SYBIL URMSTON GALLAGHER - Sybil, or Syb, as we affectionately call her in the State Radio world is quite the character. She has a special way of making you feel comfortable on the road. She would probably describe it as ‘Jewish Mother Syndrome’. Her mother, who had unfortunately passed before I could meet her, was supposedly just as zany and warm as she is. Her mother raised a large family of 4 boys and 2 girls and always had the maternal instinct going on. Well, it’s not too much different with Sybil. She is always looking out for your well-being, and trying to make sure you are well fed and taken care of on the road. I don’t think she has ever denied us a guestlist spot, even when we were 20 people over on the guestlist. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have someone like that on the road with you. I would say she is the band mother, but if I described her like that then I would be describing the most perverted mother in the world. So maybe we can leave it at ‘guardian for band related purposes’. But in real life she and Chad just had their first child, a beautiful baby girl named Frida Mae. And I know Sybil is a great mother.

But let’s get back to business at hand before things get gushy. Sybil has this habit of asking people ‘would you rather’ questions. For example, “would you rather drink a 24 oz. cup of piss or a 1/2 oz. shot of throw up?”. Her famous question is a bit coarser however. Now, before I reveal her favorite question, I have to clarify that she might have asked this question a few times before I began to really latch on to it. At this point, I feel like I may enjoy this question more than she does. Does this make me a sicko? I would dare say NO. Does it make her a sicko? I would dare say definitely NOT. The reason I think we both love this question is because it is hysterical to watch a new person squirm in their skin when they hear this question come out of Sybil’s mouth. It is so ridiculous, and so unpleasant to think about, that it undoubtedly makes the person want to immediately escape being in the hot seat, and frankly want to throw up.

I love to goad her to ‘The Question’. “Ask your famous question!”. “No, I couldn’t…”. “Yes, you could… And you will…”. “Should I???”. “YES!”. “Well alright, I guess…”. This could be a typical lead in between Sybil and I. I am awaiting the big reaction of the third party being asked ‘The Question’. It is almost unbearable to have to witness ‘The Question’, which only makes the process more exciting. “Okay, here goes… Would you rather finger your mother or give your dad a hand job?”. “WHHAAATT??!!! OH… MY… GOD!!!!!!!!”. Laughter from everyone except the new victim being asked the question. You know it really is sad when that is how you get your laughs, and you are desensitized to such a question. And then you actually try and help the person analyze their options. “Well your mom is pretty hot… but your dad isn’t that bad either… hahahaha”. This could go on for 10 minutes, until the person either answers to shut us up, or just gives up and leaves the room. Oh, the joys of being on the road with State Radio!

Beyond her ‘would you rather questions’ Sybil has a lot going for her. For starters she has led us in some Yoga sessions as she used to be an instructor. She always takes care of us food and clothing wise, and she obviously has a great sense of humor. She even got me my only facial ever (in Nashville) because she thought the girl who worked at the facial place was a hottie. And she was this outrageously hot blond. And the girl started popping these blackheads on my nose and described it as similar to that arcade game when the gophers come frantically popping out of their holes and you have to hit them with a mallet. “Wooooo,” she said, “there’s a lot of these!”. “A lot of what?” I asked. “Blackheads shooting everywhere!”. Then she went into the analogy. So I think my blackheads might have just ruined my game with that blond beauty. Case closed on that one!

My favorite Sybil story to tell has to do with her getting mad at the one and only Chetro Stokes. I believe this was on my second tour with the band, and was on the Vans Warped Tour in 2006. I was still just starting with the band and semi on my best behavior. But the Warped Tour was one of the most brutal tour experiences that I have ever had. To put it in perspective, we were only on the tour for 2 and a half weeks. And if we were on the tour any longer than that, then I think someone might have quit touring forever. It probably wouldn’t have been me, but it might have been the special lady this section is about! Hint, hint.

There were several problems with the tour. First, we were in a van. One of the only reasons that this tour is bearable for most of the acts, and crew, is that they travel on tour buses. With bus drivers whose only job it is to drive the bus. The bus drivers sleep during the day and drive at night. All the buses did a caravan over night to the next venue. It is a completely separate job. And not meant to be tackled by band members during this particular tour. There is a good reason for this. One of the allures of the Warped Tour is that they change the schedule every day. So, as a band you didn’t know if you were going to be playing at 11:30 AM or 7PM the next day. Thus, you had to check in at the next city by 9AM the morning of the show. So when you play in Nashville, TN at 5PM and then have a show 10 hours away in Jacksonville, FL the next day, with an hour time change, you end up driving all night, completely exhausted. And when you have State Radio’s luck, you get to Jacksonville at 9AM after driving all night and then you are told you don’t play until 7PM in Jacksonville that day! That right there is enough to drive the sanest person mad. You drove all night, risking your lives with the craziest drive ever, and it was all for naught. To top things off, the air conditioning in the van was completely broken. And, let me tell you, it was DAMN hot! Like dripping sweat, no place to get out of the heat, in the middle of a field (or more like a huge parking lot), festival style, sun beating down on you, stealing your soul hot. In other words, miserable! And for those of you that remember the heat wave that hit us in the summer of ’06, well, God bless you. You can sympathize with me for a second. It was 2 and a half weeks full of grueling drives, unbearable heat, barely any sleep, clean clothes, or showers. It was grim. And if I say it was grim, it was grim, because I am not one to complain about being able to play music for a living.

So keeping all this background knowledge in mind, let’s move on to where I want to take this train. Chadwick Stokes. Now, Chad has an ability to push the limits of sanity. He can withstand a lot of physical and mental duress. He’s quite a strong will when it comes to braving discomfort. So when he believes in something, he will go the extra mile to get it. During this tour, Chad was big on 2 things: Organic food and bio-diesel for the van. Any chance we could get it, here we come, organic food shops and bio-diesel for the van. Now, let me step in and say these 2 things are not bad things to strive for. Organic food is good for you and great for your physical and mental health. Bio-diesel has had some controversy surrounding it because it might be a viable food source being corn based, but at the time was thought to be a much better alternative than gasoline for several reasons. And this is still a healthy debate. I mean, do we really have to go over the pitfalls of relying on gas, or oil??? I could obviously write about this for hours. And speaking of hours, even though we were on this grim tour, laden with obstacles and sacrifice already, Chad was not adverse to going hours out of the way to get the fated bio-diesel or organic food. Now, the reason I say hours is because we might look up a place that sold bio-diesel. It seemed about half an hour out of the way. But when we get to that location the bio-diesel place had allegedly moved… another half an hour away! At this point the normal person would give up. We would already be dangerously low on gas and if we ran out of gas then the van computer would reset and we would have to take it to a Dodge dealer to fix it. It was a huge risk. And who loved this danger more than anyone… yep, you guessed it, Chadwick Stokes. It was exciting to him. Now try being in Sybil’s shoes. She is tour managing an extremely tight tour time wise and Chad is on a wild goose chase for bio-diesel (or an organic food shop) and he is loving the thrill of potentially being late and/or running out of gas. TENSION! A recipe for disaster I tell you.

And disaster did strike. I believe this particular time was over an organic food shop. It had moved to the center of town. “We don’t have time Chad!”. “But it’s only in the center of town”. “You better not take us there!”. “Let’s just try”. And try we did. We drove to the center of that town, in the blistering heat, somewhere in the middle of I don’t know and who the hell cares.

And then it happened. Sybil cracked. She was done with it. She didn’t want to be in that van, on that search, fighting the good fight for organic food at the cost of everyone’s sanity. It had gone too far, and in that moment the fat lady was singing, and singing loudly. It’s all over, it’s all over! The fat lady kept chanting. Okay, there was no fat lady. But there was a Sybil and she wanted out at that moment. In hindsight this seemed obvious. But in real life it wasn’t so obvious.

“Stop the van! Stop the van now!” Sybil screamed from the middle seat. Let’s put this in perspective here. We travel in a 2004 Dodge Sprinter. There are two bucket seats in the front, two bucket seats in the back, and two bench seats. I was lucky enough to be sitting right next to Sybil on the one of the 2 bucket seats right behind the driver and passenger. “Really?” Chad asks. “Really?!!! Yes of course Really!!!!”. Now, here is where things got kind of hard to read. I didn’t know Sybil very well at the time, or how she got mad, or how her and Chad might fight, or anything like that. All I know was that Sybil was half laughing while she was screaming things. Which I had never seen before from someone who was really mad! But she was really mad, and I had zero clue it wasn’t half joking. It sounds half joking when someone is screaming like they are freaking out but also laughing at herself.

So I started to laugh too. It seemed logical at the time. “Do you think this is funny Maddog?!”. “Ummmmmm….”. At this point she grabbed my Save Darfur green rubber bracelet, stretches it out, and lets it go so that it slaps back on my wrist. She pulled it pretty high and let it go pretty hard but she knew this wasn’t going to hurt me. Not in the least. It made a little slap sound and this made me laugh harder. I didn’t think it was serious. To this day we all have a great laugh about this incident. The main reason is that Sybil is such a funny mad person. She laughs at herself. It’s like she couldn’t really get too mad or too destructive. I think that’s a testament to her caring nature, even when she was mad she was laughing and not intentionally going after me for laughing in the midst of her anger.

Anyway, back to the van stopping. Oh it stopped. Chad knew better and brought that train to a halt. Before the van could completely come to a stop Sybil had opened the back sliding door of the van, jumped onto the sidewalk, and absolutely slammed that sliding door behind her. And yes people, she broke the door! Not completely or anything, but it has never closed right since. Every time we open and close that door, it is a reminder of the fated laughing, the Save Darfur bracelet debacle, and the two blocks we spent riding around that little town until we picked Sybil back up… And she was amazingly calm! To be completely honest with you I still wasn’t completely convinced she had been truly mad. It was so damn confusing!

This story, as I mentioned, lived on in folk lore… until a similar incident occurred, but this time with me and my girlfriend at the time, Christine. Now, I am pretty sure I have mentioned Christine before now but let me refresh with 2 words: Italian Firecracker. This takes us to Paris, France. Yes people, the city of romance, the city of couples, the city of love, Paris freakin France! State Radio played a show there. We had a van call at 11AM the next day to get us to the airport to fly home. So it was a decently important van call I would say. We were being driven around and backlined by a Czech chap named Ondra. This guy was the man! Really great guy, got along with him amazingly well. Honestly, I wish I was in contact with him more, I see him far too little. If he is reading this by chance, I hope he contacts me immediately! Either way, it was his company’s van we were in. Thinking about this whole situation in depth, at least Sybil did the door slam to a van we owned. Not the case in this particular situation with Christine.

Okay, so van call at 11AM, Paris, France, the Louvre… The famous art museum. I wanted to go, and so did Christine. But Christine didn’t want to get up at 7:30 AM to get the public transportation to get to the Louvre, spend 2 hours in the museum, and then have to public transpo it back to our hotel, and van call. You see this was the end of the tour and we were pretty run down. But I was very insistent, and finally convinced Christine that it would be worth it to see the Mona Lisa. “Come on baby, when are we going to be back in Paris and be able to go to the Louvre?! We’re all the way here and it would be a sin not to go!”. So she finally consented. And we made it to the museum (surprisingly we easily navigated the city), and we had a great time. Until we got off the subway about a quarter mile from our hotel. It was 5 minutes to 11AM. In other words, 5 minutes until bus call!

“Okay, I’m going to run back to the hotel to grab our bags and I will meet you at the van. That will get both of us and our stuff to the van by the van call”. “No,” Christine responded, “I don’t want to get lost!”. “Lost?! Come on. You literally go up this block and take your first left. That’s our hotel. The van will be sitting right there. If I don’t run back and get our stuff and check out we will be late. And you know it’s not good to be late for van call especially when we have an international flight to catch,” I said. “Fiiiine…” Christine responded, and I took off for the hotel. Now, I am not a fast runner but I made haste to get back there as to not be late. I ran back to our room, grabbed the bags, checked out and got out front. When I got there, there was no van, and no Christine. No Chad, no Chuck, no Ondra… This was pretty weird. I brought the bags back in and stashed them near the front desk and took a little walk (I had no international cell phone so I was on my own here). I eventually bumped into Chad.

“We’re late man!”. “No, we moved van call back to 11:30, the drive isn’t as long as we thought to the airport,” Chad said. “Oh, cool. Have you seen Christine?” I asked. “No. We called your room at like quarter of 11 to tell you van call had been moved back. No one answered. We figured you went to the Louvre like you mentioned last night”. “Yeah man. You and Chuck should have come, it was really cool. Saw some great stuff even in the short period of time we were there. However, here is the issue now. I ran back to the room ahead of Christine to get our stuff to make the van call I thought was at 11, and now Christine is missing. I wonder if she is roaming the streets of Paris completely lost. This is not good. I’m going to look for her,” I told Chad. “Alright, I’m heading to get some breakfast. See you in a few…” Chad said. “See you out front in like 20!” I responded and went to browse again for the lovely Christine.

Well, 11:15 went to 11:20 went to 11:25, and there was still no Christine. Now Chuck and Ondra knew of the dilemma and we had 5 minutes until van call. Now we were starting to get worried. Christine didn’t have an international cell phone either and, honestly, I doubt she even knew the name of the hotel! I had done a quick run through of the nearby blocks and hadn’t seen her. I was starting to almost get panicked. Where could she be? We went over the scenarios. The most logical one is that she got to the place she was supposed to take a left at and she did a bear left and not a hard left. You see, our hotel was on the edge of the block we were on when I went running off, and you had to take a hard left to get to the entrance. If you did the bear left then you would have completely missed the hotel because you would have gone sailing by the entrance. I mean, it was pretty easy not to confuse a bear left with a hard left right? When someone tells you to take a left at the end of the block you usually take a left, not take the bear left that is actually to the right of the first left you could take… right???

11:30 comes and goes, the van is all packed and we are just kind of all mulling around the hotel searching the area. I come around a corner and look outside through some windows and who do I see running frantically in front of the hotel?? Yeah, you guessed it, Christine. Okay, now don’t judge me on my reaction to this. You had to see her face, her look of sheer panic, the crazy look in her eyes, the frantic way she was running. I started to laugh. “Christine!” I yelled through the glass. I knew she couldn’t hear me but it was almost a declaration at that point. I ran outside and tracked her down. “Christine! Baby, where did you go?!”. Oh you should have seen the look on her face. The stare of death. I immediately burst out laughing. “Baby, I told you to take your first left, you can’t be mad! And van call got pushed back, so we are only 3 minutes late. Good news right?” I said. “I took that left,” she said as she pointed to the fork. And then she made a bee line to the van, which was waiting close by. By this time Chad, Chuck, and Ondra had seen that I had found Christine and were on their way to the van as well. Ondra was already in the front and I’m not sure if Chad and Chuck were in the van yet.

A totally out of breath Christine (from all her frantic running for 35 minutes) gets to the van before me, gets in the side of the van, and you guessed it, slams the side door of the van exactly as Sybil had slammed our van door in her rage! “Christine,” I reprimanded, “That is not appropriate! This is not your van and it shouldn’t have to pay the price for your mistake”. Christine just looked at me with her mad face as she had climbed back into the way back of the van by herself. Chuck and Chad gave me the ‘tread lightly’ look. A woman who is that upset is a tough thing to handle. But I didn’t care at that point. She had no right to ruin other people’s property because of her own miscalculation.

“I apologize on her behalf Ondra. If there is anything wrong with the door I will personally replace it,” I told him. “Does it close?” he asked. I tested the door… “It seems fine,” I said. It definitely wasn’t broken like Sybil’s door slam was. Christine was still sitting defiant in the back seat. I looked at Ondra. “I told her to take a left!”. Ondra looks at me. “You said take a left. Look right there. That’s a left. Look where she went. That’s not left!”. We both look at each other and burst out laughing. “And then she slams the door and wants to kill me!”. Now I am laughing so hard I am almost crying. “Baby, you should have seen the look on your face when I saw you running from inside. You were totally panicked!”. I looked back and Christine cracked a little smile, “I was so lost and soooooo mad at you!”. Chuck and Chad were laughing now as well. “And I’m still mad at you!”. “Well, you have no right to be! But, if you are, it is worth your rage to have seen that look on your face. Priceless! Let’s get going to make this flight”.

So we were off to the airport, only about 5 minutes later than we expected. We made our flight and Christine didn’t stay mad much longer. And the door was completely fine. Not a bad outcome for the whole situation. But damn that was funny. To see the look of true panic on your girlfriend’s face, when you know 2 seconds later everything is going to be okay. What a wild experience. So Sybil’s door slam lived on through Christine’s bad left turn!

So remember gentlemen, if your lady slams a car or van door on you, you are not alone, and it is completely appropriate to laugh. I did, and you can tell your lady I told you to do the same!