiful people we`ve run into on the road.
Aug. 30: I load up my truck with my cheapo Yamaha bass, my `76 Ampeg SVT bass amp, one giant yellow suitcase, a backpack, and half a tupperwear bowl of spacecakes and set off for the 12 hour drive from Portland to San Francisco. Taking off at 6AM was pretty shitty, as I don`t get up before noon, but about four hours later as I`m finally waking up, the sun comes out of the clouds and Coward`s Way Out from the Desert Sessions comes on my CD player simultaneously, and I take this as a good sign.
I show up at Moss`s apartment at about 8pm and the shit starts immediately. No "hi, glad you could make it" or "come on in and have a beer," no, the first words out of his mouth are "Damn! Look at them white legs!" Anyway, I meet Jason Michaud, our drummer, we mow some Chinese food, and head down to the practice space. We load in all the gear, which takes forever, and start jamming. I`m using Tim`s Ampeg 8x10 cabinet that he bought from the Dwarves. We run through "Porch Song" and "Fat Trout" from American Style, and it goes surprisingly well for our first time ever playing together. I could not believe the volume we achieved. It was a pretty small space, and Moss plays with his Orange full stack cranked so he can get that amazing tone he has. Fortunately, Jason is the hardest hitting drummer I`ve ever seen, so he had no problems keeping up volume-wise. I never thought I`d see the day, but my 300 watt SVT was barely enough to keep up. I had previously never had the volume over �, but playing with Moss I have to have it at � volume. Fucking amazingly loud. Then home, spacecakes, beer, sleep.
Aug. 31 - Sept. 1: We spend the next few days practicing a couple hours per day, getting road supplies, drinking beer, and eating spacecakes.
Sept. 2: We spent most of this Sunday building the loft for our van. Tim went out and bought a `97 Chevy extended cargo van a few days before, but it had absolutely nothing in the back. So we laid some carpet and built a loft so we could store our gear underneath it and it can only be accessed from the rear, and we could sleep on top of it. Pretty ingenious.
Sept. 3: I got my new bass, an Ibanez ATK-300 (like Scott Reeder plays) for those who care. Fat sound, great feel, and super cheap. Plus Vadim from Gammera hooked us up with some great gear for the road (thanks again!)
Sept. 4: First show at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, with Totimoshi, Space Boy, and Drunk Horse. We played first since it was kind of a warm up show and I think they were doing us a favor by putting us in the lineup. Now, I normally don`t get nervous for anything, but this show was an exception. Not so much for the playing a big show part, but I was playing in front of some of my favorite musicians. Not only the other bands playing that night, but also High on Fire, Acid King, Lost Goat, and Gammera to name a few. Scared the shit out of me. But I got through it, and we played a pretty damn good set for only playing together four times. The other bands smoked, the highlight for me being Drunk Horse, who I`d only seen once before.
Sept. 5: Another 6AM wake up call for the 12 hour drive to Salt Lake City. We arrive at Liquid Joe`s and are greeted by Operator: Generator for our first show together. Much drinking and merriment follow, as we`re given free beer and a sweet dressing room backstage. I met and talked with Koi from the forums - very cool guy. Throughout the night, Mitch from OG kept saying to me, "hey man, do you like the Crue? We should go rock out on the bus!" Not knowing if he was serious or not, I reply, "OK man, later." 20 minutes later he comes up to me and says, "Hey man, you like Dokken?" etc. OG takes the stage and tears it up. Those guys know how to fucking rock! I had listened to their CD many times before, and seen them twice live, but they never ceased to amaze me with their performances. We played another decent set, considering it was only our sixth performance. After the show, we hang out and drink more, then OG starts loading their gear out. I go outside to help out, and couldn`t believe what I saw. They were traveling around in an old Dodge short school bus, and BLARING out of the stereo at 2AM in downtown SLC was nothing but old Motley Crue. I got on the bus and checked it out - they have a loft like ours, but much bigger, plus a bunk on each side for sleeping comfort. Touring Machine! We smoked out and listened to really loud Crue for a while before we had to pack up and move on to the next town. Operator: Generator know how to rock off the stage too! Good times.
Sept. 6: After a comfortable night in a hotel room, we were off to Denver, CO. The Lion`s Lair was a cool club and they also fed us free beer all night. It`s set up kind of weird though, with the tiny stage above and behind the bar, so you sat at the bar and looked over it and the bartender to watch the bands. We hung around and drank, and everyone at the bar was cool. There were only about 10 or 20 people there though. Mitch kicked my ass at Asteroids, which sucked because I fancied myself a good Asteroids player, but I guess it`s different on Atari. OG ripped it up again, and Mitch ordered a beer while he was singing for a spectator who was really getting into the set, using only hand signals to the bartender. Rock and Roll.
Sept. 7: Jason drove all night to get to our next stop, Omaha, NE. Moss`s mother lives nearby, so we went to her house to kick back. That fucking ruled. She was so nice and hospitable. We got our own rooms to crash and she fed us wonderful home-cooked meals. I don`t even have it that good at home! Moss also went to his dad`s house and put in a bad-ass bench seat in the back of the van which folds down into a bed. Bitchin`. We played at the Junction that night, which is a total dive. There were some serious thunder storms going and there were garbage cans everywhere inside the club to catch the water from the leaky roof. The owner/bartender was about 100 years old and took five minutes to get a beer. Oh well. We played with a local band that I sadly can`t remember the name of, because they had a pretty good noise rock/punk kinda thing going, ala Fugazi. Worth checking out if you`re ever in Omaha. Of course OG kicked ass. By this time, we started really gelling as a band, and were performing much better. Afterwards we went to a raging party at Moss`s brother`s house and got stupidly drunk.
GREAT QUOTE OF THE TOUR #1: when leaving, a friend of ours says to his girlfriend, "Lets go home and fuck like retards!"
GREAT QUOTE OF THE TOUR #2:
Really drunk girl: "what`s your name?"
Jason: "Earl"
RDG: "Oh! I know lotsa Earls!"
Jason: "well now you know one more!"
RDG: "what`s your last name?"Jason: "Shibe."
RDG: "My other friend Earl has a great classic car collection."
Jason: "Well, he should have them painted!" for those that don`t know, Earl Shibe is probably the biggest auto paint company in the US. She didn`t get it. I guess you had to be there.)
Sept. 8: We woke up really late. We were supposed to be up and on the road at 8AM, but alcohol had other plans. We woke up at 10AM to the neighbor`s Harley starting, then got the hell out of there. We wanted to get into Chicago early to watch some of the other bands playing at the Emissions fest that day, but we managed to get there just as Cuda was finishing. That sucked because I wanted to see them and all the other bands before them, but it was not to be. I ran into Madjohnshaft just as we pulled up, and we chatted a bit - cool guy, and I wanted to chat some more because he posts some funny shit, but I didn`t see him for the rest of the show. I`ll skip the band reviews as it`s 3AM here and they`ve been covered well in the "Live Reviews" section, and I`ll just say every band rocked! I just wish I could have seen more. This was our best show up to that time. Jason broke his bass drum head during the first song, and we changed that fucker out like a NASCAR pit crew. I don`t know if you`ve ever seen that happen anywhere else, but it usually takes a long time to do. We had it busted out and were playing again in about 3 minutes. We got just as many compliments on that as we did on our playing :) Regardless of the tasteless clear beer we were served, I managed to drink enough of it to not remember much else about that night. I know I talked to a lot of really cool guys from other bands as well as some forums members, but it`s all a blur. Sorry :)
Sept. 9: We pulled another all-nighter to get to Detroit. Moss`s uncle, Jack, lives there, so we headed to his place and crashed there. He has the coolest dog - a bulldog named Mack Daddy. Mack ran around trying to hump anything that moved, so he fit right in with the Men of Porn. We played that night at some noise fest at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti, MI. OG played in another city this night, and the other bands we played with were. interesting. Let`s just leave it at that. We only had a 20 minute slot, so we played our "D" set for the first time, which consists of one song, "Coming Home." It was definitely a strange night.
Sept. 10: After getting a good night`s sleep we put more carpet in the loft of the van for our sleeping pleasure and hung out with Jack and Mack. The show that night sucked and was great all at the same time. It was downstairs at St. Andrews. The PA in the club was the best I`d ever played, and it sounded amazing. Our new label-mates, Novadriver, opened the show and kicked some serious ass. I`d listened to their CD a few times and really liked it, but they`re much better live. Go see them if you get the chance. The shitty part was there was about ten people there for Novadriver and TWO for us. Oh well, we tore it up anyway. We also got to hang out with Scott, who owns Small Stone Records, our new label. He took us out to a bar afterwards for some more pillaging of our livers. Being the swell guy that he is, Jack drove, so Moss, Jason and I got completely HAMMERED. Up to that time, Moss and I would usually get pretty sauced at the shows, and Jason would drive. Jack and I smoked out with some guy who just got back from Amsterdam, then Jack schooled us all in pool. We hit White Castle at about 4AM and got some of the worst food I`ve ever eaten, then went home and crashed. That was a great night.
Sept. 11: We woke up hungover at Jack`s house, and hung around bullshitting and drinking coffee. Moss`s cousin gets a phone call from one of his friends who tells us to turn on the TV just after the second tour fell. We were dumbfounded. I don`t know what else to say about it. We started calling people to let them know we were all right because a lot of people didn`t know where we were, then started trying to figure out what the fuck we were going to do. We talked to Bottom who said they had canceled the rest of their American tour because they were supposed to be playing CMJ in NYC in a couple days. We decided to cancel the Milwaukee show that night, go hook up with Bottom in Chicago, and figure it out from there. So we set out on the road again, totally unsure of what was going on, if we were even going to finish the tour. On the way there, we did some talking and decided we were not going to let some fucking terrorists fuck with our personal lives if we could help it. They had already done so much damage, we weren`t going to add to it any more. I`m not saying Porn canceling their tour would damage the world or anything, but it would damage us personally, and we wouldn`t have it. We decided to play Milwaukee and the rest of the tour if at all possible. Not to downplay anything about the tragedy, but people need some release right now, and fucking heavy-ass rock and some good drugs is a mighty fine way to do it. So we call back the club and say the show`s on, and head to Milwaukee. We got to the Cactus Club and Bottom showed up shortly there after. It was great to see them again, but it really sucked under the circumstances. They were obviously pretty shaken up, and what do you do to comfort someone at a time like that? We just watched the news for a few hours, did a few shots, whatever. Then Operator: Generator shows up and Mitch tells me he`s quit the band and Aaron, their merch guy, would be singing that night. When it rains, it pours. The show must go on, so the opening band, Blackwater, plays an incredible set of mostly instrumental hard rock. I got their demo from them, but I haven`t had a chance to listen to it. Go see them if you get the chance! They are by far the best band we`ve played with that I hadn`t heard of before. OG went on next. Aaron did a damn fine job in his first performance with them. I guess he used to sing with them, but none of the same songs they`re doing now. We played for about five people then got the hell out of town. Sina took Bottom`s van and went to her parent`s house, and Nila and Clementine headed south with us.
Sept. 12: We pulled yet another all-nighter with Jason and Clementine at the helm. We had the day off, and our next show was in Des Moines, IA, which is only about 3 hours from Omaha, so we headed back to Moss`s mom`s place. We spent the next couple days relaxing, hanging out with friends, and watching the news.
Well, that`s all for now. There`s more to come, and I promise not to take so long to get to Part 2. It`ll cover our time off in DC, our trip to NYC, and a run in with Slipknot.
Take it sleazy,
Mark Bassett, Man of Porn
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