Toast 2007: Our first tour
Thursday morning, we left Austin at 11 am en route to Marfa, Texas in the loaded 15-passenger rental van. On the way, the road changed from the hills of hill country to plateaus as we entered I-10. The plateaus eventually turned to mountains as we drove west. These were short mountains interspersed with flat pains. There was a fair amount of green bushes and at one point, there was a torrential downpour.
The trip was a barrage of CDs I’d picked up at Waterloo records the day before. It included the newest Karl Denson cd, released at the same day as the Toast Live in Austin cd/dvd we’d gotten two days before the tour. Next up was the Greyboy Allstars, also released in 2007. After all this funk groove, we whipped out the 2007 Antibalas album, followed up with the mandatory Sheik Yer Booty by Frank Zappa.
As we made a left off of I-10 and headed to Marfa, the low fuel light came on. Of course, we were in the old “you never want to be in West Texas with low fuel” situation. It was the usual stressor. Fortunately, the fuel light was generous and we made it to fill up in Alpine. Later I learned that we could have gotten a deal in Marfa since we knew peeps, but at that point, who knew?
We arrived in Marfa to meet our host, Jenni, from the Tillie Arts of Marfa. She booked us on this glorious Thursday for a gig to kick off the weekend that culminated in Sonic Youth playing for the Chianti Arts Festival on Saturday. She was an excitable girl that exceeded expectations as far as hotness. She introduced us to the folks checking out the art at her place promoting us as a very danceable band. As the guys ogled Jenni, I tuned it into motivation to exceed her expectations. We listened to a little Particle before the set. A band from Denton opened for us with some good vibrations and sweet grooves.
The trip was a barrage of CDs I’d picked up at Waterloo records the day before. It included the newest Karl Denson cd, released at the same day as the Toast Live in Austin cd/dvd we’d gotten two days before the tour. Next up was the Greyboy Allstars, also released in 2007. After all this funk groove, we whipped out the 2007 Antibalas album, followed up with the mandatory Sheik Yer Booty by Frank Zappa.
As we made a left off of I-10 and headed to Marfa, the low fuel light came on. Of course, we were in the old “you never want to be in West Texas with low fuel” situation. It was the usual stressor. Fortunately, the fuel light was generous and we made it to fill up in Alpine. Later I learned that we could have gotten a deal in Marfa since we knew peeps, but at that point, who knew?
We arrived in Marfa to meet our host, Jenni, from the Tillie Arts of Marfa. She booked us on this glorious Thursday for a gig to kick off the weekend that culminated in Sonic Youth playing for the Chianti Arts Festival on Saturday. She was an excitable girl that exceeded expectations as far as hotness. She introduced us to the folks checking out the art at her place promoting us as a very danceable band. As the guys ogled Jenni, I tuned it into motivation to exceed her expectations. We listened to a little Particle before the set. A band from Denton opened for us with some good vibrations and sweet grooves.
We hit the stage with both of my Leslies and James running through two guitar amps. We rocked out some new tunes and focused on getting people to shake their asses. It worked out great for everyone involved. Jenni rocked it out with her fellow Marfians and we were treated to some ass-shaking. My keyboards bounced up and down and I was reminded of my need to upgrade my stand.
The Five-O rolled in as 11:30 came. We rocked on and then we got the request to lower our volume by 50%. Over time, we were able to get it down, and we grooved to some danceable minor chords in this Addiction tune we’ve been jamming. We also did some other standards using the pianissimo. Eventually, the fuzz split and the show continued.
As the volume slowly increased to forte, we knew our time had come and Frankenstein was pulled out. Of course, the fuzz made their final appearance, and we knew it was the end (right after we jammed out a little Pickin Up the Pieces). We heard about an after-party, but as we drove south past the border patrol station, we realized it probably wasn’t the best idea for us to go hoppin to some latenight party. So, we rolled back to the El Pisano hotel. It was a great choice. Our room had two bathrooms and the place had a vintage atmosphere. Though, when we rolled in at 2am, the streets were eeirily quiet. It was as if the Marfa lights were the least of our worries. Frankenstein walking out behind the alley seemed more in the realm of possibility.
On Friday morning, we ate at the Pizza Foundation where we met Tod from Houston. The pizza took about an hour, but it was worth the wait. As I asked about the za 45 minutes into it, the dude running the oven was hustling and said “We’ll get to it when we get to it” in true New Yorker style. I don’t know if Marfa is usually this crazy, but I suspected we were witnessing the beginning of it. The characters came out to the streets. The cutest was this very old woman riding in a golf cart with a fat smile on her face showing her beautiful dentures, and her dog primly sitting in the seat next to her.
We checked out Tod’s paintings and discussed the life of art and leisure in Marfa. There is definitely old money in Marfa. There is also the type of person that wishes to become a minimalist, so they quit their job, paint some canvases, and head out there to peacefully co-exist. Nonetheless, the tour must go on, so we headed west and passed “The Prada Store,” a highway advertisement that included some actual shoes in the middle of nowhere. According to Brown, he knew someone that supplied the Prada shoes that were “for sale” and they were stolen (likely because they were in the middle of the desert near Mexico). As we continued west, the mountains got bigger and bigger, and so did the plains.
We got to Zeppelin’s Pub at 8 and set up for a 2-set show 10:30 to 2. We laid out a big setlist which was originally intended for Marfa, with some modifications. As we played, there were changes and overrules, but we played a bunch of hometown old Toast shows early in the night to work the crowd up. I picked up when people recognized the old songs, but I knew they loved the new ones as well. The show was a great time and people were engaged. We took a set break and got into the second set with some more danceable songs.
After the show, I met a chick that has a Selmer Mark VI tenor sax, and she seemed inspired so she asked me for some tips. Since I am notorious for doing this to the likes of other sax players like Skerik, I happily recommended her first step to play a chromatic scale end-to-end up and down on the horn, followed up by some overtone exercises. The karma came right back to me at the after party. Earlier, I met a guy that would sometimes front Toast, Kosper Callan. After some arm-twisting, I was able to persuade him to let me call him up to sing the last tune. At the afterparty, Kosper gave me some tips. We discussed the stage presence factor. On the van ride home, we started planning theatrics for future shows.
Going on tour in the entertainment industry for the first time was a great experience. I definitely wouldn’t call it a vacation, but sometimes it felt like one. After the dinner in Marfa at Mando’s on Thursday, I had to really get a good meal, so we spent to Mesa St Grille in El Paso on Saturday. At the end of the Friday night (5:30 am), John and I split the party that had originated long before the Toast show and a couple hours beyond. Needing some solid sleep, we hit up a hotel room at the Best Western. We specified late checkout, but the housekeeping was at the door at the crack of 11 knocking. I told her to split and she called me on the phone and asked if I needed another night. I told her about the late checkout and she looked at the paper and confirmed. By then, her mission to eject us was accomplished. We were going to lunch at the Greenery. As brown saw me put on my t-shirt of Adolf Hitler blowing his head out with a revolver with the phrase “Follow your leader,” he connected it and told me it was run by a Jewish guy. According to Brown, the owner charges the waiters $1 a shift for soda. As we ate, the waiter commended me and said he once had the Hitler shirt.
The vacation part of the trip continued as John and I hiked up a mountain. I did it in sandals, and Brown did it with designer flip-flops. It was my first time anywhere near the Rocky Mountains (excluding flights over). We picked up Enzo and James and headed farther west to Las Cruces, where the mountains got even taller.
We arrived and got to our scheduled radio slot on KRUX, New Mexico State University college radio. We played the entire live album and did some on-air hijinks, including Enzo pretending to be the guy that reads the movie preview promos. We promoted for the show and tested the limits of the FCC in the process.
We got dinner at a legit Mexican place called Andele’s. I breached my vegetarian policy and grabbed some pork tacos. We chilled out at Brown’s mom’s house (convenient) and headed to the Rainforest to do a show with the Space Truckers and Wormhole.
We were scheduled to open, but James felt that headlining would be best so Wormhole graciously hooked us up. The only issue was we had a couple people drop because it was too late. Also, they have these really weird laws in New Mexico about alcohol. First off, as of October 1 2007, they no longer allow people with vertical ID’s printed when they were under 21, even if they are now over 21. Also, we were not allowed to drink alcohol on stage. James was trying to cope with that and Brown did an imaginary toast with no glass, reiterating the police state legislative ridiculousness.
The Las Cruces show was definitely one of those ones that, at times, felt like work. Having 3 bands, there are logistics around timing that include a set-up-and-play mentality to minimize downtime and give each band an opportunity to fit in the window. However, the guys in these Las Cruces bands were among the best I’ve ever experienced in terms of on-timeness. Also, I liked the special touch because we were on tour and the guys in Wormhole announced us as being San Antonio. Kinda like playing in Las Cruces and thinking you are in El Paso, only in reverse cuz the band is the only ones in on the joke this time. It was probably best that we went last because then we didn’t have to worry as much about playing over.
The set went pretty well. Wormhole and Space Truckers were both very hard rock bands with cranked distortion guitars and yelling lyrics. Then, Toast hit the stage and the crowd was like “what’s this?” Through the course of the show, we won their hearts and the applause got louder and louder until we were playing multiple encores. At the end of the night, Enzo said one of the guys told him that he hated jam bands but listening to Toast made him think he might like them. The people were really awestruck by the Leslie cabinet and the melodica. But, actually, most people are at all of our shows…
Over the course of the weekend, we were able to pay for the tour (van, gas, hotel) through shows and merchandise. We sold lots of merch (mostly to family). Also, all the shows paid. We had about 40 people at the free show in Marfa. The El Paso show was five bucks and had about 60 people, and the Las Cruces show had about 50 people checking out the 3 bands for $3. The Vibes were pretty cool at all 3, but each one totally different. I crashed on a random futon around 5 am Sunday morning and we headed back to the long drive east through Texas back to Austin around noon.
The Five-O rolled in as 11:30 came. We rocked on and then we got the request to lower our volume by 50%. Over time, we were able to get it down, and we grooved to some danceable minor chords in this Addiction tune we’ve been jamming. We also did some other standards using the pianissimo. Eventually, the fuzz split and the show continued.
As the volume slowly increased to forte, we knew our time had come and Frankenstein was pulled out. Of course, the fuzz made their final appearance, and we knew it was the end (right after we jammed out a little Pickin Up the Pieces). We heard about an after-party, but as we drove south past the border patrol station, we realized it probably wasn’t the best idea for us to go hoppin to some latenight party. So, we rolled back to the El Pisano hotel. It was a great choice. Our room had two bathrooms and the place had a vintage atmosphere. Though, when we rolled in at 2am, the streets were eeirily quiet. It was as if the Marfa lights were the least of our worries. Frankenstein walking out behind the alley seemed more in the realm of possibility.
On Friday morning, we ate at the Pizza Foundation where we met Tod from Houston. The pizza took about an hour, but it was worth the wait. As I asked about the za 45 minutes into it, the dude running the oven was hustling and said “We’ll get to it when we get to it” in true New Yorker style. I don’t know if Marfa is usually this crazy, but I suspected we were witnessing the beginning of it. The characters came out to the streets. The cutest was this very old woman riding in a golf cart with a fat smile on her face showing her beautiful dentures, and her dog primly sitting in the seat next to her.
We checked out Tod’s paintings and discussed the life of art and leisure in Marfa. There is definitely old money in Marfa. There is also the type of person that wishes to become a minimalist, so they quit their job, paint some canvases, and head out there to peacefully co-exist. Nonetheless, the tour must go on, so we headed west and passed “The Prada Store,” a highway advertisement that included some actual shoes in the middle of nowhere. According to Brown, he knew someone that supplied the Prada shoes that were “for sale” and they were stolen (likely because they were in the middle of the desert near Mexico). As we continued west, the mountains got bigger and bigger, and so did the plains.
We got to Zeppelin’s Pub at 8 and set up for a 2-set show 10:30 to 2. We laid out a big setlist which was originally intended for Marfa, with some modifications. As we played, there were changes and overrules, but we played a bunch of hometown old Toast shows early in the night to work the crowd up. I picked up when people recognized the old songs, but I knew they loved the new ones as well. The show was a great time and people were engaged. We took a set break and got into the second set with some more danceable songs.
After the show, I met a chick that has a Selmer Mark VI tenor sax, and she seemed inspired so she asked me for some tips. Since I am notorious for doing this to the likes of other sax players like Skerik, I happily recommended her first step to play a chromatic scale end-to-end up and down on the horn, followed up by some overtone exercises. The karma came right back to me at the after party. Earlier, I met a guy that would sometimes front Toast, Kosper Callan. After some arm-twisting, I was able to persuade him to let me call him up to sing the last tune. At the afterparty, Kosper gave me some tips. We discussed the stage presence factor. On the van ride home, we started planning theatrics for future shows.
Going on tour in the entertainment industry for the first time was a great experience. I definitely wouldn’t call it a vacation, but sometimes it felt like one. After the dinner in Marfa at Mando’s on Thursday, I had to really get a good meal, so we spent to Mesa St Grille in El Paso on Saturday. At the end of the Friday night (5:30 am), John and I split the party that had originated long before the Toast show and a couple hours beyond. Needing some solid sleep, we hit up a hotel room at the Best Western. We specified late checkout, but the housekeeping was at the door at the crack of 11 knocking. I told her to split and she called me on the phone and asked if I needed another night. I told her about the late checkout and she looked at the paper and confirmed. By then, her mission to eject us was accomplished. We were going to lunch at the Greenery. As brown saw me put on my t-shirt of Adolf Hitler blowing his head out with a revolver with the phrase “Follow your leader,” he connected it and told me it was run by a Jewish guy. According to Brown, the owner charges the waiters $1 a shift for soda. As we ate, the waiter commended me and said he once had the Hitler shirt.
The vacation part of the trip continued as John and I hiked up a mountain. I did it in sandals, and Brown did it with designer flip-flops. It was my first time anywhere near the Rocky Mountains (excluding flights over). We picked up Enzo and James and headed farther west to Las Cruces, where the mountains got even taller.
We arrived and got to our scheduled radio slot on KRUX, New Mexico State University college radio. We played the entire live album and did some on-air hijinks, including Enzo pretending to be the guy that reads the movie preview promos. We promoted for the show and tested the limits of the FCC in the process.
We got dinner at a legit Mexican place called Andele’s. I breached my vegetarian policy and grabbed some pork tacos. We chilled out at Brown’s mom’s house (convenient) and headed to the Rainforest to do a show with the Space Truckers and Wormhole.
We were scheduled to open, but James felt that headlining would be best so Wormhole graciously hooked us up. The only issue was we had a couple people drop because it was too late. Also, they have these really weird laws in New Mexico about alcohol. First off, as of October 1 2007, they no longer allow people with vertical ID’s printed when they were under 21, even if they are now over 21. Also, we were not allowed to drink alcohol on stage. James was trying to cope with that and Brown did an imaginary toast with no glass, reiterating the police state legislative ridiculousness.
The Las Cruces show was definitely one of those ones that, at times, felt like work. Having 3 bands, there are logistics around timing that include a set-up-and-play mentality to minimize downtime and give each band an opportunity to fit in the window. However, the guys in these Las Cruces bands were among the best I’ve ever experienced in terms of on-timeness. Also, I liked the special touch because we were on tour and the guys in Wormhole announced us as being San Antonio. Kinda like playing in Las Cruces and thinking you are in El Paso, only in reverse cuz the band is the only ones in on the joke this time. It was probably best that we went last because then we didn’t have to worry as much about playing over.
The set went pretty well. Wormhole and Space Truckers were both very hard rock bands with cranked distortion guitars and yelling lyrics. Then, Toast hit the stage and the crowd was like “what’s this?” Through the course of the show, we won their hearts and the applause got louder and louder until we were playing multiple encores. At the end of the night, Enzo said one of the guys told him that he hated jam bands but listening to Toast made him think he might like them. The people were really awestruck by the Leslie cabinet and the melodica. But, actually, most people are at all of our shows…
Over the course of the weekend, we were able to pay for the tour (van, gas, hotel) through shows and merchandise. We sold lots of merch (mostly to family). Also, all the shows paid. We had about 40 people at the free show in Marfa. The El Paso show was five bucks and had about 60 people, and the Las Cruces show had about 50 people checking out the 3 bands for $3. The Vibes were pretty cool at all 3, but each one totally different. I crashed on a random futon around 5 am Sunday morning and we headed back to the long drive east through Texas back to Austin around noon.
