Witch Mountain Tour Diary Part 3
10-9 The Ritz turned out to be a pretty cool place and we played a show with a couple of local bands that drew a fair amount of people down to check us out that hadn`t heard of us. Hobble took the stage and were impressive with their bizarre styles of hard rock and tongue in cheek pop. Great band and good people. Tommy, the guy that runs the Ritz was very hospitable and I was spending most of my time trying to get away from the swarry of shot after shot of Jagermeister that he was feeding me every time I stood next to him. He also ordered pizza`s for us and The Glasspack, who BTW just keep getting better and better. I can`t wait to see the footage, or the final product film that they (Glasspack`ers) have been documenting along the way. Excess Lettuce played last and tore everybody`s drunken heads right off. We had a long drive ahead of us so we headed out immediately after the show. Dave and Nate headed up the first shifts. We headed all the way to Albuquerque for our show at the Launch Pad the next night.
10-10 This was the motherf-er drive of the whole trip. With stops and meals a whopping 17 hours, but somehow the Glasspack did it in 11.5...ouch- how the shit did that happen? Oh well. The show was cool, Spiritu (Jadd from MeteorCity) played first and had a fireball ending with flaming torches. It was a good night for rock and we got to hang with Bigballinal who was going to cook us food, but since we played that extra show at the Ritz the night before that wasn`t originally scheduled the plans got messed up. Sorry Alexander! I also ran into one of the guys from BigDamnCrazyWeight that I had the chance to play on the same bill with 8 years previous and next door to the Launch Pad...too weird. We shared a hotel with the Pack and headed out the next morning for Mesa, but not until Dirty Dave locked his back pack in a convenience store bathroom with the key. Doh! Johnny is meeting up with us tonight for our first 4-piece show on the tour...better late than never!
10-11 Show in Mesa was brutal, and we were all locked in the groove. Johnny didn`t miss a note which is strange after admitting that he hadn`t touched the guitar in a week. The Glasspack put on their best show so far as well...I am really glad that we are on tour with them. After the show we headed to Los Angeles to meet up with my family and to check out High on Fire at the Troubadour...
10-12 We got at the Troubadour just in time to watch Space Boy hit the stage, and they were brutal as usual. High of Fire only played 2 songs that I recognized with mostly new material. Billy (Anderson) was there to mix the guys and help out. Ran in to Greg (Anderson) and Crazy Craig and Moshin` John from the Super Rock Sunday show on KNAC.com Sunday nights. Me, Craig, John and Greg were gonna do some Jack-a-Dews, but we only had one day to spend in town and will have to do it right next time on the air. We also got kicked out of the club because Johnny`s friend was rolling joint after joint and smokin` weed and passing it around after security had already asked him not to...of course he handed it to me and the guy comes up to me and kicks us all out...oh well. It`s not like I am not guilty for that either, I just happened to be the dude that they pinned. We missed Crowbar, but most of us weren`t too bummed since we aren`t huge fans. Crazy Craig made a comment on the StonerRock Mailing list about it which I thought was funny because I had smelled pot in the air the whole evening...he said that "it`s hard to believe the Witch Mountain got kicked out of the Troubadour for that when you can basically do lines of coke off of the bar..."
10-13 The next night was the capper of the tour. San Fran with Gammera who I had been looking forward to seeing for a long time...And also Billy`s band Blessing the Hogs, some band calle Sleeze something or another and of course the Glasspack. The Glasspack were awesome, but Dirty was a bit pissed because they made them play at the old Covered Wagon Saloon at 9PM when hardly anyone was there. When they started though people were filtering in and by the time they were halfway through there were quite a few people in attendance. Sina from Bottom showed up and I got to talk to her for a while too- which was nice since I haven`t seen her in probably a half a year or so. It was a good night for rock to say the least despite the fact that there were at least 4 other shows in the area that were going on the same night, including High on Fire, Greenhouse Effect, Lost Goat and Dead Moon. We blasted through our usual set and finally did Rocaine because there was a guy (Abel) who was shouting for us to play it the whole time. Seems it was the only song that Abel had ever heard of us because he downloaded it off of the internet... Good times were had for sure and I can`t wait to get back down there and rock that town soon. We headed home and actually have one more official show next friday on the tour left...here in Portland with the Glasspack. See you there! |
