I'll have some bugs with that.
Rob and I took a road trip/gig to San Francisco. We played an office gig for Keyboard Magazine. They had already written a fine review of the album so I wasn't trying to score favors. We drove up the 5 north and got on the other side of the grapevine around 7:30pm when we were suddenly barraged by millions of bugs swarming/tripping the sunset fantastic. It sounded like rain but it was bugs. Here's a picture of the aftermath (it's kind of hard to see, but this was done in less than a minute).
Ewwwwwwwww!
Accompanying it was the smell of the cows. There are lots of cows up there. I happen to like how cows smell, but this was particularly strong.
On the 5 north there are many radio stations that play classic rock. Rob and I never heard anything recorded after 1980 the entire way up. It was pretty awesome - Lots of Boston, Zepplin, Yes, The Who, Bad Frickin' Finger, but the second time around on "Brown-Eyed Girl" was more than we could take.
We start running low on gas but we're close to our destination. We only need to cross the Bay Bridge and get to our hotel - a mere mile or so on the other side. The car signals that we have enough gas to go 18 more miles. "Plenty, I thought; we only have to cross a 2-mile bridge and we're home free"! We get to the bridge at midnight and there's a huge traffic jam. Construction and a car accident has the traffic at a crawl. Who are all these people and what are they doing out on a Wednesday night? We should have cruised at lightning speed across that bridge and into a gas station but nooooooooo - it was just like LA in rush hour. Can I never escape it? The gas indicator read 18, then 15, then 12 then 10 then 5 miles left in the tank. Rob was pretty freaked... Ok, ok, enough with the drama. We made it to a gas station.
We got to the hotel. It's 1:00 am now. We unload the gear from the car. Ugh. Where the f*&k are the roadies? Nowhere. Nowhere.
Next day. We load up (again - where are the frickin' roadies?) and go to Keyboard Magazine. We didnn't eat dinner the night before and we haven't had breakfast. A block away from our destination, we spot a bagel shop. We duck in to get a little something to eat. Rob orders a pizza bagel. I'm kinda thinking that's gross for 10:30 AM but whatever. We get it to go. We get to the car and something starts smelling really bad. It's the pizza bagel. It smells horrible. But Rob has to eat. We pull into the parking lot of Keyboard and go in to scope out the place. Rob is carrying his bagel and planning on eating it quickly. Before he has a chance, we run into the main dudes at Keyboard. We're doing the chit-chat thing and Rob's bagel finally smells up the place so bad that I feel like I have to say something. Everybody acknowledges that it's the worst smelling bagel they have ever smelled. He tosses it in a can far from the main office.
The odor-emitting inedible in question:
The people at Keyboard are a lovely group of musicians/journalists who made us feel enormously welcome - even though we had a smelly pizza bagel smell about us. We played our show in the lobby. People from the magazine, along with Bass Player, Guitar Player and surrounding offices stopped in. They video taped it but I don't know when it will post. We had a great time. We went to lunch and had some excellent sushi. I've never had a bad meal in SF and this was no different. We hung out with Ernie Rideout, Steve Fortner and Mike Gallant of Keyboard. They were great.
We go back to the hotel, and, you guessed it, unloaded the gear. Again, no roadies. Later we went to a very fine dinner at 2223 Market Street with friends. The next day we get up and drive home. Pictures are posted of our stop at Rotten Robbies because Rob is often very rotten. We took a couple of pictures of us riding along in the car. We had a great time. We had to get back to real life way too soon.
Ewwwwwwwww!
Accompanying it was the smell of the cows. There are lots of cows up there. I happen to like how cows smell, but this was particularly strong.
On the 5 north there are many radio stations that play classic rock. Rob and I never heard anything recorded after 1980 the entire way up. It was pretty awesome - Lots of Boston, Zepplin, Yes, The Who, Bad Frickin' Finger, but the second time around on "Brown-Eyed Girl" was more than we could take.
We start running low on gas but we're close to our destination. We only need to cross the Bay Bridge and get to our hotel - a mere mile or so on the other side. The car signals that we have enough gas to go 18 more miles. "Plenty, I thought; we only have to cross a 2-mile bridge and we're home free"! We get to the bridge at midnight and there's a huge traffic jam. Construction and a car accident has the traffic at a crawl. Who are all these people and what are they doing out on a Wednesday night? We should have cruised at lightning speed across that bridge and into a gas station but nooooooooo - it was just like LA in rush hour. Can I never escape it? The gas indicator read 18, then 15, then 12 then 10 then 5 miles left in the tank. Rob was pretty freaked... Ok, ok, enough with the drama. We made it to a gas station.
We got to the hotel. It's 1:00 am now. We unload the gear from the car. Ugh. Where the f*&k are the roadies? Nowhere. Nowhere.
Next day. We load up (again - where are the frickin' roadies?) and go to Keyboard Magazine. We didnn't eat dinner the night before and we haven't had breakfast. A block away from our destination, we spot a bagel shop. We duck in to get a little something to eat. Rob orders a pizza bagel. I'm kinda thinking that's gross for 10:30 AM but whatever. We get it to go. We get to the car and something starts smelling really bad. It's the pizza bagel. It smells horrible. But Rob has to eat. We pull into the parking lot of Keyboard and go in to scope out the place. Rob is carrying his bagel and planning on eating it quickly. Before he has a chance, we run into the main dudes at Keyboard. We're doing the chit-chat thing and Rob's bagel finally smells up the place so bad that I feel like I have to say something. Everybody acknowledges that it's the worst smelling bagel they have ever smelled. He tosses it in a can far from the main office.
The odor-emitting inedible in question:
The people at Keyboard are a lovely group of musicians/journalists who made us feel enormously welcome - even though we had a smelly pizza bagel smell about us. We played our show in the lobby. People from the magazine, along with Bass Player, Guitar Player and surrounding offices stopped in. They video taped it but I don't know when it will post. We had a great time. We went to lunch and had some excellent sushi. I've never had a bad meal in SF and this was no different. We hung out with Ernie Rideout, Steve Fortner and Mike Gallant of Keyboard. They were great.
We go back to the hotel, and, you guessed it, unloaded the gear. Again, no roadies. Later we went to a very fine dinner at 2223 Market Street with friends. The next day we get up and drive home. Pictures are posted of our stop at Rotten Robbies because Rob is often very rotten. We took a couple of pictures of us riding along in the car. We had a great time. We had to get back to real life way too soon.
posted by Beth Thornley at 2:15 PM
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