On the road and up close with the Personals

Diary of an Austin's band's first tour

By Erin J. Walter
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The phone rang at 3 a.m. on the late May morning my band was set to leave for its first tour. It was our drummer, Kristen, and the news wasn't good.

"It's appendicitis," she said in a pained voice. "I have to have surgery."

My heart sank. Our band, the Personals, had been plotting this rock 'n' roll road trip for months and dreaming of it for years. As the bassist and de facto band manager, I had spent countless hours contacting clubs and booking bands to join us. My miniskirts and fishnets were packed. We were all ready to go.

Now I had to wake Adam, the singer/guitarist, and tell him one of our closest friends was going under the knife — and we were headed for Brackenridge Hospital instead of Stillwater, Okla. The appendectomy went smoothly, but Kristen would have to rest for the next 10 days. It looked like the tour was off.

Earlier that night, we had been at our friend Toby's backyard barbecue where we talked excitedly taking our band to the Midwest.

"So you're leaving tomorrow," said Toby, who drums in three bands but never had toured. "I'm jealous!"

"We'll have to plan a tour together next time," I said.

What a difference a few hours makes.

Later the next morning, after visiting Kristen in the recovery room and getting her blessing, Adam called all the drummers we knew, hoping to find someone who could drop everything and hit the road with us. (I kept my mouth shut to refrain from cursing, sobbing or screaming.) Despite Austin's slacker reputation, most local musicians actually have day jobs, and everyone told Adam, "Sorry, I can't."

Then Toby said, "Maybe." If he could just push back his dissertation deadline and reschedule a few things, he could go. It seemed like an eternity before he called back and said he'd be right over.

We had to cancel three gigs and teach Toby 12 songs in 24 hours. But the show would go on!

Day 1: Austin to Wichita, Kan.

My mom had left me a note: "Have a wonderful tour/adventure! Hugs & kisses! Please be careful & call us." I'm pretty sure she meant "Please don't get drunk and fall in a ditch." No promises!

Adam, Toby and I — the new, touring version of the Personals — loaded the van with gear, suitcases, snacks, iPods and Boggle. As we drove north on Interstate 35, we'd been a band for exactly one day.

The guys had voted to skip our show at Kirby's Beer Store in Wichita in favor of more practice time in Austin. But, as the official band optimist, I secretly had left the door open with the club.

When we neared Oklahoma and everyone seemed in particularly good spirits, I casually mentioned we could still play Kirby's if we made it to Wichita by midnight. My scheme worked, and the guys did a quick costume change behind the van in a gas station parking lot.

Kirby's turned out to be the perfect first stop — small, friendly and pressure-free because we didn't think we'd get there in the first place. When we arrived, two brothers were playing bass and drums in Mexican wrestling masks. Everyone had already heard about Kristen's appendicitis, thanks to bulletins on our myspace.com page.

"We can't believe you're here!" one guy said as we tumbled out of the van.

We played on a tiny stage in front of a wall covered, floor-to-ceiling, in band bumper stickers. Of course, there were mistakes — we played some songs too fast, others too slow — but just playing together at all felt like a gift.

The audience insisted on an encore, so after mingling for half an hour, we got back on stage and played a rocked-out rendition of "Chosen One" by Smog. People went nuts. One guy handed me a $100 bill, bought shots and paid for a room for us at a Holiday Inn in Lawrence, Kan., for the next night.

"I know it's rough on the road," he said.

We crashed at the garage apartment of the club's sound man, a super nice guy who apparently spends more time rocking than cleaning (a kindred spirit!). He wouldn't let me open the fridge, saying "Nothing's dead in there; it just smells that way."

Inside the front door, a sign noted "Trash Day is Wednesday," and I wondered if that meant someone brought trash to the apartment every Wednesday.

Day 2: Wichita to Lawrence, Kan.

With only a short drive ahead, we made a beeline for El Dorado Lake, where we learned smokers make pitiful raft-inflaters. Gazing up at the clear blue sky from our floaties, we agreed there could be no better hangover cure than a day at the lake. Of course, for the rest of the tour the Personals looked like rock lobsters in need of burn ointment.

In Lawrence, we strolled around downtown and immediately ran into more myspace.com "friends." One guy at the Replay Lounge told us he showed up because he likes the Austin rock band Grand Champeen and read that we played our CD release show with them. (The Internet is magic.)

The show itself was fun, although Adam broke strings on two guitars, forcing us to end the set about a song and a half early. Afterward, we headed for the hotel room gifted to us by our new friend in Wichita. He didn't know my last name, so there was a key taped to the counter for "Erin Smith" when we rolled up at 2 a.m. I've never slept better.

Day 3: Lawrence to Madison, Wis.

At eight hours, this was our longest drive before a show. Still, time flew because we were psyched to get to Madison, where Adam once lived and where we would be playing with another Austin rock band, Dixie Witch.

The bartender at the High Noon Saloon was a roller derby girl named Predator, who also had been playing one of our songs on her radio show. A contingent of derby girls, along with Adam's father, brother and some of their friends, made for the perfect Personals welcome wagon.

The club was huge and new, with a great sound system. Our playing was getting tighter every night, and I sold a bunch of CDs and T-shirts. My favorite moment was when the bassist from Dixie Witch told me he recognized my bass.

"I had my eye on it for two weeks at Austin Vintage Guitars," he said. "I was about to make an offer, and then it was gone."

Bigger rock stars than me covet my bass. Cool!

Day 4: Madison to Milwaukee

We awoke to find a glowing recommendation for our show on the Web site of the Chicago Reader, the city's major alternative weekly newspaper. Later, my husband called from Chicago, where he works, to say the print version even had our photo. It was going to be an awesome day.

There was only one problem that night: I thought we were playing last, and the other bands thought we were playing first. When it was time for us to be on stage for a sound check, we were still an hour away from the club.

It struck me just how Austin-esque my band is.

"If people ask why we're late," I said blithely, my boots on the dashboard, "the honest answer is we were playing frisbee, thrift-store shopping, napping and drinking margaritas!"

But rushing to Milwaukee made for a tense vibe, and the set at Points East Pub would not be my best. The air conditioner was broken, and the sound guy kept the stage lights low so it wouldn't get too hot, which it did anyway. Between the darkness of the club and the sweatiness of my hands, I managed to miss more notes than usual.

"It starts on D, right?" Adam asked me before we launched into our cover of "Rattlesnake" by the Replacements.

"Yep," I said. "Starts on D." Then I played an E.

On the plus side, I convinced the headlining band's singer to wear one of our shirts on stage, and we stayed up until sunrise again, playing guitar and eating doughnuts. I crashed on the comfiest couch of the tour and was informed that it had also been slept on by the lead singer of Centro-Matic, one of our favorite Texas bands.

Day 5: Milwaukee to Green Bay

This was the most Wisconsin of days. First, we took in the green and yellow grandeur of Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, and their museum, hall of fame and two-story gift shop. Clearly, football merchandise puts band merchandise to shame. Packer boas! Packer lamps! Packer jewelry! Somehow I refrained from trying on a Packer bikini. ("The idea of the joke is as good as the joke," Toby said.)

Next we stopped at a Ponderosa restaurant because it seemed a Midwestern kind of place and Toby and I had never been to one. The steaks — doused in pale, goopy sauce and not quite cooked — were scary, and Toby tried to salvage the experience by inviting the waitress to our show at Wheels 'N Motion skating rink.

"I thought that place was closed!" she said. "No one goes there."

All we could do was laugh because we already were freaked out about our band (average age: 30) playing an all-ages show in a town where we knew no one. (This kind of show can go either way: If teenagers like your band, they'll blow their allowance on your CDs, and tell all their friends. But if they don't, you're playing for a bunch of bored, sober people half your age.)

Before setting up our gear at the rink, we stopped for a little grown-up entertainment — casino gambling — and did our preshow drinking in the van so as not to corrupt any minors. I got in the spirit, though, skating to "Thriller" and "Hell's Bells." A floppy-haired preteen boy even sent his friend to ask me out.

Thankfully, our Ponderosa waitress didn't quite have her finger on the pulse of the local punk scene. After open skate ended, more than 200 people showed up, and it was the best show of the tour, so far.

We played right on the rink, with Mohawked teenagers in our faces, and me spinning like a top. Someday, when we're big enough for roadies, I will insist on a patch of nice, smooth roller-rink floor for my part of the stage.

Day 6: Green Bay to Chicago

On the way into Chicago, as I was silently reflecting on how I could do this for the rest of my life, Toby interrupted to ask where in the van he should put his boogers. The Personals would have settled for any drummer who could hold a drumstick to make this tour happen. We got the funniest one in Austin.

The three of us spent the afternoon hanging out with my husband at a patio bar in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood and trying not to eat too much pizza to rock that night. Plans to do laundry fell by the wayside, but that didn't stop me from wearing my favorite Joan Jett T-shirt, again. (Oh well, at least I had a clean pair of my trademark tights.)

The show would be the pinnacle of the tour for me because I went to college nearby, and tons of friends would be there. One new fan from our Milwaukee show even showed up and brought a friend.

The crowd energy at Subterranean was electric, and after we played, the headliner band (the Blissters) brought some of us on stage to sing along on "Surrender" by Cheap Trick, a Personals favorite. When Adam and I left the club, everyone burst into applause for us. It was surreal.

Day 7: Chicago to Nashville, Tenn.

Nashville is not exactly known as a rock town. Our friend Travis from Austin's Okkervil River had warned us: "No one will come to your show in Nashville, but you get to say you played there."

He was right — there were only about 20 people at the 5 Spot. But the important thing is one of them was Kristen, our now appendix-free drummer, who had spent the week recovering from surgery. We flew her to Nashville to see our last show, and the audience was mostly friends from when she had lived there.

It was a Monday night, there were no free drinks for the band, and I almost dropped my pick during our Superchunk cover, but none of that really mattered because Kristen got to experience a bit of the band's best week ever. We spent the night at a friend's house, where we put a backyard hot tub and fire pit to good use before falling asleep on swings and in a pup tent.

Day 8: Nashville to Austin

On the 14-hour drive home, I realized I'd had way too much fun to be an accurate tour accountant. I do know we ended up in the black, though. Even better — the van survived 3,400 miles, no equipment exploded, Kristen healed in time to play our Austin homecoming show and we are closer friends than when we left.

"I could see how this would get exhausting after a few weeks," Adam said as he drove us southwest through Arkansas. He was trying to come up with a reason — any reason — why we shouldn'tjust quit our day jobs and keep going.

Coming home felt like stepping off a moving walkway at the airport — the body lurches and doesn't understand why you're not moving so fast anymore.

Lately, I wake up dreaming about when we'll hit the road again.

Erin J. Walter is a freelance writer and musician who lives in Chicago and Austin.