Just woke up an hour ago (about 9 AM) to one of of St. Louis' finest wrap-a-tap-tapping on my driver side window with his flashlight. "What's goin on here?" 'Oh nothing officer,' I'm thinking to myself…'just sleeping cramped up in the front seat of this van under a pile of backpacks and trash because the bed was too damn hot to sleep in with two other guys last night.'
"Um nothing, we're just crashing here, we played at Cicero's last night and need a place to sleep before getting back on the road."
"Can you please roll down the window sir."
"Oh, sure, um nothing, we're just crashing here, we played at Cicero's last night and need a place to sleep before getting back on the road."
"Oh yeah, you guys some kinda cover band?"
"No we play mostly originals…"
"Can I see some I.D. then?"
I push some of the backpacks and trash off of me and begin to look for my man purse (as a traveling, blogging band, you find that such a feminine article is required to carry photo cameras, video cameras, flyers, phones, batteries etc…) and thus you have to put up with the humiliation of looking through a purse when 3 large mustache bearing police officers are glaring down at you presumably upset by the fact that you aren't a cover band for some reason.
As I reach for "european carry all" officer number 2, standing behind flashlight officer number 1, sternly demands to know why it is I'm reaching for a bag. I explain with full sincerity that my pants are simply too tight to contain my Costanza-sized wallet. He takes a look down somewhat sympathetically as if to say, "yes I understand what it's like to wear tight pants on the weekends," My mind immediately goes to cross-dresser or Scissor Sister fan…but is then distracted when he obliges and permits me to continue searching through my bag for my wallet.
At this time officer number 3 is walking around to the passenger side of the van. He requests Brad opens the sliding back seat door to see what he can see and as he reaches in Adam and Mike (up in the bed) are quick to fork over their driver's license. A conversation about what each of our records will show if you run our names through the system begins and I start to feel a bit uneasy about some of the admissions that I'm learning about my bandmates for the first time.
The confessions don't seem to phase officer 3 as his shaded sunglassed eyes seem to be affixed on the two grown men sleeping together on a twin size futon mattress behind the first row of bench seats only inches from the ceiling.
"You boys sleep up there every night?"
"Every night we can't find someone to sleep with…" stupidly flops out of my mouth.
"Well doesn't seem to be enough room for any pussy in this thing…you boys get out of here…someone's gonna mistake you for gypsies…there's known to be shootings in this neighborhood."
We re-situated and began the drive back home to Chicago, another leg of the 2011 Pound tour under our belts.
Here's some pics to recap the night
Huge thanks to
The Goodtime Engineers for joining us the night before at Cicero's. Every rock and roll band has a soul that seeks to connect with the audience… when you can feel it, you know it's working. Tuesday's GTE set was one of the best feelings I had all tour.
