When your booking agents tell you that, after Seattle and Portland, you have to drive to Boulder to find a real gig, they’re lying. You actually have 8 hours more to drive to Kansas City in order to re-discover civilization. Not that we really wanted to be playing in KC either, mind you, since our favorite place to play was just 45 minutes down the road at the Bottleneck in Lawrence, but that’s the trouble with playing a summer tour: the college towns are more or less shut down and we have to settle for the nearest big city.
This was probably the first and biggest mistake that Epic/Sony made: to release our album and have us go on tour just as colleges were letting out across the country. It showed a complete lack of understanding about our band and the system that we had allowed us to thrive and grow. Our bad for not crying bullshit right from the start but, to put it in context, our last record had come out in 1988 and we were anxious to keep our name out there. Nowadays, it seems like artists can take years in between releases but back then, we felt the need to “keep up with the Cave Dogs.” We’d been spinning our wheels for a while and our impatience may have clouded our judgment.
On the plus side, the Sneetches have rejoined us and will be with us all the way through Columbus, a two-week stretch that is unprecedented for us. We’ve done weeks with Camper, Bob Mould, and MIghty Lemondrops, but never had an opener play with us for so long. They were probably excited to get the gig with a major label band but it probably didn’t take them long to realize it wasn’t gonna be the tour of their dreams.
On the promotion side, we meet up with CBS rep, Jim Lucas, and do a phone interview at KJHK and visit Streetside Records, Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven, and KC Music Exchange. I can’t remember what club we played at but it seems like it was at 4128 Broadway if anyone from KC can place that.
Two milestones for us tonight: It’s the 4th anniversary of our first live show, an opening slot for the Mekons back at the Rat in 1986. It’s also our 350th show, for what that is worth, but no one knows at this point that the lineup won’t make it to 400. Tomorrow: Wichita!
Calculating Route... 