Day 4 – A-Ok, A Day in Medford

So after Walnut Creek, we hit the Ed-Sled all the way through the night into Medford, OR.  Apparently sometime in the middle of the night a motorcycle cop sidles up to us and gets into a stare down with Ed going 75 mph down the highway.  Ed stares back.  Now normally, we’re doing something that might be frowned upon by the fine gentlemen of the California Highway Patrol, but not tonight.  Not in this town.  He falls back.  We carry on.

We wake up at 6am in Medford at Bad Ass Coffee.  Load in is at 8pm.  What the hell are we gonna do for 14 hours?  First guy that walks in to our life in Medford is on release from prison.  Awesome.  I think his name is Ty and he is interested in doing some CD artwork for us.  Super Awesome.  I wonder what his theme is (p.s. asking people what their theme is has become a new favorite pastime of ours).  I miss a lot of the conversation, but I do pick up the part where he says he’s in to twisted clowns.  Jeff asks him if they are “insane clowns?”.  Haha.  Jeff is clever even in the mornings.  He says no.  Then he says his next college money check is going to fund a sleeve tattoo of clowns raping pin up girls.  Check please?  We smile politely and walk backwards out of there before we find out what his plans are for Christmas and start heading for breakfast. 

We grab breakfast at a place called Mrs. Q’s (see Facebook for a sweet “thumbs up” picture) and start our search for the cheapest hotel in Medford.  We debate the amenities of touch tone phones v. color TV’s and decide on a gem of a place called Knights Inn.  We check in.  Not listed in the brochure is that Knights Inn seems to be a bring-your-own-light-bulb type of party.  Added bonus,  the heater (also see Facebook) has a “bueno” setting, something we can’t distinguish and a triangle.  We pick “bueno” and fall asleep.

We get to the show (twice.  The first time they tell us to come back in an hour).  By the time we come back, people are already filtering in.  Side note, we eat dinner with a few guys from Guttermouth.  If I haven’t said this before, they are real cool to be around.  Just normal guys that don’t have an ego, just love what they do and take it all for what its worth.  Johnny B’s is a tiny place and we have a good feeling it’s gonna get crazy in there.  No room to back line so moving gear becomes a challenge.  No biggie.  Crowd packing in.

Boldtype hits the stage and its just what we hope for from the first time we heard we were going on tour with Guttermouth.  The pit starts in the first song and doesn’t stop till we’re done.  We have no room to move around on stage, but it doesn’t matter.  The crowd is amped and may be tough to beat, but it’s still pretty early in the tour.  Johnny B (the guy not the bar) tells us everyone outside is talking about how the band playing is so badass and he’d love to have us back!  Success.

Guttermouth is up.  They serve up a lesson in punk rock like I’ve never seen.  I’m not just saying that.  It is a great reminder of what I love about punk rock shows.  It’s total chaos.  Mike calls me over to help him hold the speaker towers as they have already crashed over once and took out an amp.  I shove my way through the pit and get up on stage to help.  I’m holding on for dear life.  I look across the stage and Mike looks like he couldn’t be happier singing along and pushing people off speakers at the same time.  Mark from Guttermouth is bleeding from his face and falls in to the crowd with the last note of their set.  It is so tight it looks like they could have practiced it for months but that’s the best part.  True punk rock moments aren’t rehearsed and they aren’t planned.  They happen on random Wednesdays in small towns, or at least they did tonight…