We’ve got this Sunday off for the long drive from LA to the San Francisco Bay Area to play a trio of shows. I reach out to the Sony label rep there, Tim Thompson, and it’s clear by his enthusiasm that we’re not going to have a lot of free time to sightsee while we are there. Most of the label reps have been pretty lame but Tim seems to be on the ball and has lots of promotional activities planned for us. I tell him about the vehicle problems we’ve been having and he starts making calls to find a mechanic who can help us.
We’ve got a good show in San Francisco tomorrow with Scrawl, followed by a San Jose gig on Tuesday where we’ll meet up with the Sneetches, an SF band who will be opening a bunch of upcoming midwest dates for us, and lastly, a show on Wednesday in a town called Cotati, that we are having trouble finding on the map. We made great friends in SF the last time we played and are looking forward to the shows.
The crew is down to Jim and NIc at this point, driving the van, with the band in the beleaguered RV. Tensions are mounting and the rest of the guys in the band have pretty much stopped talking to me, except to comment on my bass playing and encourage me to spend more time practicing. Things are not going well on the tour and, according to the Rules of Rock n Roll, someone must be blamed! I’m the least technically adept musician in the band, and we all know what happens to that person when you sign a major label deal. I’m also seen as aligned with our management team and that is not a popular position either. In the past, it has always been all of us against the world but now the bond is fractured, and I’m on the outside. Considering that we’ve got 4 weeks left on the tour and we’re spending most of the days together in a rolling living room, the outlook is grim. Of course, we are as dysfunctional as the next band and would rather withdraw than confront the issues so we speed up Highway 5, avoiding all eye contact.
Tomorrow: Tim Thompson to the rescue.
Calculating Route... 