October 25, 2002 - UCONN - Storrs, CT
HENNING: Let me tell describe to you our Halloween show at UCONN from the eyes of a clown. I'm not actually convinced right now that it was raining on the drive down, come to think of it, I am pretty positive that it was not. But when I think back on the ride, I see drops on the windshield and sprays of white behind large trucks. I was lucky enough to ride shotgun with Max in his super cool speedy mobile. I like the way Max drives, I felt very comfortable and safe. When I first started talking with Miriam (she booked us for this show) about this evening, weeks ago, it was going to be a Halloween party in the haunted attic of an old dorm. I pictured a dark, spooky room full of inebriated and psychedelic students in bizarre costumes. I pictured it being late at night and everyone feeling full-moon crazy. As the details started to gain shape through numerous emails and dorm-council meetings, the venue began to change. The first step was that it was not to be held in a haunted attic, it was instead going to be in a dining common. Then it turns out it was to be from 9:00 - 10:30 (not exactly the time period when the craziness kicks in). Then the day before the event I found out that it was going to be an alcohol free engagement. I have no problem with alcohol-free, but it sure put a different spin on the Warholian night that I had originally pictured. As Max and I pulled into the parking lot, I said to him that the only thing that hasn't changed from my original perception was that I had no proof that it wasn't going to be spooky and dark, but I hazarded a guess that the dining common would be fully aglow with flourescent lights when we arrived. Sure enough the room was lit like mercury. BUT!! Not half an hour later the well-oiled youth brigade had transformed the septic cafeteria into a dark and inviting halloween dancehall. It was really nice to see people put so much effort into something. Youth. Brian, Tony, and I were in the bathroom standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the large mirror, spreading clown-cream on our faces, preparing ourselves for the empty room we left behind, wondering if anybody was going to show up, and if we were going to be the only ones in costume. Earlier, while we were bringing in the equipment, I saw one of the helper-students say to another , "There's a band playing?!?" I didn't think that was a good sign. There was a knock on the door and Miriam told us people were here and we should start playing when we were ready. We walked back to the room, now clowns, and sure enough there were a great deal of kids there and for the most part the were dressed-up in really good costumes. The thrill of halloween shook though me. Next thing I knew, we were being introduced. We kicked into our first song completely confident that Bruce had set everything up right. Good old Bruce, I didn't give the sound system one ounce of worry, which is more than I can say for most shows. I had a little trouble singing with my clown nose - it kept bouncing on the microphone and it made my voice even more nasaly than normal - so I took it off. Later, Tony, offered our noses up to anyone who might feel underdressed, I thought that was pretty funny, and when I turned back, three girls were approaching the stage for the noses. What a perfect moment in the world. I felt really comfortable playing, I messed up a line or to here and there - mostly because I was thinking about between song banter while I was singing. That's a mistake I sometimes make, but it wasn't noticeable and this was a dance party not a listening room, so I didn't care at all. I could hear Brian's drums and Max's bass perfectly and the beat was incessant and driving throughout the night. Man, I love playing at Halloween parties. There's the visual aspect of all these strange creatures twirling around before me. Even the ones who don't dance are a vision, strangers' faces fixed in the darkness on us, zombies, robots, fairies, and costumeless kids. The energy is always incredible, people are out-of-there element, their inhibitions are lost behind their masks, they get drunk on anonymity. And I myself, behind the make-up, feel more confident, more powerful than ever. In costume, I hold my gaze. While we played our original songs to this crowd of kids who for the most part never ever see original bands, certainly not ones that they aren't already familiar with, I looked around and tried to guage what was going on. They were listening, they were dancing, some were laughing, others nodding, some sat in the back just watching. I thought we went across excellently, much better than I anticipated that we might. We were pretty far out of our element here, none of them had ever heard "I Got You" before (I wasn't surprised but it still was something to see it confirmed) and yet they didn't tune us out, they didn't leave, they stayed and they enjoyed it. It was a confidence builder for me actually. After the show I talked to a bunch of people who said they enjoyed the show. One girl bought a CD, a few others signed the mailing list and I believe three walked away with T-Shirts. The party went on while we cleaned up and the room got fuller and fuller, it was still only 11:00 by the time we were loading out - I can't believe that many kids were already partying. Part of me wanted to stay and watch, to feel anonymous in the crowd, but I had another halloween party to get to back in Northampton and it had already been a really long day. Speaking of long-days, did I mention it started off early in the morning with a long-catholic wedding ceremony (stand up! sit down! stand up! sit down!) followed by an open-bar reception that lasted five and a half hours? Max and I had a nice ride home, we shared war stories from past shows, and I appearantly scared him out of his wits. When he dropped me off on Main Street Northampton, I crossed the dark street and heard music booming down from the open windows of the party I would soon be attending. There I was, in full clown regalia and the music showering over me was The Aloha Steamtrain's Girl Planet. When I walked into the party I was surrounded by monsters of all sorts and a most familiar music (one that I will always associate with Halloween) Dennis Crommett had put the album Girl Planet on and it was playing loudly in its entirety. The room was full of terrors and thrills and I, in my clown suit, felt like I was one of them. Thanks to Miriam for setting us up with this great college gig down at UCONN and for buying us pizza and taking care of us the best she could. She did a really good job, as did everyone involved. MAX: Last night's show was odd but fun. When we arrived we were directed to a dorm cafeteria which had just begun to be set up for the party. At this point there were kids running around, moving things, and hanging up streamers, but it was looking pretty bleak. We had been warned ahead of time that this was a dry party, and someone read that Uconn was the #8 party school. Putting those two facts together we came to the conclusion that we might be playing to the people who were hanging up the streamers. But everyone seemed to be in a good mood and we quickly loaded our stuff into the corner of the cafeteria. In what seemed like record time the room was transformed into a very festive place and the energy of the students seemed to be rubbing off on us. People started to line up outside, and turning off some of the big florescent lights made it seem like this was an *event*, even if the smell of yesterday's burritos still wafted out from the kitchen. After eating too much pizza, it was time to figure out the evening's costumes. Tony changed into a great polkadot shirt, '70s jacket and light yellow pants. Brian wore a bluish-green tux shirt (the kind with the fluffy thing down the center) and Henning wore something funny which I can't remember. All I can picture about Henning is his scary clown face. It wasn't scary while we were playing, but on the ride home it scared the crap out of me. At one point I looked over mid-conversation expecting to see Henning's gentle face, and instead was greeted with Psycho Clown From Hell. Must have been the lighting or the reflection of him in the window. In any case, Henning, Brian and Tony did up their faces in similar clown styles and I opted out, as I was still self-conscious about my cheek. I wore a Day of the Dead mask, goofy hat and striped pants. So I suppose we must have looked like rejects from a clown convention, with me representing someone's Mexican clown cousin. Our set seemed like it was always on the verge of falling apart, but somehow things always managed to straighten out in the end. Henning dropped a few lines here and there, which seems rare. I had issues with my mask and ended up playing "Thug" bent over, doing my best to see the neck of my bass through one tiny eye hole. There was confusion going into the verse of "V66", but I think the students may have been so transfixed by Brian forming a V with his drumsticks that they might not have noticed. They were very kind and receptive, anyway. Some danced. Some bobbed their heads. A few started out watching us with arms crossed, but by the end had uncrossed them and put hands in pockets. But at least they were rocking back and forth in time. We played "I've Got You" by Split Enz (probably retiring it from here on out) and offered a shirt to whoever could name the band who wrote it. Nobody knew the answer. Then Henning asked if anyone had ever heard the song before and no one had. We felt old. Tony's disco hit "Something European" was a smashing success, and people seemed to immediately get into the groove. I gave Henning my bass, grabbed a tambourine and debuted my alter-ego go go dancer persona. I did my best to get the crowd into it, dancing like their embarrassing uncle who's had too much eggnog. Students looked horrified and moved away as I moved onto the dance floor. Lord Russ I'm not. But it was fun and we will probably work this into the set. After we finished, the DJ almost immediately started up with "Brick House", followed by a pretty good selection of music, considering the fact that it could have been all Korn 'n Britney. I was entertained by all the dancing and costumes, especially the pair of butterflies. Hats off to the guy who did air guitar, air drums and lip synched (all simultaneously) Metallica's "Enter Sandman". I had flashbacks to me as a college freshman in '89. 'Cept it would have been Motorhead 'cause Metallica were wusses, dude. TONY: Can we blame this one on Ken's absence? If not, can we blame it on unwisely ingesting too much pizza right before playing? If not, how about the unnatural costumes physically interfering with guitar-playing digits? All of the above! Henning was forgetting words left and right, Brian was tired after the third song, my pick kept slipping out of my fingers because it was greased up with face paint. Indeed, halfway through the show, I noticed my white pick had turned pink and that there were smudges of red on Henning's guitar. I even lost my balance and nearly fell over during "Something European". Been a long time since I've played that one, which means using a wah-wah pedal while singing into a mic. It can be done- Lord Russ, for one, is particularly adept at it but I am out of practice. Oh, by the way, please read Max's account of this before mine- I'll lazily just let his previously written bit fill you in on the details regarding the description of the shindig. Again, it was a rainy drive out of town, again I went with Brian and we had a nice chat as usual. We played a Mike Nesmith mix CD in the car on the way which was quite portentous. It started out innocently enough. After "Something European," a young lady dressed as sort of a faerie came up to me and raved about that song. Nice! My debut as lead vocalist in SFTD and right off the bat, I'm earning instant accolades. A few songs later, this same girl came up to me again and asked me if we mentioned "Mike Nesmith" in one of our songs. Well, indeed, his name pops up in "The Wichita Train Whistle Sings," a song named after one of his albums. So I informed her that this was the case, and her eyes lit up. She considered herself a big fan and was excited just to hear the reference. So I said, hey, come talk to us after the show because it turns out our drummer Brian is a huge fan, a collector of Nez bootlegs even, a few of which I'd just recenty borrowed. Anyway, after the show, I introduced her to Brian and she chatted with him about Nesmithiana while he broke his kit down. Somewhat listening in, I heard Brian remark to her that he was surprised that there were younger Nez fans like her out there but that he had just been to a website two weeks ago run by a young fan about her age. Nope, exactly her age because it was her website. The SmallWorldwideWeb? I guess so. So that's my nice story. I'd rather not dwell too much on the fact that it was a subpar performance. Let's not forget we can add Max's facial affliction and Henning's back troubles to the list of excuses, too. No doubt I'll just always remember this as the show where we met the huge Nesmith fan Emily, who was entertainingly garrulous and so sweet. I always feel kinda awkward and self-conscious talking to people after shows but this encounter gives me hope. Gaining fans and admirers is ostensibly what we're in this for, hey, yeah?	Uncomfortable Ayla Soup Thug The New You 1,000 Times Wichita Something European I Got You (Split Enz) Like To Be There One Lady Dancing Martha Omnivore