#NYE

Lights All Night 2011

 

Dec 31st 2011
NYE in Dallas at Lights All Night!

GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY
You really couldn’t pick a better band for the gig. is known for their intense light shows and dedicated, often costumed fans. Their show, it seems, was made for a New Year’s Eve party. They sounded great, and surprisingly there did not seem to be any issues with acoustics in such a cavernous space. The band’s lasers reflected off all the metal and glass above made for one of the unique and coolest things I’ve ever seen at a concert.

 

GIRL TALK – Ringing in the New Year

Going on at around 11:30pm he had a good half hour to get everyone pumped up and excited, which was no problem has I mentioned before his shows are like the most over the top party you have ever been to regardless of what day it is. Obviously this was going down in the Really Large Room where I already was for Ghostland. Thankfully someone had the sense to move the backstage hospitality tent from no-man’s land a half a mile away down the corridor to right next to the stage.
By this time I had been chugging champagne, met this whole group of girls from San Francisco, was wearing some ridiculous hat and party favors and was generally getting down. The people at his shows in the past have been some of the most annoying and trying people I’ve ever been around at some of the festivals I have been to where he has performed. The indictment of the culture I layed out earlier is not far from a Girl Talk show in terms of shallow self-promotion, so normally I would never get on stage for this but hey, its New Year’s Eve. Let’s get do

Shaking my ass, a drink in my hand,   I was having a good time.It was a banner year for electronic music, so it seemed fitting to pay tribute to it by counting down the final moments of 2011 to the sound of some of the best electronic musicians around. Their was a nervous energy in the air as the midnight hour approached. You know that feeling, but it was at a fever pitch, as the party was building up to it – my stomach was in knots and I prepared myself for the mania that was about to occur – 3…2…1… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

But nothing could have prepared me for the earthquake of emotion and excitement that rang out as we hit midnight and it was balloons & confetti as far as the eye could see. A really great moment. I
MSTRKRFT
Now for some the moments immediately after the countdown and things have died down from that initial peak are with filled with different emotions. For some, its the end of the party, end of the year and time to go home. I’ve been this person a few times in the past (regardless if I wanted to be or not) – for others they spend the rest of the night aimlessly trying to maintain that high and feeling disappointed (I’ve been that guy a few times before too) – or for some, and this was me on this night – was that was the end of the year, but the beginning of the party.
Still in the Really Large Room, by now I had a little entourage with me of people I had met and picked up along the way as we kept the party going with MSTRKRFT.

Great set and after they were done and I went walking around exploring and just taking in the whole scene – in the Really Large Room they had  and seeing everyone dancing and having a good time.

The GoGo Gadgettes

As I mentioned earlier about the evolution of the Raver Girl – alot of it its derivative of the Go-Go dancer, and over time even the go-go dancers have take a page or two out of the colorful and unique/sexy styling of the raver girls. Well it was only a matter of time before someone organized and branded a team of this hybrid – if at first out of competition and maybe later as necessity, and finally as commerce, as almost every event like this I’ve been to/performed at in Texas the last few years have featured just a team – and this one was no different. As I went exploring I saw these little mini-stages setup all over the convention center with members of this team doing their thing – I give you the GoGo Gadgettes

 

No word if their is a rival gang led by Dr. Claw (if you got that joke, you are old) – imagine if the tough but hot as hell punk looking cheerleaders from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video combined with Hugh Hefner’s Girls Next Door if they all went to an Anime convention and you have the Gadgettes.
Their bio describes them as:

“A high-energy crew & unified group of individuals, each Gadgette comes fully equipped with a one-of-a-kind style along with smokin looks to kill, a passion for the beats, and some serious ass-kickin skillz. We dare you to not stop & stare.”

Whoever wrote that is probably the most annoying person alive, but they do make good on what their saying.

The hour was getting late and when I would walk from room to room the walls were lined with those coming down, still glowing in the dark but necks barely bobbing.
Nothing makes me feel older than learning about a new drug at a music festival.
Did you know “Cotton Candy” is a mix of LSD and cocaine? To which I responded, “I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD TAKE THAT!”

So the hour became even latter and as the clock stretched toward 4am it was time to say goodnight. The option to stay longer became mute as well as they were officially winding it down and having everyone head back down the long stairs.

 

You know that scene whenever en masse is leaving a large event and they are still so hyped from it and then having to be in such close proximity with one another they start to get visions of revolution? – That was this scene – my ears never rang louder than getting through this herd has around 3k people were exiting and screaming and cheering at the top of  their lungs. All I could think about was that the people staying at the hotel next door probably called it a night hours ago and suddenly theirs a sovereign nation of naked glowing young people taking to the streets on New Year’s Eve at 4am. This was awesome and the national news the next day said it was the biggest New Year’s Eve party in the country. Happy New Year!(Epilogue: – Thanks so much for reading all about this adventure and all of the adventures of this year – Professionally and personally its been one of the best years of my life and I can’t believe all the things that I got to do personally and all the things that we managed to accomplish professionally –
This was a banner year for us starting with endorsements at the NAMM Convention in January, to making national headlines with the insanity of our dueling showcases at SXSW in March.
April saw us hit California to host a suite at the Coachella site that brought the Big Four of Thrash all together in the States for the first time, and we managed to spend five nights with the Purple One while we were there.
The Summer was a confusing blur of mass touring that lead us to the Fall that found us back with the Big Four one again, this time on the East Coast with a legendary blowout at Yankee Stadium.
We were honored to participate with All Tommorrow’s Parties for their I’ll Be Your Mirror festival in Asbury Park a few weeks later and having the privilege to spend four days with Portishead.
After just celebrating one of the best Christmas seasons I can ever remember, we rang in the New Year with the above tale.We have got so much coming up in the New Year –  appearances all over the country and much much more, stay tuned, Happy New Year and we will see you in 2012!!)
Photos –Roy Turner
Mike Brooks
Loran Jatunov
Calder Wilson
Daniel Rorigue
Terry Walsh
Daniel Akers
Roger Ho

On Tour w/ Clutch & Never Got Caught (Dec/2009)

Sun Dec 27th

So it was bittersweet as I said goodbye to my family to fly to Charlotte, NC today. I’m normally home at least until the 30th so it felt strange to be gone so soon cause I knew once I stepped on that plane, essentially for me, the holidays were over.

 Charlotte, NC – Day 1

I landed in Charlotte around 2pm and made my way to our hotel and checked in. The guys in Never Got Caught were driving with the equipment from Boston and would be here in a few hours so I had time to make some calls and send emails.
The band shows up and I’m introduced to the sound and merch dudes that round out our crew. We opt to go ahead and go to the venue, Amos Southend, a few miles away.

We get to the place and load in starts immediately. Alot of touring is the “hurry up and wait” kinda process but we got the ball rolling right away. Their are four bands on this tour so to get everyone loaded in and sound checked is a bit of an undertaking. Here is the lineup:

Never Got Caught
Lionize
Doomriders
Clutch

Now for a bit of a backstory:  Never Got Caught and I have a long storied history with the guys in Clutch, but in two completely seperate capacities. Bryan and Billy Hinkley (singer-guitarist and drummer of NGC respectively) used to be in Boston Hardcore legends, Tree back in the day and toured with Clutch many times under that moniker. That relationship materialized into a Stage Management position for Bryan with Clutch, a position he held for many years, circling the globe with the band just up till last year when he decided to concentrate on NGC full time. Bryan and I actually met at a Clutch show in NYC two years ago and that’s how we started working together ironically.
My tenure however is much less dignafied haha. I was a writer for a publication in Dallas as far back as 1994 when I interviewed their singer Neil Fallon the first time. In the 90’s the band would tour relentlessly and visit Dallas several times a year, usually resulting in me interviewing Neil. Through this he and I formed an odd friendship that was lamented by their legendary manager, Jack Flanagan, who’s folly I became the constant victim of for the remainder of the decade (all in good friendly fun).
I was working at Sony around the time the Elephant Riders came out on that label in 1998 but Neil and I still maintained our once a year interview. By 2003, we had done 11 of them, the fourth of which was the first to feature them on a cover of any publication circulating anywhere in the Southwest (I’ve thought to collect all of these in unedited book form…what do you think?).

So now you know our place here, you will now get to know some of the usual suspects. After meeting the guys in the other two opening bands I see Clutch’s long time tour manager (who shares Mr. Flanagan’s sense of humor) Oscar Hernandez, and the jokes between us immediately begin to fly. Oscar is a king among men and such a pleasure to be working with him so I’m excited about the week ahead.
I’m pulling double duty as Manager/Tour Manager on this trip so their’s alot to do. I get everyone their credentials and help get the merch setup and secure our hospitality rider while the band soundchecks.
Since we are first and this is the first night, their is that jittery feeling of wanting to do well. Another asset on being on this tour is that Clutch’s fans trust and respect them so much that they will get to the shows early to see the openers just because of our involvement by proximity, so the worry of “will anyone show up early to see us” quickly subsided as by the time the doors opened, their was a line stretched around the block.
Now its showtime, and the band is ready to rock:

The pictures you are enjoying are from our merch guy and all around awesome dude, Mike Mancuso, who is also as you can tell a professional photographer, click on his name to check out his site. Well in order for him to take these pics I had to be on merch duty, so after I got the band on stage and no sign of trouble I would relieve him so he could go take pics, and then he would relieve me for load-out after they played.
Their nightly set list was:

Anyway
Pizza Place
Charlotte I
Parasite
Slipping Out
Under Your Skin
Charlotte II

Next up was Lionize, who Tim Sult (guitarist/Clutch) will sit in with when the two bands tour together. Great reggae band also from Washington D.C.

Then after the goodtime feel of some reggae jams, here comes the awesome swagger of Doomriders. Even their crew testing the mic minutes before they went on, was more Metal than most bands you see, as every night when I heard his trademark “HEY!” like a drill sergeant I knew more of the same was soon to folllow. This is the band I got to see the least live as usually during their set I had other pressing matters.

 

So by then I tried to have all of my obligations settled for a bit so I could enjoy Clutch’s set. Though they have done this after-Christmas-to-New Year’s run before, this time they were doing something quite special, by performing their 1995 Self-Titled masterpiece in its entireity. I met people that had literally traveled from all over the world just for a chance to see this, as if your a fan of this band, it really doesn’t get more special than this. In hindsight, I don’t know if it being the first night or what have you, but there seemed to be something really special about this show that other’s, though all had their moments, this night stands out as my favorite. Just the thrill that the machine was moving and we were all together again, and all that we had worked for and had been looking forward to, was finally here.

When Neil grabbed the mic and said “Merry Christmas, how you doing North Carolina?” the crowd let out an emotional release that has stuck with me since that night. They all knew what they were in for and here it was. This band is famous for doing completely different set-lists night after night, but this mini-trek had a mission to deliver the self-titled record while still showcasing their newest effort Strange Cousins from the West. My buddy Will and Agent Ogden were on board filming for the whole tour. They had shot their previous DVD Full Fathom Five  and a finer bunch of gentlemen you would be hard pressed to find. Tim told me later that the idea for this was to capture the “Cousins” record but then the idea of doing alot of the songs from the self-titled was put on the table, then eventually fleshed out to do the whole damn thing. So if the set-list seems similar from night to night this is why, which again for the informed this is not their normal m.o. On this night the set-list if I recall went something like this:

50,000 Unstopable Watts
Struck Down
Minotaur
Let a Poor Man Be
Algo Ha Cambiado

(then the backdrop displaying the Strange Cousins from the West cover, would change to the Self-Titled logo, and the place would go off)

Big News
Big News II
Rock N Roll Outlaw
Texan Book of the Dead
Spacegrass
I Have the Body of John Wilkes Booth
Tight Like That
Animal Farm
Droid
The House that Peterbuilt
7 Jam
Tim Sult vs. The Greys

Encore:

10001110101
Abraham Lincoln
Gravel Road

It was alot of music, but the crowd never tired and was really appreciative that what they have come to expect was for certainly this reason. I don’t know if was some unspoken thing of knowing the work we had ahead but this was also the only night on the tour where Oscar and I really made a point to see the whole set and it was great seeing him being such a fan of the music. I’ve been doing this for so long that I have to remain a fan of something or I’ll go crazy, so it was a relief to see that he wasn’t too proud to show his excitement and what a great time it was and he and I stood behind the amps totally rawking out haha.

For the rest of the tour the minutiate of the everyday tasks, my routine went something a little like this:

Arrive at venue and check in.
> Help load the gear in and then find the production office.
> Introduce myself and get the band paid its buyout/hospitality and find the dressing room.
> Get the merch table set up, get it counted and up and running.
> Go to production office and create and turn in guest-lists.
> Create and print setlists (when available)
> Go to van and get suits.
> Check in with the sound board and mixing console
> Do a quick check to make sure nothing will be tripped on and disperse drinks and setlists.
> Band on stage
> After a few songs, and no sign of trouble, run to merch booth to relieve Mike the Merch Guy/Photographer
> Engage people and try to sell as much as I could.
> Upon Mike’s return check on load out.
> Get the band fed and hydrated.
> Check on the van.
> Go watch Clutch for 45 mins. Then around “Tight Like That” go settle with the club.
> Filling out paperwork and getting the band its money.
> Return and check on everyone.
> Watch the rest of Clutch. During final number “Gravel Road” go to merch booth.
> Stay there till venue merch collector comes by.
> More counting and more paper work
> Collect the band and head out.
> Get to hotel and check in get everyone their room keys and wake up calls.
> Stay up for extra hour doing more paper work and setting van call times.
> Wake up the next day – Repeat

After everything was set we found this really rad little seafood place right next door to the club and had a nice victory lap of a dinner of getting through the first show and then headed to the hotel, excited about the next day’s show in D.C. which is essentially a hometown show for Clutch and Lionize.

Day 2 – Washington D.C.

So after a long stressfull drive from Charlotte where we were stuck in traffic for most of the time and started to worry if we were gonna make load in time we pull up just in time to the famed 9:30 Club. So much history in this town (musically or otherwise) and so many important moments have happened right in this very venue and as sillly as it sounds you kinda feel that when you walk in. Their was a buzz in the air as this was a hometown show for Clutch and Lionize and since it was over the holidays, everyone was in town, including the band’s families.
Now for anyone that’s every played the 9:30 Club you know that its tradition that when you get to your dressing room their will be a half dozen of the most decadent and god-like cupcakes waiting for you with the club’s name in icing on top. I couldn’t get up those stairs fast
enough.
.

The staff that runs this place are a Class A organization and we couldn’t have been treated better. Everything from the production staff to merch is run like a well-oiled machine. Total class, no bullshit.  The place is pretty huge too, so we were pleased that so many people were there early to see us as it was about 3/4ths full when they hit stage. .

I chatted with Neil (singer/Clutch) briefly and if he was nervous at all about his family being there he certainly wasn’t gonna show it. His sister Mary-Alice has gained some fame recently as she is one of the cake designers featured on the show Ace of Cakes so it was kinda funny watching burly bearded dudes clearly recognizing her and bugging out. If Neil had anything to be nervous about, was not only was he about to perform a 15 year old record of really difficult material, some of which haven’t been referenced since, plus it was all gonna be recorded, filmed and released for prosperity as a future live album. (Update: The recording of this show became the recently released Clutch – Live at the 9:30 – also my buddy Will and his crew professionally filmed this entire tour and made a film that is packaged with aformentioned live album called Fortune Tellers Make a Killing Nowadays – check it out its
killer)

After the show their was a brief reception and then we made our way to our hotel which was about 25 miles north outside of Largo, MD.
The guy at the front desk didn’t have his shit together and fucked up our reservation so I perservered and got us a free extra room for the trouble. Long day and it was almost 4am before I got done with paperwork and went to sleep knowing that we had a long drive to Albany, NY the next day.

Day 3 – Albany,NY

I live to go anywhere I’ve never been before and this was gonna be my first trip to Albany but as someone that despises cold, I was a bit apprhensive as this was late Decemeber. My worst arctic fears were confirmed as we pulled into town and the venue was this bingo looking hall inside a strip mall and the whole place looked like Planet Hoth. Teddy who runs this place is a very nice guy, was very good to us and really into the band, but its shows like this where you sometimes scratch your head and think “am I making the right choices by being here?” haha. I know, I know boo-fucking-hoo I get to tour with these great bands and I love that Clutch is a band of the people that will take their act anywhere, and I respect that and was proud we were there, but fundamentally, this show was fucking miserable.

 Our sound guy we had with us, was more than competent as were all of the other band’s sound techs, but no matter what they could do all the bands sounded like they were playing in a tin can (as we basically were). It was -19 outside with the chill factor, no dressing room to hide from the cold and I had to be an asshole just to get something to drink. It was so cold and out of the way, I couldn’t even get a pizza delivered for us. I couldn’t wait to get out here. This was the “backstage” area and the only place you could get cell reception:

Yet still all the bands brought it as hard as they could to a very appreciative crowd. Check out Neil’s Public Enemy shirt: 

So we orginally were just gonna drive to Boston after the show where the guys live since its not that far by comparison but we did just drive here all the way from Maryland and it was late and freezing. So a descion was made to get hotel rooms, but not before one of those funny tour moments could happen. The night before as I had mentioned we were treated like royalty by the wonderful staff of the 9:30 Club and I wish I had a camera to take a picture of my view from the van of watching the guys standing inside the only gas station that was open eating microwave burritos at 2:30am.

Day 4 – Boston, MA 

So I made my way down to the lobby of this popcicle stand hotel in Albany we were in to check out their version of continental breakfast, now I’m the least spoiled person in the world and I don’t want to sound like I am complaining, I just think this stuff is funny and makes for good stories. But this was the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen it was hysterical. Basically you had stale cereal in leaking paper bowls, with room tempertature milk that you had to eat while sitting at a folding card table that I shared with some newlyweds that had the same look of shame on their face that I probably had. I think the cold was starting to get to all of us: Doesn’t this pic look like we are in the arctic (and doesn’t Bryan seem to be saying “Roy could you please stop talking?”) ?

So we make it to Boston in a few short hours and the excitement among the guys is contagious, as this is not only a hometown show but the largest venue of the whole tour. To go on tour and come home to play a sold out House of Blues to almost 4k people was very excting for these guys, and having all of their friends and families in attendance really felt like a victory lap. The venue is on the famed Lansdowne St literally across the street from the crown jewel of American Baseball – Fenway Park. As we were loading in their was some huge excitement going on at the Park and it being December I was confused as to what was going on. I soon found out, as I know literally nothing of hockey, that a major event was taking place in the form of the NHL Winter Classic. I learned that since 2008 the event is held outdoors at one of the teams Major League Baseball fields. 

  So again this was an important night and felt like a real step up in playing in such a legit venue and were treated very well. We shared a dressing room with our pals in Lionize and let me tell you, those guys smoke more pot than Cypress Hill. Talked with JP for a bit for the first time on this tour and had a few laughs with Dan and Oscar and then since we had some time Mike and I went outside to see them setting up Fenway for the big game in a few days and could see the people already lining up.

  There’s this weird feeling when your in the “tour bubble” that you don’t want to stray too far from the venue or from the comfort of the bubble or things get weird. It’s hard to explain unless you have done it. Anyway so now its showtime, I get the band ready and walk them down the hallway to the massive stage below. I got all their families on the list and have them watching sidestage. Before the show I told Bryan, “when the PA stops, say “We are Never Got Caught from Boston, Massachutsetess” and he balked a little in fear of sounding cheesy, but I just had a feeling that the crowd would pop if he did. Well he relented and when he said it the crowd came alive and the band immediately had everyone’s attention. Being from Texas I can appreciate people really being into where they are from.

  While I was releiving Mike from merch so he could shoot there was some drama, as Mike wasn’t aware of the typical policy that you can only shoot the first three songs and apparently he kept going to the ire of the staff and they came looking for him. They were told he was also working merch so when they came to get him they thought I was him since I was behind the table, but I explained to them what was going on and told them I would handle Mike. I’m used to starting fires not putting them out haha.
Okay so all business was taken care of for the time being and I wanted to see as much of the Clutch show as I could. Their was something in the air tonight and was excited for them. They hit stage and the place explodes. I watched as much as I could before I had to go to production and Mike snapped this pic from where we were standing:

    The show was great and a real sense of triumph enveloped us. Clutch had a party in their dressing room after the show. I only stayed long enough to share a few laughs with Tim as we hadn’t talked yet on this tour, because we had a party of our own a few streets over that the local were throwing for Never Got Caught. Always working, I spent most of the party in the other room having a business meeting with another client that lives in Boston and asked them to meet me there as I knew it would be the only time I had. They guys were staying at home so I headed to my hotel room for about four hours of sleep before having to get up for the drive to New Jersey the next day.

Day 5 – Sayerville, NJ – New Year’s Eve

     So we leave Boston to head for Sayerville, NJ which is about 90 min by car from NYC. We basically sat in traffic all day as a 4 hour trip was turning into a 7 hour one and for whatever reason the good cheer we were sharing from the hometown victory lap was nowhere to be seen while we coasted at 30 miles an hour. When we finally pull up to the Starland Ballroom it was already dark and cold, I could see Jack Flanagan’s caddilac with his dog tied to the driver’s side door handle.
Tonight was going to be the last show with Clutch on this special little holiday run of them doing all of the self-titled record. It was also the last day of the year and of the decade and though I was directly dialed into the beverity of this, I seemed to be alone in my excitement, which soon gave way to a feeling of bittesweet surrealism. As on one hand I’m on tour with bands I deeply respect and enjoy, and on the other, I was in this cave of a building out in the woods of New Jersey on New Year’s Eve, arguing with the staff just to simply get towels.
To make it even more special, two more bands were added just for tonight. I don’t remember the name of the first band, but the second was Murder One, which is fronted by Weathermaker Music label manager, Jon Nardachone. Weathermaker is the label that Clutch started in 2008 to house their own projects. While acknowledging the specialness of the evening, Tim and I were smoking on the dock he was telling me hilarious stories of some early Clutch shows at this venue where they would pack the shows with like 6 openers of teenage bands creating Scream-o-Palooza and then Clutch.
As if this night wasn’t special enough, always a band of the people, Clutch had it set up that the first 1k people would receive a free Full Fathom Five dvd, a special commerative t-shirt AND a free shot of whiskey. The next 1k would get the shirt and the shot and then everyone else would still get a shot. How cool is that? The merch table was right by the entrance so I enjoyed seeing everyone’s excitement. I got with Shawn, Clutch’s merch guy and said “dude save me one in small” which being the awesome guy he is, totally delivered.
Now the fundamentals of this show were aggrivating. No internet, printer, our rider was ignored, and shit was just not on point from their side of things. As I was standing by the soundboard with two songs to go, someone yells angrily at me “they’ve got two minutes!!”. As they finish the song, and as murphy’s law would have it, because Bryan barely talks ever, he decides to break that habit by engaging the crowd with a monologue, unbeknownst of the time strain.  I’m screaming “start the next song!!” right as the dude from before says “oh yeah? do they have a 90 sec song?! cause that’s all the time they got!!” Will and Agent were doing a B-Roll of us and we needed this time so Bryan went ahead and they finished the set.
We lost our merch guy in Boston due to some prior commitments, I had’nt realized that was the plan all along and hadn’t prepared for complete double duty.
This proved to be more troublesome than I could have prepared for, as not only was it about a zillion degrees below zero outside and the merch table was right by the entrance so everytime the door opened it was like being hit with an ice blast from Sub-Zero of Mortal Kombat.
Maybe I was just being idealistic, but spending New Year’s Eve with bands I respect and know immensely depsite the New Jersey and cold factors should have been more, I don’t know….awesome. Again how can I complain and maybe since I was in “work mode” and so many responsibilites but in terms of a festive vibe it just wasn’t there. There was a misdunderstanding right before midnight where the club wanted to go ahead and settle so they could usher in the New Year uniterrupted so I had to have Doomriders merch guy look after I stuff so I could go take care of this. So when I returned from the production office  I head Neil on stage actually acknowledge New Year’s Eve during Spacegrass saying “Happy New Year everybody” during the non-lyrical breakdown.
This was kinda par for the course for some reason, so no toast, no Happy New Year amongst friends, but I did manage to catch a bit of the end of Clutch’s set.
                                                                                                                              
and for the New Year they added to the set:Witchdoctor
Sleestak Lightening
Slow Hole to ChinaAfter the show their was a party upstairs in Clutch’s two-room suite dressing room. Now this was fun. A great vibe that we had pulled something off and a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and commaraderie. Oscar pulled me into a sideroom and graciously offered me a toast of some very expensive tequila that was a sign of respect and gratitude that I greatly appeciated. It was funny because unbeknownst to him, I’m not a big drinker at all, but of course there was no way I was gonna refuse his gesture so he said “now this is the good stuff, you don’t shoot this stuff like any old swill” and what do I do?, I down it like it was fucking peach schnapps or something and he looks at me dumbfounded and says “Roy…what part of don’t shoot this stuff did you not understand?” haha. Again par the course I guess.
So we had a good time with the Clutch guys and it was a good way to end the run. At the end of the night Jack asked me if we were staying at the same hotel and if so could we take this couple that he was friends with whom the male half played in Murder One earlier in the evening. Speaking for everyone since he asked me I of course accepted. Well by this time everyone but me was really good and loaded so when everyone got in the van and saw our new companions there was a bit of confusion.
We get to the hotel and most everyone was joined by their wives/girlfriends that had come to spend New Year’s Eve, except for me, so Paul my normal roommate on the tour had his own room, so it was an odd feeling to be sitting alone in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere New Jersey on New Year’s Eve and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad, but as I mentioned before, I’m sure it could have been a whole lot worse.

Day 6 – Jersey City, New Jersey – New Year’s Day

We spent most of the day at a pub watching the hockey game on tv that we saw them assembling in Boston at Fenway Park, since we only had a short drive to the gig that night. Since we were already in New Jersey and tonight was a Saturday I booked a solo club date for Never Got Caught with another Trickykid band who are from Jeresy City, the band Kilsy, to take advantage of the Saturday and having to travel that way anyway. This proved to be a huge mistake and certainly not the way I or anyone would want to start their New Year. Or how the band wanted to end such a succesful run that ended on such a high the night before.
The show was booked at Sinners and Saints and there were problems from the second we got there. I was excited to see the Kilsy guys (and girl) as their drummer Pete is one of my closest friends and the drummer for Trickykid alumni Amandla with Claude from Ween. The band is rounded out by other close friends and ballbusters Dan Riorda formerly of Buzzkill and Dan Green formerly of Amandla and currently with The Honey Brothers with Adrian Grenier, and of course Kilsy.
The chemistry was just totally wrong as the NGC are all business all the time and the Kilsy guys are just very freewheeling, good time party people. Not to mention that this club was a joke that did’nt have their shit together at all. I think the main issue was that going from playing with Clutch in your hometown two nights prior in front of 3,000 people to dealing with such amateurish bullshit was too much reality too soon. It caused me to have a total existential crisis. as I found myself standing outside a shithole in New Jersey on New Year’s Day dealing with some of the stupidest shit I’ve ever had to deal with in my life, having conversations I never want to have again, and never should have had to have in the first place, thinking about that line in Why Georgia Why that says “am I living it right?” .

So after the show I said goodbye to the guys as they made their way back to Boston, and too tired to trek back to Brooklyn, Dan Green graciously offered me to stay at his place for the night, where we stayed up talking and catching up and listening to the Bill Withers remasters he had just got and old Stax stuff. Good times.Photos –

Roy Turner