Leaving the fair city of Asheville NC with Skat Attak (late of course) on Sunday, January 22nd twenty twelve. The 1990 Ram van we ride in was once used for the school for the deaf. Later in its life this dodge was used by a volunteer firefighter who applied 911 decals on the back corners. This is the first tour she has been on and has never been filled with punks farting, cussing, and telling dick jokes. We can tell "V for Vandetta" loves the change of pace.
The trip through the mountains is relatively uneventful. For some reason every time Cheri hits the brakes the "door ajar" buzzer yells at us. Oscar packed a tub of margarine. The Budget hard at work cutting, gluing and assembling our tapes and CD-R beer box cases by red headlamps. As much as fun everybody has making fun of stupid music Van Halen and Creed just makes me want to cry. Fuckin' radio... next trip there will be a new stereo, or maybe a jug band, anything's better than clear channel spewing through the one working speaker on the driver side door.
8:00 PM we arrive in Johnson City at The Hideaway. A sleepy night in a sleepy town.
There we are greeted by Tarvo and set up our shared equiptment and slam some brews. Shortly after setting up Motives, a local hardcore 5 piece, show up with fans in tow. Skat Attak plays first with good reception despite the small crowd. The Budget is next with a couple more stragglers walking in. After the set we have our first sale! Our "... Is In The Pits!" demo tape is sold to a fan with no tape deck. We give him a CD-R with his purchase so as he can actually listen to it. Motives plays their first live set that night with tons of energy and everybody leaves the show happy. We make enough gas to get us to Roanoke, all in all a successful show.
We stay with Motives guitar player, Logan, and his partner Sam. On the way to their pad we stop by Krystals get a sackful then to a Kroger for beer, bread, peanuts, and god awful apples. While leaving the grocery store the large man wearing a cloth security badge informs me that if I don't bag my Mickeys and Pabst I could get open container ticket. I'm pretty sure he is full of shit and his rent-a-cop status allowed his knuckle dragging brain to come up with laws he thought sounded good. While I was contemplating all of this my thoughts are interrupted by the towering cromag yelling, "Thousand dollars, thousand dollars, thousand doll..." while sticking his dirty butt picker at everybody holding beer not bagged. We make one more stop before the apartment so Shawn can lose two quarters in a claw machine. We all congratulate him on his well thought out investment. We almost had a four inch Volunteers pillow! Shit. In "Logan's Run" we make ourselves at home, eating chili and being loud well after the hosts had gone to bed. We take out the trash and fall asleep when everybody is out of jokes.
In the morning everybody wakes up hungover at 8:30. First order of business is for Ryan to pull the side door out of the track in the rain. He might not look like much, but if you are a van door watch the fuck out. Dexter and I man handle the door back on and Cheri takes us on the road again. Passing out the mealy apples we have breakfast. When we stop for gas everybody is terrified of the side door and dont want to touch it.
We hit the Virginia border and the sky turns greyer and the wipers fuck up. We pull into a Lowe's parking lot and begin to take off the panel covering the wiper motor works. I should mention now that non of us are mechanics and the only tool we had was a 5 in 1 screwdriver. After running back in forth from Lowes buying and returning parts and tools I lose my cool, kick the tire and take a very angry shit in the McDonalds. The weather cleared up and we say fuck this shit in its stupid fuckin ass. Besides Shawn is looking pretty tired from all the beer drinking he has been doing in the van. We get all that shit put together and two hours later we scoot along north on 81. Stopping at a truck stop to get some taco's and rain x we are close to Roanoke.
Dexter is now navigator as we near the city. After five minutes I wonder if he has actually been here, but I can't come up with a reason anybody would lie about living in Roanoke. We get directions from a hippie working at a gas station and try to find Dexter's mom's house. When we get to the house we fall out of the dodge and make our way into the house looking for baby pics of Dex. Shawn is passed out in the van and we contemplate setting his shoes on fire. Laurie, Dexter's mom, is one of the highlights of the whole trip. She offers vodka (mint chocolatini's) and pizza. If that wasn't enough to make us love her she fixes the fuckin wipers! My hero!
Dicking around playing Wii Mario Cart we get the call that the show started 20 minutes ago. We look at the clock, its fuckin 6! Who knew? We load our smelly asses into the van, pick up beers and head to Chris and Joe's house. We arrive to the last song in Piss Ants set. The Budget sets up and plays for Skat Attak, Commonwealth of American Natives and a few locals. In true form Shawn breaks a string during the first song. Ryan and I try to keep the momentum up with small jams and jokes. Shit, we finish the set and leave equiptment on the floor for Skat Attak. We sell more tapes to more people without tape decks. Nobody wants to buy these fuckin apples though. The following bands rip it up in the order of Skat Attak, The Commonwealth of American Natives ( Nashville, TN) and Angry Youth ( Roanoke, VA).
the nearest gas truck.
We spend the rest of the night hanging out with the bands, drinking, drugging, and trading stories, contact information, and music. We eventually pass out after too much drinking and peanuts. We wake up to Chris and Joe, of Piss Ant and Angry Youth making eggs and biscuits. Shortly after eating and shitting we head south towards home with just enough time to get Ryan and Shawn to work on time. We run into traffic that detours us for about an hour through the land that electricity forgot. When we finally get to Asheville there is more traffic as a there was a collision on 240. We drop the guys off at work and go home.
Unloading the equipment I find the rest of the apples. Fuck, I cant wait till the next trip.
Paddy
