So, after coming back from Hawai’i with Exhumed and playing a one off with Impaled at the California Death Fest pre-fest show one day later, I had less than a week to make preparations; it was time for the slack-jawed hooded menaces to once again hit the road and for some good old fashioned monster-on-monster crime. This was to be immediately followed by another short Halloween run with Exhumed. FML.
Our first gig was at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. I’ve played here twice with Exhumed before, once with Revocation. The other time was my very first show with Exhumed in the 1990s where I happened to give myself a nasty little scar on my chest by cutting myself, purposefully, on stage, in a moment of extreme edge-lord-ness. Don’t let your babies grow up to be edge-lords.
I was excited to have Haggus on this tour. I saw them first at some punk rock craft faire in West Oakland and always thought they’d be a good match for the cannibal cemetery dwellers to play with. I think we did, once, but a tour is so much more. Also, Haggus appears to be blowing up. It’s mind-blowing, as I’ve been seeing mince core bands for the past 25+ years, but always ALWAYS in Europe. It’s never a sound I thought would translate to American audiences. But here we are and it rules.
The show in Petaluma was fun and the town was so quaint and delightful that it made me want to vomit. After the show it was time for an all-night drive to our sister city, Portland, Oregon. We were traveling again in a rented Cruise America RV. It was something we found to be cost effective, if not a tad disgusting after a few days of being filled with traveling musicians, on our run with Municipal Waste. The upside is no hotels. It’s also the downside; opportunities to shower are minimal.
Upon arriving in Portland after the all-nighter, we headed to our friend Dennis Dread’s spot, the Wyrd War Art Gallery. Dennis is a well known artist, with his ball point inks gracing Engorged and Dark Throne releases. He’s also been running a label putting out strange and hard-to-find musical releases. The theme for this month was horror memorabilia from a private collector and it did not disappoint. There was plenty of original theatrical run movie posters as well as wild promotional tchotchkes for VHS releases. You should definitely hit up the Wyrd War Gallery if you’re ever in Portland.
The Portland show went great and we got to see a lot of old friends like Ryan and Noah from Engorged as well as our old merch scrub, Mike, from our run in 2017. After a night’s rest we headed on towards Seattle where it very predictably drizzled on us as we loaded out our gear. We’d only had two shows but already our stage clothes stank up the entire back stage.
Our rented RV, though spacious inside, had a very light tow capability. Therefore, Haggus was in charge of hauling the shared cabinets in their Sprinter. This caused a problem when they ended up with an ETA that was after our soundcheck. Even we were two hours late for load-in, as it turned out. The thing is, no one had ever been assigned tour manager duties. I guess it had been so long since we bag headed mutants had toured that we’d forgotten that this was an important role. Sean was already busy collecting money and being responsible for merch and other logistics, so I volunteered. I immediately began calling to advance the clubs for load-in times and checking on all that other important stuff, like parking and my bottle of wine on the rider.
As for the lack of cabinets for soundcheck in Seattle, both Ben and Sean had recently traded out their tube amps for some Seymour Duncan Powerstages and I was traveling with an Ampeg Portaflex 350. These solid state amps are perfectly safe to fire up without cabinets plugged in. We were able to do a soundcheck plugged directly into the board using the speaker simulator options. The lack of sound from behind us from guitar cabinets was odd, but it worked for the front of house sound person. This must be what being in Meshuggah feels like. Pretty cool and futuristic for a group of dopey splatterthrashing maniaxe!
NGL, the show was rough. Down the street, Carcass was playing along with Hatebreed and Crypta on a very well promoted and, for us, ill-timed tour. Still, we persevered and it wasn’t like NOBODY showed up, it was just not as fun as it could have been.
From Seattle it was another all-night drive to Boise. At this point, only three of us had been to the Cruise America office to get officially licensed to drive, so it was rough going for Ben, Sean, and Dave during these long drives through the Northwest. I was fine though, enjoying my passenger princess status. We eventually found an open office and added more licensed drivers just in time for all the short drives.
We actually showed up on time for load in at Shredder’s, now that we had load in times, but alas, the club promoter did not. Good guy, Shredder’s just runs a little more punk rock than most clubs. The show was good and I got to hang out with my buddy Dustin, who shares a love of propagandistic military-industrial complex toys. He gifted me a couple which was sweet and made up for a lack of visit to toy stores so far on this run.
Our band of cannibalistic ne’er do wells had cancelled only two shows in our entire existence; both were in Salt Lake City. I was ecstatic to be coming back to Ace’s High Saloon, where I’ve played several great shows with Exhumed. It was time to bring this other project FINALLY to the people living under the rule of the Latter Day Saints theocracy. In an ironic twist, or maybe it’s coincidence, one of the shows we’d cancelled was in 2016 when we were on tour with Carcass. Now, Carcass was playing along with Hatebreed and Crypta across town the same night. So in a way, we finally played Salt Lake City WITH Carcass. At least that’s what I told Jeff and Bill when I took a taxi over to their show to say hello. I don’t know if they thought it was funny because Bill always maintains the same friendly smile while Jeff always maintains the same grumpy frown.
Even with the competition, the show at Ace’s High was great. The scene in SLC is so much cooler than it has been in decades. We also lucked out that the Hatebreed show let out so early and ours went late. There was a good amount of spill-over from the other show in the mosh-happy crowd. My favorite was the person who went into the pit with a fully inflatable squid costume. It’s that kind of revelry that makes me love playing metal. And I only had to break up one fight. At the end of the night, Holton from Deathblow was kind enough to let us park the RV in front of his place and get some showers.
From SLC to Sin City, our passage to Las Vegas was uneventful. We were playing Sinwave, a club whose name I’m still not sure how to pronounce. Sin-wave? Sine-wave? Either way, it was cool to be back at this very new venue so recently from the last Exhumed jaunt in June. Like Ace’s High, Sinwave is another “if you build it, they will come (to mosh)” scenario. Shows in Vegas for a band our size used to be so meh. This show at Sinwave was a god damned blast. There was even another hardcore show at some cafe across the street and we still played to a packed house.
The same was not going to be true for Santa Ana, our next stop. For some reason, we’d been booked into the BIG room at the Observatory. That’s insane. It’s a 1,200 cap room. We usually play the much smaller attached Constellation Room and do quite well there, but whatever. Maybe they knew something we didn’t? Turns out they didn’t. I don’t like to post Ls, but it was a loss. Not in any meaningful way, mind you, there was a LOT of people at the show and we sold a ton of merch! But by the measure of the venue and shifty-ass Livenation accounting, the show lost money. We didn’t, however, and that’s why it’s a called a “guarantee.”
The drives were getting shorter now which was a welcome relief. It was a short trip to Fresno, CA, a place I’m glad I don’t call home. It’s usually hot there and it’s got so much sprawl. But, we have very good friends there, like Duck King, who allowed us into his home before the show. He presented us with two very important things; a veritable feast of food and a really, really big TV for Sean and Ben to play video games on. We eventually made out way to Strummer’s, a very cool spot where we always have a good show. This night was no exception. The crowd was wild and covered in blood at the end of the night.
We bedded down at Duck’s for the night before heading to our final show, a matinee in the Atrium room at the Catalyst Club. The big headliner for the Catalyst Club was Suki Waterhouse on her “Sparklemuffin” tour. As we sound checked and played our show, a line of teenage girls in sparkle-gear suffered our cacophonous caterwauling while they waited for their event. You’re welcome for the free music.
The show happened, not bad, not good, but my family showed up and that was cool. And our tour with Haggus was done. They’re a great crew and I look forward to seeing them again.
But I wasn’t done, nor was Adam Houmam, our drummer, or Destiny, mistress of merch. Oh no. Directly after the show in Santa Cruz, Dr. Philthy and Baz from Exhumed picked us up to drive all night fucking BACK to Portland. Exhumed was opening for High on Fire the very next night! Adam was filling in for Mike Hamilton, who was out with Exodus as drum tech. It was a decision not lightly made, but we thought it prudent to be able to open for High on Fire. Conspicuously missing from this group was one Matt Harvey, erstwhile leader of Exhumed.
Matt had opted to skip out on the night drive to Portland and instead go see W.A.S.P. in San Luis Obispo. It turned out to be a rather dubious choice as he missed his flight in the morning and had to book another very expensive late flight to try and make our show. And then THAT flight was delayed.
I thought it was going to be Guadalajara again, the only show Matt ever missed with Exhumed. I covered that debacle here. To be honest, it was filling me with laughter. That is, until the night drew on and I became responsible for all the mundane but copious amounts of organizing for the band, like drink tickets, guests lists, hospitality, etc. Baz also stepped up, helping set up Matt’s shit in front of High on Fire’s while Murph, the HoF guitar tech and tour manager, played his guitar for our soundcheck.
The clock ticked on as the show started and still no Matt. Finally, about 15 minutes before the band before us ended, Matt showed up to the show. Phew! Also, IDIOT. Don’t EVER do that again. The show went well, however, with a sold out crowd and a good response. It was not that moshing mad response we were used to, but more of an aged, wisened, and very bearded response from High on Fire fans. They were appreciative of the gore metal we performed, even if their old bones and bad backs disavowed them from dancing much.
We stayed in Portland and had the next day off to make the long journey to the next show at the UC Theater in Berkeley. There was no accursed all-night drive, thank goodness. After bedding down in a motel, we made our way to the UC Theater for a very cool show in a VERY big theater. It was a good show. That’s about all I have to say, though, because I bounced early and FINALLY got some time with my girlfriend after being gone for awhile. We had the next day off before Santa Ana and I managed to squeeze in going to a cool Halloween party. Then I drove my own ass down to meet up with Exhumed for the final show of this trip.
It was Halloween night, so of COURSE Exhumed had to dress up. We’ve done scary rich yuppie costumes, played once as the Golden Girls, and for this night, I came up with the idea of playing as Exhumed musicians. Dead guys. Let’s see how many toes we could step on, eh, lads? So, I went as Lemmy Kilmister, Baz was Randy Rhoads, Matt was Kurt Cobain, and Adam was Eric Carr.
Amazingly, I had everything I needed for my costume. Apparently, I’m born to lose. Matt and Baz did admirable jobs with their costume purchases and Adam had the luck of me being good with make up. It was super fun night in Santa Ana and the show totally ripped. High on Fire was great and it was a treat to play with them. The mini-tour went well and from there we all headed home. Nuff said!
