It’s so hard to come down.
The infrequency here is a good one really. I promise. Yesterday spent in haphazard delirium. Up ‘til 2019 I maintained a steady income of semi-satisfaction, playing shows more nights than not, and that was enough for me regardless of how the actual show went. Just doing it. I mean, we don’t start bands not to play. There is a scale that starts throwing its weight around later on in your career that can collapse if not treated preciously. I used to wonder about the paths bands I loved took and without having lived it at that point, it was impossible to understand. When I started American Nightmare I was 21. We played a minimum of 200 shows a year. Zero cares in the world. Sleep in a ditch you crashed a stolen van into. No big deal. 1 person attends, 100 persons attend. Who cares. You can sustain that if you’d like until the world gets sick of your persistence. We want the ones we can’t have. Now in my 40’s the shows are less frequent but they are the ones I dreamt of playing when I was waking up in a parking lot. I’ve seen so many musicians and artists I admire disappear at this brink of indie sustainability. You suddenly seem biodegradable unless a plan for efficiency is implemented. The grass is always… The issue with the infrequency and increased quality control of the shows is that... the come down is so hard. Lost in a daze you can maintain the buzz for an eternity without caring about anything else. If you want me to explain what I mean I would say this is about as much as I can. And what I mean to say is something about the complication of gratification. I felt some Thursday night at the Greek show. I felt some so much that yesterday I slept for a few hours in the middle of the day. And if we weren't leaving tomorrow for more shows I’m not sure how long I’d extend the nap. Everything is a game of balance. Get the balance right. Without you I’m nothing.
I picked up the rented sprinter at noon. Then picked up Ryan and we got coffee on the way to scoop Anthony. Phone rings. Van rental place. We have to go back because they never gave us the key to turn the van on. Thankfully I hadn’t turned it off yet. Hour wasted. Get the gear at studio downtown. Get Amy and Rainer at home. Get merch and Ann at the store. Ran into Chris Wrenn outside of the store, good timing. He’s in town from Boston and invited him to the show tonight. Chris is my old roommate and runs the hardcore punk label Bridge 9, the very first label to release music of mine. We got to the Greek at at 3:15 and started sound checking immediately. Wiley who runs the venue has always been supportive and kind to me over the years and tonight is no different. Right when we open the van door he starts telling Rainer about the Electric Mayhem Muppet Show filming. Rain is ecstatic as the show came out the night before and he had been anticipating it for six months. Soundcheck goes well. Our LD, Lenny, has the lights set up already. He also does lights for Spiritualized and The Church among others. Soundcheck goes well. The crew working is union and I like union crew. This show was postponed a couple of times and we were booked on us months before it was announced the first time so really what I’m telling you is this has been one two years in the making. We also haven’t played our own LA dates because we had been waiting for this first. So it’s cool to be there at the Greek and playing with Placebo, a band that I’d spent a lot of time listening to in headphones on AN tours. In the wallow through the litany of lists to pull this off I forget my custom mic-stand, naturally. I only can use it on long tours and local shows because it doesn't fold or breakdown, measured to my 6’2 height. From stage soundcheck hours before doors I ask a friend who has keys to my studio if he could pick it up for me. He says he can’t because he is headed to my show in a few hours.
After soundcheck we go to catering which has plenty of vegan options. After catering I try to relax by pacing or sitting or pacing again. Doors are open now and we have an hour and a half until show time. Here is a brief list of some shows I’ve seen at the Greek: New Order, OMD, Moz and The Cult (twice).
We take the stage at 7:50 and the set is great. Lately they have been. It feels natural after a few seconds and the seats fill and all I think about is the present and how it’s lovely to be playing just down the street from where we live. I sing and struggle with the mic stand and see familiar faces and lots of new ones. And then that’s it. Rushed to pack up and move along and a moment you’ve waited two years for arrives one day and is gone minutes later.
I thought to decompress and center myself but was brought to the production office to settle and within four minutes of being offstage was trying to hand over my routing and account number to the nice people in the office who were wanting to pay us but my eyes had just been staring through lights and smoke and into the crowd and red seats and redwood trees and the last time I used my voice was for singing and people in the office are talking about other shows and I’m still in the moment of the one I just played and disorientating and confusing and I hand over the wrong info so they emailed me yesterday, the day after the show, to get the right info.
I say hello to Jack Bates, Masek, Rapp and Rick Ross after the show. Listening to Placebo and peaking in when I can. Cold Cave has mastered the art of staying the fuck outta everyone’s way which I think in part is why we often get invited back to shows like this. After the set and saying hello and Placebo is kind and it’s mentioned that we should do more shows. We had been asked about doing this whole tour but couldn’t due to scheduling. Maybe again one day. And we had been asked in 2016 or 17 about doing some that didn't manifest too.
After show: Drop Ann and Amy and Rainer off. Drive Anthony and Ryan and gear downtown to drop gear off. Look for food total failure. When did LA die at midnight? Unload gear. Drop Anthony off. Ryan and I look for parking for a large vehicle. None close. Walk from vehicle with two cases that are heavier at 1am than usual. Uphill. Just us and the coyotes. Try to sleep.
Morning after the show: Wake up at 6. Leave house at 8:30. Drop Guidi boot off at my shoe repair place because the pull tab pulled too far. Great. Return the van by 9. They apologize for the key mishap saying they will take some “shit'“ off of the bill. I then get a bill where I’m charged twice as much as the original quote. Cool, another thing to deal with. Get Uber home. Get carsick in Uber. Wave at cemetery. Grab money to deposit at bank and need to get change for the store. Bank run is annoying and bureaucratic and insulting. They say I can’t deposit into the store account. I say I always do. They say we have a problem. I say can’t I just put into the machine then? They said yes, no problem. They say to use a certain machine because it’s “the good one.” I go to the good one and someone else there tells me to use a different one on the other side of the bank because there’s no wait there. I don’t argue so I go to it. There’s a wait there.
Finally outta there, less than a mile from the Greek, and going to go eat at the vegan restaurant Seabirds because the lovely chef there, Chef Liz, told us to come in to try her new caprese sandwich, which we did, which was A+.
And then I’m not sure where the day went. I tossed and turned and replied to emails and put two American Nightmare shows on sale. Portland, Maine and Boston. Part of me wonders if these could be the last shows ever. I don’t know why. It’s just a feeling but don’t want to make a big deal out of it. I guess it’s the balancing act and the scales tipping elsewhere. A few texts with Chris Link who is the promoter of the Portland show and plays in the hardcore bands Terror and Cruel Hand. He went to the same high school I went to in Maine a few years later and made the show happen. Text with Travis at Rick Owens because I thought I needed a new pair of drop crotch for the DM tour but I found the new pair I already had been given by Amy a few months earlier. Feels like i’m the only person promoting the Boston AN show. I don’t wanna do that any more. Have a suitcase pulled out and the idea is to fill it today. Arrange car services and know when to step on a plane. Going to Amsterdam tomorrow to start Depeche dates. Can’t even think about that. Thankful I have so much to do today and shows to look forward to and the comedown has no choice but to be short-lived.
Our REVERB store launches this coming week too. A lot of people have asked why we’d sell music equipment that we love. The short answer is to make room for new love. Here is a link to that if you are interested: COLD CAVE x REVERB.
I hope you all are well. I appreciate your support on this page and reading my rambling. I want to mention the mundane. The non fantastical. The truth. Exactly what happened from my perspective. Wishing you the very best… going to half-proof this and hit send.
More soon…
WITHOUT YOU I'M NOTHING
I feel like I can relate to the gratification thing even though from the other side of the stage. I used to tour after favorite artists before the pandemic and war, it was the best thing ever. Now neither I have the means for it nor the artists are doing it the same way. Going somewhere for a show and then back home on a night bus and if I'm lucky repeating it on the next day feels very different. Come downs are cruel.
Wish I could have been at the show with Placebo. Even on the phone videos on Instagram it sounded great.
"Part of me wonders if these could be the last shows ever."
Oh please no!
And again I feel tired just by reading the amount of stuff you do daily. Wow.
Thank you for sharing exactly your perspective. That's the most interesting.
Wish you all safe travels and an awesome tour with DM. May everything go perfect and be a fully gratifying experience 🍀
Good morning. Placebo "The Bitter End" always stirs up memories of 2003-04 and my first slum of an apartment with three chain-smoking hardcore kids and multiple freeloaders couch-surfing at any given time. With a quarter of the apartment occupied by music gear, I often found myself wondering, "...is this really what it's like? Is this really what I wanted?" The answer was more often than not, "I guess so." The alternative was community college, after all.
AN played a last-minute gig in Sacramento during this time period, at the now defunct Westcoast Worldwide. With little more than a blurb on a message board to go on, friends and I made the three-hour trip on zero notice... a fond memory I still callback often. Thank you for that.
Always good to see Anthony thriving. Two decades ago, Anthony and I were thrown together with a small group flying out to Posi Numbers Fest from the west coast. He was really feeling the Eighteen Visions album "Obsession" at the time, and somewhere above Wyoming spent 15 minutes extolling the virtues of the band to me. A very cool person, and a true one-off.
Wishing you the best on the Depeche Mode gigs, "People Are Good" has been an UNRELENTING earworm. Who'd have thought two sixty-year old men could encapsulate the mood of 2023 in a 4.5 minute pop song? They've always been absolute space aliens.