DUTCH DENTAL HYGIENE AND SURREAL LUGGAGE

(Holland and Belgium)

We arrive in Groningen a little before 6:00 p.m. Everyone is still groggy, but we’re ready to begin our lengthy adventure. Simon hands out printed itineraries, delineating our fifty shows through eleven European countries: Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Czechia (Czech Republic, formerly Czechoslovakia), Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Like Jeff’s shirts and caps, the itinerary is headlined “Jeff Dahl Euro-Tour ‘93.” We check into our hotel and everyone quickly proves that while we are musicians, we’re also tourists: we all line up to buy Groningen postcards.

We have three rooms tonight. Dahlby rooms with Simon in order to discuss what his responsibilities will be and to get organized. Dahl is bound to be concerned about keeping our bankroll safe and sound. On his last tour, someone got into Jeff’s hotel room in Toulouse, France. They walked away with his passport and all the cash they had earned so far. Needless to say, this put a damper on the proceedings. When Jeff told me his last tour had turned a profit, it was partially untrue. An unknown third party had liquidated a lot of the cash. There wasn’t any evidence of a break-in at his hotel in Toulouse. It must have been some kind of inside job, probably someone from the hotel. No doubt money will be kept under close watch this time.

Z and Rat take one room. They actually were roommates in Hollywood for a time, so that leaves me on my own, for one night anyway. Tomorrow night our party increases to six strong. Our merchandising guy will join us. No one really knows anything about him, except for Jeff.

My room is interesting, different than what I’m used to in the States. There’s a small closet, a small sink, and three single beds crammed into the remaining space. There’s no toilet or phone. That means my Fender Jazz Bass gets its own bed.

Everyone except Jeff reconvenes in the hotel restaurant for a deluxe meal. We eat like pigs, and generally begin to get acquainted with Simon. After dinner, we’re supposed to go to some bar/club where Jeff has agreed to appear solo and acoustic, unplugged. A guy named Theo, who runs a punk rock record store in town that carries a lot of Jeff’s releases, set up the gig.

Groningen is pretty far north, as far as you can go in Holland before you dump into the North Sea. Needless to say, it’s mid-January, and it’s cold for us California and Arizona residents. After dinner, we hike the three or four long blocks to the club.

The streets are narrow and made of stone. Most of the traffic is comprised of bicyclists. They outnumber drivers throughout the Netherlands. As we cross a tiny bridge, a small car slightly clips a rider who tumbles over, losing his balance. He yells at the driver and chases him down the street. The driver stops, gets out of his car, and approaches the biker. They start punching each other in the face. After each one receives a few blows, they stop hitting each other, and start talking. By the time we’ve past them, they seem to have worked out some sort of agreement. Still, the negotiation style is interesting—hit first, then talk. Future politicians, perhaps?

We enter the club, which seems to have no discernable name, although the motif is early cave, with the roof designed to resemble stalactites. It’s quite small. The bar itself occupies almost half of the space. Jeff will play to his fifteen or so hardcore fans in a little room off to the side where a lone mic and a small practice P.A. system await. The rest of us negotiate for free beer, and drinking begins in earnest.

Most of the people here are thirtysomething guys, and they have a few other similarities amongst them. They are all punk rock fans, and most of them are involved with sidecar motorcycle racing. One fellow corners me at the bar and talks my ear off in a drunken slur-blur about this sort of racing. He’s a sidecar rider, as opposed to a driver, which seems simple enough, provided you don’t fall out. He explains there is a certain strategy to it, balancing and weight shifting and countless other scientific variations that I couldn’t be less interested in. Theo shows up, a Frankenstein-like chap, closing in on seven feet of Netherland monstrosity with sunken cheeks and dark, scary eyes. He gives us shirts and sweatshirts that promote his record shop, and pays Jeff some cash on a Dahl video he’s been selling. I’m in the video, so Jeff kicks me some cash. I’m already liquid, and I haven’t played a note yet!

Besides the previously mentioned affinity for punk rock and sidecar bikes, these guys have a nearly inhuman tolerance for beer—Euro-beer is stronger than the Ameripiss we Yankees swill down on a daily basis. I’d been warned that European standards of hygiene were less stringent than in the U.S., but these guys smell like they haven’t touched soap or water in this decade. Never mind that, they probably haven’t even owned a toothbrush. If you put all of them together, you might just barely get a complete set of teeth, but individually their mouths looked like bowling lanes with spares ready to be picked up. Simon opines that it has to do with no fluoride in the water, but he’s English, so his dental observations and opinions must be taken with a grain.

“I’m pretty nervous. I’ve never done this before,” Dahl confesses to me in private prior to his solo venture.

“Don’t worry, man,” I reassure. “It’s definitely a Jeff Dahl crowd in the house tonight.”

He plays Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory,” and a few of his own toned-down numbers. They’re warmly received. We bullshit with the locals a little more, then bail back to the hotel. I check my watch and it’s only 10:00 p.m. Not really much of a night out. We haven’t even been here a day, yet been up for two. I figure it’s the jet lag and everyone’s pretty shagged. We all go straight to bed like good little boys.

Somewhere around 3:00 a.m. the evening’s beer consumption sends me to the halls trying to remember where they hid the toilets. It’s dark, and I use my cigarette lighter to find my way. Some geek in tight red pajamas and another guy in a floor-length nightgown, complete with matching stocking cap, approach me from the other direction. It turns out to be Rat in the PJs and Z, always the fashion plate, in the Ebenezer Scrooge get up.

“We both sprung up in bed at the exact same moment, looked at each other, and said, ‘I gotta piss,’” reports Ratboy.

The need for meaningful conversation immediately subsides, we finish our business, and head back to our rooms. Thing is, I can’t go back to sleep. I lie in bed tossing and turning for hours. Finally, at 8:00 a.m., I surrender and get up. Z and Rat tell me that they also couldn’t sleep. In fact, Ratboy has already been out and located Groningen’s Red Light District, if you can call it that.

“It’s hysterical. It’s one little street, and there’s big, fat, ugly whores in the windows reading books and looking totally bored.”

It doesn’t sound like much, but it still merits a firsthand look. It’s cold out, but we came prepared with hats, wool and leather gloves, leather jackets, sweatshirts, and thermal underwear. We stroll the streets. Z and I, the resident amateur photographers, snap pictures at anything and everything—interesting buildings, uninteresting buildings, and angry prostitutes who don’t want their pictures taken shaking their fists. Dahl and Simon join up with us around 11:00 a.m. We get a tourist guidebook from the hotel and see what there is to see. We’re all art enthusiasts, at least to varying degrees, and Groningen has a number of museums, so we go check ‘em out. A few are closed, but we find two that are open and make the most of it. They’re actually pretty lame, but we’re having fun anyway, charged with energy and excited to be in a foreign land. Dahl and Rat have been all over Europe before, but it’s a first for me and Z. Everyone’s having a blast.

This town would not hold up over a Californian fault line. The whole place is made of bricks. A number of canals go through the city, with brick bridges traversing them. It’s as foreign as anything could be to a guy who grew up in Southern California. It’s beautiful, and the Dutch people, at least the ones we’ve encountered on the street, seem very friendly. Most of them speak a considerable amount of English. So, it’s no problem getting directions, picking up things in stores, and ordering beers in bars.

At 6:00 p.m., we show up at Vera for our first show. Volunteers run it. That’s common in Europe at the local club level. It keeps the music scene healthy, vibrant, and enthusiastic. They treat us like kings and make sure to satisfy all our petty needs. Dinner is served right away. Our rider includes beer, juices, chocolates, fruit, and enormous quantities of bread and cheese (the latter being European for breakfast and lunch). Z and I should have put cigarettes on the rider. They’re expensive in Europe. We’ll end up plowing through the numerous cartons we stowed in our gig bags. You learn as you go. We also should have asked for some hard liquor. We’ll develop immunity to beer over the upcoming weeks. Like I said, live and learn.

We have yet to play the whole show straight through. Tonight’s the big night. The hall is medium-sized with a collapsing stage and a full-blown sound system. They also have a closed circuit video system to tape the band. We’ll get a dub at some point. (By the time we get to Japan, the Groningen tape will have made the bootleg market.)

Right before we go on, Dahl and I sit at a table in the club’s showroom. A guy walks in carrying a huge blue duffel bag. He’s got long, surfer-blond frizzed hair, and he looks spaced-out. Dahlby jumps up and rushes to greet him and shake his hand.

“Tim! Great! You’re here! I was starting to get worried about you.”

Tim is our Mystery Man of Merchandise. He has just come in on a train from Amsterdam. It turns out he is the brother of one of Jeff’s friends in Los Angeles, a lovely redhead named Brigitte. When Dahl would come to L.A. for business, he would frequently stay at my house, and Brigitte would inevitably pop-up. Jeff always assured me they were just friends, as if I would judge someone else’s infidelity. If they were just friends, I always felt I should get close to her, in a Biblical sense. She was smart, savvy, and sexy. Alas, I had no such luck.

Her brother is another story. Tim’s thirty-two going on fifteen. Back home in The Valley he has his own place, but his folks cover the rent. Basically, he does odd jobs, takes care of a condo for someone, plays lead guitar in a heavy metal band, and chases girls half his age. He’s the polar opposite of everyone else on the tour, but he has a job to do. It would be unfair to pass judgment on him too early, but it’s obvious that right out of the gate, no one in the band aside from Jeff has much of an affinity for him.

The show turns out to be an hour and a half long, including the encores. Dahl likes to milk the crowd for the encores, and that’s where most of our cover songs go, tunes by the Stooges, Dead Boys, Lords of the New Church, Flamin’ Groovies, and, on some nights if the crowd really wants more, an audience participation version of “Louie Louie.” I don’t think any of us would try this at home. There are a few clunkers in our set, but nothing major. The energy we crank up more than makes up for a couple of minor mistakes. All and all, it’s a hit. We’re all feeling pretty confident about the upcoming forty-nine shows by the set’s end.

Following the show, I’m talking with one of the volunteer girls who works at Vera. She tells me there were 136 paid customers, but we played to close to 200, as the volunteers get a number of their friends in for free.

“How was the show?” I ask.

“You guys were good. You’ll see on the video. You should definitely keep an eye on your merchandise guy, though.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he slept through most of the show at his little table. Some salesman.”

Okay, the guy’s jet lagged, we all are, but she’s right: we gotta keep an eye on this guy. This ain’t just a free vacation. He’s gotta earn his keep, and Dahl needs to sell all that stuff or he’ll be in hock up to his ’fro. The Vera crowd was one of the most enthused and high-energy we’d play to for a few weeks, and we sold them a total of one hat.

Back at the hotel, Rat’s hanging out in my room, and Tim, my roommate for the evening, is unpacking a few of his things from what is easily the largest duffel bag I’ve ever seen.

“Aw, you know what I forgot to bring?” Tim asks no one in particular. “Toothpaste. Can I borrow some of yours?”

“Go ahead, but pick some up tomorrow,” I request. “Say, Tim, I couldn’t help but notice, unless I’m wrong, you don’t have a jacket packed in with all that crap.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Aw, I won’t need one, I’ve got plenty of sweatshirts.”

“In the middle of winter, in Europe?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Wait ‘til we get to Finland,” Rat points out.

The Beastie Boys are on the tape deck, and we’ve substituted the lyrics: “No...sleep...’til Eeklo!” Eeklo, Belgium, is our next stop, and for the next few days we’ll crisscross the borders of the Netherlands and Belgium. The European borders, for the most part, are open now, so it’s like driving across state lines in the U.S. In many cases, it’s even more lax.

Eeklo is a pretty, but very small, very boring town. It’s rainy and cold, and the unfriendly innkeepers at the Savage Claw, or whatever the hell hotel we’re staying at, scrutinize our passports for what seems like decades. They then shuffle us off to the undesirable’s quarters, ‘round the side and all the way in the back.

The rooms are awful, among the most claustrophobic and mildew ridden we’ll have to endure. Dahl points out that the pillows smell funny. Well, we won’t be here long.

The gig is in a hall where we have to go down at least seventy flights of stairs, lugging our amps and drums. At home, we all use bigger, meaner amps than these rented jobs, but they’re plenty big to be dragging down all these steps. I’m one of those people who’d rather have a needle poked in my eye than make two trips, so I end up carrying too much and drop my amp down a few steps. Although it’s in a flight case, I’m sure this Trace Elliot amp was not designed to bounce down stairways.

The club is cold and dank, with a backstage that’s down even more stairs. Once we reach it, one of the workers, again a volunteer, unlocks an office and gives us carte blanche to the telephone, so everyone calls their girlfriends/wives, except for Dahl, whose motto is: “I’ll send her postcards and call her maybe once. She knows what I’m doing.”

I call Gina, who’s at work at the management company. She can’t talk for more than thirty seconds, because she’s supposed to pick up the phones. After the initial “hello,” she even seems kind of annoyed that I called. She does say that she’s been going out every night and having a blast—so much for missing me. I suppose I shouldn’t make anything out of it. I want her to have fun and do well at her job. Rat’s wife, Lizzie, is in the middle of contract negotiations with one of the bigger U.S. indie labels, and she’s constantly consulting with him about this clause or that. They end up talking for a long time. All and all, I’m glad we’ll be long gone when the club’s phone bill arrives.

Backstage, some blurry-eyed Eeklo native starts slurring in my ear. “I’m Boeff, from Eeklo. Whuz happening? I need to get some of your shirts for my friend who couldn’t come. Can I have them for free?” This guy is relentless, and for the rest of the evening he attaches himself to us like a leech, constantly drinking and haranguing us for free goods, which are not forthcoming.

Two other guys, Eric and Charles, drove all the way from Rosny-sous-Bois, someplace in France, to see the band. They get records signed by everyone and are amazingly friendly and down to earth. They’re true hardcore rock ‘n’ roll fans, the kind that don’t care what kind of hardships they have to endure to see their favorite bands. They say they’ll go to the Paris show, and, in fact, by the time the tour ends they plan to see us a total of five times.

The organizer of this event, on which we are the only band, hands me twenty or so drink tickets for beer or soda. “I’ll be sure to give the rest of the band and crew their share,” I tell him.

“No, those are just for you. They have their own, too.”

Well, I guess I’ll start drinking a case or two. Hell, I could even go for an apple. After the show, which seemed to be predominantly attended by guys, I survey the area for local talent. The prettiest girl in the whole place, a lovely young lass with blue eyes, straight dark brown hair, and an anachronistic brown suede fringe jacket, approaches me.

“Can I have your autograph?”

I can’t help but laugh, a non-star like me signing anything but a check. “Sure, of course. I’ve got a number of drink tickets here. Would you like a beer or something?” I hand it to her, as the inevitable boyfriend walks up, puts his arm around her, and shakes my hand. Fuck it. I’ll give him a drink ticket, too. I make my way to the bar and start drinking Duvel, the strongest beer in Belgium—personally endorsed by my good friend Boeff—and give out drink tickets to one and all. The fellow who organized the show is next to me.

“So, how’d it go?” I ask. “Attendance seemed a little lacking.”

“Well, yeah. It’s a small town. It’s hard to get people in, but that’s okay.”

“You made a little money then?”

“No, we never make any money, ever.”

“How do you stay in business?”

“We’re not in business, strictly speaking. Everyone that works here are volunteers, and the whole concert series is funded by the local government to give the kids something to do if they want. It doesn’t need to make money.”

Wow, imagine that. It’s a cultural thing. We’re presented as recreation, art, and culture, musicians from afar. Back in the U.S. of A., this would never happen. No one thinks of rock music as anything but a nuisance. No civic group would ever put it on just so kids would have a place to hang.

Back at the bar, I can no longer give away these drink tickets. It seems everyone has had all they can handle, band and fans alike. It’s time to take the equipment up the seventy flights of stairs into the cold Eeklo night.

Simon commandeers the van back to Holland where we’re to rock a place called Uden. Rat is sitting next to me, fairly miserable, as he’s contracted pink eye. Maybe he picked it up off one of those smelly pillows. We’ve been out for almost half a week, and still no one is sleeping right. My eyes are black all the way around, but at least they’re not pink. We talk about the girls, or lack thereof, at these shows.

“I’m telling you, if you want to meet chicks,” advises Simon, clued in to all the sagely ways of the road, “the thing to do is to hang around the T-shirt stand right after the show.”

“I’ve been there all night, and there haven’t been any girls hanging out there,” Tim moans.

“That’s because you are there,” sneers Rat.

“No, I’m serious. If you want to meet girls, if the band comes down, the girls will come down. You’ll see. That is, if there are any girls at any of these shows. Maybe not with you lot.”

“Thanks, Simon.”

It was true enough. The female species was in short supply at Euro-Dahl events. We seemed to be consistently playing to older punk rock guys who were losing both their hair and their teeth. If there were any girls on hand, they came and left with a guy. Perhaps one of us would find ourselves chatting up one of these ladies while Mr. Boyfriend went for a piss, but that was about it. Contact with the opposite sex seemed to be strictly limited to conversation. There were just no single girls coming in.

“No one got laid on the last tour,” Dahl flatly announces.

“Of course not. You guys were too busy washing your socks,” I counter.

“I’ll tell you, I’m not used to this,” says Rat, with one hand over his oozing eye. “In Motorcycle Boy, we didn’t have to do all of this courtship bullshit. I’m not used to all of this talking and chatting with these stupid girls. I don’t want to talk. We would just have girls around after we played...who knew or cared where they came from. We would just pick one each and pair off and go fuck somewhere. None of this talking.”

“I’ve never had the insta-fuck luxury,” I tell. “It seems like I’ve always been in bands that mainly drew guys. I guess it’s just the kind of music I play. Gets to be a drag, sometimes.”

“No doubt,” laughs Simon. “You guys just don’t know what you’re doing. I guarantee you I’ll get laid, and I’m willing to bet it’s before the end of this week.”

“What shall we wager, our per diems?” laughs Z.

“No, no, just a gentlemen’s bet. You’ll see. I’ll get laid before the week’s up.”

The van rolls along, and I fall asleep, my head bouncing against the backseat passenger window. My sleep habits are still all fucked up. I can’t sleep at night for more than about three hours. I’m beginning to look like Vincent Price. I’ve been having ridiculous surrealistic nightmares. The one I slip into during this drive is a recent, recurring dream.

I keep dreaming about luggage that mutates into clothing—that my leather hanging suit bag can be zipped a certain way, folded, tugged, emptied, and turned into a leather motorcycle jacket. It’s actually pretty cool, and maybe I kind of wish it were real, but I keep dreaming this pointless dream over and over. It takes place in the van—that’s roomier and actually luxurious in my dream—imaginary hotels, and surreal backstages. The dream isn’t exciting or unpleasant, but every time I have it, it jerks me awake.

“Luggage again, McGruff?” asks Z, reacting to my jactitation. McGruff is his nickname for me, based on a crime fighting cartoon dog from a public service television commercial.

“Yeah. It turns into a leather jacket now. I wish I could explain...” I fall back asleep, for a while anyway.

Uden is a small town built around a town square. Quaint shops and winding streets expand from the humble center. We are staying at a rooming house. The remaining occupants are all GIs stationed in Holland. Most of them are from the South and Texas. They seem excited to have some Americans to watch television and shoot the shit with. They’re a coed group, and I get the feeling that more than a little hanky-panky goes down behind closed doors. We invite them to the show at a proper club tonight, but they aren’t familiar with the venue. They take the address, but I’m pretty sure none of them will show up. It’s far too removed from their daily routine.

The guy who runs this little cottage for wayward soldiers and rockers has volunteered to do our laundry. You can’t ask for more than that. So we sort it out, and it’s a surprising amount given that we’re only on our fifth day. As he toils over our dirty socks and crusties, we adjourn to a nearby arcade.

It turns out that Simon isn’t only an expert driver, navigator, negotiator, mediator, and equipment fixer, he can also whip everybody’s ass at any and all games, be it pool, pinball, video games, or foosball. Of course he always wins, and after awhile, it gets a bit depressing for everyone else. If I take on anyone else for pinball, my favorite brand of arcade time wasting, then I pretty much always win. Variety and unpredictability are not part of this scenario.

For some reason, I decide to get to know Tim, as he will be around for our duration here. So, we take a walk through the bustling streets of downtown Uden. Tim has done his homework, and he already knows a few key things about me: he knows I work for a record company, he assumes I know everyone in the record business, and he knows I write for rock magazines. He starts telling me about his band, how they have management, how he writes the music, how numerous labels are interested, and how everything will be taking off for them as soon as he gets home from Europe.

“You know, I haven’t talked to Jeff about it yet, but I tell ya, my band would really be great opening for you guys in Japan. We’re the type of band the Japanese would really eat up. I know they would.”

“What type of band are you?”

“Sort of like Aerosmith, with a little Rush mixed in. I add a little more technical angle to it, as I’ve been to G.I.T., so I like to really play some guitar.”

G.I.T. stands for the Guitar Institute of Technology, a place where lots of guys go to learn to play like whoever the most shredding guitar player of the week is. Moms and dads send guys and girls from all over the country out to Hollywood for holing up in cheap apartments and hanging around G.I.T., which, when they get the tuition bill back home in Omaha, sounds like an official university, a place of higher learning. It’s a place to take guitar lessons and learn all about music, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but the thing is, a certain style of guitarist always seems to emerge from the school—cold, unfeeling, technically proficient, theoretically learned, fast, whiz-banging, jazz fusion meets metal jack-officers. Tim seemed to fit the mold. It was in direct opposition to the kinds of things the members of this band stood for, and the kind of street musician/garage musician roots most of us had.

Tim also had an amazing appetite. At this juncture—the beginning of the tour—he was more or less the same size as Jeff and me. He seemed to eat non-stop. “I’m on vacation,” he would say, which certainly was his attitude, especially when it came time to load equipment and sell merchandise. In Holland and Belgium, there are a lot of walk-up stands that sell fritters, what Americans call French fries. Tim stopped at three separate fritter stands during our walk and ate three orders all by himself.

He was indeed on vacation. Nothing wrong with that, in theory. Tim was trying to be nice to me, but I could see we had virtually nothing in common, except that we both had long, dishwater blond hair, we both grew up in California, and we both played in some sort of band. That wasn’t going to be enough to form a lasting bond, but I guess it would have to be enough to tolerate him for nine weeks.

When we return to our Uden outpost, we find our laundry done, and our whites all turned to this weird bluish-gray. Since our host can’t really speak English, it doesn’t make sense to inquire about what the hell happened. He makes up for it with a huge spaghetti/salad/garlic bread feast.

The gig tonight is in a proper rock club, right here in central Uden. We learn that the building directly next door, which is ominous, dark, and with no signs of people coming or going, is a whorehouse. It doesn’t seem to be a very functioning whorehouse, still, that’s the word, and we keep our eyes peeled. Nothing much seems to happen, no one goes in or out, both literally and figuratively. No one’s buying sex in Uden.

Our show is on a bigger stage than usual, and the setup at the venue is pretty happening. The P.A. and lighting guys come in to start their evening’s work already roaring drunk, hooking things up incorrectly, causing mind-numbing bursts of ear-shattering feedback, then falling down laughing about it, and blowing up overhead lights.

The audiences are getting a bit stranger, as well. A Dutch beauty that was tending bar prior to our performance comes to dance in front of us while we’re playing. She looks like a budget version of Uma Thurman. This is enticing at first, until her boyfriend joins her, a regular Thor meets the son of Frankenstein. Together they cavort, and we are again reminded that no females attend a Jeff Dahl show unescorted.

The drunken techs decide to spice up the show, cranking on a fog machine. We didn’t even know they had one. Still in the grips of pink eye, Rat’s eyes immediately turn bright red, and he is temporarily blinded.

“Turn that fucking thing off!” he shouts, stumbling, trying to find his microphone, but unable to locate exactly where it is. “Fuck!” he hollers, stumbling sideways into the mic and knocking it over while the stage becomes more engulfed in smoke. At this point, Rat can no longer see his guitar neck and is playing random noise. He’s in so much agony, the music doesn’t even matter to him.

“Man, you gotta turn that fog machine off. I’ve got Blind Lemon Ratboys on up here,” Dahl instructs over the P.A. The drunks, still slobbering and guffawing, get it together enough to can it with the smoke, and things return more or less to normal. We finish the show.

The highlight of the performance every night, for the backing band anyway, is our cover version of the Stooges’ “Dirt,” a simplistic blues-riff with a slow, three-chord turnaround for a chorus. It’s dirge-like, slow compared to the remainder of our set, and Dahl holds down the three chord mantra like clockwork, allowing the rest of us to go off into a sort of free-jazz, epileptic fit. It’s quite cathartic and is played like the frustration release that it is, allowing us to stretch, bend, and extrapolate in our own modest way onto the Thelonious Monk, Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman stratosphere. We play it as sonically tone-bended and mutated as we can, given the abilities of our pudgy, little, non-G.I.T.-trained fingers.

Backstage there’s a bit of a gathering with our agent, Camille, who is in attendance for the first time. Along with him came Daniella, a shorthaired, kitten-featured manx of a lass whom he claims is his girlfriend. Though judging by the way she gravitated toward that pink-eyed little Rat, I’m not sure I would want her to be my girlfriend. Rat is intrigued by her, and he seems to like the attention. He sits close and talks in quiet tones with her. Their heads nearly touch to insure privacy. Camille observes this out of the corner of his eye, frowns, and continues to talk business with Jeff. Camille tells Jeff, so we all can hear: “This is certainly the best band you’ve brought over. That’s made a big difference, and the feedback I’m getting from the promoters is very positive.” Dahl is already talking about doing summer festivals with another band, one that he does side projects with, but Camille is encouraging him to stick with us, that he should build on one thing, get to know it better, and expand the fan base. Rat, Z, and I say nothing. Selling CDs to make ends meet and living off of three dollars per day makes us think it’s best to not volunteer for too many Jeff Dahl tours.

Z isn’t paying that much attention anyway. He’s sitting in between two Dutch girls, kissing one of them. Z—the quiet one, the shy one, the good-looking one—is making friends and influencing people. The girl he’s smooching gets a little hot, and starts hugging him real hard. The other girl rolls her eyes and looks a little embarrassed.

“All right, rock stars. It’s time to lug your gear out. C’mon, I’m a tour manager, not a humper, off your bums, then.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Z takes the girls’ names for the guest list at an upcoming show. I hope it’s not within the next two nights, because Z’s girlfriend from L.A., Rita, is hooking up with us for a few days. She’s visiting family in England, taking the train over to see her man, and she doesn’t like to share.