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And now a tour diary written by my friend Mark Redding of The Shackeltons. Enjoy.
Here is the scoop on The Shackeltons’ first ever national tour. At 6am on April 2 we set out for a 7,000 mile drive across America in our Honda minivan (with our new little 4’x6’ trailer).
April 2. We leave Chambersburg, Pa., for Indianapolis’ Luna Records. The eight-hour drive is met with an ecstatic frenzied crowd of the store clerk, the store photographer and a random guy who didn’t know who we were. After the wild set of six songs, we basked in the glory with the store clerk and the photographer (the other guy left before we finished). We conquered Indianapolis, time to drive to Chicago. But first we get to stay at Eric’s (guitar) cousin-in-laws. We get the kids’ bunk beds (kids slept upstairs), and in the morning we play soccer with the 4-and-7 year olds.
April 3. Chicago is smaller than I thought. Maybe I’m just bigger now. After yesterday’s huge success, I’m feeling pretty tall. Four blocks down the street from the Darkroom (the club) is a true hipster mecca — a record store. It’s crawling with post-emo hipsters because Dirty Projectors just played an acoustic set! We want to be in on this cool. But we are too late. Back at the Darkroom, we get filmed for an interview by an Equalizer.
We feel like stars for a minute. We open the night (four bands) and find out that we are the kind of heat Chicago has been looking for after a long winter. After the show, my friend Dave gave me Dr. Shultz’s Super Food. It tastes like fish food smells. It’s green, and supposed to replace all the vegetables a band misses out on while on tour. It’s now 1:00 a.m., and we need to drive all night to Minneapolis.
April 4. Wisconsin is foggy at 6:30 a.m. Dan is driving and listening to the new Bon Iver CD we scored at the Chicago record store. The CD was recorded in a cabin in Wisconsin.
8:00 a.m. we arrive to our couch-surfing home in Minneapolis. We get free places to stay from the amazing site, Couchsurfing.com. The hosts are trusting and gracious. We sleep on their beds and couches and awake at noon to get ready to drive to The Current radio station. Tapes ‘n Tapes just played live, now it’s our turn. At 2:00 p.m. we load in, after I took a mouthful of the Dr. Shultz green food and almost choked. A large bottle of water helped me as I repeatedly spewed the green gook out of my mouth. A favorable sight: me spewing outside this fine public radio establishment. The studio is HUGE and glorious. We meet the engineer (who used to tour with the Violent Femmes), producer, and host. It was magical. I talked about getting hit by a car at age five. Listen here.
The evening is a show at the Triple Rock. As we were setting up a guy yells from the crowd, “The Shackeltons are god.” I turned around, jumped off the stage, and met this zealot. He was around 40 years old and had two buddies with him (one was his bandmate). I was told that our CD was frequently played before they practiced, and that it was “fucking awesome” and their pick for best release of 2008.
My heart was warmed by these gentlemen. After the show, I met four different couples who came after hearing the radio broadcast. They had never heard us, but said the stories I told on the radio made them laugh so hard as they drove home from work and they knew they had to come to the show. Oh, and the music stole their hearts too.
But the best story came from a guy who had bought all our CDs in the past, and had no idea we were playing that night (until the morning of the show). He had just been to his best friend’s father’s funeral. His girlfriend wanted to go out (which he said she never does) and he just happened to check Triple Rock’s website. When he read “The Shackeltons” he thought, “No way, it must be some local Celtic band, but not MY Shackeltons”… well, it turns out it’s HIS Shackeltons and the evening is now a mind-blowing date for he and the girlfriend. After the show we got to sit in the bar together (a good hour) and hear his amazing story. Our two Couchsurfing hosts rode home on their 10-speeds, a bit drunk. Minneapolis was rad.
April 5. This journal thing is getting long winded. I’m going to have to make entries short.
Fargo: free spaghetti, hot garlic bread, and kool-aid served by our three new couch surfing art school friends. The band plays a few rounds of the “Girl Talk” board game. Sean (drummer) skateboards shirtless down Fargo street while rubbing spaghetti on his chest, screaming, “I got spaghetti on my titties!” Real mature. Oh, wait, it was partially my idea.
Its now 6:00 p.m., time to drive to Bismarck, N.D.
At 10 p.m. Justin (bass) has to do number two. The only place on this North Dakota highway to go is a small-town bar. Justin doesn’t want to go in. I force him. The bartender lady (after finding out we are a band) puts our CD on the stereo, and we end up selling 4 CDs and sign posters. Justin realizes all he has to do is take a crap to sell our music. This is a moment: we have conquered North Dakota without even playing a note of music. Maybe we should have done this in Indianapolis.
April 6. We awake in Bismarck to the lowering of a trampoline in the house. Gary and his son Elijah have a 20 foot tramp-o hanging from the ceiling. This is a great couch-surfing find. After tramping, Gary takes us to his church. They have a huge free breakfast buffet. For the church service, a lady quotes the whole book of Revelation (with the London Symphony as her background music). Rad. Time to drive to Billings, Mont.
4:00 p.m., we need gas. Eric drives off an exit onto a dirt road. We drive one mile past nothing. Around a bend we see a small town, maybe 30 homes. There is no way the gas pump will be open on a Sunday in this town… and it wasn’t. Not until a 73-year-old man in over-alls walks across the street.
“You want gas?” he asks.
Come to find out the gas station owner (and local mailman) gave all the town’s 50 residents a key to the station.
So today, a friendly neighbor pumps our gas, and opens the little store. He asks us the prices for our candy bars, chips, and soda (our first bad-food binge) and rings us up. He tells me about how he and his wife fly to Ohio to visit the grandchildren.
“Come back again”, he says as his blue eyes sparkle as he shakes my hand. I really want to.
11:00 p.m., we arrive to our couch-surfing home in Billings. The mother and daughter are hosting for the first time. Two years earlier, the father went hunting in the mountains and got lost. He died of hypothermia. This was their first couch surfing experience.
The mom fed us quiche, fresh strawberries and toast. She told us we were eating our breakfast.
April 7. We get to explore the cliffs, thrift stores, and coffee shops of Billings. At night the city paper interviews us and our couch surfing host. Then it’s the NCAA championship basketball game.
April 8. Drive nine hours to Spokane. All ages show is excellent. A group of 14 Japanese exchange students came to the show. Great night. After the show, we drive all night to Seattle.
April 9. Arrive at 7am to our friend Abbey’s house. I slept till 2:00 p.m. and hit up the Coffee Animal. Down the street was a Vietnamese restaurant, Lemongrass, and I had the best Pho soup. Later that night, Abbey and Josh took us all out for Pho at another place downtown. It’s that good.
April 10-11. We play live on KEXP radio, headline Neumos (capacity curtain crowd), and played Easy Street Record Store. Dalai Lama and Dave Matthews have a show down the street. We enjoy a Mexican dinner paid for by our label. Seattle rocked. We have been blessed to have the greatest support of any city in the world here.
April 12 and 13. Portland. Millenium Music store. Super cool store. Record stores are not our cup of tea. This time we had two folks show up to see us. But we gave them our all. Two more folks stumbled in, and along with the store staff we played for seven folks. Doubled our Indianapolis record store turn out.
That night, we stayed in a pop-up camper near a stream. My friend Tim hosted us. The next morning, Eric and I went to Tim’s little country church. The folks were real humble and refreshing.
Later that night (Sunday) we headlined Portland’s Town Lounge. Our friend, Allie, owns a flower shop and brought us huge bunch of fresh flowers for the show. Sweet show.
April 14. Drove nine hours to San Fransisco. Headlined the Red Devil. Good crowd. Good show.
April 15. We have the day to rest in San Fran. Eric (guitar) jogs the Golden Gate Bridge. Eric is quite the jogger. Sean (drums) is supposed to be doing his school work on the computer. He is a junior in high school.
April 16. We drive seven hours to Los Angeles. We arrive just in time to see The Afternoons (Tom Biller’s band, we recorded in his studio and he co-produced our CD ) play the Echo. I chatted with a guy from Silversun Pickups. Tom worked on their CD, too.
April 17. Eric, Sean and I drove to Santa Monica. The ocean was cold, but great to experience. That night we played the Echo. Downstairs was Will Ferrell’s birthday party. No kidding. Our show went off great. Tom Biller, Athena, Sam Jones (Wilco documentary, and our co-producer) and the manager of Bright Eyes were in the crowd. The sound was great, and it was good to finally play LA.
After the show we drove all night to Phoenix.
We got to my brothers house at 7:30 a.m. He cooked us scrapple and eggs. Awesome Pennsylvania Dutch food. We hit the beds at 9:00 a.m.
April 18. My brother took me to his kid’s school, Surrey Garden. All the kids from K-6 learn to play violin. The gym had 50 students playing violin. The band got a mini recital from the kids back at the house. 4:30pm we drive off to Austin, Texas.
April 19. After all night (14 hours) we arrive at End of an Ear Record shop at 11:00 a.m. I find a place called Happiness (a plant and gift shop in a forest) out back and the kind folks let me sleep on their lawn furniture in the forest. I awake at 1:00 p.m. to set up for the show. This time the store fills up with patrons. We play to a super receptive crowd. The Happiness folks gave me a few free Lone Star beers. Sumner Erickson (Rocky’s brother, and great musician) and his mother showed up. That night Sumner had us over for a huge Texas meal with some of his bandmates (Texeccentrics).
April 20. Day of rest. Texeccentrics play with Black Angel’s side project band for a John Lennon tribute night. Cool night in Austin.
April 21. We play live KUT radio. Sumner plays Tuba with us. Later that night, we played the Beauty Bar. At midnight we began playing, and the room was full of love. Great crowd, great night.
April 22. Drive to Dallas. Sean wants ice cream. At a Dairy Queen I met a soldier and his family. His wife was the first white gal to sing in James Brown’s band. Eric (guitar) has always been of the opinion the James Brown was a total loser. This lady said he was a good man. Take that, Eric. I always loved James Brown.
7:00 p.m., we arrive to the Doublewide Club in Dallas. The staff is amazing. The show was bliss. Small crowd, but everyone seemed to want a T-shirt and CD. Gas money!
After the show, we have a free hotel room at The Belmont. Our manager got us the hook-up. This place is amazing. A great way to begin the ending of the tour.
April 23. I am in the outdoor heated pool at the Belmont. It’s 11:00 a.m. and the view of the Dallas skyline is sweet. We don’t get pampered ever, so I feel pretty darn excellent. Noon is check-out time. Sean does his schoolwork in the plush leather seats of the lobby for the next two and a half hours. 2:45 p.m., we are off to St. Louis. We stop at a gas station/deli. I bought a lovely “liver loaf” sandwich with the works. The guys think it’s gross. They don’t know what they are missing.
April 24. We arrive in St. Louis at 3:00 a.m. Our couch surfing host own a great club called Off Broadway. We nestle into our two couches, air mattress, and floor bed in the living room. I awake and hit up Starbucks. Back home, our host has made the greatest breakfast. We feast. It’s 2:00 p.m. Then we hang out (I hit up Starbucks again, and spend time writing in my journal) till we have to leave at 7:00 p.m.
The Bluebird club is pretty big. Tonight is the last show of the tour. The opening band is pretty great. Not much of a crowd. We play second and the crowd is pretty much the opening band, and about 10 folks who came out to see us. The crowd was actually in a dancing and screaming mood. It was a decent end to the tour. Humble and real. I told the crowd, “Real rock and roll happens in intimate settings like this… think about it… your parents… when they made you… did they do it in a large crowd? This is intimate. This is how life happens.”
Now we just have to drive 13 hours through the night to get to our home.
The End.
Thanks much to Mark and The Shackeltons, a great bunch of guys and a great band. Be sure to check them out if they come to your town.
Design by Royal Scourge
I read the whole thing. I must be bored.
Mark is a nice guy.
man, i wish i was back on earth… i would get my band back on the road and tour with the shackeltons. dying is tough. living is harder.
get on up!!!
good sports to drive all over the country and pump gasoline in skivvies.
good sports to share that beautiful sound with all of the world.
the shackeltons are quiet and loud, big and small. they are home and abroad.
love.
still there. it’s name having for kids magnificent
my heart warms everytime i hear this band. i hear they are from a town near gettysburg, pa. its crazy to see this kind of band come out of south central pennsylvania. anyhow, great stuff!