#tim hortons

20 Jun 2006
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Buffalo Soldiers

Monday, June 19–Buffalo

We hit Tim Hortons one more time on the way out of Canada. The landscape at the border is unbelievably beautiful, eerie with inlets and small forested islands. Crossing the border makes us very nervous, and as we’re driving away I can’t find our IDs. I pull over panicked and Nick and I explode into a huge fight from the buildup of stress over the last two weeks. It’s ugly, and afterwards I feel inexorably lonely.

Mapquest has a tragically incorrect entry for the club in Buffalo (the club has written 6 letters to the website trying to get it corrected) so we end up in a grandma neighborhood about 15 miles from the club. This is probably the only time bad directions are a relief, as it means we are not playing a show in a remote patch of ranch houses just off the highway.

We set an all-time record for the longest navigational/logistical goat rodeo. Our ETA for the club is 6PM; we roll in at 8 and they want to know where we’ve been. I’m begging telepathically, Please just be nice to us, or I’m going to completely lose my shit. And the wish is granted. We meet the other performers, Marianne Dissard and Naim Amor and their bands, who are just lovely, lovely people in all ways. The club is dark and sexy, very chic, and has a backstage where I can clean up. They’ve scheduled the night as a Francophilic extravaganza, as Marianne and Naim and both French singer/songwriters (via Tucson).

We play perhaps the best we’ve played all tour, and even if the audience is sedate, more prepared for Marianne and Naim than our garagey wailings, they are warm and kind. The Soundlab is my new favorite club (I’m fickle, I know).

Afterwards, we ask some local boys about Buffalo’s famous bands—they list Goo Goo Dolls, Rick James, Mary J Blige, and then tell me about some local band named, like, Fx7 that beats up other bands as a pastime, a second arena of distinction and talent. This is an exciting prospect, since our combined band weight is under 250.

As I’m walking back to the hotel alone, a cab driver honks and slows down. Suddenly, it dawns on me he thinks I’m a hooker, in my red lipstick, black dress, and sequined vest, so I flip him off (like that’s the international ‘I’m not a hooker’ signal).

In the morning, I get called a “dickhead”—by a woman!!–when I walk in front of her car as she’s trying to park. The streets of Buffalo and I are evidently having issues.

20 Jun 2006
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Jolie Laide

Saturday, June 17–Montreal
I am obsessed with Tim Hortons, so I force us to walk around looking for one. We fail, and finally settle on Starbucks. Mike spills his coffee as we’re loading the car so we get to stop at Tim Hortons anyway. Well, I was the one who set it on the amp. . .

I guess it is time to explain about loading. Perhaps a few, or many of you are in a band, but I’m assuming many also are not, so here’s a peek. My least favorite part of being in a band is loading, which is a huge proportion of the time one spends. For example, let’s say we have a show in Portland. This means that we need to allow about 20 minutes to pack up the equipment at home. Then, the car gets backed into the driveway and all of the gear is packed into it. Another 20 min. Then we drive to the club, where we need to first send an emissary in to make sure there is an appropriate place to load. Then we park illegally while we load. With two people it’s sort of tedious because one person needs to watch the stuff, leaving the other to do all of the hauling. For this reason, we usually take shifts. Then, after the gear is loaded in, Nick finds a parking place. Next is the task of setting up onstage. This takes us about twenty minutes. For my drums, which are very minimal, that means setting up four drums, three cymbals configurations and one pedal. You can’t just throw them together. Ergonomics and replicating the set up I’m accustomed to are crucial, so I may keep moving things an inch here or there, over and over again. Sometimes, when the club has an official sound check, we have to set up and then break down again, to make room for another band to sound check. (Which means we set up again when it’s our turn to play the show.) Once we play, we then have to break down the equipment again, pull the car around, take turns loading out, pack, and bring it all home again. Then the next day we have to set up again to practice. So, for example, for a 30 minute set, one might spend an hour and a half to two hours loading and setting up.

When you stay overnight somewhere, it is wise to bring the gear inside if possible. As I write this, we’re staying on a 3rd floor walk up, so imagine. Then our kind hosts have all this gear in their apartment. The Toronto hotel was on the 9th floor, so we had to get two luggage carts and do shifts. It’s pretty easy to spill a coffee in that situation, especially if you’ve set it down on a wobbling cart. This is why I got to go to Tim Hortons, for a second coffee. Yay for loading!

We pull over after a couple of hours because the boys want to see the US / Italy match. The town is beautifully quaint and is called Brockville. Coincidentally, the bar’s satellite radio plays “Don’t Go Back to (B)rockville” on the stereo while we’re there—or maybe it’s a hint. The place is jammed with rugby players and rugby boosters, who are wearing hawaiian shirts and funny hats. They stagger periodically to the bar, with black eyes and bum knees. One asks the waitress to fill a rugby boot with tap beer. A minute later they start singing and force a team mate to slam the foot flavored beer. I keep trying to engage them because I am bored by soccer. One guys wanders up with a penis-shaped hat. Of course I have to ask. He explains that the biggest loser of the game has to wear the hat. What did he do? He took a job in another province.

US ties. We leave.

I start reading aloud from Motely Crue’s The Dirt, one of my favorite “lite” books of all time (Go buy it NOW.) The band at one point calls groupies “human entertainment.” The boys think this is so funny, and will now refer to it as “H.E.”

When we enter Quebec, for some reason I’m shocked when all the signs are in French, Nick keeps pretending not to understand them. Like–, “Wha? Toon-ell? I need to find a tun-nel!!” We are tired so this is hilarious.

Montreal is very old-looking, go figure, and seductive, like an older French woman. The first person on the street I see is wearing a vintage-style sailor suit.

The gig is at a club called L’Escogriffe, which is an underground, stone=walled place with a cool marquee, which our names are on(!). We play with two country/rockabilly bands, and have our first real “dancer” (who gets kicked out) and our first heckler. He keeps asking questions of us onstage, like, “Did you really come all the way from Portland? Why are you so eighties influenced? What kind of amp is that?” Finally, I have to do something, so I say, “Wow, our first heckler. Exciting!” He is hurt and embarrassed, denies that he is heckling. Then he skulks out. Bad Flirt show up to cheer us on, our first band friends in Canada.

Bloodshot Bill is up after us and he sounds uncannily like Wanda Jackson. I hadn’t known one could get that sort of guitar sound these days. The label guys tell us he played 250 shows last year. This makes him an alien to me, another species.

Afterwards, we go back to Andrew’s, where we are staying. I sleep while the boys go looking for trouble. They fail.

We wake at 1:00 PM the next day, sweating in the bright sunlight, not knowing where we are.

17 Jun 2006
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Canada: It kills

Thursday, June 15–Hamilton, Ontario

We wake after four hours of sleep, faced with an eight-hour drive and the unpredictable task of crossing the Canadian Border for our show in Hamilton, Ontario.

Over the border, we note how much less sinister it seems here. Like if we totally went crazy–drove off the road and ran naked through the streets spray painting cop cars and harrassing kittens—the locals would feed us a hot meal and call our parents, rather than stealing our gear or beating us up.

My jeans are falling off from the lack of eating. A government road sign advises, “Fatigue Kills. Take a break.” Its frankness is impressive; in America, someone might try to sue, saying the sign upset her children. We heed the warning and pull off. Nick says, “I sure wish there was a different kind of fast food here.” Bingo! There’s a sign for a place called Tim Hortons. Inside, the counter people are ridiculously nice and the food is a huge step up. The coffee is perfect and they serve our sandwiches on real plates. I love Tim Hortons! I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and buy some more of their goods! Right now, as I write, I wish I were swimming in a pool of Tim Hortons coffee, floating lazily on a giant glazed donut innertube.

In the parking lot, a kind farmer–a total roadside anachronism–points out that we’re awfully far from home. For the next fifteen minutes, he explains the dire straits of the bean farming economy, and shows us pictures of his dog, who he claims can actually count and sometimes multiply fingers held aloft. (The dog barks the correct answer.) The dog also, judging by the pics, loves riding shotgun on farm equipment.

More road signs keep popping up. A first version in English and about a mile later, the same thing in French. Drunk Driving Kills. Tailgating Kills. It’s a wonder anyone musters the courage to get behind the wheel.

Mike took a Greyhound us to Hamilton, due to some coordination issues, and arrives at the club shellshocked by the experience. Two buses in a row broke down, and a prostitute named Lisa, a woman with a tiny pink dress, cat-eye makeup, and a nasty rash, befriended him. She was the most normal person on the bus.

Mike recounting this story reminds Nick of his own stint selling sex ads at Portland’s local newsweekly. Few things are more incongruous than imagining Nick, Mr. Deadpan, regularly collecting cash from Ladies of the Night. He’d field complaints (for example, that the font on the ad for “Sensual Massage” looks like “Lensual Massage”) relentless bullying for discounts, and occasionally, threats from pimps.

Our t-shirts and 7-inches that we shipped here never arrive, all but killing our gonzo merch campaign. We meet this cool band called Yip Yip, who come out wearing checkered jumpsuits inclduing face masks and goggles, so that no skin at all shows, and play keyboards and toy saxophones. They’re sort of terrifying,

We decide to buy a hotel so we can sleep in. Yes, tomorrow, we will sleep. And explore. And eat. Oh yeah, and play a concert.