It’s our second day in the Bay Area, and, as much as we’d like to spend the day relaxing or sightseeing, Tim, our label rep, has other plans for us. Theoretically, there was someone like him in every region whose job it is to promote the band but no one in the previous 3 weeks had even come close to accomplishing what Tim had done, and no one would begin to until Baltimore, the last weekend of the tour. (Or, maybe he just really liked riding in an RV). A band with a new record out on Sony should never have a free minute while on tour and we had way too much time on our hands up to this point.
Tim met us at the hotel and ran us through the itinerary: first, we would drive to Vallejo to visit a record distribution center, the middle-men and women who took the orders from the stores and made sure they were delivered. To be honest, none of us knew that places like this existed before we drove up to the enormous building in the middle of nowhere. We were there to press the flesh and get our name out there with the salesmen.
One of the first employees that I met there turned out to be the drummer for one of my favorite bands, Game Theory. Although I can’t remember his name, it would have been Josef or Gil. Although we were there to talk about Big Dipper, I just wanted to talk about his band. After a few minutes of listening to me go on about the genius of his lead singer, he casually dialed a number on his phone and handed me the receiver as the voice on the other end said, “This is Scott.” I proceeded to gush to a bemused Scott Miller for a few minutes before Tim dragged us back out into the hot sun so we wouldn’t miss our next appointment.
We drove back down the peninsula to San Jose, where that night’s show would be and visited KFJC, at Foothills Junior College. According to Tim, the planned interview was with a DJ who was a fan, but he didn’t show up and the woman who was taking his place had no idea who we were (not the first or last time that would happen on this tour). She was thrilled, however, to learn that our entourage included Barbara Manning, who was tagging along for the day, and she basically ignored us and interviewed her.
We made it to the venue in San Jose and met the Sneetches, who were opening this show and then joining us later in the month for two whole weeks of shows together in the midwest. They reminded me of a poppier, more-60’s version of Dumptruck with the two guitarists sharing the vocals and the guitar leads. They were on the SF-based Alias label that our friend Lorry worked for and the poor kids likely had no idea what they were getting themselves into by touring with us. We had never had a band open for us for that kind of stretch of shows before but it was nice knowing that the opening band would be compatible and probably well-liked by the Dipper fans. They completely won me over that night, however, by breaking out a rocking version of ‘He’s Frank’ by the Monochrome Set.
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