Day 15 – CO Springs – Even Grey Suitcases Have Their Day

For the last 2 weeks, I have been carrying around a rather large, rather grey 1980’s suitcase.  It has been beaten up, thrown across a parking lot in Spokane (thanks Mike and Drew), kicked and stuffed into a trailer every which way till Sunday.  Leaving Denver this morning I realize I don’t need such a big bag.  I have options but I haven’t lost anything yet and you don’t take a pitcher out in the eighth inning when he’s throwing a no hitter right?  Fuck it.  I’m not even taking out my dirty clothes.  I load up the grey beast and head off to meet up with the guys.

I think Ed has grown quite close to the sled.  We only had a few hours this morning and he’s already washed and vacuumed it.  That’s a welcome treat because it was getting to be quite a mess in there.  We head out for the springs.  We’re all in about the same shape as my suitcase, but our equipment is even worse.  Last night I broke a wheel off my amp.  I rigged up a fix on it, but I’m not sure it’s going to make it.  Drew spent this morning on the hunt for a new cab because he blew a speaker in Fort Collins.  Jeff’s cab has been in and out of service for a few stops now and Manny’s replacing drum heads like socks.  All of this is bad but not quite as bad as the betrayal one piece of equipment was about to make.  Ed has GPS’d us all over the northwest so far.  It has become his crutch.  We laugh sometimes because he’ll still be referring to the GPS when we can physically see the stop ahead.  He drives with it, walks with it, and I think does unmentionable things to it at night.  But apparently it’s tired today too, because it just craps out when we hit the springs.  Ed is lost.  Emotionally and literally.  Mike tries to console him with the Atlas again, but it’s no use.  Lucky for us, Jeff knows the Springs pretty well and guides us in to the venue.  Speaking of Jeff, have I mentioned his hat yet?  If I haven’t, let me do the honors.  He has this winter hat that has two ropes coming out the side doors.  Mark from Guttermouth said it better than I could possibly write.  He said the hat fits his personality and that it’s like the hat is cruising but he’s not sure who’s driving it.  Priceless.  Jeff often uses the ropes to describe his emotions instead of words and I laugh every single time.  Two ropes up is good. Two ropes down is disappointment and my fave is the one up, one down split decision. 

The Black Sheep is a cool place to play.  The sound guy’s name is Chris, but he goes by “Sizzle”.  He nicknames me “The Badger” at sound check because he thinks I look like a mean badger.  It’s a sharp contrast from last night’s “Sugar” but I’ll take it.  Thanks Sizz. The Badge is into it.  We check and I can’t help noticing how loud it is.  I don’t know if I am just rocking too hard or my earholes are damaged but this is probably the loudest venue we’ve been in so far.  After check, we look around for a bite to eat.  We have a food buyout, but we’re still trying to eat on the cheap because any thing we save can go towards hotels and gas.  Walking distance leads us no where, but we do pass a Bates Motel.  Its theme is horror.  It actually looks scarier than the set on Psycho.  They sell rooms by the week, but I’m guessing you will probably be whacked in the first couple of nights so I recommend the nightly rate.  We hop in the Ed-sled (sans GPS) and Jeff directs us to a row of fast food restaurants.  We choose Taco Bell.  Now I admit that this was a bad choice.  The thing is, we have had nothing but cheeseburgers and pizza and anything Non-Cheeseburger or Pizza-like sounds delightful.  Manny already doesn’t feel great, but he has one taco and is down for the count.  He makes it through the show but spends the rest of the night throwing up in a hotel bathroom.  He ran so fast to the bathroom at one point that he actually gave himself a black eye running into something on the way.  He would like to commend the hotel on its bathroom floors though.  He said they were the best floors he’s passed out on since Seattle.  But back to the show, it’s a pretty good crowd and a fun show to play.  In all honesty, I learned a lot from it.   I love playing music. I really do.  Once we hit the first chord I was fine, but leading up to that moment I was fucking beat.   Real beat.  It’s not like we can just stand up there and play our songs.  We have to give it our all every night.  We can’t mail it in and hope for the best.  I dig deep.  We all dig deep and pull out a great show.  Mike is on point and we deliver.  It’s cool to see some old friends come out to see us. One of those friends, Jake and his wife Sylvia show up and offer to put us up for the night.  That is awesome.  Guttermouth takes the stage.  These guys are a lesson in being professional.  They can’t be feeling any better than us, but they never miss.  Tonight is no exception.  They kill it like residents of next door’s motel.  Amidst the chaos, our boy Jake goes down.  The back of his head is split up like the left side just broke up with the right.  Seriously.  It is not good.  His wife takes him to the ER and this is where the band takes a split.  Manny and I break off with our girlfriends, I think half of the Guttermouth guys go to the hotel too, but the rest of the gang gets nuts and hits a tattoo parlor.  Justin has been talking about a snowman bandito for a while and tonight’s the night.  Since I wasn’t there I can only put some of the pieces together, but most of the guys got the tattoo done by a professional.  Mike got his done by Justin from Guttermouth.  To clarify, Justin has never tattooed anyone in his life.  It actually looks pretty good.  He’s a natural shader.  It’s crazy how good at things that guy is.  Report from the ER, Jake is ok, but needs 6 staples in the back of his dome.  Ouch.  The guys make it back to Jake’s place and crash out.  Van call is going to be a bitch tomorrow…