Drums and Tuba

From The Edge of Civilization

2006-07-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

Goat's house, or rather his housing complex, overlooks what I like to call the edge of civilization. Some of his neighbors have come back and there is some construction in the neighborhood and I swear that shortly before we left town I actually saw garbage men working (though they don't really seem to have made much of a dent in the piles), but for the most part it seems as if there is an endless expanse of abandoned homes as far as the eye can see. I stayed at Goat's place for a little over a week while we practiced and got ready for this summer tour. Each day I woke up and went running and at this point my throat and lungs are killing me. Could be allergies or something but I think the air there is just terrible. My friend Rebecca said that one huge mound of garbage by her house is bound by a single thin strand of caution tape which simply says "asbestos". Breath deep. We headed out of town a few days ago on the way to our first show in Tucson with stops in Austin (to hang with friends and eat good food) and El Paso (because there's no where else out there to stop). The desert was pretty fucking hot. Definitely hotter than 110 but I think not so hot as 120. At one point the van was getting pretty hot (the engine that is) and Neal started running the heat which he says lowers the engine temperature. It got a little toasty there for a minute. Eventually we made it to San Diego last night and I have to say it was a breath of fresh sea air. The Pacific is beautiful and the beach there is not half bad. The show went pretty well (though not as well as Tucson) though we played for a long time and my face is a little out of shape and this morning my lips are a little chafed and sore. After the show we discovered that in the entire city of San Diego there was not one open hotel room. The city was officially without a single vacancy. Crazy. Especially because there are not a shortage of hotels there. We (or rather I) had to drive quite a while north before we found a hotel which had an available room which was a smoking room but at that point of night who cares. Took me a while to fall asleep 'cause I had consumed a little bit of coffee so I didn't fall asleep at the wheel. That brings us to Sunday (today) in Los Angeles. We'll be bouncing around the west coast this summer, not playing too many shows but out here for most of the summer. We're trying out the whole play some shows and then fly places thing. Plane flights can't be any more expensive than gas here in California. At the end of the tour we're gonna finish recording an album and then take a step back touring. Put the album out there and see what happens. It's been a while since we played a show where the latest album actually has songs we still play.

Been Far Too Long

2006-04-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's been far too long since we last wrote something here. We're currently in Cincinatti at our friend John's place which is great. We'll be heading to Toledo soon for the fifth night of twenty straight nights of shows. Then a sunday off and six more shows and we're back in New Orleans to record some of the new songs we've been working on in this tour. The goal was to go out on this trip and play an entirely new set. We more or less done that sprinkling in a song or two from the past on occasional nights. We're pretty excited about things right now. The music has undergone a transformation that we've been shooting for for quite a long time. The next step is to put out an album (or actually an EP) of some of the new stuff and get it out there. We definitely get some confused hippies complaining on occasion about the vocals and how we used to sound much better (see jammier), but for the most part everything is going over well and the people who are interesting to us are getting it. Some people can't deal with change but frankly Drums and Tuba has always been about change and evolution and never being complacent or conventional. We definitely put a lot of thought to changing the name and symbolically wiping the slate clean but after hundreds and hundreds of name ideas and much deliberation we decided not to become just another band (as in the kings of the wolf stripes of montreal) with a conventional name and to just stick with who we are which has always been a little bit confusing for people to put their hands on. The hope is that we can change the perception of what we are (which is not a jam band I'm sorry to say) without changing what we are. I'm sure this makes little sense to someone else 'cause frankly I barely understand things myself. In a nut shell, make music which has meaning to you, book yourself some shows, make some records, work hard, and keep the bullshit to a minimum.

I'm an idiot but...

2006-02-28T12:25:00.000-08:00

Look, I’m an idiot. I don’t know much about the world and politics and business and I’m certainly not privy to any top secret knowledge. I read the papers every day. So how is it that I appear to have a better idea of foreign affairs than the leaders of our government who purportedly are some of the keenest minds in the world. I was arguing in my mind today over whether these people are really as dumb as they appear to be or whether they’re just constantly feeding us whatever it takes to make us feel better and go along with what must be plans or which we have no idea. What I’m referring to right now is the war in Iraq which has taken a turn for the worst this week. Not that things were going that well previously. It seems like a mess but we’re told constantly that things are actually going really well. How is it that someone as ignorant as me could be pretty sure that there were no weapons of mass destruction and yet Dick Cheney was sure there were. How can someone driving around in a van all day like me know that the cost of the war would be astronomical (and actually even more than I thought as I just read that every individual in the U.S. Has basically spent $2,000 in taxes to fund the war efforts) and yet the Bush administration claimed the war would cost less than a billion dollars ($250 billion so far and counting). How can an idiot like me know that we’d be stuck in that country for years and years with no end in sight and that we’d be facing constant threats of the collapse of that country as the sunnis shiites and kurds constantly threatened to destroy each other and yet Donald “Duck” Rumsfeld said we’d be out in under a year after having been welcomed with open arms. How can someone as ignorant of military tactics as me know more than these guys about how you need overwhelming troop numbers in order to occupy and control a volatile country. We’re either dealing with an overwhelming level of ignorance and incompetence or there’s simply something else going on behind the scenes and if that’s true the color back there must be green. Who knows? Not sure if I want to believe that these guys mean well but are incredibly stupid or if they’re actually really smart and there motives are incredibly dubious. I did just see in the paper that Kellog and Brown the Haliburton subsidiary had promised 250 million in services which were never supplied but that the government said it was okay since they’ve more or less (the less being the 250 million) done what they were contracted to do and you certainly can’t break a contract. Was Chaney involved in the decision to pay an incompetent company a huge sum of tax payer money for botching the job they were hired to do? Once again is it just incompetence or nefarious plotting. We’ll probably never know as the NSA has been reclassifying documents at a furious pace in an attempt to hide any criticism of what our government does. I just can’t believe the way when Bush actually says stuff to the public with meaning that it’s as if it’s something we’ve never heard before. Like we’re beholden to foreign oil. No shit? Didn’t Carter mention that in 1978? John Stewart had a great line in reference to Chaney shooting a guy in the face and being so powerful that the guy apologized to him, “It’s not so much you couldn’t make this stuff up, rather that you wish you had to.”

On the road again...

2006-02-24T23:10:00.000-08:00

Back on the Road…
It’s been a long time (for us) but we’re back on the road playing shows for a select few people out there. We’ve taken a couple months off after the last tour to gather our lives and our sanity. Tony’s been down in New Orleans fixing up his place and helping our friends out. In one now infamous instance he cleaned up our friend’s Valerie and Joe’s yard without even telling them. Valerie brings it up every time I see her still with astonishment still ringing in her voice. We’ve been doing the North Carolina, South Carolina thing the past couple days. Last night we played a show with our friends The Greyhounds. It was great to see those guys. Andrew Trube is one of a kind. We’ve been practicing in New Orleans the last ten days or so writing some new songs. We’ve got three more close to done but unfortunately not quite ready for this weekend and next. That is unless we make judicious use of Monday and Tuesday which we have off. We were going to head from Huntsville, AL back down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras but since the next show is on Wednesday in Knoxville and the price of gas is about $454 dollars a gallon we might be better off just staying in the area for those couple days. Since we hate days off the plan is to rent a practice space for a couple days and possibly work up a few of those tunes to be tested out live. We can never quite tell where a song is at until we actually play it in front of some people (never too many with us). Otherwise we just have one more show on March 13 before SXSW where we were planning on playing all the new stuff. We had a good show last year there but the newer stuff (see singing and more rock) wasn’t ready and we were having equipment problems so we played, for us, a more conservative set. Sort of a shame. This year we’re gonna kick it new school. A lot has gone down in the world since we last blogged so there are pretty much endless things to talk about politically. The new supreme court is about to begin the process of dismantling roe vs. wade. A civil war is apparently breaking out in Iraq contrary to all that Bush had told us about how great things were going there. Ports in the two cities I live in are going to be controlled by a company owned by the UAE which is one of three governments in the entire world that recognized the Taliban and where two of the 9/11 highjackers came from and where some of the money to finance 9/11 went through. And finally, Dick Chaney shot an old man in the face and proved that he is so powerful that the victim apologized profusely to Chaney for all that he had put him through. Tony pointed out to me that everyone refers to the “Bush Regime.” I don’t think it was ever the Clinton regime it was just Clinton did or said whatever. It’s never just Bush it’s his regime (see the guy who shot the other guy in the face perhaps…).

Is it all luck?

2005-12-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

Is it all the luck of the draw? I think sometimes we don't appreciate how lucky we are. I was reading today about a man named Robert Clark Jr. who served twenty four years in prison for robery, rape, and kidnapping. DNA evidence just proved that the women who testified that a 5'7" black man raped her and that man was 6'1" Robert Clark was in fact wrong and her actual rapist went on to commit multiple acts of sodomy and child rape. Oh well. I was thinking about this from everybody's perspective and so often articles of this kind don't investigate the things I'm wondering. What does the victim feel. Is she aware that not only did she send an innocent man to jail for life but that this allowed the real perpatrator to stay free and do horrible things to many people? Can one ever imagine what Robert Clark went through the past twenty four years and what it feels like to have missed your life and one day the state says oops we got caught fucking up so you're free to go. The judge in his case actually admonished him in court for proclaiming his innocence. Is our system so fatally fucked. Why in life does one man have his life taken away from him while I have been lucky enough to play the tuba. Look around the world and there are so many ways in which life could be worse and different and why are we who we are and why can we live the lives we do while another person is who they are and lives their life. Is it all luck and chance? Is that all life is...

Always press record...

2005-11-20T11:18:00.000-08:00

We broke down yesterday on our way from flagstaff to Tucson. We didn't make it very far. Just half way to Phoenix. We're in the middle of the desert and we hear some band whining and grinding sounds from the engine and then smoke starts coming out the air vents. Turns out something has seized and a belt is just grinding itself up and we're smelling burning rubber. Fortunately we're right by an exit and we can pull over but as our luck would have it there is nothing in sight. We're pulled over in the middle of nowhere with nothing but cactus as far as the eye can see. We can barely get signal on the cell phone but we climb to the top of a small hill and are able to reach AAA. The tow truck driver that comes to pick us up is what one might refer to as a character. He throws us on his bed and we take off all four of us cramming in his cab and we plot a scheme whereby with both Mr. Pokey's AAA and mine we can get towed all the way to Tucson and make the show. Then we can try and get the van fixed the next day which is unfortunately a Sunday so we're screwed. Eventually we'll be saved by folks who are nice enough to lend us their van so we can play tonight in Phoenix as we're coming back to Tucson tomorrow to record for a few days but that's another story. We're basically with this tow truck guy named Bob for about four and a half hours and he does not stop talking for one moment the entire time. The more he gets comfortable the more he starts letting loose. Telling us off center jokes and going on about Bill Murray comedies and eventually really digging in and spewing all his conspiracy theories about Bush and about how Kennedy killed Marilyn Monroe, and about how he hauled choppers to Brad Pitt and had to threaten his personal manager and about how he had to break a guys leg when he was reposessing his hummer. At a certain point I realized I just couldn't even follow a word the guy was saying. Entertaining but completely exhausting. It was like his overwhelming and constantly ramping up energy was literally sucking the life out of us like a vampire. As the trip went on he got more and more chummy slapping me in the arm to make a point and swerving from side to side on the highway as he used both hands to make a point leaving the van to steer itself. Half way to Tucson we stopped so that we could call in the second tow to AAA and in the parking lot Mr. Pokey met his brother who lives nearby and took off with him. That was a bizarre parking lot where immediately one group of golf bag toting people wanted to pay Bob to fix their flat tire because they didn't want to get their hands dirty and another group of people wanted Bob to haul a stolen car back to Phoenix for them. By the time we arrived in Tucson we were starting to lose it and as we got within blocks of the club after Bob had been talking like a machine gun for almost five hours straight he turned to us and he said, "so what about you guys? What kind of music do you play? Do you get wasted after the shows?" Our exhausted answers didn't excite him and he told us we were boring. Bob dropped our van in the parking lot of Plush and we had to unload and sound check and play a show. Tony and I exchanged a look as if to say how exhausting the whole thing was and how could we possibly find the energy to play a show but we were unable to actually find the energy to voice the words. We've been touring for nearly three months and we're right at the end and we did not realize how exhausted and worn down we were until Bob and his stories of growing up in long island and going to the Nassau Colleseum to see the Wall and The Who and Led Zepplin and beating people up and hating rap and smashing his kids rap records just broke our backs and crushed our spirits. Now we're trying to suck it up and get ready for one more show tonight and then three days of recording and then the killer drive from Tucscon to New Orleans and a final show on Saturday at DBA. Can we make it? Stay tuned...

California

2005-11-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

That title is supposed to be pronounced with that Arnold articulation of every syllable and even what's between those syllables. We've had a great run here in California. We should probably get out here more than once every two or three years. Last night in LA was a blast although a little crazy sounding. The PA could barely deal with us and I'm guessing we were loud as fuck. Intimate though. The crowd was tons of fun. I know being from New York I'm supposed to dislike this city but I really like it out here. Everybody we meet is great. San Francisco was another great show. That city I could live in. We had a couple trips to El Faralito which is just about my favorite burrito in the world and That1Guy took us to get pastrami which for not being in New York was actually pretty good. Props to Kate and Jamie for being such wonderful hosts and putting us up in what is just about my favorite abode in the world. You can't beat a view like that. Santa Cruz was surprisingly good as well, as was Nevada City which is actually in California. Everybody at those shows was cutting some serious rug which really helps us play well. Our show in Tahoe was technically not in California. We were actually a few feet into Nevada which allowed for the smoking and gambling. Technically that was our first casino gig. I suppose someday, years from now, we'll be washed up and doing the entire casino circuit but for now it was pretty novel. Not that those washed up acts don't rake it in compared to beat up old van driving us. I actually gambled a tiny bit. I wanted to bet ten bucks on the roulette table but only had a twenty so I cashed it all in and placed a ten dollar bet on black and promptly lost. Then I walked over to the Blackjack table and played two five dollar hands and won my money back. Back to the roulette table and another ten dollar bet on black which I lost again. Then back to blackjack where two hands later I was again back to even. Over to the roulette table and a third and final bet on black which I actually won. Ten dollars up and it is all over. There will be no rematch...

How do they get away with it...

2005-11-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

How the hell do they get away with it? It was election time in San Francisco while we were there. That's a city I really love, and frontAnd if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." Only the right in America could possibly get away with this kind of statement. If someone who leaned left said this they would be destroyed. This was in response to what was not a big ballot deal. They voted to limit military recruiting tactics. Big fucking deal. In the same issue of the san Francisco Chronicle there was a thing about Pat Robertson and how he was basically calling for the destruction of Dover Pennsylvania for voting out school board members who favored intelligent design. "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city. God is tolerant and loving but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can ehlp them." What kind of God is he talking about. A petty pathetic vindictive jackass who needs his ass kissed constantly? What is up with these guys. These are not obscure fringe people. These are prominent people of extreme power in this country. It definitely makes you wonder. A lot of this stuff is sold innocently. Don't you believe that there's more to life than science can explain. All we want is to include that in what the school teaches. The subtext is of course believe in Jesus or go to hell and that's what we're going to teach in the schools because this is a christian country and to hell with anyone who believes otherwise. Let me tell ya, it wears ya down...

What's Seven Feet

2005-11-10T18:14:00.000-08:00

The latest news is that the army corps of engineers claimed that they sunk the anchors to the levy down seventeen feet into the ground. Turns out that they did not quite do things as they said. Apparently the anchors were only ten feet deep. What's seven feet when 400,000 people's lives are at stake...

NoLa

2005-10-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

What was once a city that felt like it was in a third world country has now truly become that which it once only resembled. Driving into New Orleans on the working side of the twin bridge through Slidell was a chilling experience. Stretches of trees pounded flat, smashed windows, crushed homes, abandoned dirt covered cars, and refuse and garbage everywhere. I decided to check out the old neighborhood. Saint Claude was a lesson in irony. Next to a home or business that survived unscathed would be a torn down foundation of scrap metal. I could make it all the way to Poland on Saint Claude because the National Guard was still keeping people from heading into the lower 9th ward and had blocked off Poland at the bridge. I cut through some side streets and decided to spin by Goat’s house. Flooding fucked him over pretty badly. We won’t be recording any more albums over there for quite a while. Unbelievably my soft tuba case survived the floods in his garage unscathed. In front of every house and on the islands which divide many of the streets in New Orleans are an endless line of refrigerators in a wide variety of condition. Most of them should never be opened again. Tony wrote on his beautiful new refrigerator “farewell my friend.” His house did pretty well all things considered. Next door Henry’s place was a complete mess. The flooding did him in. Tony and I headed over to DBA. On the way we saw the warehouse which had caught fire and hundreds of these gas canisters had fired off like rockets. The place was a bombed out mess. Got to DBA and Frenchman and the quarter seem like they’re in good shape. Another world. I headed over to Ani’s place and it’s beautiful. Only time I was there before me and Chris Lane had just dropped off the last of her stuff from the truckfarm. That was good timing because the truckfarm was pretty well devastated. I grab a bite to eat at Angeli. The few places that are open serving food are packed. The show later goes real well. It feels good to play. I haven’t seen my tuba in ten days and I’m a little out of shape and I am exhausted after having just driven twenty three hours but it feels great to be doing our tiny little part towards turning life in the direction of where it once was. It’s great to see Tom and Chappy and Henry and everyone else alive and doing well. In a strange way it’s almost peaceful down there right now. Perhaps the strangest part of everything that I have trouble getting over is that come 2am everything closes down. The national guard comes through and shuts all the businesses down and there are checkpoints everywhere. Two in the morning? Is this really New Orleans?

supreme court...

2005-10-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

I don’t quite know what to make of this Harriet Miers thing. Seems to me that she might have, for me, been the best possible judge that Bush is gonna nominate. I do remember a lot of Democrats objecting to her and they’re suddenly sounding like they supported her and it was just the so called radical right that has taken her down. I’m not sure exactly what the radical right is but it does seem like the religious conservatives in the Republican party got what they wanted which was an end to the nomination of a judge who was not clearly one of their boys (or girls). Seems to me the Bush team flubbed this one from every direction which might have been because they’ve been a little distracted. Not by a war which is a mess but by some pesky partisan indictments. Bush himself did all he could to make Miers seem like an intellectual lightweight. His comments about how she could be trusted to vote his way made her out to be a patsy which she might in fact be. Unfortunately a patsy might be the best alternative to the hard core conservative I am afraid he might now need to nominate. Should be interesting. I am still thinking that there will be a backlash at some point. That by giving in to the far right and by paving the way towards banning abortion which I think most of the country thinks should be legal the republicans may be sinking their ship. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe either people are not as I see them or even worse maybe they just can’t be bothered to do anything about what few convictions they think they might have. In any case, it’s gonna be interesting.

stereotypes

2005-10-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

The long drive down to New Orleans I’m listening to a lot of radio. Seems one big story on the sports channels is that a coach said he needed to have a faster team to compete so he was going to have to draft more black players. All the commentators said that it was a shame he brought up such a racially charged issue but the unspoken thing is that it’s kind of true. I started thinking about how so often people just don’t think things through and how they just don’t challenge a statement from enough directions and how they’re arguments just don’t seem to consider issues from enough directions and in enough ways. I guess the espn guy, Dan Patrick, was saying that frankly the fastest athletes are black. Look at sprinters and wide receivers and such and look at basketball where the best athletes are black. I see the point but when you start talking about genetic predispostion I think things can get pretty sticky. I had just read this article in New York magazine which was talking about how these two geneticists had proven that Jews are smarter than everyone else. I guess I’m just a person who thinks circumstance trumps genes and that people are more alike than we like to believe. It seems to me that when education and intellectual pursuits are a priority than people generally get smart no matter where they’re from or what race they are. In America it’s possible to look at athletes and make assumptions but you know there’s a whole lot of fast people from other countries too. Besides, so in this country we find that sprinters are more often black and long distance runners are white. Does that mean that there’s a genetic predisposition? Not a lot of African sprinters are there? I think we’re finding that some of those white guys can play basketball as the U.S. national team hasn’t done so well lately. White guys can’t jump? So why are volleyball players mostly white and there’s been plenty of white high jumpers? In addition, DNA testing has been showing people that race is not as simple and straightforward as we believe it to be. It seems that many people who thought they were pure european white are finding significant amounts of other races in their DNA including black african. Similarly many blacks in America are just over fifty percent black with significant traces of european for obvious and depressing reasons. Many people tested have discovered that they have traces of races they never knew about and can't easilly explain. Genetic testing has proven that race is not nearly as clear cut than we make it out to be which leads me to believe that racial stereotypes are not as clear cut as many of us want them to be. All I’m saying is that all too often we just don’t follow through on arguments and properly question premises that we believe to be true. Just because there’ve been some really smart Jews out there doesn’t make us genetically smarter than anyone else. Last time I checked there a whole lot of other people out there who are pretty smart as well. Besides, many of the Jews people lionize are only part Jewish. Which part of them exactly makes them smarter? Think bigger and try to see the whole picture or as much of that picture as you can get your mind around and never settle for the easy argument. It's not only usually too simple but often wrong as well.

What the hell is going on here...

2005-10-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how much shit is going down in the world these days. It seems like man made disasters and natural disasters are just flying off the charts. Tsunamis hurricanes and now earthquakes. The Pakistani earthquake is just insane. Over two million people homeless and tens of thousands dead. I tell you if I was a bible toting christ believing born again psycho I might be thinking armagaedon is upon us all. Fortunately I am not eagerly awaiting the destruction of the world. That's really a bad way to go about your day. I really don't think you get what you should out of this life on earth if that is pervading ethos. In any case seems like there have just been a string of disasters which need reacting to by the world community. I think sometimes shit happens halfway across the world and it is hard to really sympathize but when it hits home it brings reality to these kind of situations. The Tsunami was horrible but hurricane Katrina was completely real and inescapable to me. Having lived through that it brings the shit you read into new light. A city destoyed and people dead and homeless isn't just some far off pakistani problem but rather it is my friends and the place where we live and work. I think it's a lot easier on us all when we are able to ignore these kinds of things and go on with our daily existences as if nothing has happened... Life's a bitch ain't it.

Tennessee

2005-10-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

Driving across Tennessee, fields of cotton as far as the eye can see.

Kingston, Ontario

2005-09-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Brian: Kingston Ontario is a strange city for us. The last time we woke up there was September 11th, 2001. This time it was just a week or so after the destruction of New Orleans. We have fun playing there but I am thinking maybe we shouldn't book another show. Two major disasters is probably enough...

The Shame

2005-09-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

I'm not really ready to write about it but suffice it to say that the horribly inadequate reaction of our government to the crisis of this storm is embarrassing. Either it's a matter of racism, class, or astounding incompetence. The stories flooding in from NOLA are both terrible and unbelievable. I've lived in the last few years two of the greatest tragedies in the history of this country (I have been splitting my living time between the cities of New York and New Orleans) and I must say that the reactions of the government to the two different tragedies have been quite polar. In fact one could argue that Katrina was a far more devastating catastrophe than 9/11 and the pathetic job of the government in dealing with the aftermath might just have something to do that the victims of Katrina are mostly extremely poor black people. Everyone should listen to Mayor Ray Nagin's interview from Friday morning. I have never heard a politician give as blunt and powerful a talk in my life. It's great when someone can put into words what you've been trying to say but couldn't. I don't know who is at fault but the treatment of people in New Orleans has been shameful both in the media and politically and physically and socially. Take the poorest of the poor and take what little they have away from them and do little to nothing to help them and see what happens. New Orleans will never be the same. Shame on Dennis Hastert for his offensive remarks. Shame on President Bush for joking around on his first visit to the area and not realizing or caring about the gravity of the situation until his political future was on the line. If any good comes of this I hope that it is the realization that our country may be the richest in the world but that the income divide is very large and that there are so many people here with little to nothing and with no hope of improving their lot in life. Did anyone notice that the census data came out a few days ago and that the gap is widening? Where is the compassion from our government. There are now 450,000 people without homes and jobs. Many of those people will never return to their lives. I cannot imagine that the people who lived in my neighborhood in New Orleans (the 9th ward) will ever be able to return. Destroyed homes and land are already being bought up. Where are these people going to go. Lafayette has doubled in size. People have lost their jobs and their homes and they are going to need help from the government yet our government is in the process of cutting medicare and social security and just about anything that helps people of little means. The end of the estate tax will cost this country 750 billion over the first decade. Is this the world we want to create. People from other countries cannot believe that America's response to this tragedy has been so woeful. Isn't this country the richest in the world? Aren't we supposed to be able to do whatever we want. The reality is a different story. One in five children in this country is born into poverty. Are we not ashamed?

Filling the Bowl

2005-08-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

Brian: Some day, say scientists, a big storm will come and sweep New Orleans under the sea. This fabled land of Jazz, Boos, and Fried food will become like the lost city of Atlantis. The problem is that the city is built on a swamp and it is sinking and it is currently below sea level. It's just a matter of time we are told. Every summer there comes a storm which we are warned is the big one, the doomsday storm. It's great for the news and sometimes people take the warnings seriously and sometimes they don't. Last summer it was Ivan and people took that one seriously because you do not fuck with a storm named Ivan. So when the call for evacuation was made public there was traffic on the highway out of the city that was blocked up for up to 12 hours which is not good when the highway stretches indefinitely over water and swamp. This year though the doomsday storm was named Katrina and so people were reluctant to take her seriously. How bad could a storm named Katrina be they might say. She sounds like such a nice women. But as the storm gets closer people are realizing that she might be quite the bitch in disguise. The naval ships have moved out of her path and people are starting to take off in droves so thus are the plans of Drums and Tuba altered. We were going to leave for Vermont on Tuesday and spend a couple of ten hour days driving with another reasonable day on the day of the show on Thursday, September 1st. But now we're thinking why chance it. If this is "the one" we'll feel pretty stupid if we don't leave before it hits especially considering we were leaving in the first place. So the day has been spent furiously getting ready to take off late tonight when we figure the chances of sitting in traffic hour after endless hour are slightly less than if we leave sometime Sunday after a city-wide evacuation is declared. It's a little sooner than expected but tonight the fall tour begins!

The Mystery of Mona Nickel

2005-08-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

Brian: American Airlines planes have an old worn out feel to them, as if they haven't been renovated or thoroughly cleaned since the 70's when they were really hip. Even the fabric of the seats and the color of the carpet are straight out of 1970. We walked onto the plane from New Orleans and my first sight was leftover food on the floor by the cockpit. The monitors seemed to be among the first ever invented and two of them showed the safety instructions in glitched technicolor confusion. Our stewardess from the Dallas to Reno leg was a woman whose nametag on her strange looking apron said Mona Nickel. She was a grand specimen of a women who had to walk slightly sideways in order to navigate the narrow confines of the isle. Her gate included a slight limp in one oversized side and my first impression was that she was completely overwhelmed. Either this was her first flight or she had been doing this job relentlessly over the years since this plane was brand new and spotless and the state of the art and the years had finally caught up to her and overwhelmed her to the point at which the thought of doing her job seemed both daunting and impossible. She was impoloring people to to bring their luggage to the front of the plane where there might be more overhead space (ignoring the fact that my trumpet was occupying a mostly empty overhead compartment all to itself). I don't know how I can say this any louder she implored at a barely audible whisper as sweat cascaded down her brow. It probably didn't help that the flight was completely full with scrabble players off to Reno for what I was later informed by a man waiting for his bags at the baggage claim who was either in charge of the tournament or pretending that he was in charge of the tournament was the biggest open tournament of the year. Ironically, last year at the same time the event was held in New Orleans but this man felt that it was too hot there so this year it was off to Reno. He claimed his checked baggage which was a large fan. Turns out he's unable to sleep without the proper white noise so he always travels with his own fan. A scrabbler without good sleep has little chance of bringing home the big prize. Mona eventually made it through the flight after bemoning, usually out loud, the incompitence and deliberate difficulty of most of the passengers navigating her massive bulk up and down the isles with a what did I do to deserve this life look on her face. After the festival as we were boarding the plane in Reno Tony and I ran into a man who had been on the flight there. He overheard us talking about an older women with a neckbrace who had lobbied for an isle seat by just sitting in one and it turned out that this gentleman was the one whose seat she had taken. We informed him that the plane had been full of Scrabblers and we started sending jokes back and forth at such a quick pace that Tony and Becky and I were starting to laugh and giggle uncontrollably. I joked about what I would do if Mona were a stewardess on this flight as well. Lo and behold, when we turned the corner there she was in all her massive isle clogging glory. A passenger was trying unsuccessfully to negotiate his way past her. Apparently there was a shortage of blankets and she was handling the unruliness of the passengers in her professional manner by muttering under her breath and seemingly snorting constantly. A huge muscle bound steroid ingesting man in front of Tony was clammering for a blanket and when Tony commandered the last blanket on the plane for Becky he looked like he was gonna tear somebody's head off. The big mystery was that as Mona passed me I noticed that she was wearing a jacket over her strange apron and the name tag on the jacket appeared to be different. She had this strange walk whereby her left arm was raised to cover the name tag so that she could navigate the seats lining the isle. She remineded me a little bit of Chester, the fry cook at the Stage diner by my apartment in New York. The Stage is a super narrow little New York type diner that only has room for counter seats. On the other side of the counter by what is a small cooking area is an older Ukranian man whose massive belly leaves no visible clearance between the counter and the stove. My friend Marcello refers to Chester as the Picasso of the Griddle as his bulk only serves as subterfuge for his incredible agility with a spatula. When the place is packed the women taking orders will call out orders at a furious pace and Chester will remember each and every one for as long as it takes for them to achieve their turn to be placed on the tiny griddle. There are no tickets and his memory never fails so I suppose that he resembles Mona only in his bulk and the degree to which he just barely fits within his confines and not in his overwhelming competence. Mona walked by a couple more times and I was able to peer past her strangely crooked arm and pick out the first name on her tag as Rachael. I was determined at this point that when next she passed my seat I would inquire as to her real identity but that fleeting glance was the last I would see of her. Some how she managed to make her rather large figure disappear and I suppose the mystery of her identity will persist until the next time we fly to the hallowed city of Reno.

We're Back!

2005-08-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Brian: We're back! We just played our first show in a while at the Squaw Valley Brews Jazz and Funk festival. Everything went quite well. I just got out of the jacuzzi overlooking the mountains and am writing this email from what is officially the most expensive room in which Drums and Tuba has ever stayed. Granted this is a pretty nice place but I'm pretty sure it's not $1500 a night nice. To each their own. I suppose if I was a hard core skier I might think differently but frankly little mountain resort villages aren't really my thing. Oh by the way we did manage to pull off a whole mountain of new material. We've been practicing in New Orleans, which I have dubbed the Big Sauna, for the past week or so honing a bunch of new material and trying to figure out how to pull off tunes from our new album. We're having better success than I projected and the goal is to head out on the fall tour with an almost entirely new set. We're hopping a midnight flight back to the Big Sauna tonight and we'll spend the next week or so practicing and getting ready for the tour. Needless to say, we are the kind of people that end up getting things done at the last possible moment. What kind of person are you?

Following Bonaroo

2005-06-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Brian: For the past few years strange people have been yelling "Bonaroo" at us. I guess we played there a few years ago but I was really sick and flew down and forgot a bunch of equipment and frankly can't really remember playing the show but I do remember not being able to get out of the pounding sun which felt like it was about ten feet above my head. Frankly it's become a little bit of a joke to us the way certain people will yell that word at us in varying degrees of local vernacular which I suppose is intended to illicit some kind of reaction from us which we have so far been unable to ascertain. "Yeah we played there" or "it is a funny word to say" or "you're so cool dude" Typical Drums and Tuba response... Jaded mockery. So this year we figured we'd confront our frustrations and tour the major Tennessee cities just as the biggest festival of the summer is going on nearby. Perfect Drums and Tuba logic. We got a chance to work on some of the new tunes we've been writing which was pretty useful. You just can't tell what works as a song until you actually play it live in front of an audience. After last night's show in Memphis (which was the best of the three we played although once again I'm not sure most of the people there had any idea what to think of us. Confusion is a state we foster in a lot of our audience. They think they might be enjoying themselves but they're just not sure) we decided to drive overnight and head back to New Orleans even though we'd been warned that the doppler radio and various weather men had said there's a hurricane and such. Happily I would like to report that it is beautiful and sunny out and the drive went by without a hitch.

The Mechanic

2005-04-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Brian: I forgot to mention in the last post that we originally went to this mechanic in Cleveland who said that said that there was a huge leak in our radiator and that we could not possibly make it to Kalamazoo without changing the radiator completely at a cost of about a thousand dollars. This was in response to our asking him to flush the thing. Needless to say there is no leak and the flush worked remarkably well at lowering the temperature of the engine. Classic.

Battles McBrackets

2005-04-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

Tony/Brian: Finally, we have joined mental forces with eacother and figured out a way to really burn the clock. The proverbial 5 hour to the next town clock, the imaginary 2hrs to soundcheck one and even the 4 minutes while the van is filling up w/gas clock... The last 3 days have been a blur of maniacal list making and elaborate bracket building where we pit forces against eachother.. in NCAA stlye bracket form.. I realize, of course that everyone and thier mom does this.. on VH1, whatever stupid magazine.com, etc etc.. though it has proved to be a fascinating lesson in who we are and how the world effects us and vice versa. Needless to say, after about 150 characters kicking eachothers asses.. the last 2 standing were Ricardo Montelban in the Wrath of Khan vs. Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider. We did another where the end resulted in a three way battles (note that we are using the plural always even when one single battle is indicated it's still a single battles. This derives from Goat's endless fascination with a single McGriddles always refered to in the plural as it contains two pancake-like buns. Disturbing but memorable nevertheless especially in light of the final three way Battles which occured) between Ronald McDonald Darth Vador and Abraham Lincoln. I should make note here that half the game really is about making the absurd lists which then in turn become the McBrackets according to some twisted logic of Tony's inner mind. We'll pick a topic such as in the previously mentioned Battles between Ronald McDonald, Darth Vador, and Abraham Lincoln the topic was actually costumes. We then procede to come up with endless lists of costumes and looks which we find compelling. Then the Battles commence. For most of the rounds we all vote according to our own criteria. One might argue how involved the look is while another might argue how compelling or culturally significant a character is. The key to these games is that the rules are rather limited and the whole thing involves lots of absurd arguing about absurd things. By the end we broke things down into catagories and argued endlessly over the cultural significance of Ronald McDonald in America over Abraham Lincoln. If you think about this clash of the titans it can get pretty deep. Capitalism versus idealism. Corruption vs. leadership. Clown face vs. top hat and amish beard. Fierce arguments ensued over who was more culturally significant, over which costume is more elaborate and individual. There's a fair amount going on with the clown suit but let's face it, at heart the dude's basically just a clown (a side note here is that soon after this intense battles I opened the New York Times and there was both an article about a new Abraham Lincoln museum and an article about Lille, France where we had just been and a Ronald McDonald was found stolen hanging from its neck from a bridge with a ball and chain weighing down it's ankle). After almost entire day of arguing it turned out that Darth Vador smoked both Ron and Abe. Another epic Battles I'd like to refer to was the one in the vehicles catagory which involved the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum bus versus the Millenium Falcon. This was of particular interest because we came to realize that they're basically the same vehicle. Each is commanded or run by a skilled pilot who is the only one capable of truly keeping it running (Dan and Han Solo). They're both jalopy's which are both crude and worn down but yet are badass. They both travel from city to city and bar to bar in search of adventures. Nils is basically Chewbaca. Carla is Princess Leah. Drummer and percussion (they've changed people) are basically C3PO and R2D2. They both kick ass. This was an extremely hard fought battles eventually ending in a tie because the more we thought about it the less we could differentiate between the two vehicles. The only problem with that Battles McBrackets was that eventually all the cool cars lost out to the spaceships because as Neal endlessly pointed out they "can fly man." Although I do have to mention that the broomstick (wicked which of the west's) did go pretty far as did the Titanic (the actual titanic not the one from the movie). The latest ongoing battles is a hair battles. Pretty subjective but that makes the arguments more entertaining. Whatever it takes to make the endless hours of driving go faster. Up next: The Battles McBrackets website...

The cost of being a band

2005-04-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

Brian: We just had our radiator flushed in the hope that it this will alleviate our overheating problems. We've been running hot on this trip and in anticipation of summer in New Orleans we're not sure the van will be able to take it in the long run. We're hoping that the radiator was just clogged up and not really getting coolant to the engine but who knows. The guy doing the work on the Great White Whale was really into the fact that we now have over three hundred thousand miles on our vehicle. He never sees that anymore. He was pretty into the fact that we were a band and he sort of degraded the outlook on his job but Neal pointed out that he probably makes a lot more money than we do which may explain why we still have our van after more than three hundred thousand miles. A hint, it's more than just nostalgia. This is of course all after having to change all of the tires last week to to a tire slashing rampage in Tony's neighborhood in New Orleans. Let me tell ya, it ain't easy makin' money in this business...

It's Nascar Country...

2005-04-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

Brian: The drive from Asheville was rather daunting to begin with. We figured about eight hours. Of course, when you're plotting drive times it's usually best case scenario. I'm figuring that with stops we'll average about sixty miles an hour. Unfortunately that is not taking into account that in Tennessee somewhere there's been some kind of Nascar event on Sunday and it's now monday afternoon and there's traffic stalled as far as the eye can see in Ohio due to an unending multitude of campers and RV's. Everybody seems to have taken their home with them to Tennessee and is now frantically trying to get back, I presume, to whatever work they're now missing in the state in which their home really resides. It's a strange world out there. On another note, we saw Sin City the other night and it was really badass and I highly reccomend everyone go out and see it.
Brian

Back in Business

2005-04-02T13:18:00.000-08:00

Brian: We're back in business. It's been a long time since the Drums and Tuba journal was operational. We're currently touring around and right now we're in Asheville, NC playing Stella Blue tonight. It's also been a long time since Goat was on tour with us but he's back and working on the beginning stages of the second issue of his tourzine. True geeks will note that the first one was published many years ago. He never did mention how often his circulation would be. We're all a little exhausted because we were unable to get a hotel in Charleston last night. In fact there was not a free room within an hour drive of that city and maybe further because eventually we just gave up and slept in the van at a gas station outside of Columbia. Apparently there is a walk over a bridge in Charleston and there were a hundred thousand people in the area. It's a strange world.