Some Things Never Change...
The first show last night in Seattle at Key Arena was the rush I think we were all looking for.
I have woken up this morning in a Portland hotel room overlooking the river. The water is rippling, birds are chirping, leaves are rustling.
Last night after the show we got on the bus and drove away exhilarated, watching Who Wants To Be a Millionnaire (old episode, Regis "Mark-My-Words" Philbin was still hosting), shouting out the answers, having some wine and then horror struck:
The bathroom door on the bus was locked
AND NOBODY WAS IN THERE.
Our bladders instantly went into overdrive. It was every man for himself. Some tried to pick the lock with whatever was around. The driver was unfamiliar with the door inadvertently locking itself. Eventually we insisted on pulling over but we drive in a convoy of 3 buses and one can't stop unless all 3 confer by radio and stop too.
The convoy pulled over and as I squatted in the brush, * I was brought back to one of my first rock tours in the winter of '93 with a band called Jr. Gone Wild. It was 6 chain smoking guys and me, zig zagging back and forth across Canada in the winter in a van with a license plate that said: ANTHRAX. More than once on that tour I had to get the van to pull over, and after a few weeks of this I developed my technique: I used to sit on the trailer-hitch and pee through the gap so that passing cars wouldn't catch my heiny in the headlights unless they were really looking.
Interestingly, this is an anecdote I just told last month on a artists' panel at the NXNE Music Conference in Toronto, in a discussion about musical influences and touring experiences, along with Sarah Slean, Danny Michael, Ian Blurton, Bob Egan, members of Broken Social Scene, Moist and more.
Cut to: the summer of 2004. I am on tour singing backups with a world famous artist, travelling in style as part of a huge operation employing at least a hundred people and pissing at the side of the road like it's still in the winter of '93 and the boys are about to yell out of the window:
"Hurry the fuck up, Axel!" (They called me Axel).
Some things never change, and that's good.
xo KR
_________________
* Our band assistant Gail declined to do the squat, saying, "I'd rather have kidney failure."
I have woken up this morning in a Portland hotel room overlooking the river. The water is rippling, birds are chirping, leaves are rustling.
Last night after the show we got on the bus and drove away exhilarated, watching Who Wants To Be a Millionnaire (old episode, Regis "Mark-My-Words" Philbin was still hosting), shouting out the answers, having some wine and then horror struck:
The bathroom door on the bus was locked
AND NOBODY WAS IN THERE.
Our bladders instantly went into overdrive. It was every man for himself. Some tried to pick the lock with whatever was around. The driver was unfamiliar with the door inadvertently locking itself. Eventually we insisted on pulling over but we drive in a convoy of 3 buses and one can't stop unless all 3 confer by radio and stop too.
The convoy pulled over and as I squatted in the brush, * I was brought back to one of my first rock tours in the winter of '93 with a band called Jr. Gone Wild. It was 6 chain smoking guys and me, zig zagging back and forth across Canada in the winter in a van with a license plate that said: ANTHRAX. More than once on that tour I had to get the van to pull over, and after a few weeks of this I developed my technique: I used to sit on the trailer-hitch and pee through the gap so that passing cars wouldn't catch my heiny in the headlights unless they were really looking.
Interestingly, this is an anecdote I just told last month on a artists' panel at the NXNE Music Conference in Toronto, in a discussion about musical influences and touring experiences, along with Sarah Slean, Danny Michael, Ian Blurton, Bob Egan, members of Broken Social Scene, Moist and more.
Cut to: the summer of 2004. I am on tour singing backups with a world famous artist, travelling in style as part of a huge operation employing at least a hundred people and pissing at the side of the road like it's still in the winter of '93 and the boys are about to yell out of the window:
"Hurry the fuck up, Axel!" (They called me Axel).
Some things never change, and that's good.
xo KR
_________________
* Our band assistant Gail declined to do the squat, saying, "I'd rather have kidney failure."
posted by Kathryn Rose (aka KR) at 3:11 p.m.
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