August 2009 Archives

It was at about this point in the trip that Jessy and I realized that we were the ultimate travel companions.  Because all we wanted to do was stop at the same weirdo Americana tourist traps, buy the same shit at every gas station, eat the same food, listen to Liz Phair over and over.  We realized this as we rounded a corner and saw the LEGEND OF BIGFOOT and I didn't even need to ask if we should pull over.

(photo: me)

For the record, this place had NOTHING to do with Bigfoot.  This is what they did have.




(photos: J Murph)

Also, HELLA windchimes and dreamcatchers and more Redwoods memorabilia than you can shake a stick at.  And, most importantly, SWEET Davy Crockett hats. Best purchase of the whole tour.  We wore ours for the next two hours, until it was just too fucking hot; but we were real popular with the four-year-olds we ran into at the gas stations.

We stopped in sweet Laytonville for gas and instead found our hippie food salvation.  We gave up on the cooler after day 1, which made it a heck of a lot harder to eat good food on the road- we had been contenting ourselves with crackers and dried fruit and warm hummus.  I was starting to cave into trucker food, and Jessy was kind of surviving on a bag of vegan cookies she had gotten in Portland.

Anyway, we found major hippie food store, stocked up on fruit smoothies and hummus wraps and fresh fruit.  It was an unexpected discovery, and we referred to it with great longing once we hit the great wasteland of mid-CA.

(photo: me)

And thus it was that we stretched a 5.5 hour drive into something over 7 hours: stopping at every rest stop gas station kitsch hut for miles, all the way through the Redwoods, until we got out of the trees, listening to Uncle Tupelo with the air conditioning on all the way.   When this was all we saw for miles.

We stopped one last time, pull off on the side of the road when we saw a little river in the heat.  Only long enough to run out of the car, across the half-dried-up rocky river bed, and up to our shins in a little swimming hole; then back to the car.  "This is total serial killer country," Jessy warned.  "I've watched too many David Lynch movies not to know that."  I was like, "Girl.  We're from Bellingham.  We LIVE in serial killer country."  But we were still creeped out, the two of us in the deep heat on a side road in the middle of nowhere, and we didn't linger.

(photo: Jessy)

I grew up out in the sticks; when did rural areas start scaring me more than big cities?

So we drove; and we drove; and it was hot, and brown, and eventually the empty land turned into an unending string of exits and traffic and civilization.

Traffic.  All the way into the Bay Area.

But then we hit the bridge, flying over it with our windows down because the chill fog was such a welcome break from the heat up north; singing along to Yes, Oh Yes and constantly exclaiming about what we were seeing.  Whoa, motorcycle!  Whoa, island!  Whoa, buildings!  Jessy was filming the whole thing, camera out the window as official band documentarian, until the wind snapped her viewfinder closed.

And yeah, we got a little lost, a little turned around, took a wrong exit and some wrong turns, but finally found San Pablo in Oakland and turned onto 55th and HONEY HIVE.  And seriously, this is where the good stuff really starts, where the day went from "pretty great" to "absolutely fucking fantastic."  Because we hadn't had a show in the Bay Area until really, a few weeks before tour; we were supposed to play some dude's garage in Redding, but the cops busted that place, and that was probably for the best, anyway, because the venue's myspace picture was a girl's short-shorted ass up against the hood of a car- anyway, Alanna and Songs for Moms couldn't believe that we didn't have a show in the Bay, and they called some folks up and put a show together for us at their friends' house in Oakland, the Honey Hive.

This was our only house show and our only all-ages show for the tour, and I kinda knew it would be great, because of everything Songs for Moms had told us about Oakland.  But I was completely unprepared for the Honey Hive.  When we arrived, David and his friends were recording an album downstairs; Lisa was upstairs, making a vegan feast for us with veggies from their backyard garden (!); the house was full of pets and friends, visitors and roommates, neighbor kids stopping by, little sisters, good vibes.

(photos: Jessy)

Yep, that's a chicken hanging out in the backyard.  When we first drove up, a squirrel was pillaging the sunflower seeds in the front of the house, dangling upside down from the big flower heads.  Claire and Sarah showed up a few hours after us, all of us so tired we just sat in one of the empty bedrooms (house of 8 people!  5 out of town!) and dozed, not even with-it enough to help make dinner.

Songs for Moms were just getting back from tour that afternoon, six weeks on the road and about to play a show with us and Fleabag.  But Molly was sick as a dog, and they had dropped her off at her parents' house as soon as they got into town; and Brad had recently broken his hand; so both bands were drummer-less and unable to play.  And while it would've been rad to play with them, it was also real nice just to hang out in the backyard with Alanna and Carey and Jamie and hear their tour stories.

Ah! Ah!  I don't even know where to begin the next part, because everything happened so fast and I was so busy having fun and meeting people to take any kind of photos or anything.  Jessy and I went to the liquor store with Carey from the Moms, and when we got back, the party was starting, hot girls everywhere ("Everywhere!" I said to Alanna, and she said, "Just looking out for you, Jenn," and maybe she even winked?), cute homo boys leaning on bikes, us getting the out-of-towners once-over.

And then Riley from B'ham rode up, visiting her family in Oakland and completely shocked to see other B'hammers walking down the street; then we walked into the house and there was Anna and Dendron, who had played at the Kasa Sutra last month; and all of Fleabag, even Brad with his broken hand, and Joe handed me an Aye Nako tape.  A whole roomful of familiar faces!  And I was glad I had gear to carry, to give me something to do, because there were so many hot people!  and I was too shy to make small talk with any of them.  But even the folks I didn't know, they were all so friendly, starting conversations in the kitchen while waiting for the bathroom, asking about tour, offering booking help in other cities.

Mark played first, a good sport for being a last-minute replacement for Songs for Moms; he was one of the dudes who had been recording in the house when we first arrived.  Then Angry Men.

WHOA.

I mean, I knew they'd be good, an all-lady band called Angry Men made up of Bay Area Girls' Rock Camp volunteers; but holy cow.  They played some sort of deep fuck no-wave, shouting about "I'm angry because I'm a BUSINESSMAN!" 2/3 of the band with admirable mustaches and the bass player wearing a "men at work" shirt that crossed out "men" and replaced it with "women."  The guitarist worked a Dawn Weiner look that was so amazing.  And on the wall behind Naomi's drumset, they had a banner that was like something me and my friends woulda made- it was like we had found our Ladyfest sisters or cousins in another city, same vibe as our lady-crew but with new faces and new ideas and different ways of manifesting.

(photo: Jessy)

Look at those LOL hearts!  "look good + feel good"!  feminist OMG!

It was one of those shows where I couldn't do anything but grin and look around me in amazement.  Deeply tough and joyful ladies making music to a roomful of friends.

And there aren't any photos from the rest of the night, because I was too busy getting totally crushed out on Oakland, but maybe some of Jessy's footage will emerge at some time.  The evening, sans visuals:

Crowded living room, we set up our stuff, Alanna running sound.  Did the same set we did all tour.  Two things I have learned about tour: one, that playing on little sleep and long drives can make the best shows- you just squeeze all your energy into that half-an-hour and let all of your stress and exhaustion just spill out between the guitar strings.  Two, that it is way more fun playing to people who don't know us- we feel like we've got something to prove, win 'em over, and it makes us that much better.  3 days glory and exhaustion + the most incredible crowd we had met = total fucking combustion.  We were all almost falling apart, taunting each other with the riffs- anyone who denies the total [homo]eroticism of making music with other people, I do not understand, the act of creating noises with two other people can get crazy sexual sometimes, egging each other on and speaking with our bodies and instruments and only gasping and shrieking when we use our mouths- and then, mid-jam-out, Sarah started playing the "Rhiannon" riff and I couldn't even think, the jam was so intense.

We ended with "Lockwood and Lamont" and I looked up from the kiddie accordion and saw that everyone in the front row was clapping along with Claire's beat.

After that, we got asked to play another song, but we didn't have any more, I think we just did Sarah's unnamed "Sweet Adeline" song, just acoustic guitar and three-part vocals like we're suddenly the fucking Fleet Foxes or something; then we put our stuff away and Jessy started selling our merch.

Then there was half a bottle of wine (the only show of tour that I drank), and me standing in a corner being too shy to talk to the Oakland girl I've had a crush on since July, and Claire and Sarah and Jessy egging me on (it worked), and backyard hangouts with Songs for Moms and Fleabag, and trading contact info with so many new friends.

Then we all laid claim to the various unoccupied bedrooms of the Honey Hive, made midnight snacks of Lisa's zucchini bread in the kitchen, and fell asleep somewhere around three or maybe four a.m.

Truly, ONE OF THE GREATEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. 

A day which shall live in tour history forever.


(photo: Claire)

God bless Oakland and the Honey Hive.

Then we broke.  Sarah and Claire headed for the freeway, and Kooper jumped in the car with me and Jessy in an anxious drive to the train station.  We got her there one minute before departure time, squished into the passenger seat next to Jessy; we use the restrooms*, then hit I-5.

And we were right: the drive to Portland was too familiar, but after we started heading south, it felt like we were actually on tour.  I slept through the middle of the state, but in Southern Oregon we saw twisters, farmland, the first of the serious truck stops- the "there's nothing else around here for miles, so this is your only option for gas/food/bathrooms.  deal with it." truck stops.

Then we saw the Enchanted Forest.

South of Salem, there is an old-school roadside attraction amusement park, all animatronic figures and fairy tale-inspired gumdrop houses.  From the freeway, we could see Bavarian cottages and were like, "HOLY SHIT.  WE WANNA GO!"  But we drive slow, and Eureka was still hours away, so we continued on wistfully.

And this was the weird part about taking two cars: sometimes it was like we were on a completely different trip than Sarah and Claire.  During the daytime, our two cars did completely different things, uniting only in the evening for shows.  In this instance, my bandmates drove at record speed (I didn't even wanna ask how fast) in order to spend two hours at the Enchanted Forest.  When they showed up in Eureka, they were wearing Enchanted Forest t-shirts and Jessy and I were full of envy.  Wanted to go there sooo bad.  We missed out on stuff like fucking historical reenactments (a necessary part of any amusement park):

(photo: Claire)

But while they were hanging out with Abe, we were hitting Grant's Pass and the 101.

Neither Jessy nor I had ever taken the 101.  So it came as a complete fucking surprise when we got to Crescent City in the late afternoon and saw the ocean.  We were going off of Mapquest directions, and had had no idea we were so near the coast.

And for us, this was the real ocean.  It wasn't cluttered with islands and other obstructions, like the Puget Sound; it was just water, all the way out, blurring into the sky.

(photo = me)

We rounded a curve in the road and pulled off to beach and surfers (surfers!  truly California now!).  We threw off our shoes and ran straight to the water.

It was cold, and our feet were sandy and frozen when we got back into the car; but it was so, so worth it.  This isn't just tour, this is vacation; like, the ultimate vacation.  Not hanging out in the minivan with your family, but driving with your bandmates and best friends to play music in new cities, see old friends and make new ones, check out weirdo and beautiful places along the way, eat shit food and glory in it when you find hippie food, no sleep and long drives and lank hair.  Tour is an excuse for everything.

Jessy and I kept stopping along the 101, every half hour or so- we couldn't help it, it was so breathtaking.  We watched the sun set orange into the Pacific.

Then we started hitting the hills.

They were like the hills as you drive into Bellingham, deep and huge and rolling at dusk, dwarfing our tiny car on the empty highway.  But this was the difference: the highway WAS empty.  There were no lights, of houses or towns or developments or gas stations, in these hills.  They were bigger, wilder, and in the still-warm evening air, I would even say that they seemed gentler- not the home they claim to be for Bigfoot.  That's for our deep dark places on the Peninsula.  With all of the hippie-kid hitchhikers and separate recycling cans at the rest stops (paper, plastic, glass, just like home), Humboldt Cty was an oasis.  "I could totally retire here," I told Jessy.

And then we hit the redwoods, and the long drive leading up to Arcata and Eureka.  We listened to Mirah hum and pluck her way through old songs as night fell.  In these empty hills, even if they're no Sasquatch home, seemed like they should be hiding things older and more prehistoric, like maybe a brontosaurus would suddenly crane a neck out of the tall trees.

The drive started to get long, with all of our stops, and Eureka never seemed to arrive.  Finally, we drove down quiet downtown streets to the gay bar we were playing at, Aunty Mo's.  I've always been told that Arcata and Eureka are so like Bellingham, but this was a Saturday night in summer and there was no one on the streets; it felt more like a Monday in Bellingham than the weekend, even for a college-type town.

Since Claire and Sarah had lingered at the Enchanted Forest, we beat them to Eureka by a good 45 minutes, a small victory.  Jason, the owner of the bar, was a big 45-year-old bear of a man; he welcomed us with handshakes that quickly turned to hugs, and introduced us to everyone around the bar, all 6 of them.  We were sharing the evening with Chad Duran, who was raising money to publish the second book in his Aloha Freddy trilogy. 

Jessy filmed me interviewing Chad about being a gay author and his advocacy for the LGBT community, especially other queer authors; he was in his forties, and in his kindness and generosity seemed super stoked to be sharing the bill with a bunch of young fellow queers.  He sold me a cupcake for a quarter, and a raffle ticket for a dollar; he told us about Eureka and his coming-out and the guy he had a crush on, who was supposed to emcee the event.

The crowd was small (really, only a handful of Chad's friends and supporters; Ande, the resident badass dyke bartender; and several folks just hanging out); but everyone was so welcoming, so kind.  It was funny, that in this small-town gay bar in Northern California, we found queer community.  But that's totally what it was- it didn't matter that there were generational differences, or that we were from out of town, or that we were ladies and almost everyone else was 40-something gay guys.  What mattered was that we were also queer, so we were on the same team, and they would cheer so loud for us, buying us shots and promising to stay in touch.

(photo: Jessy)

We didn't sell a single cd, except maybe to Chad, who I think bought one of everything.  But Justin paid us generously and apologized for the lack of crowd- "school doesn't start until Monday, then this place will be packed"- and we wanted to tell him that his place was amazing.  There were wigs along the upper balcony, and fliers for Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence benefit bingo nights.  The music was classically gay, all Freddy Mercury and Madonna and new pop, and we danced until 1am on the empty dance floor.

There was one event to mar the night, though- as we were sound-checking, some dude sidled up to Jessy at the table where she had set up our merch.  She'll tell the story better, but it was something along the lines of, "I've never been here before.  I'm straight, I feel really out of place," and Jessy being like, "Really?  I DON'T."  And either he didn't take the hint or he ignored it, because then he offered her a sip of his drink- except he had two drinks, one that he was drinking out of and one that he offered to her.  Jessy responded with "No thanks, I've got a beer," and his attempted roofie-ing failed.  She told us this after the show- he had been the bro'd-out dude dancing real vigorously for the first few songs, and she thought he had gotten 86'd after that for harrassing another girl.

So J Murph escaped unscathed from that encounter, but not from the shots that Justin offered us.  They were called Grizzly Bears, some mix of Kahlua and other stuff. 

(photo: me, using Jessy's camera)

Since I don't really drink much, Jessy took mine as well as hers.  There must've been something dairy in it, because Jessy's long-time-vegan stomach rebelled against her for the next two days.

We didn't have a place to stay in Eureka, but we had passed so many campgrounds on our way that we figured we wouldn't have long to go before hitting another.  Claire and Sarah really wanted to get a cheap hotel room, but I was determined to be a mtn man and make use of my dad's tent, which I had brought along.  We stopped for gas outside of Eureka, 1:30am in the middle of nowhere, four obviously-queer women wearing what my mom usually calls "get-ups" and for us are just city-kid hipster clothes- the young dudes hanging out at the gas station, keeping their friend company as he worked, clearly didn't know what to make of us.  They couldn't really hit on us, but kept making awkward friendly conversation, especially entertained when Jessy bought a plastic horse necklace for like four bucks or something.  They told us the KOA down the road was $30 a night for camping, so we kept going.

We drove a good hour, maybe more, watching every green highway sign for the telltale "camping" triangle.  Finally, we found a little town, no more than a few log stores and mobile homes and an RV park/campground.

And THE ETERNAL TREE HOUSE.

(photo: J Murph)

It was the witching hour in Redcrest- which was, someone whispered as we left the cars and tiptoed through the parking lot- "the sort of town where they kill queers."  The sort of town that is so small that when cars drive through at two in the morning, everyone hears it and makes breakfast conversation of it the next morning.  So we were real quiet (but maybe still too loud, giggling and pushing each other, tired and giddy and creeping each other out) as we followed the little trail to the Eternal Tree House.

From what we could see in the dark, it is a little hovel carved out amid the roots and trunk of a redwood.  A motion-sensor light flipped on as soon as we stepped inside, making us jump and making visible all the spider webs and years of graffiti.  "Let's camp here!" was what Sarah and Claire were advocating, but Jessy and I were on the "fuck no!" team.  So we pulled into the campground across the street, probably woke up all the other campers with our giggling and arguing.  You had to have a code to use the bathrooms, so we all gleefully peed next to the restroom building.

I pitched the tent, insisting I was being butch. Sarah and Claire grumbled about hotel rooms.  Everyone complained that the tent reeked of mildew (my fault, I didn't air it out last time, SORRY DAD I'M IN TROUBLE NOW).  And then we passed out, four unshowered girls in one 30-yr-old tent in the middle of Humboldt County.

(photo: J Murph)

*Pee breaks, for Jessy and I, happened about every 45 minutes.  This is why, in conjunction with major speeding, Sarah and Claire beat us to almost every location by about two hours.

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We have been the luckiest kids in the world.