LUNA Tour Diary - Luna on Tour 2002

We've been practicing alot lately, something we hardly ever do. But for this tour we've added a keyboard player (Lara Meyerratken) to the band, and it has led to some rearranging of songs we've been doing for years. Like now we get to add the cello parts to "Bonnie and Clyde". And the mellotron to "Lost in Space". And the marimba to "Pup Tent."

We warmed up with some weekend dates in the Northeast. In Boston we played at the Paradise, and then we did a secret instore the following day at a suburban Borders bookstore. Due to its top-secret nature, there weren't alot of people in attendance, but Sean and I each received a bag with jellybellies, chocolates, and rick krispie treats.

Next day we played Lupo's in Providence, RI. They've built a gigantic mall right downtown. Just like San Diego. I made the mistake of buying some jeans at the GAP. They were only $9, but I don't really like them. I'm not into the "relaxed fit". Why is it that women's jeans are very tight this year (which I'm not opposed to), but the men's jeans are loose?

Next night we drove down to Philadelphia. Sean and I made another appearance at a Border's store, this one a little better attended. I confess that I don't really like playing accoustic guitar in bookstores, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm starting to understand why folk singers talk so much in between songs.

After the Philadelphia show we drove straight back to New York, playing a spirited word game called "Bone". It involves thinking of people, mostly celebrities and historical figures, whose names begin with certain initials. Like DW, for instance, you could have Dean Wareham, or you could reverse the initials and say Walt Disney. And if you can't come up with a name, you get a bone. And if you have three bones, you're out. Well the first out was Lara, who then fell asleep. And I received two quick bones, but managed to hang on and outlast Lee. And we were also riding with Winston from the opening band Consonant. He kept coming up with names that we didn't know, but insisted they were the names of jazz musicians. How could we argue? Anyway, he received his third bone just as we came out of the Holland Tunnel in lower Manhattan.

Next weekend we played Washington DC. Sean and I visited a satellite radio station called XFM, whose mulitmillion dollar facility was truly astounding. Like walking onto the set of "The Truman Show". XFM hopes to be the new FM radio. They are partially funded by the nice people at General Motors, and the nice people at Clearchannel also have a stake in the company. We walked down a long hallway with dozens of DJ's behind glass windows with names like "The 70's", "The 80's", "Liquid Metal" etc. These DJ's are playing and programming music that you can get all over the country if you subscribe to their satellite system. I'm not sure if it will take off, but they've already spent about a billion dollars on it.

The show in DC was a ton of fun. I think I've played at the 9:30 Club about thirty times in my life. Maybe that's a world's record? I hope not. We had a friend of ours shooting a bit of film at the show, because he's making a video for "Lovedust". After the show, he told us that they didn't have any film in the camera for that part, so we had to go out and play "Lovedust" again for an encore.

The next day we headed straight for Southworth guitars. I bought a little old amp, brand name Noble, which I think was a department store in Chicago back in the 50's, but I'm not sure. Anyway there is a nice Noble amp at Jolly Roger studio in Hoboken, manufactured by Magnatone. Certain old Magatone amps have a true vibrato effect (instead of the tremelo found in many others). But I'm starting to bore myself.

That night we played Fletcher's in Baltimore. We had some nasty crabcakes at a Cajun restaurant. I'm not sure why we did that. Somehow they managed to fit 350 people into a club that looks like it should only hold half that.

May 24. Northampton Pearl St.

Today the tour starts for real with a very long day. I drove out to New Jersey to pick up a van and rent a trailer. This operation took me four and a half hours. Then it took us another six and a half hours to get to Northampton. We ate at McDonald's for lunch, arrived just in time to play our show, without a soundcheck, then loaded up the van again and drove to Albany, stopping at a McDonald's along the way.

May 25. Toronto

Lee's Palace 8 a.m. lobby call after arriving at 2:30 p.m. so none of us feel so good, except Sean is excited to be going to Canada. I try to sleep in the van, but it's too bumpy in the back. Luckily I have my Ibook, and my new digital camera, and plenty of CD's to listen to. In fact everyone has shown up with some gadgets. Britta has the iPod, which everyone wants to borrow. Lee has a new iBook and his Yamaha QY70 music sequencer and some new jeans from a store he calls G.A.P. I've got my Canon Digital Elph, and I also have a copy of the new Flaming Lips CD (which everyone wants to borrow, and I'm thinking I could rent it out). Lara has a bag full of cameras and a little accoustic guitar. Sean has brought along a new device for stage, the "Electrix Repeater". He hasn't used it on stage yet, but it was useful in the studio last week. We were tracking an extra song for our Jetset EP, due out in September.

Lee's Palace. We opened for the Screaming Trees here back in 1992. Ten years of Luna. It's raining and cold in Toronto and there's no time to lie down before the show, but there is time for a vegetarian meal next door. It's nice to eat a few vegetables after meals at McDonald's and Tim Horton's. Anyway, a very nice crowd in Toronto. One nice fellow even gave me 10 hits of LSD. Actually he handed them to our guitar tech to give to me, and then they fell out of his pocket, but I was able to find them on the stage after the show. I haven't taken acid since 1985, and I'm not quite in the right frame of mind to take it now. I must be afraid of confronting my own mind. Or something.

May 26. Cleveland Lakeside Ballroom.

Feeling rested and much happier. Stop at Tim Horton's for lunch before a very easy border crossing. It's a beautiful spring evening in Cleveland. My friends Pete and Debbie took me and Britta to dinner in Little Italy, and then we dropped by their vintage clothing store, the "Renaissance Parlor". They have built a beautiful window display advertising the Luna show, and
they gave me a couple of nice shirts. One an iridescent gold/blue short
sleeve western shirt, the other a light brown 50's polyester thing.

Tonight we meet up with Sonic Boom aka Pete Kember, who is going to be opening for us for the next couple of weeks. He has brought along his friend Randall from Fuxa and a couple of "Dr. Sample" units (we are also using one of these on stage), and a few keyboards. I just caught a few songs tonight, very stripped down and minimal. Pete works with very narrow parameters, but that's part of what makes his music so compelling.

This Lakeside Ballroom is packed on a Sunday night. Our show is a little drunk/sloppy, but energetic. Britta blew two speakers on her bass cabinet.

Next day we made the nine-hour drive to Champaign, Illinois, listening to a few things along the way, the new Flaming Lips CD, Tom Waits' new one "Alice" which is great, and a compilation of Spacemen 3 alternate mixes. Spacemen 3 are definitely my favorite English band of the 1980's. I highly recommend their "Perfect Prescription" album.

We stopped for lunch at a country style restaurant where I had a "pork fritter" sandwich. I thought it might be good but it was more like chicken-fried steak, which I'm not partial to.

May 28. Champaign High Dive

We're staying outside of town in the midst of all the malls. Last night we saw "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones". It was dreadful. The dialogue is about what you would expect from a video game, and the Canadian actor portraying young Annikin was shocking. He is no William Shatner, that's for sure. Today is spent doing a liittle laundry, and checking out the mall. I bought some pants at TJMaxx, and ate breakfast and lunch at Bob Evans. The breakfast was good enough, but I don't recommend getting any other meals there. We had a home-cooked dinner with my friend Lisa Gottheil's parents, and then watched some hockey on TV. Sean was pretty dejected when the Maple Leafs lost, and said he didn't want to play a show tonight. But play we did.

May 29. Cincinatti Southgate House

Sean and I got up at 7:30 a.m. to drive ahead to a radio station in Cincinatti. I took half a sleeping pill but it didn't work, and I just ended up jumbling my consonants and getting grumpy. We visited a great guitar store called Mike's Music. Great but expensive. We didn't buy anything.

Southgate House is part of a mansion that belonged to General Thompson, inventor of the Tommy Gun. It's just across the river in Newport, KY. I believe you have to cross the river if you want to purchase a pornographic magazine. Cincinatti is like that. I remember playing a gig with Galaxie 500 at the Top Hat in Newport, KY back on our first ever tour. We stayed that
night with the local soundman, whose name was "Uncle" Dave Lewis. He was a lovely and eccentric guy, kept us up late showing us old silent cartoons and talking about Charles Manson. Damon and Naomi were a little worried about it.

May 30. Detroit Majestic Theatre

A long long day. I take a sleeping pill when I get into the van at 7 a.m., which knocks me out for a couple of hours, until we hit Michigan, where the road gets very bumpy. I have a donut and a banana for breakfast. At 12:30 we arrive in Detroit and perform a few songs live on WDET with Martin Bandyke.

Then we have a turkey sandwich and some coffee, and shuttle over to another station for the Mitch Albom talk radio show. The engineer there calls Sean an ass. Actually here's the whole conversation:

Engineer: "Where are you guys from?"
Dean: "New York City"
Engineer: "What part?"
Sean: "New York City"
Engineer: "Thanks, Ass!"
(pause)
Dean: "Did you just call him an ass?"
Engineer: "Yes"
Sean: "Well I don't appreciate that."

Anyway, we patched up our differences. He thought Sean was being smart to him. We were there for about three hours, and performed six times, but each time for thirty seconds coming out of a commercial.

Dinner tonight is from the deli platter at the club, a ham and cheese sandwich and a couple of vodka and sodas. The Majestic Theatre is reportedly the last place that Harry Houdini ever performed. He died in Detroit after being hit in the stomach when he wasn't expecting it. Harry Houdini was my hero when I was doing magic tricks at eleven years of age. I read two
biographies of him back then.

May 31. Chicago Cabaret Metro

Today is the day that our bus arrives, which means from now on we'll be travelling overnight and just getting one hotel room each day to shower in. By the time I get on the bus everyone has chosen their bunks, and I end up with one of the small, loud bunks in the bottom row.

Tonight Pete Kember joins us on stage for a rendition of Indian Summer. Some nice people from Kalamazoo bring me a "Kalamazoo College" T-shirt, but it's a size large, so I give it to Sean.

After the show we pack the bus, and find to our dismay that we have way too much equipment, some of which has to be stowed in the bunks. We get it all in, but it's pretty crowded. Living in a bus is going to take a little getting used to. We leave Chicago at 5 a.m.

June 1. Minneapolis First Avenue.

The good thing about the bus is you have much more time to walk around, go shopping etc. We all went to the big Target store downtown. I bought some comfortable "bus-pants" and a little duffel bag so I won't have to carry my suitcase in and out all the time, Lee bought some lights to wrap around the drum kit, Britta bought a suitcase, and Sean bought a cotton sheet to put on
his mattress. I also went to Let It Be records, and picked up the soundtrack to "Blade Runner" by Vangelis.

It's an early show and there are 900 people, but it turns out half of them got in for free. That's the way they do it at that club.

After the show I hung out in the hotel room, watching "Great Balls of Fire" and an interview with Charles Grodin on MSNBC, and then an episode of "McLeod". This particular episode is set in Mexico City (most of them are in New York), and the funny thing is that I remember being in Mexico City with my family when I was eleven years old, and we were visiting the pyramids
there, and they were filming an episode of McLeod, which was exciting to me because I was a big fan of the show. I remember sneaking up behind Dennis Weaver and touching his hat. That would have been 1975. We were on our way to New York City, where we stayed for two months on 3rd Avenue and 50th Street, and I attended 6th grade classes at a public school on east 57th Street. But I digress...

The bus leaves at 2 a.m. The road is bumpy, and I have trouble sleeping so I take a Unisom, and then about an hour later I take another one.

June 2.

We wake up somewhere in North Dakota, and have a nice Country Kitchen breakfast. They have the worst coffee out in the midwest though. It has turned cold and windy, and the drive through North Dakota and Montana is quite beautiful. We'll be driving till we hit Billings. Lee hangs out in the back lounge doing a "session" on his QY70, which he has hooked into his
computer. Britta is also working with her QY70. I listen to my "Blade Runner" CD, and write up the last few days' tour diary. Sean is up front with the crew playing a game on the Sony Playstation. Some kind of skateboarding game it is. He says he wants to get a game where you can shoot people in the head instead.

June 3.

We leave Billings at 3 a.m. and drive straight through to Seattle in 16 hours. I eat a cold piece of steak for breakfast and promptly throw up out the back window of the bus.

JUNE 4. SEATTLE SHOWBOX.

I saw a couple of films in Seattle, “Spiderman”, which I enjoyed (I’m a Sam
Raimi fan), and “About A Boy” which was one of those treacly heartfelt
comedies that the English have been sending our way lately, and the
soundtrack was insipid too.

Sean and I performed in the cafeteria of Amazon.com at lunchtime today. I
tried to sing above the level of the refrigerators, and without a microphone.
I doubt that anyone heard me. We had lunch with my old friend Mike McGonigal,
who previously had a fanzine called Chemical Imbalance, and now edits another
excellent compendium called Yeti.

JUNE 6

The motion of the bus descending Mt Shasta wakes me around 9 a.m. I make some
coffee in the front lounge of the bus, but it soon becomes crowded with
people playing the Sony Playstation. Lara is asleep in the back lounge and
there’s no light in my bunk, so I’m stuck. Finally I go down to the rear of
the bus and make a bit of a ruckus.

In Portland last night we played the Alladin Theatre. Lara gave me a much
needed haircut before the show, and I went out for dinner with Pete Kember
(Mr Sonic Boom). Greasy Chinese food we had, my treat. Tonight is the only
seated venue of the tour. This usually makes an audience quiet, but there was
a large contingent of inebriated people standing right in front of Sean. They
occasionally erupted into some kind of fratty mosh pit. After the show Lee
and Sean and Lara went to a karaoke bar. I smoked a tiny bit of weed (first
time I’ve done that in about 3 years), ate popcorn and watched Donnie Darko
on the DVD player in the bus. This movie was directed by the painter Mike
Kelley and is very good.

June 7-8, SAN FRANCISCO, BIMBO'S

This is the club where they film the Chris Isaak show. It’s a nice place, but
I confess I prefer the Fillmore. From the moment we step on stage on Friday
night it feels weird. Lee is too far away from me, the lights are shining
right in the audience’s eyes, and nothing feels quite right.

Next day we went shopping up on Haight Street. They’ve got some nice sneakers
up there. I have my eye on a velcro Adidas pair, but Sean already has velcro
sneakers, so there might be an incident if I showed up in those.

We’re staying at the Phoenix Hotel, which is where rock bands often stay in
San Francisco. It’s not such a nice area, but it’s a charming hotel. This
afternoon I was sitting by the pool eating a burrito, when I looked down at
the ground and saw a little bag of cocaine. Should I turn it in at the front
desk? Should I knock on every door asking if someone has lost a bag of coke?

Britta and I had dinner with Angel Corpus Christi and her husband Rich Stim
at Greens, a very fancy vegetarian restaurant on the water at Fort Mason.
Apparently Jerry Brown eats here all the time.

Tonight’s show is much better. Maybe it’s a better set list. Afterwards some
of us take showers at the club. Not me, I don’t often do the post-show
shower. They have two showers at Bimbo’s, but somehow the one that Lee was
using became clogged. Then we pile into the bus for the ride to

LOS ANGELES

We check into our rooms at La Reve in West Hollywood, and go look for some
brunch (after a nice shower in a clean hotel room). Then Sean and I head over
to Virgin Records for a special in-store. I’m on accoustic guitar and he’s
playing his jazzmaster with my little Princeton Reverb amp, which I’ve
decided I want to sell, as it’s been acting a little funny. Making strange
noises that is. We drive over to Black Market Music and I see a Les Paul Jr.
that I fancy. I offer them the Princeton in trade, but when they plug it in
to check it out, it makes strange farting sounds. No deal. Then it’s off to
do an interview for a fanzine, which we do at “Swingers”. Tricky is there
having some lunch. At the table next to us two assholes are talking at the
top of their lungs on their cellphones. We’re in Los Angeles all right.

JUNE 10.

We leave the hotel at 8 a.m. for a performance at KCRW, then over to tape the
Craig Kilborne show in the afternoon. We perform “Weird and Woozy”, and
leave immediately to go to soundcheck at the El Rey. Unfortunately our stupid
van driver gets lost on the way.

Tonight is our last night with Sonic Boom, and I will miss him. We finish our
show just in time to rush back to the hotel to view our brief TV appearance.
Does being on television help you sell records? Last time we were on the
Kilborne show our sales actually dipped for the week.

JUNE 11.

Sean and Lee stay behind in Los Angeles, the rest of us wake up in Tucson,
Arizona. Lee has graciously let me upgrade to his middle bunk, which has a
working light and is much easier to get in and out of.

It’s 100 degrees hot in Arizona, but it’s nice. We take a cab dowtown for
some delicious French toast at the Congress Grill, then mosey on over to a
famous musical instrument store, filled with old musical instruments, mostly
junk, but some of the junk is quite desirable. Unfortunately they find out th at we’re from New York City, and the prices seem to go up accordingly.
“Last week we had Harry Connick Jr. in here,” said the old man who owns the
store, “and he paid $6,000 for a trombone.” “Well,” I said, “he’s a big
movie actor, he’s got lots of money.” I bought a new old stock Vox Repeater
for my guitar. Lara found a box of old Casio synthesizers, the kind that you
can easily find on Ebay for $25 each, but the owner wouldn’t let any of them
go for under $120, so we left. I ran into one of the store employees at the
smoke shop down the street, and he explained that the reason that the prices
were so high is because the owners are Jews, and that they fetch good prices
for their merchandise from the Mexicans who come north looking for musical
instruments.

We go back to the pool for a swim, and then have some champagne for Britta’s
birthday, and go out to a fancy restaurant up in the foothills. At 2 a.m. we
get back into the bus and go to sleep.

JUNE 12.

We wake up in Midland, Texas, close to Odessa, are staying at a Howard
Johnson’s on the outskirts of town. Nothing to do here except laundry.
Someone tells me our president is from this place. There are some big banks
downtown but it looks like a lot of poor folk live here.

JUNE 13. DALLAS.

Not a big crowd tonight, but we were in Fort Worth just a couple of months
ago, so it’s hardly surprising. Jim White, a country singer who has a great
way with words, is opening for us tonight, and for the rest of the tour. The
Gypsy Tea Room is pretty much empty while he’s on stage, but he repeatedly
tells the audience not to crowd the stage. Jim is in fact a close friend of
my former next door neighbor Richard in New York City. Richard is a painter
and a professional party crasher. He recently crashed Liza Minelli’s wedding,
and sat down at a table with Little Anthony and the Imperials. He has various
tricks for crashing fabulous parties and funerals. He puts on a tuxedo and
has some photographer friends take photos of him as he arrives, so the
security officers will think he’s an important celebrity. Jim and Richard
both used to drive taxis in NYC.

I bought a couple of nice old shirts at a thrift store, and some corduroy
pants that I thought were Levi’s, but upon later inspection they are JC
Penney’s. I still like them.

JUNE 14. AUSTIN.

We arrive around 10 a.m. and lounge around the pool at the Austin Motel.
Tonight I wear one of my new shirts. It’s peach in color, but it turns out to
be a cotton/poly blend, so it’s a little hot on stage.

JUNE 15. HOUSTON

Sweltering heat, but we’re staying at a nice hotel. I actually get on the
treadmill for 20 minutes, and then go for a swim. I suppose that’s not nice
of me. I should have showered before getting into the pool.

We’re playing at a club called the Engine Room, a nasty rock club it is. The
monitor guy is an asshole. He’s been doing this for 25 years, he tells us.
While we’re performing on stage, he is reading pornographic magazines behind
a little curtain that he has rigged for himself.

No time to go find a decent meal, so tonight I make do with Pizza Hut. And
peanut butter sandwiches. We’ve been eating alot of those. After the show we
watch “Shadow of the Vampire” on the bus.

JUNE 16

We wake up in New Orleans. It’s nice to have a bus, because I get to walk
around New Orleans for the day. Bourbon Street is horrible, but we have iced
coffee and beignets at the Cafe Du Monde. Down on Canal Street I buy myself a
new suitcase, after much deliberation.

The bag I’ve been using for a few years now is a very ugly soft brown
suitcase that Lee refers to as “Grandpa”. Grandpa is a little old and worn,
and being a soft case he doesn’t always protect my purchases so well. My new
hard suitcase is bright red, and has sectional dividers. Basically this one
takes me from the bottom of the band suitcase ladder to the top, and creates
a little “suitcase envy” within the band. This new suitcase will be know as
“The Red Baron”. Grandpa is relegated to carrying the band T-shirts around.

We’ve got some friends staying in town in the penthouse suite of a swank
hotel in the French Quarter, so after the show we go back there and have a
little party, watch some World Cup soccer while listening to a terrible
classic rock radio station. The room has a lovely view though. At 4 a.m. we
get into the bus.

JUNE 17

A day off in Memphis. Again we’re staying on the outskirts of town, right
next to a strip club called “Babes”, and as it turns out, on a strip of road
where the Memphis prostitutes work. Britta gets hassled three times when she
crosses the street to buy some water. We make the best of it and the whole
band and crew visit Graceland. At the cafe we have peanut butter and banana
sandwiches of course. Except Sean orders a veggie burger that never
materializes, and then has to get a refund and eat a pretzel instead. Now he
knows to stick to what Elvis likes.

Graceland itself is underwhelming. For some reason (“out of respect”) they
won’t let anyone see the upstairs of the house. I suspect they don’t want us
to see the toilet where Elvis died.

Dinner is some delicious barbecue that arrives in a pink cadillac.

JUNE 18. ST. LOUIS.

We’ve got a day room in a rotten hotel downtown. I quickly head up to the
University area to see if I can go to a movie. “Bartleby” with Crispin
Glover is showing, but not till the evening. Rats.

We do an instore at Vintage Vinyl, and one of the more fun shows of the tour
at Blueberry Hill. It’s usually fun to play small clubs. The show starts off
a little funny, as our soundman forgets to turn my microphone on. And I’m
very distracted by the sight of local legend Beatle Bob dancing wildly in
front of Sean. I’ll try to post a “Quicktime” movie of him on our site.

JUNE 19. ATHENS, GA.

It’s always nice to be at the 40 watt club in Athens. Since it’s a college
town, things are a little slow in June, but we know how to make our own fun.

JUNE 20. ATLANTA

Today I go guitar shopping, and see some things I want (a nice Les Paul Jr.
and a Fender Princeton Reverb amp that actually works), but decide that I
oughtn’t to spend the money. So instead I buy a little Alesis Air Synth, a
theremin-like toy that Sonic Boom had been playing with. Lee seems pretty
jealous when I show up with it at soundcheck. I might be able to sell it to
him if I don’t like it.

A real fun show at the Variety, and since it’s a short drive tomorrow we can
stay the night. I stay up late watching Brazil defeat England in the World
Cup.

JUNE 21. CHATTANOOGA, TN.

This is the outdoor show that we were originally scheduled to play on
September 14 of last year before the world changed forever. I don’t know what
to expect here, but we are treated to a truly fabulous meal at a restaurant
called St. John’s. I ate fried oysters, and quail, and they brought us many
fine desserts to taste. All because the people who run the restaurant are big
Luna fans. It is with heavy stomach that we take the stage under a full moon,
and on the longest day of the year. Apart from a few bikers calling out for
ZZ Top songs, it is a fun show.

JUNE 22.

Wake up after a long bus ride in Chapel Hill, NC. We go out to dinner with
Mark Holland from Jennyanykind, and his wife. They have a nice Mercedes
station wagon. It’s another good meal, this time at a restaurant that is part
owned by Mac of Superchunk.

JUNE 28-29. Bowery Ballroom, NYC.

A delightful band from Detroit called Slumber Party is opening these shows
for us. Their drummer has no cymbals, and plays with mallets. Friday’s show
is triumphant. Afterwards we go to the Slipper Room on Orchard and Stanton
for drinks. My friend Ken is the DJ tonight, and as I walk in he's playing
"Fly Robin Fly" by the Silver Convention. Which is a little spooky to me,
because that is the second album I ever bought as a child. Which in itself
isn't spooky, but a few months ago I walked into the Slipper Room and Ken was
playing "Lowdown" by Boz Scaggs, from his album Silk Degrees, which was the
very first album I ever bought. What will he be playing next time? Something
by the Carpenters?

We went on to 2A for more drinks...

I confess that I’m more than a little tired for Saturday’s show, but as I’m
a professional, I muster the energy that is required, and I don’t think
anyone was disappointed. Afterwards it’s off to a place called Lolita (on
Broome and Allen) for drinks.

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