Forego the Embargos Tour, April 2005 So here’s the first tour diary since last summer. Yeah, it got a little boring there for a while with the “eat, drive, eat, ladies, van, fatty, load in, play, sleep, eat, Big Ben, Parliament, Ol’ Miss, Old Man, Deep River, etc…” repetition of the road. It seemed that for a while our set lists were the only aspect of the grind that was worth discussing (I never completed the August West Coast diary for this reason, so maybe I’ll revisit it soon). In light of this, touring with Milton Mapes was a refreshing touring experience. There were always eight friends around to provide entertainment and discourse, or a buddy with whom to do a shot. And since only 3 out of the 32 performances that comprised the shows were by bands we had never heard, the tour was very enjoyable in the musical sense. Milton Mapes is a great band and terrific bunch of guys, even if they do hit the hambong every once in a while. Thanks to everyone who came out, especially those who drove hours and even flew in an airplane to see us. It is a great honor that you go to such lengths to rock out with us. We are lucky to have y’all on our side. As usual, the grammar is incongruent because my point of view and the relative present tense changed as the tour went on. Oh, and typos exist sometimes though they shouldn’t in GC. Tuesday 4/5 6:00am. I was picked up by Crow and Chan and then the three of us picked up Ned for the long ass drive to Columbia, MO. We stopped through Dallas around 9:30am to get a new kick drum case for Ned’s 26” Slingerland. We were back on the road by 10:05am and drove until we got to the club at 8:30pm. The local band had backed out (great) so the gig was just Milton Mapes (MM) and GC. By playing the Music Café, we broke a two and a half year ban on venues with the word café in the title. Though Dave Pirner said so triumphantly that rules were made to be broken, I’d like to hear what he’d say about breaking one’s own rules. Anyway, both bands claimed they needed the practice so it was fine that we played to four or five people. GC rehearsed the following songs that seemed to be ready for public consumption: The Songs You Want to Hear Bayonet Rottweiler Hair Destructive Ear City Lights Raul Vela Wounded Eye Different Sort of Story We left the club with no money and the beginnings of free domestic draft beer headaches. It was free, though. Unlike our first visit to Columbia in June of 2003, the semester was still in session and we hoped that there would be students for whom to play. Goes to show you that counting on college is not the best idea. Wednesday 4/6 Drove to Madison. Unfortunately, the trees hadn’t bloomed yet and the landscape wasn’t quite as beautiful as it’s been before. We hit rain and it ended up pouring most of the night. Yeah, that’s it. People didn’t come out because of the rain. High Noon is a great room and the people working there were great. Thanks to the 10 people that came out. This was the first of four shows with Ol’ Yeller and Milton Mapes so really, how could it be bad? If there was no one else there we still have good friends to talk to and the best music to listen to. Not helping the Champeen’s cash flow situation, each band made a sweet $13 at the door. GC and MM had never played there before so it’s understandable. In light of our financial situation, we made a bee line to Milwaukee: the city of my mother’s birth and the location of the closest free floor/couch. Ah yes, the incomparable Dan Franke. Thursday 4/7 Since we were already in Milwaukee, we were able to sleep in and screw around the town. After some key duplication and burgers we walked down to the shore of Lake Michigan. That was exciting for three minutes so we relocated to CJ’s with Franke. Later on, the six of us ate dinner at the Palomino where we were greeted with buckets of Lone Star and Shiner. Since The Palomino is one of two bars in Milwaukee that serves Lone Star, choosing restaurants was easy. The Points East club was kinda small so all three bands shared drums and bass gear. Once we got it all set up, MM went on and sounded phenomenal. Ol’ Yeller sounded great too and though our set might have sounded good, it was riddled with poop/tech problems. Considering the fact that 2/3 of us had never played Milwaukee, we had a good crowd and it was a fun show. Stayed at CJ’s. I stayed up really late watching the dumbass movie Something’s Gotta Give. Jeez though…Keanu Reeves and Diane Keaton in the same movie evokes curiosity not unlike a wreck on the interstate. Friday 4/8 Woke up late and ate soup and sandwiches after going to Faust music. Have you ever been to this place? The sign said “OPEN” but the door was locked, so we knocked. A second later this old dude came to the door and unlocked it but as Ned grabbed the handle to open it, the guy shut it and locked it back! He was on the phone and counted how many of us there were and skeptically let us in the store. This guy was a freak. Seemed almost like a goomba running a Mafia front. He had this Sal Tessio look to him and he kept telling us to not touch the items cause they weren’t for sale anyway. Then he said we couldn’t even enter the drum room (which seemed to be full of cool shit) because that’s his brother’s deal. Tessio claimed to only deal with guitars and accessories but when Ned asked for sticks, the guy knew to ask for brand, size and type of wood. He then spieled for five minutes (as he was escorting us out the door) about how drumheads are the only aspect of a drumset that make a difference. At that point it seemed more like a Norman Bates scenario where his “brother” was actually a skeleton in the basement that was wearing a Beatles wig and was propped up behind a Ludwig drumset. Two minutes later we ran into Franke’s pal who said that the guy’s a notorious asshole/weirdo. Our show at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago will hopefully be our last show at that venue. Ol’ Yeller went on first and played to GC, MM and four civilians. Bullshit, I tell you. As Rich later told me, he got his Ya Ya’s out on stage, goofin’ off and whatnot. Mapes sounded great again. Our set was fun. Did the best “Quick One” of the tour. They were rushing us out of the place so we split and ate some pizza and crashed at John and Jennifer’s. Thanks for the floor and thank you for the Lemmy bio, Randy! Saturday 4/9 On the road towards Minneapolis after fighting Cubs traffic on the way back into Chicago after heading out of town and having to turn around and come back into town only to turn around again. This is how the Champeen likes to operate…thorough road inspection and gas usage after ignoring maps and road signs. Got to MPLS and hung out at Rich’s for a little while before heading to the Turf. The Turf has new owners and a few changes have been made but it’s still a great place. Rob Rule was definitely missed this evening. Far and away the best night of the tour. The crowd was awesome, all the bands came off well and everyone that came out was super-sweet for doing so. One of the highlights of the evening was doing three songs with Mike Nicolai (“Pastor Bob,” “Surveillance,” “Waves of Fear”). Another highlight was Ol’ Yeller doing “Dirty Deeds” with Channing, Andy Yeller and Tony Kruddler on vocals, and Crow on lead guitar. Shane Kruddler picking a visually impaired Crow up off the ground while soloing added to the chaos. A truly great show. One of those special nights for everyone in the room. Afties at Andy’s, then Rich’s. Sunday 4/10 Dilly-dallied on our day off. Had a couple of drinks at Grumpy’s before heading out. The weather that day was just perfect. We left for Cleveland around 7pm and stopped just inside the western Indiana border around 2:30am. Monday 4/11 We broke our convoluted Hardee’s ban on the Ohio turnpike and I’m here to tell you, it was not worth it. MM got to Beachland around the same time we did so we all hung out drinking and changing strings. Pale Blue Sky was the first non-MM/OY band we played with so far. Mapes played one of their more powerful sets of the tour. I kept turning to Emily and saying, “Damn, they’re on fire!” We played a craptacular, listless set. Our “Quick One” was better than most but we couldn’t even finish “Friday” due to lack of appetizing funds and practice. Pathetic, really. For the kind club owner and the six people that drove hours from out of state, I felt bad. Supposedly we made it up to ‘em with a couple of requests. If covers are the currency, we can almost always make a deal. Apparently, we know them better then our own songs at a ratio of 2.61:1. Five dollars down, all alcohol options, financing available for merchandise. Tax, title and license not applicable. Greg Mapes’s harmonica playing on Motion Pictures sounded cool. We have to get some MM/GC supergroup shit going on before this ride’s over. Tuesday 4/12 Had a 1pm checkout! Very nice. We ate at Bob Evans and MM was eating there too. They had stayed back in Cleveland so they could wake up and check out the R N’R Hall of Fame and on their way to Buffalo they happened to stop at the same restaurant. Ha! We caravanned with them to Marty’s where we drank beers and threw the football while Marty and Susan prepared a most wonderful feast. A spontaneous whiffle-hack session got our appetites a blazin’! When we got to the club, Semi-Tough was already playing. They just sound better and better each time. My third cousin and his girlfriend drove over from Rochester, which was cool. All the sweet Buffalo-area peeps were out and it made for a particularly raucous show. Two Cow Garage (TCG) ripped it up and MM impressed all those that hadn’t seen ‘em before. We did a fairly normal set, compared to our previous Mohawk show. “Angel’s Share,” “Fakin’ It” and “Cowboy Song” are the ones that stand out from the other sets of the tour. A little more of our spine disintegrated when we lifted the ban on “Born to Run.” Those gigs at the Mohawk really bring it out of us. We didn’t play “Ace of Spades” because Bill wasn’t there to sing it for us. Oh, and we completed “Friday” this time. Wednesday 4/13 Drove to Columbus. No big deal. Got to the club for a show with MM/TCG. Mapes had a fake flyer for Crow’s solo project, the Michael Crow Experiment…and so began the pranks. Or maybe they began with cat brains, I’m not sure. Anyway, at some point during the evening, CB2 purchased a couple of rainbow stickers and put them on our front and rear bumpers. They were not undetected before leaving the club but either way, our resolve was being seriously challenged. The show went well for everyone. It was probably one of our better Columbus shows. No Don B. for “Batman,” nor Jive Turkeys for jive talking, but whatever. After the show, MM/GC went to eat at Tee Jaye’s 24 hour breakfast restaurant. We were served by a maniacal speedeater that kept touching people at our table. The Mapes scored yet again with a faux-birthday surprise for yours truly. The whole restaurant sang “Happy Birthday to Alex” as I hung my defeated head over a piece of crappy carrot cake. Oh, they’re in for it. That night we stayed at TCG’s sweet apartment. Thursday 4/14 Woke up and immediately made for Indianapolis. We got there early enough that MM got a room next to us at the Ramada so we could have some hang time. After about four hours of hangin’ with those boring dudes, we made it to yet another doodoo show in Indy. It was a better show than the one at Birdy’s last year, but it wasn’t good enough for us to stick around and endure the last group. The Melody Inn is a smaller club so we kept things at a tolerable level. Keenan, Carolyn and their friends came out, as did Jason from Twangfest, all making the show worth playing. It’s pretty cool to travel the country and see folks, you know? Catching up with friends from high school, distant family, people from SXSW or Twangfest, and folks we’ve met on previous tours is a luxury few “professions” afford. Anyway, we were in and out of that place in a hurry but it did seem like a cool bar. Maybe next time. Friday 4/15 Steak and Shake banquet with MM before heading to St. Louis. It was important that we stopped at some point and purchased some items to aid in Milton’s hazing. While driving down the road on the way to St. Louis, we noticed that people were looking at us with smiles on their faces as they passed us. We started getting paranoid that the Mapes had done something to our van while we weren’t looking so we pulled over. After getting some bloody mary supplies at the gas station, we went to the adult bookstore to get some gag material. Another measure taken at this stop was to write Britton’s phone number in the dirt on the back of our van. Our plan was to have one of our crazy friends to call them and act like a truck driver that wanted a little rendezvous in St. Louis with a van full of cute boys. It worked out perfectly because as Britton was on the phone with Shane Two Cow (playing the engine driver), we passed the Mapes van and they saw that we had written their number on the side. Shane ended up dropping the joke but we know that we had them for a little while. We loaded into the club and then packed all nine of us into the Champeen van to go to a cookout at our booking agent’s house. The food was great and it was cool to meet some new people as well as hang out with some Twangfesters. The lineup for the evening was Champeen opening for Mapes so we went on and had a pretty good show over all. I felt like I played like crap but everyone else was happy with it. The crowd wanted us to do an encore but we declined because the evening was MM’s. They managed to cram all their shit onto that little stage and then really stick it to the crowd. We got those fuckers good by putting up a Care Bears poster in the window above them right before they started playing. It was a pretty good joke and though they said to leave it up, we took it down anyway. Then they really showed us by doing an a capella version of GC’s own “Alma Mater!” As heartwarming and white flag provoking as the gesture was, we had a little more planned. Back to Rick’s for afties and a sweet fire in the backyard. Saturday 4/16 11:00am came early and we were out the door by quarter ‘til 12 in order to record a performance at KDHX to be aired on Nico’s show later than evening. I barely remember the event due to tiredness and a wicked hang, but I think it went well. Though the drive to Lawrence was uneventful, the landscape had changed since we were through there only 10 day before. The trees had really started blooming and the chill of winter seemed to be blowing away. Too bad we were stuck in a van with the windows up all day. No wait, we did go to a mall outside of St. Louis to eat at the food court. I love going to the mall with my friends on Saturday afternoon. It’s totally the best. We got to town and hung around at the club, got coffee, checked out some records and ate. Mainly, we all hung out at the club, enjoying each others’ company on the last night of a great tour. It was the Jackpot’s First Anniveresary and we were honored to play the special occasion. The Mapes played a great set and said many nice words about us from the stage. I think they were pleased with the gay S&M porno mag we got for them by the side of the interstate. When you spend that much time with people, you get to know what they’re like, you know? Our set was fun. There were may shots taken and there were a few chestnuts in the set. “Lucky” and “BTR” spring to mind as unique setlist items. We did enjoy Mike McCoy’s vocal stylings on “Favorite Thing” and his rad drumming on the first verse of “Cowboy Song.” After some brief grab-assing in front of the club, we had a GC/MM picture taken and we said our goodbyes. The Mapes drove back after the gig because they had to work on Monday morning and we went to drink at Mike’s because we barely have jobs. It was a great tour and if you haven’t checked out Milton Mapes most recent full length The Black Light Trap, I highly recommend getting it. Hearing those songs every night only reinforced how good they are. Champeen, out!