We’re on the highway out of Dallas, happy to be heading west. So far, we hadn’t seen any signs that being on a major label was helping. With Homestead, the frustration was that the records were rarely in the stores where we played. Now, there were lots of copies of Slam in every store but no one was buying them or playing them on the radio. The video had been dropped at MTV, getting a ‘thumb’s-down’ from the programmers. The label had sunk money into 4 ‘alternative’ band that spring, hoping that at least one would make a dent in the market: Social Distortion, The Rave-ups, O Positive, and us, then hired a bunch of people from college radio to help promote those records in regions across the country. In Atlanta, that person never even showed up at the gig. So forgive us if we were a bit dejected as we set off into the West Texas desert that day.
We left in the afternoon and quickly found ourselves passing through nothing but a flat, arid landscape where towns were small and far apart. I was driving the RV, putting in the first shift of the 2-day, 1,000-mile journey. One tradition that had continued with the Big Dipper right from our very first tour was that we took the job of driving very seriously. You had a driver and a navigator and we switched off every four hours or so, and it rotated like that in teams. When you were the navigator, you were the driver’s right-hand man; anything he needed, you got it for him. You dealt with the maps and the snacks and you changed the cassettes in the stereo according to the driver’s wish. When you were the driver, you were King for those 4 hours and, the best part was that you got to pick the music and no one could complain (we complained all the time, believe me).
Just prior to this tour, I’d discovered Americana music and most of my new tapes were in that style. I had Lucinda Williams, Jayhawks, Rodney Crowell, etc, but my favorite at the time was ‘Bring the Family’ by John Hiatt. I happened to be playing this tape as the sun was going down in the desert and it was putting me in a really good mood, not something that I had experienced much lately. I also knew that the RV was running low on gas but, if we stopped, my shift was near over and I’d lose my chance to hear ‘Lipstick Sunset’ while experiencing the same thing through the windshield. We approached a giant truck stop that would have been perfect to fill up at but I selfishly drove on, figuring that they’d be another station at the next exit. But it became clear after a while that there were no gas stations coming up and the warning light on the dashboard was now blinking red. I contemplated turning around but at that moment we ran out of gas and I coasted to a stop on the side of the road, embarrassed at my stupidity. In all of our years of touring, we had never run out of gas before. According to Jeff’s diary, we were in Kent County, TX, on Highway 380.
Luckily, the van was just a few miles behind us and they pulled over to help. Jeff and Jim volunteered to go back and get some gas and I told them about the station we had passed. I believe the question was raised at that point as to why I had driven past a perfectly good gas station with the needle on ‘E’ but I was ashamed to say that I just wanted to hear the end of my tape.
We waited in awkward silence while the guys headed east in the van and so I wandered a little way into the desert. The sun was going down now and it was incredibly beautiful out there. The band was rightfully unhappy about the situation but I was personally really enjoying the desert scene. After all, we had two whole days off before the Phoenix show and when would we get to touch Indians like this? This was America! Dammit, I was GLAD we’d run out of gas! (not really) but it was pretty special, nonetheless.
Eventually, Jeff and Jim returned with the gas and we got back on the road, driving long into the night to reach Las Cruces, NM, our waypoint, where we got a Comfort Inn for the night. We could not realize, as we drifted off, all the vehicle problems ahead of us that had been triggered by the RV running out of gas. We were going to learn a lot about fuel injectors and spend many more hours stranded at the sides of roads from here to Seattle. Tomorrow: By the time I get to Phoenix.
Calculating Route... 