MOIST 4 - Early Summer 1994
As most of you have heard by now, our tour has come to a sudden and
unfortunate end just inside Dave's belly and north of his large intestine.
You've all heard the official "singer gets carried away to hospital by sodden drunk and savagely affectionate drummer undergoes surgery and is attended round the clock by qualified medical professionals while band and management show genuine love and concern and ensure that David is well cared for and comfortable and never out of contact with the band for very long" version of the story.
Well, we lied.
While we've kept busy touring, writing and improving our pool game, we've
managed to put aside a few minutes now and then to brush up on new surgical
techniques, so when Dave fell ill en route to Montreal last month, we were
well prepared. Knowing intuitively that his appendix had jumped ship and
begun working for the competition, consulting surgeons Makowy and Young
began to bicker about whether the procedure be major or minor surgery and
who would perform all the little ticky bits. Although no consensus could be
reached, it was agreed that if we were successful, songs would be sung and
stories told of this day for years to come. The question remains, will those
songs be written in a major or minor key, and who will perform all the
little ticky bits.
After resolving pressing conceptual matters, we laid Dave gently to rest on
the middle seat of our rapidly moving van, opened him up like a ripe melon
and using only our teeth, a rusty spoon and 3 guitar picks, removed his
ruptured appendix, an autographed copy of Hammer of the Gods, and season's
tickets to the Blue Jays.
While administering a final dose of MOIST's favourite premium Mexican
anesthetic and grumbling endlessly about the difference a "real serious Shop Vac" can make in delicate operations of this kind, Chief Surgeon Jeff Pearce was overheard to say, "Ya know, with a few more pints of Cuervo and some green Jell-O, we'd have a thriving and profitable practice here."
Sadly, Jeff's brilliant surgical career was cut short when drummer Paul
Wilcox, having just finished darning Dave's belly with a broken E string and
sealing it lovingly with MOIST stickers, noticed Jeff slyly pocketing the
segment of large intestine containing the Jays tickets. A sound thrashing
ensued during which Jeff's soul, already loitering on the wrong side of
moral outrage, fell headlong into exceptionally bad karma and narrowly
missed being whisked off to the bowels of hell to watch Three's Company
reruns, eat saltines and attempt to whistle "end of innocence" accurately at speeds exceeding 240 beats per minute as punishment for his cowardly thievery and general tardiness.
In all seriousness we wish Dave a peaceful and complete recovery. Although
his convalescence will take about 4 weeks, its nice to know that when we get
him back, he'll make a nifty gym bag.
At this point, we usually whip in tour dates, and a couple of smarmy
comments about NASA. However, since MAY has been canceled and the whole,
"lets get a sticker on the space shuttle" thing has been beaten to a gruesome and slightly less than witty death, the most that we can tell you is that MOIST will be back on the road in early June and will throughout the summer, tour the country in a rapidly moving, filth ridden van with no skills but sarcasm and an unrelenting thirst for tequila, searching for the perfect mix of fear and loathing and driven by a rabid distaste for daylight and the firm belief that tomorrow is best met naked and screaming with a fistful of aspirin.
Hide your liquor. Lock up your lawn mower. See you in June.
nauselbaum,
MOIST
