2/23/90
Sorry I haven’t written in awhile! [editor’s note: who are you apologizing to??] Being in California was so exciting I couldn’t miss a minute of my precious time writing in a journal.
Let’s see. Delirious from 3 days nonstop in the van as we arrived in the Bay Area, we were immediately pulled over at 4:00 a.m. by some cops who just wanted to hassle us. They kept asking me if we played any of that Satanic heavy metal music! The van itself has been one nightmare after another. We decided we’d just ditch it in San Fran, which we ended up not doing (but probably should have).
We spent our first day there just wandering around The Mission and Castro, drinking latte after latte, checking out whatever shit was going on. (my brother) Jake’s neighborhood (16th & Market) is cool. We went to a super weird movie called Seconds at night at the Castro theater, Mike is still with us so I guess the love interest didn’t pan out after all. The next day Freda and I walked all the way to North Beach for lunch but couldn’t find anywhere cheap so we walked all the way (3 miles) back to The Mission to hit the Godhead burrito stand called La Cumbre. SO GOOD!
We met up with all the male employees of Mammoth (Jay, Steve, Ed Morgan) and tried to figure out what the FUCK to do with our failing van. Before the SF show we ate a big amazing dinner with a bunch of us (Mammoth folk out here for the Gavin Convention for radio overlords) at this place in Chinatown called Hunan, the best motherfucker of a restaurant maybe on earth? Family style, Jake, Mike, Mammoth, super fun. Show at the I-Beam was [illegible water damage but I remember it being cool]. We tried to get across town to the Bottom of the Hill in time to see Nirvana, but it was over when we got there. Got up at 9 after 3 crappy hours of sleep to drive to Los Angeles.
We ended up renting a U-Haul truck in case the van didn’t make it, so Freda and I followed Juliana and sang a made-up opera the whole way telling the story of our tour so far. It was part tragedy, part comedy, and 100% necessary since the radio didn’t work. We arrived at the Club Lingerie in Hollywood late, missed our check, and were generally treated like garbage.
Surprise – we met up with Henry Rollins, with whom Juliana has been corresponding for months. Great to learn he’s super nice since he’s one of my heroes of recent years. The first band on the bill featured Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper (welcome to L.A.!) and they hung out the whole night. I felt too stupid to meet them, though I wish I had because they might be my two favorite actors. Some of our buddies from Indiana who live out here were fuckin’ flipping out because The Pixies were also there at the show. Supposedly some record company people were there, but the only one we met was David Kahne from Columbia, who produced The Bangles. We were tired and stressed – partly because Rollins was the only one on the dance floor and he stood directly in front of Juliana, arms folded across his chest and looking intense – so basically we pretty much sucked.
Rollins loaded all our gear in about 30 seconds and we followed him back to his house in Venice Beach. Freda and I were in the van following Rollins’ car that also contained Juliana, so we continued our opera from earlier but this time we imagined the awkward conversation they were having. Maybe someday that will be a real opera and be performed at The Met in, like, 200 years. It’s possible, right? When we got to Rollins’ house we stayed up late drinking coffee and hearing his stories and listening to records and just sneaking glances at each other now and then like, “Can you believe this shit?” He’s a great host.
We met David Kahne the next day for an expensive Beverly Hills lunch (flowers in my salad) to talk about out upcoming sessions. Then we set out late for San Diego, got stuck in completely insane traffic, and again missed our soundcheck. This super weird guy who was into Robin Hood and shit interviewed us over a terrible Mexican dinner. Then we had to sit through this amazingly bad Molly Hatchet-sounding band that played for what felt like 6 hours. Finally, we played to about 8 super enthusiastic people and had one of our best shows.
We stayed with this very attractive young woman named Jennie who randomly made up her mind that she liked me (by the middle school definition) based on my musical work in these bands and hit up Mammoth for my address. She wrote me an invited me to stay. Did she expect my girlfriend and our weird friend to come along? Maybe that was a little bit of awkward, but she was cool and we had fun and she took us to a great breakfast place the next day.
That night we went back to Henry’s place for more wonder and amazement plus Joe Cole. Henry showed me some insanely cool shit like all his correspondence with Charles Manson, a collection of tapes Manson sent him from prison, and the original Public Enemy demo, a cassette with “Chuckie D” scrawled across the front in Sharpie. He played me some music I’d never heard before by Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor. He is super into free jazz, which is a nice surprise. He took us to Denny’s at one point and some punks approached the table to say how cool it was to see Henry Rollins in Denny’s, and he wasn’t at all nice to them. I guess it’s hard to be that recognizable all the time. But I could imagine being one of those punks and doing that and then being pretty much crushed by his reaction. Guess I was glad to be sitting at his table and hearing his amazing stories, rather than being the guy bothering him over his tuna melt. We had to haul ass outta there to get to our show in Long Beach opening for Marty Wilson-Piper from The Church, who draws quite a few folks to his shows.
The next couple nights we stayed in a super nice, super fancy hotel in Century City on the CBS Records dime. I saw Gary Coleman in the lobby wearing a big fedora trying not to be recognized, so I used the lessons I learned at Denny’s and didn’t tell him how much Diff’rent Strokes meant to me as a kid. During the day we recorded a few songs with David Kahne, listened to them on our boombox, and decided they suck and hope nobody ever hears them.
It took us 3 days of driving to get to where we are now, in East Texas. We were in Dallas last night. My dad got me a late Christmas present of a ’68 Les Paul Custom I bought in LA, played it a couple times and it’s just so so beautiful. Thank you dad (he felt if I was gonna be a pro musician then I should have good gear, so that, my friends, is a good dad for ya). We are heading to Memphis and I promise I’ll keep up with this from now on.
2/25/90
Sitting in a depressing little laundromat in Memphis, thinking how cool we are not to be going to Graceland. It smells like years of unwashed human bodies festering away in here. It’s a day off so I slept in ’til 2:30 in the afternoon. We played a big theater called Omni New Daisy last night to 900 people opening up for Camper Van Beethoven – we went over well and a ton of high school age kids wanted to meet us and have us sign their T Shirts etc. Freda and I found a so-so Cajun place a this very tourist-oriented joint on the river. Nice to be back in the South…having played here so many times recently it feels a little like home. I was pushing to drive to Nashville today to meet Freda’s relatives and see our friends Anastasia Screamed, but Freda was strongly opposed to that and just wanted to do laundry and run like 22 miles. So here we are.
2/28 – Freda learning to play guitar
My writing has been inconsistent not because I’m burned out, but rather because I have been having a great time playing my new guitar and reading The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. We’re in Southern Georgia now, a very green and beautiful part of the world. In an hour we’ll be in Tallahassee FL. Somebody remind me, did Billie Joe jump off the Tallahassee Bridge, or was that somewhere else? [editor’s note: yes I know] That song had me very perplexed in the 70s when it was a hit. I read an article in Rolling Stone about how hip and cool 70s schlock pop hits are today, so I guess we can say goodbye to that fun time.
I’m starting to like the absence of any real human interaction besides bandmates. Typical conversations go like this: “That was a good show.” “Thanks!” “Where are y’all from?” “Boston” “Austin?” “No Boston, with a B” “What year’s that Les Paul?” “68” “Cool!” “Yeah thanks bye!” X1,000. If we have the good fortune to become a more popular band, I predict those sorts of conversations will become even more frequent and even more awkward. But I am genuinely very grateful if anyone is interested in what we’re up to, and I intend to remain that way.
We’re almost in Florida now. This guy named Rob got us a very elegant suite in this fancy hotel in Chattanooga, which I enjoyed very much. Chick and Charlie from Anastasia Screamed came down from Nashville to our show and hung out afterwards, which was great. Always nice to see those fine fellas.
John P. Strohm 
As ever–this stuff is utterly absorbing, & entertaining as all get-out. Glad yer sharing.