New Year's Eve

Sunday paper.

Football.

Nap.

New Year's Eve at Hideaway BBQ. Blackened catfish for dinner. Decent music.

Home by 11:45.

Fuck New Year's Eve.

"Amateur Night" bullshit.

Day Off at Home

Lazy day. I'm taking today off. No running. No housework. Well, OK, I did do the dishes. Today is officially veg-out day. I'll get back on it tomorrow.

Party at Suzanne's neighbor George's house tonight. A trivia party. They were just about to start when I got there. I didn't officially get in (with a $5.00 entry fee), but I should have. Tracked my answers myself and I would have won by 2 points. D'oh! Next time I'll get in the game.

After I drove my car back to the house, I walked over to Northside for a little redneck karoake action.

Got home around 2:30am.

Snnnnzzzzzzz…

Day Off at Home

Really haven't gotten much accomplished this week, just putzing around the house trying to finish the tour paperwork and get settled in.

My new stormdoor was installed today, leading out onto the deck at the rear of the house. Bit-by-bit, bit-by-bit…

Cable dude came out and swapped my DVR, the hard drive of which was starting to take a shit.

My buddy Foy came over mid-afternoon. We sat on the porch and slapped back a couple of beers before he split. Those 2 beers sure made my 6pm run a lot more interesting. Today was the 3rd day I've run – started back Wednesday.

Went to dinner with Jeff & Kim at Salsa Fresh. My friend Gretchen and her husband Chris are in town from Maryland, and they joined us.

Drove my car home around 10pm, parked it, and walked over to Northside. Next thing ya know, it's 2am, so I walk home and sat up watching TV for a bit. Woke up in the chair around 4am, and crawled off to bed.

Christmas Day

Had to be at mom's place at 11am to pick her up and take her to Doug's house, where we're having Christmas. Taking her somewhere involves the wheelchair and the oxygen tank, so it takes a few extra minutes to get her out the door.

Doug is my sister Donna's boyfriend. In attendance at his house are he & Donna, mom, me, Sherry & Ed, and Tim Young (former neighbor) and his girlfriend Monica.

I split around 4:30 to head back to Raleigh. I have to drop by the house and then make it to the PourHouse by 8pm. That's where Terry Anderson's annual birthday party is.

Home around 1am…

Christmas Eve

Got to the rehab center mom's currently in around 5:30. Hung out with her for a few hours. Don't really like this place – hopefully she won't be here for long.

By 9pm, I'm heading up to Pat Willey's house. Pat's my "ex Mother-in-law", sorta. Her daughter Sherry and I were together for 10 years and she always referred to me as her son-in-law. Pat lives with Michelle, one of Sher's two sisters, and Sherry & Ed (her husband) are in town from California. Lots of drinking and talking and hanging out. I finally split and drove the 3 miles back to my hotel around 1am.

Day Off at Home

My first full day at home since late October 1st. Man, I've got a bunch of stuff to get done around here.

My neighbor Charlene (without whom I wouldn't even have this place, as she's the one who told me it was on the market) offers to drive me downtown to pick up my rental car. My car's been just sitting for the last 12 weeks, so I'm not sure I trust it to get me to Charlotte and back for Christmas. Charlene gave me an awesome gift bag full of her homemade baked goodies.

Run by the grocery store for some vittles as there's not a shred of food in the place other than the Charlene goodies. Believe me, they're so good I could eat them for a meal, but I want to save some of them.

Run into Tom Cuthbertson at the Harris-Teeter, Jennifer's husband. He's pushing around a shopping cart with the entire polar icecap in it. Not really, but it must have 47 half-gallons of ice cream. Tom and Jen's baby is due on Monday, Christmas day. Spend a few minutes with Tom, then call Jen after I check out and get to the car. She's in good spirits for a woman with a bowling ball in her stomach and doesn't seem to care if the baby comes Monday or the next day, or the next.

Putz around the house doing this and that all day. Paige calls and says the neighbors are coming over for drinks this evening and that I should, too.

Make it over there around 9pm and stay for a couple of hours. Head home sometime past 11, but decide not to stay there.

Run downtown to see Night Prowler, some Bon Scott-era AC/DC cover band that's playing at the Lincoln. No one's taking the cover charge at the door, so I just stroll in. Stay for a couple of beers. The band's neither good nor bad, just there.

Swing by Northside for a nightcap. Jennifer the karaoke lady is there, doing her thing. I spend most of my time there chatting with her daughter, who's a big fan of some of the bands I've worked for over the past few years.

Home around 2…

Travel Day Home - Headin' To The House

Uneventful morning and trip to the St. Louis airport. Ran into Patrick Murphy in the terminal and hung out with him for about an hour. Flight was a little bumpy as we neared the bad weather over the Carolinas.

Greg Howard picked me up at the airport and delivered my butt home by about 6pm. Met the gang at the Ale House for dinner, then I went back home for some unpacking action.

Blew out of the house around 10 to hit 3 Christmas parties.

First up is the Deep South/96-Rock FM shindig at Tir na Nog. John Custer's new cover band Marvel is playing. All good players. Interesting choice of songs. Best version of "Ziggy Stardust" I've ever heard. Run into Dave Rose and hang out with him for a while. Meet "Crash", the afternoon DJ from 96-Rock. Funny guy. Went to ECU, so we start swapping Attic/Joe Tronto stories. This guy had me in stitches. Joe Tronto's an old buddy of mine and he owned the Attic for many years. One of the best clubs in the state. I have many memories of working for many bands in that joint.

My second stop is the Guitartown party out at Hideaway BBQ, the new cool restaurant and venue in town. I ran into a bunch of folks I know there, too, including Mark Lynch from Charlotte who's playing in the band when I walk in. I'm told that damn ol' Carina ditched just before I got there. Fucker!

Last stop of the night is the party at Northside, my home away from home. Got there about 1:15 and spent the remainder of the night posted up at the bar catching up with Skin. He's the King of Regulars at Northside – he's pretty much always there when I drop by. Skin doesn't drink; he just enjoys the place and the people.

Finally make it home sometime after 2:30am. G'night…

Show Day in St. Louis

Well, here we are – it's the last day of the tour. I wish this tour could just keep on rolling. I am genuinely going to miss everyone. Absolutely the nicest band I've worked for in a long, long time.

Lots of chaos today, typical of a last day. Packages of excess acquisitions being shipped home by all. Gear being labeled to ship here, there, and everywhere after the show is done tonight.

Got a big, fat Christmas bonus in the middle of the afternoon. Way cool!

The show was probably the best of the entire tour. Because the show was already sold out, I was able to settle early and watch most of it.

Man-hugs all around after the show, both at the venue and at the hotel. Molly threw an impromptu party in her room that I slipped out of around 2am.

Show Day in Champlaign

I've updated the December 18th blog entry (scroll down) with a few photos. Check it out.

The venue du jour is Assembly Hall at the University of Illinois. One more show after this one…

I screwed up and shipped the "Accountant Of The Year" trophy home today before I took a picture of it, so you'll have to wait until I get home to see it.

Somebody (probably Tyson, our singer) got the bright idea to send out for a Tiki Bar to set up onstage tonight. Like, during the opening bands' sets (but not the first band, who are being punished tonight). So it gets put up during the first and second bands, and all of our band and crew wind up onstage hanging out at the bar and drinking. And I mean it's on the stage, among the bandmembers who are playing at the time. Funny as hell. Here's a few shots:


(click image to enlarge)


(click image to enlarge)


(click image to enlarge)

Show Day in Chicago

The lovely (NOT!) Aragon Ballroom in Chicago is the site of today's show. Only holds 4500 people and this show has been sold out for weeks.

After sound check is finished (around 4:30pm), everyone in the crew is called to front of house, the area where the sound and lighting consoles are set up. Our tour manager Shabba makes a speech to everyone and then proceeds to start pulling out some hilarious trophies for us. Robert Long (the production manager) and I got the biggest ones. Mine proclaims me the "Accountant Of The Year, Bob Davis" and underneath that it's engraved "Don't Fuck With My Money". Awesome. I'll get a photo of it before I ship it home and post it here.

I shipped a couple of other boxes home earlier today. One full of backup files and the other full of schwag I've accumulated.

My friend Evie is our masseuse today, but she doesn't get much action so she hangs out with me a bunch until she splits during our set.

Our bottom-of-the-bill support band, "Boys Like Girls" completely trashed their dressing room tonight after the show. I saw it well after the fact. It was disgusting. All kinds of shit thrown all over the place, a broken lamp, about 60-70 empty beer cans and bottles, furniture overturned – just a fucking mess. I was told that they had opened the windows (2nd floor, overlooking a very busy street) and were throwing trash out of them.

Justice from our production manager was swift. No dressing room items for them tomorrow, in fact, no dressing room at all. No nothing. And they'll have to leave the building after they load their gear out.

Fucking morons…

Show Day in Ypsilanti

The show today is at the Eastern Michigan University Convocation Center, which is where the school's basketball teams play. Kind of a bland day, just counting down the days until we all fly home.

Tyson decided to get dressed up for the show tonight. Here's what he looked like in the production office:


(click image to enlarge)

And here's his onstage date for tonight:


(click image to enlarge)

A shot of Tyson onstage. Chris in the background wearing Ty's hat:


(click image to enlarge)

Day Off in Detroit

Today's the last day off of the tour. Our gig tomorrow is in Ypsilanti, MI, but nobody wanted to stay out there, so we're staying at the Marriott Renaissance. It's right on the Detroit River, across which is Windsor, Ontario.

The Marriott is part of the GM Tower complex, which is a bunch of really cool looking buildings. I get a couple of good shots of the complex as the sun is going down:


(click image to enlarge)


(click image to enlarge)

We're throwing our end-of-tour party tonight because there's no more nights off. I've been planning to go to Tom's Oyster Bar for weeks, but can't do it now since the party's on. It just got planned a couple of days ago, but I don't wanna be the guy who doesn't show up.

Almost everyone showed up and a good time was had. Can't tell you any more than that as it might incriminate someone…

Show Day in St. Paul

We have a 30-person video crew on hand today to shoot footage for the band's next DVD. Vidiots always think the band and crew are gonna bend over backwards for them and reinvent the show on their behalf. In fact, the band won't do one single damn thing any differently from what they've been doing every night of the tour. The video crew will just have to adapt.

A couple of shots of their crap getting all in the way:


(click on image to enlarge)


(click on image to enlarge)

Show Day in Milwaukee

Today we're at the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee. Shit gig of all shit gigs. Any roadie reading this is shaking his head in agreement. Disgusting place. You'd think as many years as this place has been around that they would have made some improvements by now. But, no…

Fucking crook of a promoter, too. We made the decision weeks ago to click the doors tonight. By that I mean we'll have people positioned at each entry point with "clicker counters" to count the number of people coming into the building. This building is notorious for putting far more people into the building than the number of tickets sold, which is just plain stealing money from the band. I'm taking the main entrance myself, which I always do when clicking.

When the promoter heard that we we're clicking, he went through the roof. He sent his people to click as well, thinking that we were trying to pull a fast one on his sorry ass. He also called me pretty much every nasty thing you can think of.

I wound up at the door for almost three and a half hours. I personally clicked 3,963 patrons while I was there. Around 7, the city attorney showed up at the request of the promoter, and I overheard dickwad ragging on me again. The shithead was still so pissed off at the end of the show that he sent his flunky to settle with me instead of doing it himself. Assface…

Show Day in Green Bay

I haven't mentioned here previously, but my mom's not doing too well right now. She's in the hospital and today she's supposed to have a stent put in her carotid artery. Easy enough for most folks, but she has some particular difficulties that could complicate matters.

Later on today…

The procedure's postponed until tomorrow morning. I hope that's a good thing. We'll see.


Today, we're at the Brown County Veteran's Memorial Arena. It's right across the street from Lambeau Field, the longtime home of the Green Bay Packers, and famous for it's "Frozen Tundra." One of our building folks has access to the stadium and takes us over there for a private tour. Us being me, Robert and Marcel. We got lots of inside poop, and got to walk out onto the field to take some shots:





Went to the stadium's Pro Shop after the tour. All 3 of us bought stuff. I got some cool Packers thermal pajama pants.

Yes, I'm a Carolina Panthers fan AND a Panthers season ticket holder. But I always liked the Packers growing up, and YES, I remember back when Vince Lombardi was their coach. (Remember, I'm an old guy.) I bought the pants. So there.

I guess out of guilt I'll need to buy some more Panthers stuff.

Got a new gig today. Got a call around 6pm to firm up something that's been in the works for a couple of weeks. Can't say just yet who it's with, as someone is being fired and that's why I'm coming in. I CAN say that it's a huge band, and I believe the tour's gonna start in mid-February in Russia. I was also told that the band will likely only tour overseas next year – no U.S. dates. How strange is that?

Day Off in Green Bay

Cool. The hotel today is all suites. And there's a washer/dryer on the floor below me. Today's my "last load" of the tour. I'm keeping enough clean clothes to finish the tour, and shipping the rest home, along with some stuff I've accumulated along the way. On some tours, you're lucky if you get anything. On this tour, there's been a bunch of schwag rolling in – t-shirts, hoodies, a cool jacket, a really cool fleece, and what no one knows yet is that we're all getting iPod Shuffles with the band's logo engraved on it. I know this because a buddy of mine in Phoenix owns the company that's selling them to us and doing the engraving. Looks like this:



Free beer in the lobby from 5-7pm today. I met a bunch of crew folks down there with the intention of drinking for an hour or so, ordering some dinner, then heading back to my room to watch a couple of TV shows.

Oh, well.

Got back to the room at stupid 'o clock, drunker than Cooter Brown…

Show Day in Kansas City

Got offered the Goo Goo Dolls tour manager gig today. Turned it down. Not gonna tour manage anyone for any amount of money ever again. Been there, done that. Over it…

Today's show is at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City. Out in the lobby, I found a couple of display cases with some bizarre busts in them. The detail on these things is pretty wild. Take a look:






And this is the sort of artwork on display in the other parts of the building:

Day Off in Kansas City

Made it to the hotel around 11:30am. Got everyone into their rooms pretty quickly, in spite of the incredibly stupid people working the front desk.

I'm all the way up on the 31st floor today. Here's my view of downtown K.C.



In the distance is the new Sprint Arena going up. It's gonna replace the Kemper Arena as the main indoor concert venue here:



Didn't wanna eat at any of the hotel's 4 restaurants for lunch, so I walked 6 blocks to the nearest sandwich place. The walk was totally worth it, as I came across a new place called "Cheeseheads", which is a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich place.

Not gonna venture out again tonight. Not really feeling sociable. I'm thinking room service and TV…

Show Day in Denver

Yet another gig in Denver at the Fillmore Auditorium. Been here many times. I wish we had a day off here cuz Denver's one of my favorite cities for that.

My buddy Mike LaTronico comes over during the afternoon and hangs out with me for a couple of hours. Mike was my promoter rep for a lot of shows I did here in Denver back in the 90's. He tours these days, mostly with String Cheese Incident.

Great crowd tonight, great show. I watched 4-5 songs tonight.

Show Day in Salt Lake City

Today's show is at an absolute shithole of a venue, the Saltair Pavilion, just outside of Salt Lake City. It's pretty much just a box of a room. Lousy dressing rooms and office today, too.

The venue sits on the edge of the Great Salt Lake. Some shots below I took outside today:

Day Off On The Big Long Highway

Didn't have to get off the bus last night coming back into the U.S., but I had to wake everyone up (me and Brent were the only ones still up when we got to the border) and have them sit in the front lounge so the U.S. Immigrations officer could get up on the bus and match passport photos up with the people on the bus.

Everyone went back to bed, and I sat up a little longer with Brent, finally hitting the hay around 3:30.

Woke up at 9am and assumed my position up front, hanging out with the driver. We finally got to our hotel in Salt Lake City just past 6pm. Nice little 1000-mile drive. Steve was hammer down the whole way except for one fuel break and 2 pee breaks for himself.

After we checked in, I grabbed a shower, then went out to get a sandwich to bring back to the room for dinner. A little TV, then off to snoozy world around 11:30.

Oh, yeah, flying home 2 weeks from today…

Show Day in Vancouver

Pretty smooth border crossing last night. Everyone got to sleep right through it except for Knuckles, our rigger. He has a DWI on his record from a few years ago, so the Canadian Immigrations people dragged him inside and had him do the hoopdy dance. He had to pay $200 CDN (about $174 USD) to buy a temporary Minister's Permit to come into the country. I'm wondering why I didn't get dragged off the bus, too, seeings how I have a DWI conviction in January 2001 myself. It's never come up when entering Canada – maybe one day it'll bite me in the ass.

Here's some shots from the show tonight:

Show Day in Seattle

The air conditioner in my room last night sucked. I couldn't ever get the room cool enough to sleep comfortably.

There was a bar near the venue today that I found as I was walking to Kinko's called Tiki Bob's. Stuck my head in to see if they had t-shirts, but they didn't. Maybe I'll have some made whenever I build the tiki bar on my back deck at some point.

If I ever lose my mojo, I found a place that can help me out:


Our venue today is the WaMu Theatre, inside the Qwest Field Event Center, which is attached to Qwest Field, where the Seattle Seahawk's of the NFL play their home games. I went out onto the football field to see what the place looked like when it's empty:






And here's a shot of Brent Carpenter (near), our monitor engineer, and Kadaver (far), our stage left guitar tech:



Border crossing tonight to do a show tomorrow in Vancouver…

Day Off in Seattle

Nice little 900 mile bus ride to get to Seattle. I'm up around 7 and spend the rest of the ride sitting up front with Steve the driver. Three of the people on my bus didn't want to make this drive, so they stayed behind in San Jose and took $84 flights to Seattle late morning, arriving at the hotel around 1pm.

They might have gotten here 2 hours ahead of us, but I've still got $84 in my pocket.

My buddy Scott Goodrich comes to the hotel at 7pm to pick me up for dinner and a few beers. I've known Scott since the mid/late 80's when he lived in Raleigh.

He takes me to a cool little part of town which I think is called Belltown. I've been here before, but I never really got a chance to check out the bars.

First stop is Shorty's Coney Island, which is a combination hot dog stand and slacker bar. They don't sell Budweiser (WTF?????), so I have a couple of cans of Schlitz. Not bad, but they never should have changed the recipe back in the early 80's. I used to drink it a lot, but I haven't had one since the change. Scott's slapping back Pabst Blue Ribbon on draft. A round of his and mine together is only $3.75. Awesome!

We yack there for a while, getting caught up on each other's lives. Scott's in law school, is married to an attorney, and he and his wife are getting ready to adopt a Chinese baby. Wow!

For dinner, we move down a couple of doors to the Noodle Ranch, where I have the BEST Pad Thai I've ever eaten. Funky little restaurant – cool décor, concrete floors. I'm slapping back Sapporo on tap.

After dinner, it's next door to the Lava Lounge. What a cool block of Second Avenue. Everything you need is right here.

The Lava Lounge is pretty similar to Slim's Downtown back home in Raleigh. A rock n' roll dive bar. I'm so comfy here I could stay all night. Lame fucker that I am tonight though, we pack it in after only a few more rounds. This is the only place we've been tonight that sells Budweiser. And I declare it my new favorite bar in Seattle…

Show Day in San Jose

My driver Steve lives and dies by his GPS unit. Today all he had for a venue address is Seventh and San Carlos, which means he couldn't find the gig for shit. He woke me up making tons of turns and turnarounds while trying to find it.

For some reason, I'm in a pissy mood all day. Trying to get through some hotel settlements today and every last person I speak to is a fucking idiot. I guess it's just one of those days.

Here's a shot of our stage in the empty arena:



And a closer shot of our stage:



And here's a couple of worn-out roadies (Brad Stonner near, Patrick Murphy far), grabbing a nap on the "B"stage, which is located at the FOH mix position.



I got booted out of the office for about an hour today so the lighting crew could have a meeting with the production manager. We're shooting DVD footage at one of our upcoming shows, so they've got a lot of technical details to iron out. I went to the bus to take a nap since I couldn't do any work.

After the show, Molly had a bunch of her friends hanging out in the office, drinking and socializing. Normally, I'd have booted the lot of them out as I find it very distracting when I’m trying to work. But for some reason, I decided that I would split instead. I threw my stuff on the bus and then went and walked around downtown San Jose for an hour.

Eventually found a great dive bar call Cinebar. I was still pretty steamed about all the fuckers in production all day long, so I grabbed a seat at the bar and got a Bud. My kind of place. Dark, dingy, rock music, cheap beer.

I've got a new favorite bar in San Jose. Go figure.

I loved their t-shirts. They say:

"I'm at the Cinebar, BITCH!"

Got back to the bus just in time for bus call. Long drive to Seattle tonight…

Show Day in Ventura

As usual, woke up well ahead of the alarm. 6:44 to be precise. Tried to go back to sleep, but my brain kicked in, so I finally got up about 7:15.

Today's show is at the Majestic Ventura Theatre here in Ventura. Hey, which way to the Ventura Highway? Downloaded that song just for today.

Not fuzzy-brained at all today, just need more sleep. Today is show 3 of 4-in-a-row, followed by a long day-off-killing bus ride to Seattle, where I’m supposed to have dinner with a buddy, but we may not make it there in time.

We were originally gonna have a day off in LA today. Woulda been nice. We had rooms booked at the Grafton, my fave little boutique hotel on Sunset Strip in Hollywood. My fave LA burrito joint, Poquito Mas is about a block away – unbelievably good food – but I guess that'll have to wait until my next visit to Cali.

The show goes well. Watched one song, went back to work.

My promoter rep today is a really cool dude named Nokey. Having never heard the name before (and being a totally nosey fuck), I asked him the origin of his name. Turns out his older sister had a terminal illness and was allowed to choose the name of her baby brother who wound up being born shortly after she died. She chose Pinnochio, and he uses Nokey as his nickname.

I thought that was a great story!

Show Day in Los Angeles

Yeah, I guess I deserve this. Shouldn't have gone to bed so early. Wide awake at 5:44am, thanks to the wonderful road surfaces here in SoCal. Feels like we're riding on a giant washboard for about 10 miles. I rolled over onto my back and it was knocking the air out of me with every bump. Weird. After we got away from that, I laid there for about 40 minutes trying to go back to sleep to no avail. Up and at 'em. Long day ahead here in L.A.

Today's show is at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City. Used to be called Universal Amphitheatre back in the day. Now Gibson Guitars is the main sponsor. Right outside my office there's a photo of Robert Plant that was taken on the night of his show here in October 1993. I was tour managing Cry Of Love at the time, who were his opening act.





As I've said before in this blog o' mine, the three toughest shows you'll do with any artist are always New York, L.A., and the band's hometown. Today's the third of those three. Pile into that equation all of the Los Angeles-area label, management, biz management, and press people and it makes for a hell of a day.

Today may well be the least chaotic L.A. show day I've ever had. Had some problems with the settlement that required hitting the promoter in the head with a claw hammer, but eventually I got my money…

After the show, I had schmooze duty. My old friend Lauren from Miami is now living here, and by sheer coincidence is the assistant to the Rejects' A&R guy at the label. Small world. Promised her I'd hang out and have a couple of beers with her.

Also, my day-to-day biz manager person Kim has come out to see the show, meet me, and pick up some show files from me. Promised her the same thing – the hang time and the couple of beers. And…

Tracy, the travel agent who's been handling the majority of my tours since '02 has dropped by. She brings the heat (if you know what I mean). Tonight, she also brings the lovely Jeany Kim, who is about 6-foot-1 of some serious Asian honey. And funny as hell, too. Since we dragged them away from some event they were attending, I had to do some hang time with them, too.

All of which means I got in bed far too drunk and far too late on a school night. I guess 7:30am is gonna come hard and heavy…

Show Day in San Diego

Our gig got moved 24 hours ago from the ipayOne Center (the old San Diego Sports Arena) to the club (Soma) across the parking lot. We've only sold about 2400 tickets, which is what the club holds. The promoter's gonna lose money in either building (due to low ticket sales), but he'll lose a lot less in this building.

There's a Target store across the street, so I make a trip over to kill time and pick up some stuff. Spend a lot of time goofing on the computer, as there's not much to do with settlement tonight. Finish up with the promoter by 8:30. Bored. But not bored enough to watch the show in such a crowded room.

Heading to bed around midnight. Los Angeles tomorrow. Yippee!