The Poison Control Center

NOVEMBER 8 – DRESSING ROOM, PHOENIX, AZ [SHOW #119]

Day 152.  35,365 miles.  [JT]  Couldn’t find a place to play in El Paso nor Las Cruces on our day off.  We stopped in El Paso first, and found a cool-looking venue downtown called The Percolator but it was closed.  We drove towards the university (UTEP) to see what was shaking ever there.  We stopped at a hoppin’ coffee shop and asked one of the workers there if he knew of any places.  And just our luck, the guy plays in a band whose bass player does the booking for The Percolator.  He gave us his info and a few other suggestions of places in town to play.  We went a few blocks to a nearby venue that was having a show that night.  We talked to the bartender inside about the possibility of hopping onto the bill, but when we talked to the booker on the phone he passed on us.  A couple other options were also dead ends so we stopped at the first authentic Mexican restaurant we saw for dinner and then continued on to Las Cruces.

Las Cruces was also a dead end, as it was getting late in the evening, and we were pretty much resigned to drive late to Tucson, where our friend Malarky had invited us to stay after we could not nail down a show there either.  It was after 1:30am when we rolled into downtown and met up with Malarky at the Club Congress Hotel, a well-known and beautiful venue in Tucson.  Malarky greeted us in the lobby with his face painted as a red skull.  There were other ghoulish-looking people in the place, as the city’s annual All Souls Procession that had taken place that weekend was winding down.  We crashed at Malarky’s place that night and spent the next day exploring the coffee shops and restaurants along 4^th Avenue before leaving for Phoenix.

We first stopped in Mesa to visit Devin’s grandparents at their winter home.  They had just come down days before from Illinois, where they still farm.  We got to see their place and have a dinner with them which was very nice.  Then we headed into Phoenix for that evening’s show at The Dressing Room.  A very small place, but it had a cool atmosphere.  It was a concrete room that was lit with Christmas lights and some paper lamps strung across the ceiling.  We played a rather unique set this night, as the vocal mics would instantly cut out every time we attempted to sing during the first three songs of our set.  Rather than wait until the problem was resolved, Patrick and Devin ran out to the van, grabbed the acoustic guitars, and we finished with a mic-less acoustic set, with Joe on bass and Dave playing drums with his hands.  The turnout was small, but everyone there was very nice and we had many great conversations.  We talked at length about the size of Phoenix’s downtown in comparison to its population, and the history of the city and its cultural scene.  We talked about music that we love, music that we hate, and music that we make.

The jam in the van:  The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs / Radiohead The Bends / Ryan Anderson The Garden Path / Radiohead In Rainbows / Beachwood Sparks Beachwood Sparks / Love Forever Changes / Air Premieres Symptomes

The book we took:  Steven Pinker The Language Instinct

The word we heard:  “What if our whole world was Sinbads?” –Jeremy

The pet we met:  Chewy Chim Chin

The pads were rad:  Malarky / Bob & Dorothy Gustafson

Sound Tech we respect:  Wally

The fill of the bill:  Sweetbleeders / Former Friends of Young Americans

Joe: do we get TV reception in the van? I gotta watch Conan!