It’s a six hour drive to Columbia Missouri today. McKenzie sets us up with the shower, and we try to get moving as quickly as we can. She’s a very fine hostess, and it’s extremely impressive she is up and moving after the amount of bourbon she must have had last night. Columbia is a college town, home to the University of Missouri. Usually college towns have some interesting places to wander around, although there is only so much time you can kill in coffee houses, used CD stores, used bookstores, and head shops. We’ve never been there before, so it’s always interesting to go somewhere new. We get assembled and hop in the van and leave. Leo forgets his boots. We go back and get his boots. We leave again. We stop for a quick breakfast at a Big Boy right outside of Cincinnati where Leo inexplicably orders the Shrimp Po’ Boy. Who orders seafood at a lower end chain restaurant in Cincinnati at 10:00 in the morning?
The drive through Indiana and Illinois is really boring. The main industry appears to be selling RVs and Fear of God. I think these two things might be combined at some of the dealerships we pass, but we don’t dare stop of face the possibility of being thrown into re-education camps. We finally pull into Columbia with plenty of time to kill. It goes down almost textbook Whiskey Daredevil style. Leo immediately walks into the first bar he comes across and starts to drink Happy Hour pints. Gary drifts off to get coffee and find a place to charge one of his various electronic devices. Sugar opens up her laptop and starts to work. I wander around the town.
Columbia is a nice college town. They haven’t allowed chain stores and restaurants to take over the immediate downtown area, so there are plenty of locally owned boutique stores, restaurants, and stores selling horribly ugly Missouri Tiger gear. I buy a used Mark Lemhouse CD and a Scientists CD at some place called “Slackers” that is hosting a Magic tournament. Now it would be easy to slag the guys in there playing Magic on a Friday night, but I gotta tell you, they seemed to be really into it. When I see anyone really excited about what they are doing, I think it’s pretty cool. Unless it is someone that is involved with one of those NBA Dance Teams, which I think becomes even more uncool the more you are into it.
A couple hours after we get to town the other bands start to filter into the club, The Blue Fugue. While every single online review I read of the club has used the word “filthy” in their description, to me it looks like any other college town microbrew hippie music hangout joint. I wouldn’t eat sushi here, but the beer should be OK. One upside is the walls are literally covered in paperbacks, and I clip one for reading on the road.
A matter of concern is that I haven’t seen a single poster or flier for the show anywhere in the four block area I have wandered. Most people seem really jacked up about the Big 12 basketball tournament where Missouri is expected to do well. Conversely, most people couldn’t seem to give two shits about four bands they have never heard of before that are playing the Blue Fugue. One thing I have learned while playing rock music is that if there is no promotion, there is probably no crowd. Consequently the crowd never materializes, and we play a well received set to about 17 people that must have wandered in by mistake. I begin to address the crowd individually. We might as well get to know our local hosts. We play a totally different set than the night before, a rule we stick by in the ensuing nights. Ideally we will try to not repeat a single song until we get to SXSW. It goes OK all things considered. Heck, we even sold a CD and a t-shirt.
Oh Me My and The Sundresses both played well. Oh Me My is kind of like a modern Big Brother and the Holding Company with a Raggity Ann Mae West singing lead. The Sundresses are like a cross between The Gories and The White Stripes. They’re both good, and well worth your attention if you ever have the chance to see them. At this point we are kinda done hanging out at the Blue Fugue. We decide to split before Wussy plays, and set out to our hotel.
On this tour, the hotels have all been booked by ANP prior to us leaving. I’m a huge proponent of using Priceline to get the finest accommodations our budget will allow. If you are going someplace weird (like Columbia MO on a non-sporting event Friday for example), you can often get very civilized accommodations at a reasonable rate. This was not to be this time, as we were locked in at an Econolodge. The Econolodge is generally my least favorite hotel chain. This one in Columbia seemed to be a bit above some of the Econolodges I have stayed in previously during the band’s well-documented Early Days of Bitter Struggle, but it was still an Econolodge. Functional cheerless decorations, stale towels, and other guest rooms that all seem to be housing loud bachelor parties. I bet housekeeping cleans up a lot of barf on Saturday and Sunday mornings at this place.
We all pack into the single room and attempt to fall asleep before Leo starts snoring.
Man, the stories they'd tell
Holding up the roof on a cheap motel