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thebellrays · 8 years ago

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Bob Log - The BellRays/Supersuckers tour 12-17

DEC. 6

I woke up this morning with a really sore throat. I bet I'm getting a cold.

Today is a "day off", which means we don't have to do anything except drive to Salt Lake City. 9 hours. Wheeeee!

It's a beautiful drive up around the Rockies. I drive for a couple of hours until we stop at a Cracker Barrel for lunch.

Grilled Catfish, mac and cheese, fried apples and corn.

Marty takes over driving and I fall asleep

I wake up to the van surrounded by falling snow and almost white out conditions. The road isn't frozen though and it doesn't last for more than an hour. It's our first snow fall of the tour.

We get to Salt Lake around 10 pm and walk across the street (Lisa, Bernard and I) to a Legends sports bar to eat dinner. It's loud and everything a sports bar should be

We've eaten. We leave and go to sleep.

DEC 7

Lisa and I go downtown to buy me a belt and we eat at the food court in the Mall. It's a really nice set up with waterfalls and stuff.

On the way we notice the flags at half mast and realize that this is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

Afterwards we go see our new friends at Bookly who are doing our bookkeeping and taxes. They're cool and the office is really relaxed. Lisa feels really good about using them. It's a big load off her shoulders.

We were going to go see a movie at the theater across the street but instead we went back to the hotel and slept. I'm sick and I neeeded it.

The show in Salt Lake is pretty cool. There's a lot of people and Tunie and her daughter Amber show up. It's good to meet Amber. She's the one who called and told me my dad had died. Tunie seems happy and she really like the show.

DEC 8

We head up the 25 on our way to Hailey, Idaho. It's another scenic but unexciting drive alternating between rolling hills and flat plains. It's all dusted with snow.

The town of Hailey seems pretty affluent with one main drag through it. Everything's on that street. The club and the hotel are on opposite sides of the street about a half mile apart.

The hotel is awesome! The Woods Inn. Really, really nice. Yoga mats, exercise bands, hard wood floors, it's really nice!

The club, the Sun Valley Brewery is a small bar and the food is really good. I have fish tacos. Lisa got brautwurst soup and fish and chips. We each have a Honey Weizen beer. Mine's bigger than hers.

It's got a huge green room, which is great.

The gig is funky. The sound guy's a weird-o and the stage is covered in cords. We do our best to survive and afterwards we talk to bunch of happy people. The Supersuckers rock but I can't hear the singing or the guitar all night.

DEC 9

We reluctantly leave our hotel and start driving to Spokane.

We take the scenic route up through Ketchem and it's some seriously pretty country.

Everything's dusted with snow but the skies and the roads are clear. I see a trio of elk alongside the road and Bernard gives a serious lesson on Fly fishing.

It's about 9 hours and we drive straight to the venue.

It's a big place and the venue is up a couple flights of stairs. Luckily there's a freight elevator and we're able to use that.

This is a proper venue. The sound guy knows what he's doing and the stage is really large.

The Bomb Pops have some issues with their amps. First Poli's dies and she uses Marty's as a replacement. Then a song later Jen's goes out. She tries a couple of things before she uses mine. After that they rock accordingly.

We have our best set of the tour so far and it's really a good time. There's a lot of people and they get a good show from us.

The Supersuckers sound great and the rest of the night is a really fun time.

We load out with the freight elevator and then it breaks. We stick around to help the other bands load their gear down the two flights of stairs.

DEC 10

The drive from Spokane to Bellingham is a long, mostly flat one. No buffalo sighted. I've been waiting to see some buffalo. No luck.

The hotel has HBO and we try unsuccessfully (twice) to watch "Kong Skull Island".

The club in Bellingham, the Green Frog, is a little place with the stage set up in the front of the club. They serve kitschy grilled cheese sandwiches and have a decent beer selection. Lisa and I order the Cherry Fix beer. I get a Mac Daddy sandwich and Lisa orders a Gorgonzola. We both get tomato soup. Apparently the cook is an asshole and our food takes about 45 minutes while everyone else in the place gets theirs in about 15 minutes. It puts us in a bad mood.

The sound guy is late and we think that's gonna add to the bad vibe but he sets it up and the Bomb Pops sound really good.

We go on and it sounds great on stage and the audience really goes for it so our mood lightens a bit. We meet some really nice people.

The Supersuckers sound great and the night is a success.

The next morning we meet Heather and she buys us lunch at her bar/club/pinball club, the Racket. She says more of our fans would've been at the gig if it had been at a different club because the Green Frog is not a very popular place with the rock crowd. The Racket makes falafel and philly cheese steaks. I get the steak and Lisa gets the falafel and they're both really good. She has a top floor full of pinball machines and the bathroom is decorated in pinball machine blueprints. It's a cool place and hopefully we'll play there the next time we're through there.

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thebellrays · 8 years ago

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the BellRays/Supersuckers Tour Journal DEC 2017

BELLRAYS TOUR JOURNAL DEC. 2017

Here it is! This is the official journal of our tour with the Supersuckers! It's going to be a pretty dry read mostly. Just the facts ma'am...just the facts.

Dec 1 Friday the Backstage Bar and Billiards, Las Vegas NV

Planned to leave at 11am

Bernard is flying into Vegas and going to meet us at the club

Marty arrives at the studio 10am with his Dad (Marty) and his uncle (Junior). Marty tells

us he never got to tour with the Faragher Bros back in the 70's. He got to see

Rufus, Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder

We pack the van while Lisa advances the shows

We leave around noon and go to the guitar center in San Bernardino to pick up a guitar

cord and a mic clip for Lisa.

Lisa goes to Staples for some clips for the merch.

We go to In n Out and the line is insanely long and we finally hit the road to Vegas by

1pm.

2 double doubles, Lisa's has grilled onions, an order of fries and a diet coke

The drive up is pretty easy with light traffic and no accidents.

Lisa falls asleep for about an hour and a half.

We get to Vegas around 4;30 and check into the Stratosphere hotel where our rooms

are comped and that's awesome! We go straight to the club because we think we have to be there at 5.

The club is closed and the SuperSuckers van and trailer is there but the band is not.

The Supersuckers arrive and we talk for a bit and get reaquainted. It's really great to see

Eddie again and we all agree that this is going to be fun.

We find out the club is not going to open until 6 so we walk up to the Fremont

Experience where we find a White Castle.

The Supersuckers go to their hotel to pick up a guitar.

Lisa and I get a couple of sliders each and we hang out for about a half hour before

heading back to the club, which is now open.

Bernard is there and we load in.

The Backstage looks like a nice place. It's big and has pool tables, black light posters,

and a big stage, but it's drink tickets (2 each) for the band and they only get

you Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's cold though so that's good.

The Bomb Pops show up and we meet them for the first time, 2 girls, 2 guys.

The Supersuckers sound check and then we check Lisa's wireless mic.

Lisa breaks down the merch into a single box that can go out on the floor and she and

I set it up at the merch table next to the Supersuckers merch.

The first band finally starts playing at 9:30. They're a country-ish band whose name

I can't remember. They were ok but they played a long time setting the night

back even further.

The Bomb Pops get on and race through their set. They know what they're doing but the

vocals are buried really far back, so are the solos. It makes it hard to get a read

on what they really sound like.

Our set is a work in progress. At times we sound pretty good. At other times it sounds

like we only practiced 3 times. We hit the wall on "Never Let a Woman' and

actually have to start over. Once we do that we manage to get through the rest

of the set without casualties and even shove two christmas songs ( Mary Xmas

and 'Christmas is Coming') in that come across pretty well. I'm anxious to get

to the 3rd or 4th show and everyone's dialed in.

The Supersuckers are tight and fill the room up with sound. There's a bunch of people

coming while they're playing and they've stopped charging at the door. So

people are wandering in to check it out. Then they wander out. It's Vegas and it

seems like the people are looking for something that they wouldn't know if they

found it.

After the Supersuckers get done playing people start settling on the merch table and

a couple of them are really talkative. I don't think they understand how tired I

am and how badly I just want to shut it down and get to bed.

Finally, we're loaded out and ready to leave when we find out that the owner of the club

Eva has offered to buy our dinner at the Claim Jumper in the Golden Nugget so

we go to eat (we haven't eaten dinner yet).

We walk 10 minutes to the Golden Nugget (it's cold) and sit down. The foods good. I

ordered pancakes, hash browns, bacon and two sunny-side up eggs. Lisa got

the chinese chicken salad. We ate it all and as we were getting ready to leave Eva showed up and we talked to her for a bit. She's really cool and a big part

of the LA club scene. She opened the Martini Lounge and the Dragonfly, sold

em and then moved to Vegas and opened up the Backstage.

It was 4:30 am by the time we started walking back to the venue where we picked up

our van and drove back to the hotel.

We went right to sleep.

DEC 2

We woke up at 9:45 and immediately called down to get a late checkout (noon).

We ran a bath and enjoyed it immensely.

We re-packed the van in the parking lot and hit the 93 south.

The 93 is a really beautiful drive. It's about 4 hours of desert scrub, Joshua trees and

saguaro cactus (my personal favorite). The saguaros get thick as you get closer to

Phoenix and they're neat to see how different each one is.

I drove the whole way.

In Kingman we stopped at a Sinclair Travel America and got food. Lisa and I got hot

dogs, a bag of chips and large diet coke (mine).

It seemed to take forever to get to Mesa and the Bar Red and we arrived just before doors

opened, threw our stuff behind the opening band on stage. I found a Stella and

sat my ass down for a few minutes before I helped Lisa do the accounting for the

previous nights' merch.

Right now we're listening to Eddy and Marty learning "Beer Drinkers Hell Raisers' by ZZ

Top on acoustic guitars. Rockin'

The opening band (sorry, I don't know the name) is a rockabilly outfit (maybe more

punkabilly) not too bad but I really didn't get to see too much of them. I was

busy fixing the merch and getting our stuff ready.

Watched the Bomb Pops' set standing next to our drummer Marty and he seemed to be

getting some energy out of it. They were good and the sound was much better.

I could hear what they were doing much better tonight.

Our set was really good! For the second night we brought a lot of energy. Maybe a little

fast, some of the stuff, but there was a really energetic feel to it. I had a good time.

After our set I say hi to Fun Bobby. A really cool guy here in the Tempe/Phoenix/Mesa

area. He used to book us in Hollywood Alley when we first started touring

through Arizona. He's helped us out a bunch and I'm always happy to see him!

Now I'm listening to a bunch of pot heads that have invaded our dressing room tell inane stories about cats and dolls. I remember why I stopped getting high.

Thank god they finally left.

I must've fallen asleep because now the Supersuckers are in the dressing room and they

were just playing on stage when the pot heads left.

We pack up and leave and it's only 1 AM. Yippee!

We check into the Econolodge and find a parking place just outside our the window

of our room (which always makes it easier to sleep).

We ordered a pizza and wings from Zio's and scarfed it because it was really good.

Good times!

DEC 3

Woke up around 9:30 and took a bath. The bathtub stopper didn't work so I had to wrap it in plastic (the stuff the plastic bathroom cups are wrapped in). That did the trick. Nice

Checked out at 11 and we wandered to the circle K to grab munchies and then to Safeway to get some more munchies while we waited to see where Fun Bobby wanted to go for lunch.

Met Fun Bobby at the Cornish Pasty Co. They make British pasties (meat or whatever baked into a dough wrapper. kind of like a meat pie). This place is great! I got a Reuben pasty and 32 oz hefeweisen and was completely happy. Lisa got a beet salad and a shandy. The bartender/waitress, Brooke was awesome! We had a great time.

We left for Tucson around 2;30 and got there around 4:00. The drive was easy and scenic, if you like the desert...and I do.

Another Econolodge. This one a little less nice than the last one but it was nice to lie down.

We loaded into the Rock a little after 5.

It's a spacious club with a lot of different little spaces coming off the main live music room.

I changed strings and then sat down to type this.

A few minutes later we head to the hotel to check in and chill out for about an hour before we go back to the club.

The room is a weird corner affair that feels like a converted store room. The bathroom is tiny and the shower is...ineffective.

The Bomb Pops have already started playing and there aren't very many people.

I have a theory on how to get a rough estimate on crowd size. Take the number of people who are in the crowd just before the first band starts and multiply it by 3. There will be AT LEAST that many people in the club come headliner time. It almost always works.

My theory works tonight. There are three times not very many by the time the time we s go on. But they're enthusiastic and we get a really good response.

The first show we tended to play too slow. The second one had all energy and the tempos were faster. Tonight we straddled the two and I think we're finding our rhythm, which usually happens around the third or fourth show.

We started using the Supersuckers drums and bass cab so we had to reconfigure how to load our gear in our van so we don't have to pull EVERYTHING out every time. This way our drums and bass cabinet stay in the van. The two heaviest things no longer come into the club. Nice!

We get to the hotel early (before midnight) which is great because we need some sleep.

We sleep.

DEC 4

Woke up about 9

Bernard and Marty did the driving today and I got to spend the whole ride in the back seat. It was an easy drive.

Had lunch at a Pilot and Lisa and I got Subway sandwiches. I wolf mine. Lisa saves half.

On the way we find out that the Bomb Pops' van has a brake issue so at best they're gonna be late, if they make it at all.

The venue in Albuquerque, the Sister Bar, is really nice.

The parking and load in situation is iffy though. But Bernard manages to snake a spot out front and we load in.

They have a great selection of sour beers and over the course of the night I had two Cascade's. Lisa got a Dogfish head IPA. Really good! The food is good too. I had a breakfast burrito. Lisa had the Frito pie. Tapatio hot sauce, christmas chili salsa...yep, hit the spot!

The Bomb Pops get to the venue about 8:20. They use the Supersuckers gear and start playing really fast. It's a good set for them since they didn't know if they were gonna make it or not.

Good crowd.

The minute we start playing the lights on stage go out. The sound is still working so we keep playing while people use their cell phones to light us up. The blackout lasts till the next song. Other than that the set is great.

Loading out is interesting as there's a large contingent of homeless people wandering around or setting up there beds for the night all around where we're parked.

It's getting progressively colder as we head north.

DEC. 5

On the road to Denver!

We start out at 10 AM and head straight up the 25.

Once we're away from Albuquerque it's amazing how unpopulated the country is. I expected to see truck stops all along the route but there are hardly any. Towns are spread out.

There aren't very many troopers out either. Just a couple sitting in the medians waiting for speeders, which we're not.

We see a lot of antelope grazing in the fields along the highway.

We stop for gas and eats at a conoco station that has a Subway sandwiches. Lisa goes there. I get a hot dog.

A couple hours later we pull in for a bathroom break and meet up with the Supersuckers who've also stopped.

Bernard takes over driving and Lisa rides shotgun. Marty and I take the benches.

There's still 3 hours to go before we get to Denver.

Denver is officially freezing and the traffic is pretty bad. We lose our buffer hour for the hotel and we have to go straight to the venue.

The Lost Lake Lounge is a nice dive bar/club. The dressing room is small for ONE band and there's 3 in here.

The gig is sold out and the crowd is the best so far. It seems everybody in the place comes by the merch table and tells us how much they liked our set. With how many times we've played Denver I'm surprised at how many people haven't seen us before or even haven't ever heard of us until now.

After the show we head to our bomb ass hotel and sleep.

Did I mention it's fucking cold?

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