Road Ration - Traipsing Through The Fields '96
Part 2 - 4/26/96 - 5/4/96

Denver, CO. Fri., Apr. 26, The Bluebird Theatre Arriving in Denver at sunset, too late for soundcheck. After dumping the gear around the stage we are met by Richard who, along with his wife Karin, invite us to a quick dinner at a friend's house nearby. He mentions that they might be a little awestruck at having The Mermen in their home and I assure him we will behave ourselves. Warren and Cathy, an investment counselor and lawyer, respectively, have an enormous house built in 1904. We discuss the tradeoffs that brought us to our present places. He regrets not being able to go out on the town at the drop of a hat (they just had a kid) and I wonder what it's like to have a six-burner gas range in a custom kitchen. The food is excellent.

The show is sublime. 200+ half fill the theatre, and the staff run a 35mm print of "Atlantis", an series of undersea vignettes, each one about a different kind of marine life. We play and the movie plays and, synchronously, we occasionally mirror each other. The combination is epic. People are floored. I'm floored. I muff some notes. When the movie ends we play for another hour or so.

Space Team Electra opens the show. They are bound for glory. I approach the stage while they are packing up and ask Myshel, their singer/songwriter, why it is that every time I see them play, I cry? Her face opens into a huge smile, she puts down her half-wound guitar cord, and comes over to me, leaning over the monitor and gives me a kiss. I smile, uncontrollably, and, embarrassed but oddly happy, return to the bar.

Day Off. Sat., Apr. 27. Drive to Los Angeles, CA I-70, back through western Colorado and Utah. Endless mountains, snow-capped and rough shouldered. High winds blow spiraling clouds of snow off the forests into the air. Peaks trail ribbons of white in the gale. Plumes of smoke from sleeping volcanos. We drive by towns named Rifle, Silt, Fountain and Searchlight.

Sunlight in SW Utah, rising up through ancient red walls of sandstone, the setting sun on the bright rock, the view forever. Lost in Space settings of curvilinear moulded, pitted, blasted and forgotten massifs. After sunset I put my head down in the back of the van and, aided by codeine, don't raise it up again until Redondo Beach, CA. There was a stop in Las Vegas, NV, for an hour's worth of gambling,. I missed it, completely. No great loss. Las Vegas was described to me as the only city it's ok to litter on.

Surfer's Paradise--Redondo Beach, CA. Sun., Apr. 28. The Strand Tonight we were paid full respect by practically the entire surf community of Southern California, where it all began. We headlined a show in which The Surfaris, The Chantays, The Bel-Airs, The Lively Ones, and many others opened for us. The Mermen were acknowledged by the ones that helped to start the genre for "taking it into the 21st Century" and "breathing new life into the genre." Don Murray, former drummer with The Turtles, The Surfaris and his own seminal surf band, The Crossfires, died unexpectedly last month after a short illness. This event was in his honour and a benefit to defray costs. He and his fiancee had requested that we headline the entire event because The Mermen were apparently his favorite band. His guitar player had told me during a phone conversation that listening to The Mermen was like "a door opening and a light shining through..." On top of that I was handed a promotional sticker from Rhino Records for

Day Off in L.A. Mon., Apr. 29. Sitting in the motel room in a somnambulistic pre-coffee tropism. 6:30 a.m. Blast off to the tiny Japanese woman's giant L.A. loft. Miki, professional photographer, shoots us singly, for Option Magazine. We spend two hours working while the crew cools their heels. At 11:30 a.m., off to our record company for a meeting about the next album. The Men from The Label consult one another with a disconcerting ignorance about what their respective ideas/responsibilities concerning The Mermen really are. They toss out the word "regurgitate," and I began the slide into catalepsy. With predictability, we go to lunch. The food is excellent. Mexican. But I keep hearing the word that the Prez. used to sum up his agenda for our next album. Regurgitate. I even wrote it down after he said it so that I could look at it later and prove to myself that I hadn't heard wrong. Afterwords back for yet another photo shoot, this time for promotional uses. The photographer sighs. W

San Diego, CA. Tues., Apr. 30. The Casbah Small but enthusiastic crowd. Intercontinental jetliners screaming down their landing/approach pattern, 400 feet overhead. Weather benign. I spend all day with no shirt or shoes on. Swimming in the ocean, a room right on the beach. Contemplating freedom. No home, no family, no money. Complete freedom. Talked to an old friend on the phone, he and his wife are expecting their first child. He is an awesomely talented musician and good friend. Now I am living the life we dreamed together. He is taking another path. Somewhere we lost our easy rapport.

Scottsdale, AZ. Wed., May 1. The Rockin' Horse Noon departure for Arizona, out Route 8, low by Mexico, through blasted hills of heaped and sculpted stone. The desert beats the shit out of everything. Hundred degree heat, empty bright sky. Cowboy bar in an affluent suburb of Phoenix. We arrive at sunset and leave at 1 a.m. In between a show is played. I played Chatty Cathy tonight, cheerfully harrassing the hundred people who must haved shown up accidentally. This place could hold a thousand bodies. We played for over an hour. The weather is clear and hot, a wool blanket on the back of my neck. I drive the first shift back to L.A. Fighting off sleep, cruise control at a comfortable 65 mph, the windows open and my foot hanging out in the middle of the dark, dark landscape, and a moon, one day from full, hangs over the mountains. Route 10, 2 hours east of L.A., but headed toward it. The moon is a polished bronze mirror for the sun rising behind us. I'm pouring water on my head to stay awa

West Hollywood, CA. Thurs., May 2. The Dragonfly Arrive in LA at 11 a.m. for a nap. Wake up at 5 p.m. for soundcheck...the day entirely slept away. Roy Bittan, formerly of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, shows up again and Jim introduces him to me. We fall to talking about the '70s at the Jersey shore. He tells me of a club owner asking Bruce to turn it down and, when Bruce wouldn't, the owner pulled a pistol and shot the guitar amplifier. I tell him of the year I spent there, playing bass in a six-piece uniformed disco show band. The show is our shortest ever. 35 minutes. Good turnout. Eclectic mix. From old SF friends relocated to LA (?) to anorexic bug-eyed pornographic journalists with fake tits who introduce themselves as "Wally", and run jerkily around the club while we play, firing off flash pictures from a tiny point & shoot camera and hovering in the corners of this security-laden West Hollywood dump. We get a $250.00 bus zone parking ticket while loading in.

San Juan Capistrano, CA. Fri., May 3, The Coach House After breakfast at Canter's Deli (the hostess tells us that she remembers Marilyn Monroe eating there) we jaunt down the coast. In an affluent, cozy mall near the ocean lies this large, confident supper-club. Promo pictures of the headliners that have played here line every wall. There must be thousands of them. Two local bands open for us. It's a good thing, because they sold three times as many tickets as we did. We play to a hundred people in a room that can hold a thousand. But the people listen, and when we finish, I talk with a diverse group of what must be fans. They ask us to sign things and their eyes are big. We take off for Santa Barbara immediately and sleep in a quiet dump by the highway at 4 a.m.

Berkeley, CA. Sat., May 4. Party for Scientific Diving class at UC Berkeley Pull up to the Haas Poolhouse (above the UCB stadium) just in time for the grilled abalone harvested this morning and the margaritas. It's a party, we can play for fun instead of work. Trevor Cralle, our friend who wrote the "Surfin'ary," is there along with Henry Kaiser, who invited us to play tonight. At the end of the informal set Jim invites Henry up to play with us on the song "Latinia" which seques into "Casbah." Henry goes ape! I do too, running around the dance floor and falling down on my back (but never missing a note) while Henry solos into the void. Jim leaves the stage. Henry, Martyn and I end the set as The Mermen began, a trio, slightly modified. No one has ever played guitar with us in performance before. After the set Trevor and me and two girls run off to the pools to skinny-dip. Later, back at the sublet in SF, after finding legal parking, I crash gratefully into the futon. Phone off, answerin