Boy, I sure hate being the designated driver while everyone
indulges in booze and gets silly. There is not a more thankless job in this
world than to be chauffeur for this wily group of 4 young men with hard-ons.
When I am tasked with doing this, I tell the boys right at the beginning of the
night: “I will drive us to where we gotta go, but you may as well start calling
me Stephanie, I will tell you right now.” Stephanie is the name of my inner fat
girl. Everyone has one, that snarky voice in the back of your head when
everyone is hammered and having a great time except for you. I always imagine
Stephanie looking like Chris Farley from the Gap Girls sketch on SNL.
“Can we go now? I’m bored.” “No, you can’t have sex with
that girl, we came as a group we leave as a group.” And occasionally, just an
incredulous “Really!?” are all things that can be heard by Stephanie as she
passive-aggressively ruins everyone’s night like a serial arsonist of mirth.
Did I mention that I also stink at driving? I am famous for absentmindedly
spending most of the drive with the cruise control set to 10 under the limit,
with only the most tenuous grasp of the wheel at 7 o’clock, cyclically drifting
on and off the shoulder rumble strips. You know, those little grooves on the
side of the road that make your tires rumble to wake you up just incase you
decide to take an ill-advised nappy while on the way to your destination.
“BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM” goes the rumble strip, followed by countless crass backseat
remarks such as “Dude, you spend more time on the shoulder than a goddamned
parrot.” I might have been angrier were it not completely accurate.
But it has been a while since we last spoke, so let’s take
it back to where we left, shall we? We left NYC in a state of goofy blurry-eyed
bliss and made our faithful voyage to Baltimore. We arrived nice and early and
decided to go for a stroll through the streets down to the harbor. While
nowhere close to the neighborhoods depicted in The Wire, the areas we were in seemed pretty rough around the edges
with loudmouthed lunatics and bullet holes in a few of the storefront windows.
Our gig was at a venue called the Side Bar. A cozy underground bar that has a
capacity of less than 100. Before the gig started I went for a little walk by
myself to clear my weary mind. I bought the local paper and chilled out on a
stoop reading and relaxing on my lonesome. I read that Baltimore had 32 murders
in the first week of the summer. Holy dog shit. They must really love our band
in Baltimore because I found the word “Fatality” written about 80 times before
I even got to the funnies. Either that or they are all just constantly
murdering each other over there. I also passed by the strip club district. I
was drawn to it because there was an almost tangible darkness that hung over
the street of sadness. The other thing I liked about it was they had old-school
strip club barkers standing in front of every club trying to pull in some
business. I saw men in cowboy hats outside of each club sayin’ goofy shit to me
like “Hey swinger, looking for a good time and cheap thrills? Girls girls
girls, nude and nasty.” “No thanks sir, but I might be back.” As we drove past
the same strip after the gig the entire street was blocked off with caution
tape and 10 cop cars. I reckon there may have been a shooting shortly after I
scurried back to the venue.
We were lucky enough to stay with Eytan’s friend DK whom he
lived with during his stint in Israel. DK’s place is in the suburbs in a
beautiful white house that was built in the 1800’s. The boys and I spent the
next 2 nights there sleeping, eating good BBQ and doing the occasional phone
interview. He also had a beautiful acoustic piano that I played and played and
played.
Our next date was in Chesapeake, Virginia. This proved to be
one of my favorite sets of the tour so far. I can always gauge how good a set
is by how seamlessly and comfortably we can navigate through the set. The more
relaxed we are on stage, the more engaging and adaptable we become and our set
becomes more of a resonating meditation of music than anything else; a tantric
expression of love and musical enjoyment. When I am at my best, it’s like I am
on autopilot, acting completely on instincts and riding the set like a spirited
surfer on a tsunami of sound. This was
the first show in a state where you are still allowed to smoke in bars. It was
like going back in time to a stinky, slightly yellowed past. The smokers in the
band took advantage of this onstage and lived out their Keith Richards
fantasies.
Then it was off to Richmond, Virginia: home of many great
metal bands such as Municipal Waste, Gwar and Lamb of God. We were scheduled to
tape an appearance on a cooking show called Brutally Delicious with Bruce Moore. We called him in the afternoon to confirm, but it seemed he would have
to cancel because he couldn’t get a hold of his camera crew to film the
episode. We were defeated until Adam chimed in with: “wait a minute, aren’t we
traveling with a fuckin’ camera man!?” So we headed down to Bruce’s house and
our roadie extraordinaire Sean DeCory saved the day and manned his camera as
Eytan gave a great interview while making some picturesque chicken breasts and
hot peppers on the grill. Bruce Moore is a great guy, as well as an extremely
interesting dude. Apparently he was a mastering engineer in NYC during the 90’s
hip-hop boom before moving to a small town with his amazingly welcoming and
polite family. He also published a few recipes from Eytan and I in his cookbook
“For Those About to Cook” a few years back.
Richmond is a really sweet place. We played on the main
nightclub strip and it really came to life after the sun went down; complete
with live music spilling out onto the street like sonic contentment from the
open doors of the surrounding clubs. We had a great set and hung around playing
darts, drinking beer and enjoying the chaotic atmosphere of the crazed party
animals slinking in and out of the bars on the strip. After the show we headed
to someone’s apartment for some shut eye. When we got there we were surprised
to find a rowdy house party in full swing with music uncomfortably loud on a
jittery old record player, beer chugging and a whole lot of boisterous and
noisy shenanigans. Although we were ready for a good night’s sleep, we
submitted to go with the flow and get a little silly with the locals. I was in
the party zone and was loud, making jokes and working the room. I remember at
one point getting the entire room of partiers singing “I Feel Good” by James
Brown as I pounded on a nearby electric guitar. But as the night got later and
later, things got weirder and weirder and took a very surreal and dangerous
turn.
To be continued…
Spencer “Call Me Stephanie” LeVon
As always please stay updated with our tour photos on our new Flickr page here
And check out the Fatality Backseat LevonCast (podcast) for hilarious stories from the road! Hosted by my brother Mason and I.
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