Gutbrain Records

Friday, 09 September 2005

Since Bush doesn't have the leadership qualities, the strength of character, the brains, the guts or the heart to say it, I will: Keep shopping; live your lives as if nothing's wrong in the world; don't think about the government; concentrate on the new fall TV schedule. If you don't, then the hurricanes have already won.

And I suppose this goes without saying, but if you're not with us, you're with the hurricanes.

The only time I was ever in New Orleans was in 1996, on Dim Sum Clip Job's "This Is Why They Try To Teach You United States Geography" Tour (also known as the "Gates of Hell" Tour). I call it that beacuse, well, we covered a lot of ground.

Our first show was on June 13 in Memphis. Then we went to New Orleans for a show on the 14th. After that we were scheduled to play in Morgantown, West Virginia, on the 16th. We drove all the way there to find that the show wasn't happening and the club (bar) wasn't even open as the owner hadn't paid anybody for weeks.

From there we hit the road for our next show, supposedly on June 18 in San Antonio, TX. That one was cancelled before we got there (big fight in the club, sound guy in the hospital, venue closed). After that we finally played in El Paso on the 20th, then in Tucson, AZ, on the 21st. After that we had a few days until our next gig in Los Angeles.

That covers the first 12 days of the tour. Only 25 more days to go! Things didn't get much better.

This is Monaco Bob's, where Dim Sum Clip Job played in New Orleans. As you can sort of tell from this photo, it's under the highway. Sometime after we arrived, the owner showed up and turned on the P.A. He informed us that the local band sharing the bill had pulled out a couple of weeks ago and there had been no promotion, so nobody was likely to come see us. We were welcome to drink free beer, though, and play for the bartender. Which we did.