So, at this point you’ve heard how we rocked the Middle East (the club, not the region) for our EP release. You’ve heard how we trekked to Rochester, played with some great bands, made new friends and began getting used to sleeping in the back of the car with the seats folded down.
Next stops: WV, (TN*), and GA …
Let me start off by telling you that Rochester and WV are not even close to each other. Not even a little bit. We drove through Eastern PA in a vicious rain storm pulling a 2,000 lb metal box down the highway (I swear we saw tornadoes) and then through the god forsaken land of Ohio ….for an eternity.
Ohio is big, boring and surprisingly hot. We’re talking like Miami in August type heat (we know because we witnessed this too, but that’s not until installment 3 … stay tuned.) We won’t bash Ohio any further, we have no reason to. We are just bitter because they had bad sweet tea at the McDonalds we stopped at. Fair enough, right? Get with it Ohio.
Anyways, West Virginia was up next. We were headed to Charleston to play the Empty Glass as their showcase band for the evening. Basically what this means is that they booked us to perform on their open mic night for a couple of sets with various acts in between.
So we rolled into Charleston around 9pm on a Monday night and found our lodging for the next 2 days. We weren’t scheduled to perform until the following night so we had some time to kill, some sights to see and some drinking to do. And we were thirsty.
First thing we noticed was that our Motel 6 happened to be home (like literally HOME) to what appeared to be a group of either international students, illegal immigrants or drug smugglers hiding out in the rural mountains of WV. Since they had made this motel home, we decided we might as well too. Johnny was all over the interior decorating, quickly recalling an episode of Marta Stewart Living from his TiVo, he soon had our room looking like a rapists lair complete with string lights draped over our mirrors, room lights turned off and steam on the mirrors. Classy.
Don't these lights just make you want to take your clothes off and party?
If you were Jake they did ...
The cool thing about the whole motel setup, for those of you that haven’t stayed at one recently, is that every room has a porch/balcony to chill on. This made for great acoustic jams in the evening, the morning and all hours of the night. Everyone hated us, but fuck it. We were musicians and we needed to advertise our services. It actually kind of worked.
Now, to say that it “worked” is to say that eventually over time the yelling from neighbors above, beside and below us stopped and some of the “students” down the hall ended up coming and hanging for a bit. We gave them all demos and spent a little time with them jamming and hanging out and then called it a night … or morning. Probably a morning.
When we awoke the next morning we decided there was only one thing to do: go investigate the site that would be hosting Await Rescue musically later in the evening.
Maybe two-steps out the door we heard some yelling. Then another voice yelling back:
“Where you want me to go? I ain’t got nowhere else.”
“That ain’t my problem.”
SMACK!!!!
“Go on now, get yourself up.”
SIRENS
Ah … we haven’t even reached the Mason-Dixon line yet and we’ve witnessed our first domestic dispute. We left immediately thereafter.
After negotiating a neighborhood that would strike fear in the heart of Lucifer himself, we found it. Nestled discretely into a block of stores just down the street from the Capital Building was a true gem of Charleston: The Empty Glass.
The Empty Glass (and Charleston in general I would assume) is home to two things: the world’s friendliest people and $1 PBRs.
$1 PBRS!!!!!!!
So we hung out, socialized, ate and drank with the locals for an afternoon. You really get to know a place by drinking with the regulars who are there from about 1-5 pm on a Tuesday ….drinking Captain Morgan straight from the glass. The Empty Glass was also home to both slot machines and video slot machines for those of you into that sort of thing. If you’re looking for an alternative to Vegas … this place had it all.
It was here, and around this time, we were introduced to Road Block, the booking guy, and also musical guest for the evening. Road Block was huge and looked to be an original member of Pantera. Camo shorts, pony tail, army boots …acoustic guitar …all of it. More on him later.
After we got boozy enough for the afternoon we headed out to explore the rest of the city. First stop, as previously mentioned, was the Capital Building of Charleston. We didn’t get in but we did sit on the front steps at length and adjusted our perspectives on life and living … you know what I mean. Then we moved to the fountain and repeated. Then the rain came back, again. This was a recurring theme.
We found a missing child while wandering.
What do you do when it rains on tour? You get all the not fun stuff out of the way. We went to K-Mart to go shopping and then sat in the parking lot and ate peanut butter sandwiches on overturned shopping carts. The end. Not gonna talk about it.
lunch ....for days
Then came show time. How do we sum up a night that included Road Block (who has definitely earned his nickname via his appearance and stature) whaling away acoustic Allman Bros. blues rock jams all night, our favorite autistic comedian spewing the most hilarious and viciously inappropriate humor I’ve ever been witness to in my life (like I said …it was an open mic night …..very open)? You really can’t. We should have taped it but we got very caught up in the spectacle of what we were witnessing and were incapable of such things at the moment. Just know that we made new friends and new fans, rocked out, got rocked and laughed until we cried. And then we drank some more to top it off.
Watch out Larry the Cable Guy ...the South has a new King of Comedy
We returned to our motel thoroughly satisfied, happy and looking forward to TN the next day. Tour was in full swing and we were on our way to the real South and none of us could wait. The road was becoming our home and we were loving every minute of it.
–
It was around this time, staying entertained in the car became crucial.
You may be wondering why Tennessee is in parentheses and asterisked at the start of this blog. It’s because Tennessee didn’t happen. We showed up as scheduled and the place was locked down. No lights. No people. No nothing. We instantly realized that our plans for the night were not going to work out when, from inside the venue, a small man, looking like he had just been woken up, emerged, bewildered as to why we were on his door step. We told him who we were, stated our business and asked him where to load in.
He shut the door on us and went back inside, re-emerged moments later and told us that our show had been moved back a day to Thursday. Thanks for telling us.
You’re now on the same shit-list as Ohio, Tennessee.
We called around to plenty of venues in Nashville, etc. hoping to be able to fill in somewhere as a last minute replacement but to no avail. We were out of luck, out of patience and decided the only thing to do was move on to GA through the night.
And that we did … next stop Athens!
So, we departed as broken-hearted young men just looking for a venue to vent our musical frustrations. Ahead of us: a long overnight haul straight to Georgia. Tennessee had grown stale quickly and the setting sun left us no light to tighten up our ever improving spirals (We played more football on tour than ever before in our lives.)
We rolled into a just-awakening Athens, GA at the wee hours of the morning and wanted nothing more than to correctly park the Rubik’s cube on wheels that was our trailer. After dealing with the misty morning, finding an appropriate landing for the truck, and tricking the hotel clerk into believing the five of us are only two,(huge savings on hotels the whole trip, really) we made way for the room at everybody’s favorite travel lodging: Howard Johnson’s.
Falling asleep would have been as simple as laying anywhere in the room, but first we had to take care of something. That something was a spider. Not just any spider. This spider was an absolute freak of nature. It was roughly the size of a human nose, dodged our attempts of snuffing it like a pro running back evading defenders and then vanished. Let’s try to sleep now.
Somehow we all awoke from our brief-yet-beautiful slumber and it was time to take care of business. First stop was Chick-Fil-A for some more sweet tea and chicken sandwiches for our gullets. Being on the undying quest for the perfect sweet tea was tough up until we hit Georgia. That stuff is on demand no matter where you find yourself in The Peach State.
Next, Await Rescue became a bona fide business. Finding out that a check for $1,000 made out to “Await Rescue” cannot be cashed by any single member of the band really made it hard to eat, sleep indoors, drink sweet tea and drive. After some verbal assaults and much frustration, Matt solved the problem. The band had to become an Sole Proprietorship in order to establish an account to cash the check. Now that we are a thousand dollars richer, let’s get to Athens.
(Side note: Feel free to refer to Await Rescue from now on as “Morse’s Await Rescue” …it’s our legal name. A Sole Proprietorship has to include the name of the person running the business.)
We casually crept into the lovely college town that is Athens, GA and got on the prowl for Arch Bar. By this time in the day it was still very early, but Await Rescue had already suffered several broken necks delivered by the beautiful southern bells that call Athens home. It could’ve been worse. We could have been in Ohio still.
Our friend, owner of Arch and overall motorcycle badass, Chris, let us in Arch to unload and see what we are dealing with. If you are from the Athens area I would highly suggest going to Arch’s events or just going in general. If you don’t find the love of your life within 3 minutes, then you probably are incapable of loving and need to buy several cats as soon as possible.
The Arch Bar
Needing a few supplies for the show, we made our way to the local music shop. Really only needing strings and to kill time, everyone picked up an instrument of some sort and collectively began annoying the owner of this quiet shop. Dana decided on a banjo as his weapon of choice and completely astounded us all. If there’s one thing that’s more hilarious than seeing Dana holding a banjo, it’s hearing Dana play ‘Deliverance’ on said banjo.
We learned something new: Dana is a banjo savant. We learned something new about ourselves just about everyday on the road.
With the show still hours away we still had plenty of time to kill. What better way than to relearn some covers we hadn’t played in a very long time? After all, it was a show, but more importantly a birthday celebration for our friend Monica. This basically turned into a practice for us in a completely empty bar in the middle of the day in the middle of Athens, GA. Passersby stopped and listened to us tear through “Say it Ain’t So” by Weezer, “Everlong” by Foo Fighters and “Wish You Were Here” by Incubus. Some people actually even opened the door to come in thinking there was a show right then.
Just Waiting for Show Time
All this playing deserved a drink … and a shower for each of us in the bathroom sink.
Around 9 pm the girls started to roll in and it was getting to be show time. Once the crowd filled up a bit we started our set and in came Monica, the guest of honor for the evening. Monica is something of a character and apparently missed the guys. She displayed this by screaming at the top of her lungs somewhere in the area of 10 or so times. If there’s one thing a band loves its crowd interaction and Monica had plenty of interaction with us. She was just what we needed to get in the mood for excessive drinking.
And when ISN'T Drew ready to party?
After a quick gear break down and load up we set off for the nights festivities. First stop was another of our friends’ houses. This friend was Rowdy and that’s not just a name. He lives up to his name, don’t worry. It was here the 5 of us became a condensed group of 3. Matt, Dana and Johnny made their way to Monica’s house along with Rowdy and Co. in the back of his pick-up. It was there that we witnessed some of the greatest and funniest things yet on tour.
Monica & Rowdy (taken in CO later but they are wearing our shirts out in the cold ... had to post it!)
First, we meet the infamous Will Camino (ill explain him later) and a Gatorade cooler full of delicious fruit-punch/everclear/moonshine concoction. Then the concoction was introduced to our t-shirts. Chugging straight from the cooler does not agree well with white t-shirts.
Back to Will Camino … This guy may be one of the best people to meet on the road: extremely nice southern gentleman wearing a stylish trucker hat, fan of MMA and proud owner of …what else…an El Camino. Will Camino will come back into the picture with his El Camino shortly. First there was dancing to be done.
Another thing we noticed about the south and this party in particular was the dancing. Not being very good dancers ourselves, we tend to stand off to the side and observe … and what we observed was a synchronized group dance straight from BET. They (Monica, Rowdy and many more) formed a circle and on command and all danced the same exact dance with all the same moves and timing. It was a beautiful thing and as mesmerizing as it was impressive.
Around this time Rowdy got, well rowdy … and didn’t like the idea of a sleeping partygoer on the couch. I guess Rowdy decided he would at least have to make sure the unsuspecting snoozer was dancing a little himself. Rowdy became the puppet master and the helpless drunkard was the marionette. Rowdy controlled him to the rhythm of the music for a couple bars before half waking the poor guy. The zombie struggled up and made his way for the door and almost got there without a problem. Its too bad everyone was so into the music and so aware of his current position. The entire party danced on this poor man all the way out of the door. Easily one of the funniest things we three Northerners had ever seen.
After a noise complaint, then the failed bribery of the officer with use of alcohol (this cop was not a fan of Miller High Life it turns out), and finally a churning stomach just begging for food, it was time to go.
There was only one thing on our minds: Waffle House … and Waffle House we would get. But first, how to get there? Introducing for the second time: Will Camino. We all hopped in the El Camino, us three and Monica in the bed and William controlling the reigns of this 1978 steel beast. A few quick donuts in the parking lot and we were off. Slamming down the highway at 4 a.m., we’d be devouring Waffles House in no time.
Fueled on greasy deliciousness and a taste for the road, we headed back, in the same fashion.
Seeing the sun rising over the Dirty South in the back of an El Camino in company of good friends is an amazing thing.
Knowing a man named Will Camino is driving you, is the best thing.
Sleeping for maybe an hour and seeing the look on Drew’s face (pure disappointment) in the morning, kind of the opposite of the best thing.
You see, sleeping in the car had become a real trend at this point and GA was no exception. Drew arose early to find Dana and Matt passed out, sitting up, fully clothed in the car for the umpteenth time on tour. The problem was that all of our clothes, sleeping materials, etc. were up at the house at the top of Rowdy’s hill and needed to be brought down.
Have you ever tried removing a comatose, 210 lb., still inebriated, smelly man from a sweaty, motorized bed on wheels? It’s tough, as Drew was about to find out.
Mostly unresponsive, and definitely uncooperative, Matt stood up out of the front seat, waited for Drew to turn his back and then replaced himself across the back seat of the car to return to his state of slumber.
Drew asked again: “Greaze! Get up and get your s#*t out of the house.”
Matt: “What kind of hotel is this …zzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzz”
Either way, we knew one thing about Georgia and all of the people we met:
They are what makes being on the road worth all of the work, time and money.
Good times.
Next installment: Tampa, FL and Miami, FL. Oh God.
Await Rescue 