And so we toured...
Five months, several unwieldy chunks of short term memory, and 20,546 charming purple stickers later, the mighty MOIST touring machine finds itself still on the road, heading roughly north, drooling, barely sane, held together by rubber bands and dried sweat, wearing silly grins, a colossal headache, avoiding the skinny, worried looking guy with rapidly graying hair, and staring back over the past 20 weeks in much the same way that an unlucky penny stares at a freight train that's just been given a 40 car kiss on the forehead.
Since we last trod on Canadian soil, swilled decent Canadian beer, and wept openly in laughter at the latest fussings of parliament, we have traveled to LA to film a new video, cut a swath of destruction and chaos and sodden Canadians wide across the great cities of Europe and are now very south of the 49th parallel, touring the USA and greeting every new morning with a sneer, 4 tequila slammers, and the kind of loathing and epeparvith only sunrise and an over zealous manager can inspire, while wondering almost constantly what the worried looking guy actually does beyond waking us up at 9 am every day, screaming threats and obscenities into his cell phone, and standing absolutely stone still, frowning, with his arms crossed, in the front row of our shows, growing lines on his forehead the size and depth of tire tracks in soft mud.
the recap...
Los Angeles-After our last show in Montreal,
we head to Merivale airport,
almost losing Mark on the way to an overzealous customs official with rubber gloves,
before flying to LA to shoot
"Believe Me" with director George Dougherty.
LA is essentially one big strip mall with no public washrooms and that concrete wasteland with green sludge running through it(it is referred to as the LA "river"),
we on the other hand call it "that gargantuan,
toxic,
drainage ditch where people fire automatic weapons at anything that moves."
Much thanks to Bif Naked and Lilac for working on the e shoot and hanging with us for the weekend.
London, England-MOIST lands at Heathrow and waits for Mark to clear customs before spending 6 days in hotel rooms smaller than Ritz crackers before playing the Underworld.
Paris, France-2 shows in one day at wildly different locations, seperated by 10km of gridlocked traffic and punctuated every 300 feet by crusty gendarmes guarding every visible parking space with their lives for no apparent reason. MOIST finishes up the day with a few live interviews via satellite for the CMVA's.
Germany-Copious amounts of pigmeat and beer preceding monstrous indigestion and deadly hangovers in Cologne and Hamburg before heading to...
Sweden-Border guards peek into van, see Mark, smile confidently and gleefully search the van from top to bottom.
Germany(again)-Remember the cold war? MOIST pulls into the former East Germany and 90 minutes, 3 border guards, their superior, 2 drug dogs and several incidents of petty bribery later we're headed for Berlin and Munich determined to make seperate travel arrangments for Mark in the future...
Amsterdam, Hollan-guess.
London, England(again)-MOIST spends days playing shows, getting lost, and driving very fast mostly in the wrong direction, accidently ripping side view mirrors off parked cars before arriving at the airport just in time for a bomb threat and partial evacuation. Finally, on the plane bound for New York, Jeff Pearce, drastically changed by an emotional tour of Dead British rock stars homes and 8 complimentary double caesers makes himself and even less desirable traveling companion than Mark "take me, I'm the one you want" Makowy by giggling uncontrollably and babbling about the majesty of Boz Scaggs for the entire flight.
After landing in New York City and dropping Mark off with expectant customs officials, MOIST began a 4 week tour of the US where...
Last week, this time-that's 7am Monday morning in Boca Raton, Florida-Paul Wilcox(drums and cruel jokes disguised as selfless humanitarian gestures) and Kevin Young(keyboards, paranoia and violent convulsions) wander soddenly through the hotel lot, laughing at a particularly vivid hallucination, racing unhappy lizards for bits of Jeff Pearce's(bass and increasingly unreliable moral judgement)wardrobe, and dodging the first rays of sunlight with all the style and grace of a runaway bull dozer with flat tires and a headcold.
6 hours later-MOIST and their scantily clad bass player arrive in Key West, facing two nights off-Mark Makowy(guitars and bits of often inaccurate but mildy interesting trivia)leads the band in an extended game of "last one in the gutter pays the tab".
The next day-Several members of the band gather in the early morning to warm their lives over an open bottle of tequila and try their pathetic luck at deep sea fishing. After several hours of the whole "live bait, dangling stupidly over the sides of small boat containing 6 increasingly queasy Canadians" nonsense, David Usher(vocals and frequent disapproving glances), wearing nothing but sunglasses and a saucy grin, begins enticing passing fish with soft lullabies before dragging them into the boat and strangling them to death with a spare microphone cable.
As we continue to sear, scram, twitch and claw our way across the US, we look forward to coming home to Canada for the December Machine Punch Through tour and seeing all of you at the shows.
Nauselbaum
Merry HO HO
MOIST