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 The
Dixie Witch Tour Chronicles – East Coast Wrap-up Monday
/ June 9th – Day 24
I was finally visualizing the end of the East Coast leg of
the tour, with only one gig left before a one week break…the
only requirements being a couple of easy gigs in San Antonio
and Houston, coupled with an-ex pected-to-be-well-attended-CD-release-at-Emo’s
on Friday the 13th. I think we knew all along we were never
going to make it to the gig at the Triple Crown in San Marcos
that night and sure enough, we didn’t. We woke up late
as hell and then we had a blowout on the way to catch some
Cajun cuisine before splitting town. Next we were informed
by a third party (since the booking agent didn’t even
know / tell us) that the Triple Crown closes at midnight on
Mondays. At this point we knew there was really no fucking
way we could get there (the guys were going to pull in virtually
at showtime, unload, and play immediately), so we headed back
to the quarter and pigged out so we could pass out during
the hotass ride home. It was to be the first gig the Witch
had cancelled in two years.
The
Dixie Witch Tour Chronicles – The West Coast
Monday / June 23rd – Day 1
After a week of partying my ass off in Austin with my house
turned into rock-n-roll central ( I woke up Saturday morning
with a tour bus containing Six Past Hell and Japan’s
own Gunship 666 parked out front), I was ready to escape my
now-trashed establishment and head out West with the Witch.
Our first stop was Lubbock, TX. This wasteland was a lot closer
to the gig in Albuquerque and home to Curt and Trinidad’s
moms, Buddy Holly, Joe Ely, Mac Davis, Waylon Jennings (actually
he’s from Littlefield…a podunk town among many
that surround Lubbock, which is known as the hub city), Butch
Hancock, Jimmy Bradshaw and Natalie Maines…from the
Dixie Chicks. In fact, there’s a picture of Curt jamming
with Natalie at South Plains College (where they were music
majors) floating around out there somewhere. Of course, Curt’s
barefoot in the picture.
We hit the road and make it to historic Mullin, TX before
we have another a blow-out. Luckily, it was the spare we had
put on down in New Orleans, and not the new tire we had just
gotten. We were forced to pull in front of a house-that-was-once-an-old-service-station-on-the-side-of-the-
road, and were greeted by a puppy barking his head off. An
old as hell man emerged from the rock domicile and whacked
the dog with his cane. Then he started talking Claytallica’s
ear off, before repeating himself to me. We discovered that
the cattle drives came right through the city back in the
early 1900’s, as the old man’s tobacco spittle
sprayed Claytallica. When the old man finds out we’re
going to California he mumbles, “California…I
guess it’s still there. The last time I was there was
in 1942.” Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.
The
tire changed, we take off with Claytallica observing, “I
wonder if that old man had something to drink today. That’s
probably all he has to do here…drink, spit, and hit
dogs with canes.” Our journey continues with towns chock
full of bar-b-que joints and antique shops, with names like
Santa Anna, Zephyr and Sweetwater. Since Lubbock is a dry
county, we have to stop at “Little Vegas”, the
strip outside of town, to buy beer. Trinidad claims that Lubbock
stays dry as a result of the old $$$ corruption that resides
there. According to him, the guys who own the stores on the
strip have a lot of dough, and control the local politicians.
Somehow these corrupt elements manage to keep a city with
a population of 200,000 plus, “drier than a West Texas
whore’s cunt” (Wayne Hancock). We headed back
to Curt’s mom’s house for a night of Busch beer,
cable TV, and a fully stocked fridge to raid late night. I
kept having this fear that Curt’s mom was going to cook
up some cow balls, since that seemed to be a staple of his
diet growing up. I fall asleep surrounded by Avon-products-of-every-imaginable-scent,
flowery pillows and bedclothes, pictures of roses and angels,
and lots of religious books and paraphernalia (Curt was raised
Southern Baptist). Needless to say, I had nightmares all night…but
maybe that had something to do with the fact that I’m
finally fucking finishing The Red Dragon, rather than the
God stuff all over the place.
Tuesday / June 24th – Day 2
I woke up to burgers and hotdogs fresh off the grill (courtesy
of Curt’s mama), feeling like I hadn’t slept at
all. The Witch and yours truly crammed ourselves into a way
overstuffed van (literally my feet were touching the ceiling,
once affixed atop my belongings), and head out to the first
show of the tour in Albuquerque, NM. For those of you who
have driven through West Texas before, you know what an eventful
ride we were in for…a whole lot of heat, wind, dust,
and flatness as far as the eye can see, with town names like
Levelland and Plainfield. There’s not shit out here,
and Curt claims that sometimes you can see where the earth
curves it’s so fucking flat (that foils the Gods of
Mars theory I guess).
Not
long after we cross the New Mexico border, the temperature
gauge swings all the way up. The only way we could remedy
the situation was by riding with no motherfucking AC. That’s
a really good omen when you’re about to be riding through
the motherfucking desert for the next few days. While waiting
for Burt’s Tiki bar (the venue for the night) to open,
we had cocktails while listening to Motley Crue, KISS, and
Johnny Cash at the Atomic Cantina, which was decorated with
Area 51 and Manhattan Project photos. Then Burt’s opened
and fucking rocked ass. They played an assload of Motley Crue,
and a fuckload of Black Sabbath. This friend of the Witch
got me and Curt so high we could barely function for an hour
afterwards. I was struggling to make change for people…much
less make sense. The openers, Mr. Spectacular, was a hard-driving-
straight-ahead-in-your-face-bad-motherfucking-ass-relentless-rock
band, but I don’t think I like the name. It reminds
me too much of Mr. Fabulous.
 Then
a cage drum kit took the stage. The guilty party… Spiritu.
When the pick-up with the drum cage in back pulled up, the
first thing Curt said was, “Uh-oh, here comes the cage!”
And we were instantly reminded of the show in Cleveland where
the band with the cage drums totally ruined our collective
rock highs. However, Spiritu did not let us down. The singer,
Jadd, is a fucking weird one (and owner of Meteor City Records),
who can sing like a motherfucker. His style is almost too
weird, making me feel like I’m on acid at a heavy metal
show…but I’m not on acid, or at a heavy metal
show. Jadd started the set with, “And in case you haven’t
seen the posters, we’re the White Stripes.” During
the set, I observed that Albuquerque had lots of cute- tattooed-pierced-rocker-punker-stoner
guys, and very few hot chicks. Even better. I also noticed
that Jadd likes to make really weird faces, gesticulations,
and funky dance moves while he fucking goes off, sometimes
hitting almost-too-high-high-notes. And the music was so rocking
I could almost….repeat, almost…forget about the
drum cage. Then all was forgiven right before the last song,
when he thanked someone for loaning them equipment that night.
Then
the Witch took over with the following goofy observations:
Curt – “We took a week off so we could be bigger
retards than we already are”; Clay – “Motherfuckers
are you ready?”; Trinidad – “We spent four
weeks on the east coast…now we’re headed to the
west coast, and I can’t think of a better way to start
it than in Albuquerque, NM”. Curt looked significantly
more stoned than usual… probably because he was, courtesy
of our buddy Gordy. Claytallica shredded it up and, of course,
Trini powerhoused. Initially the crowd looked confused and
a little overwhelmed, before they got into the swing of things.
Someone came up and asked me, “Where are you guys from
again?” But it looked like the week off did them good.
The Witch rocked ass and the crowd started rocking the fuck
out. Trini dedicated The Wheel to Gordy “because he’s
been going through some shit lately”… “the
shit” being...as Gordy put it me, “Well, they
pulled my guts out to make sure there wasn’t any cancer
in them, removed said offensive kidney, put my guts back in,
and stapled me back together.” Whoa. Along with being
a strong motherfucker, Gordy is sort of an urban legend in
these parts. He was one of the first pro skaters in town,
played in the old punk rock band, Jerry’s Kids, and
had the first mohawk in town. And he provided the lethal weed
that made me see the banging of heads through a heavy pot
haze.
We stayed at Anita & Sonny’s condemned rocker house…and
I mean condemned! But as CC observed, “As long as there’s
not a bunch of syringes laying around we’re doing alright.”
As I stumbled through the morass of bullshit to find a clean
place to rest my head (other than the van which was parked
in the hood), Anita squawked, “This is the hesher hotel…not
the Holiday Inn”. Well no fucking shit! Like I’d
expect a Holiday Inn at any point in this fucking tour you
crazy rock bitch…and you know what??? Thanks for the
hospitality but I’m not a hesher either. Although I
admit it did make me feel better that High on Fire (rock stars
that they are) had stayed there just the week before. I ended
up smoking out and listening to rock with Sonny, the guy who
lived in the cleanest part of the house, till’ about
6:00AM, while almost OD’ing on easy cheese and wheat
thins.
Wednesday / June 25th – Day 3
Woke up in the hesher hotel on a couch that could only have
been comfortable if I was bent completely in half, wondering
if my legs would ever be capable of movement again. I was
greeted by the guys in Watch Them Die, who had just stayed
at my house in Austin the previous Wednesday. They were en
route to their homes in Oakland, CA, had a day off after their
show at Burt’s, and knew the cats we were staying with.
I stumbled past them to the van, then into the Frontier restaurant
where my still muddled brain was overwhelmed by the ten people
at the walk-up counter, as well as by the 100 menu items I
had to choose from. Of course I spent too much $$$ and got
something I totally didn’t like, and probably never
wanted in the first place. That accomplished, we took off
through the desert towards the Petrified Forest, Navajo country,
and out-of-control fires en route to Phoenix, Arizona, with
an 8 hour drive ahead of us. Well there’s a whole lot
of nothing between Albuquerque and Phoenix except for Flagstaff,
Indian reservations (Navajo and Apache), Montezuma Lake, the
Bloody Basin, Horsethief Basin, and towns with names like
Black Canyon City, Except for scattered trailers and various
stores that call themselves outposts, I didn’t notice
too much besides mountains, Texas-tree-height-cacti and scorching
fucking heat. Since the van overheated in the desert in New
Mexico the day before, that meant a no ac-having-est ride
today…and it had to be over a hundred. “Yeah it’s
so pretty here, it’d be a nice place to have a picnic”,
Trinidad joked, “A picnic in hell!”
On
top of that, when we switched to the reserve gas tank some
100 or so miles outside of Phoenix in the middle of nowhere,
the fuel filter sucked in some dirt or leaves or some other
foreign object. Fuck, I’m no mechanic. The closest Dixie
Witch comes to one of those is Curt, being the ex-drag-racing-hotrod-builder
that he is (when he’s not on the road, on the couch,
or playing guitar). However, that doesn’t do a hell
of a lot of good when you’re in the middle of the fucking
desert. At any rate, the van could barely chug up the hills,
causing us to come as close to praying as we were capable
of (actually the thought never even crossed my mind), riding
all the way to Phoenix with the hazards on. It was around
this time that Claytallica observed that his phone (the only
working nationwide cel) was dead. With fingers crossed and
C.C. Driver sporting a red freedom rocker bandana, we chugged
our way across the desert.
 “Curt
the Freedom Rocker!”
Amazingly we made it to the gig at the Mason Jar in Phoenix.
The openers were Graves at Sea …fucking killer name
and fucking killer band. They were heavy as fuck, and slow
as fuck. As Claytallica put it, “Who turned on the morphine
drip?” I kept waiting for them to bust into something
fast but it just wasn’t happening. However, Graves at
motherfucking Sea were fucking-evil-wicked-scary-sounding…some
fucking desert rock. Durel, the guitar player and vocalist
for Suplecs showed up. He’s in Phoenix because his wife
is in med school there, and pregnant as hell. Also in attendance
was Mike Conklin from Brewtality INC., taking a hiatus from
rock-n-roll in Austin to work on assignment for Motorola.
Then the Sons of Serro took over. They were badass heavy rock
as well, and all happen to live together in a house that previously
belonged to George Lynch, the old guitar player for Dokken.
Meanwhile Curt was still wearing his freedom rock bandana
and I’m was beginning to wonder if, as Claytallica put
it, he simply “forgot about it…cause Curt’s
like that” or if he might just be planning on playing
the show with it on…in which case I might have to tell
him to “Turn it up!”
Well I can’t say I paid too much attention to the Witch’s
set, as I was focused on Nathan, the hot 24-year-old singer
for Graves. As things got blurrier, all of us ended up at
Rajmahal’s house (bass player for Graves), and I ended
up attacking the youngster by night’s end. I don’t
remember much except for doing really weird things in a bathroom
before snapping and saying, “What the fuck are we doing
in the goddamn bathroom? I’ll go get the fucking van
keys”…having lost my set within 6 days after getting
them on the East Coast leg of the tour. I guess I drug the
hottie out to my-home-of-the-last-month where we passed out
dead drunk because later, when the guys went out to the van
to get their shit, some incriminating photos of me were taken…sleeping
upside down with my head on the floor of the van, and my ass
and legs up on the seat. I’m not going to elaborate
on the position of my friend or anything else…but I
figure I may as well tell the world before Graves at Sea posts
it on their website.
To be continued…
 Rock-n-Roll
Q & A with Unida
Who
are your favorite bands / greatest influences?
John
Garcia (vox / Unida and Kyuss) – My greatest
influence would probably be Ian Astbury from the Cult or Glen
Danzig. That heavy early rock. Those two guys were the ones
who really started it off for me.
Arthur Seay (guitar / Unida) – I listen
to everything man…from Mozart to Led Zeppelin to Elton
John to Iron Maiden to Michael Jackson…whatever comes
my way.
Insert a.jpg… “Arthur Seay”
Paul Gray (bass / Unida & Slipknot) –
The band who first got me playing music was Slayer. When I
was a little kid I saw them play at the Hollywood Palladium
on the Hell Awaits tour. When I saw Cary King… that
did it for me. Also Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. But Slayer
is the reason I’m playing music. Cary King actually
came down and played a song with Slipknot on the Tattoo the
Earth tour in Phoenix, AZ and it was just weird…I could
barely fucking play because he was the reason I started playing
in the first place .
Mike Cancino (drums / Unida) – Did
anyone say ACDC or Led Zeppelin yet?
What
is your definition of success in rock-n-roll?
John
Garcia – Going on the road with Dixie Witch.
Right now…we are a band in success.
Insert 2718.jpg…”John Garcia”
Arthur Seay – If I can just do music
and be able to pay my bills. Not to own a super pimp mansion…although
that would be cool. As long as I can live decently, pay my
bills and play music…that is success. In any case, I’m
going to play music anyways.
Paul Gray – That’s a weird one.
Because of Slipknot I get to play rock-n-roll for a living,
but I’ve played in bands forever. Success is just being
able to play rock-n-roll. I don’t care because I get
to play. I just want to be able to play and not have to care
about anything else. I got kind of spoiled cause I got to
travel in tour buses and shit. But it’s not about the
$...it’s about playing.
Mike Cancino – Being able to pay your
bills and be happy in the band you play with. |
