TOUR DIARY:

Dan Jones and the For Reals

by Dan jones

From Davis we drove back into the city, to the Border's at San Raphael. This was a more sterile affair than the Union Square in-store, though we connected with one guy and both sold a cd. 

A serious nap ensued after that and then we drove to Oakland, whereupon I misnavigated us into areas that were pretty sketchy. We found The Stork Club after intuiting our way through the city and loaded in. No other bands on the bill. We were going to hang out and bide our time but then people dressed up as bunnies and Santa Claus and clowns began to show up.


Maybe 85 or 100 santas, bunnies and clowns. Some of the Santas were in latex. One group drove a truck that had been welded into a giant fish with a platform up top. They were on an annual pub crawl, and as it turns out alot of them were in the gay porn industry. This was their Burning Man-style guerilla pub crawl party. They danced to two of our songs, then bailed out, on to the next station. One minute I was playing One Man Submarine to a roomful of gyrating, costumed revellers, the next they were gone, back out on the sidewalk. 

The sound man, a really generous, helpful guy named Christian, told us, "the fish car only comes once, gentleman. You have one life to live and if the fish car comes, you get on, or it doesn't come back." So we got on the fish mobile w/ Christian's cell number and rode to a vacant lot, where the bunnies, santas, and clowns drank whiskey sours, grab-ass wrestled on a mattress, and enjoyed the warmth and psychedelia of AN ACTUAL FLAME THROWER.

Things wound down after The King of The Rabbits, who had glowing piping on his ears, got straddled and atomic dropped by a short, sexy santa in a hot red latex suit. The crowd was rowdy and loud, like an edge culture high school kegger. Then they moved on to their next pub or club or whatever, and Christian came and got us in his Honda, and we played our set to a very very few people. Renessa and Grey showed up again (much thanks for that). Grey is in a band called Our Lady of the Highway that plays in SF.

We drove to Redding after the show and crashed at Tom's brother's house. Mega brekkie of bacon and eggs and toast at 11:00 yesterday, then on to Portland.


- posted by Dan @ 7:18 PM