Last Stop Suburbia 10 year Anniversary Show….

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this blog with anything even remotely interesting, but today I’m excited to announce Allister’s first Chicago show in over 2 years.  Back in 2002, we recorded and released an album called “Last Stop Suburbia” which went on to sell fairly well and somehow became our most popular record.  At the time, we had no idea that songs like “Somewhere on Fullerton,” “Overrated,” or “Flypaper” would become permanent staples in our set list.  We were (and still are) just a dumb little suburban band writing dumb little suburban punk rock songs in our garage.

It’s been ten years since the record was released and we’ve decided to book a show and play “Last Stop Suburbia” from start to finish.  As with all band decisions, we made this one after a few too many beers and few too many drunken trips down memory lane.  So, for better or for worse, come and check out the show, buy us a beer, or simply throw rotten tomatoes at us.  Either way it should be fun…

WHAT?:  Allister performing “Last Stop Suburbia” in its entirety.

WHEN?: Saturday, March 9, 2013 – 6pm All ages

WHERE?:  Reggie’s Rock Club – 2105 South State Street – Chicago, IL

TICKETS?: http://www.reggieslive.com/show/allister/

Life Behind Machines….

I finally have something worthwhile to mention here so without any adieu, I am very excited to announce that the new Allister record, “Life Behind Machines,” is complete.  Comprised of 11 songs, it’s definitely the most dynamic and diverse record we’ve made as a band.  Although it’s taken quite awhile for everything to come together, I feel more than comfortable saying it has all been worth it.  We had a lot of fun over the last five months writing, rehearsing, and recording, and we did a little bit of experimenting with this record too, giving a small twist to the prototypical Allister sound.

We made sure to include a few standard three chord punk rock tunes, but we also added synthesizers, horns, and new-age electronica to a few tracks.  We certainly haven’t reinvented the wheel or anything, but I’d like to think we’ve musically progressed as a band.  You can’t just keep churning out the same record over and over again or you’ll quickly become dull and irrelevant.  And, let’s be honest, as much as we’re in this because we love creating music for ourselves, it’s silly to think that we wouldn’t want as many people as possible to hear it as well.  The record isn’t as crazy as it may sound though.  It’s still the same old Allister, just a little more mature, a little more…modern.  The new stylings in no way detract from the quality of the songs; in fact, I think the entire record sounds even better than it would have otherwise.  But I guess the listener will ultimately be the one to decide, eh?  I’m proud of it though and that’s really all that matters.

We know the record will be released by Universal Japan at some point over the summer but we don’t actually have a specific release date.  We’re hoping to have it out by the middle of July.  It will take some time to finish the artwork and get everything pressed but I feel pretty confident that we can get it all done relatively quickly.  As of now, we’re thinking about doing a digital only release in the US but we’ll see what kind of demand there is for actual physical copies.  Once I have some definitive information on release dates and upcoming supporting shows I’ll be sure to post it here.  That’s about all the news I have for the moment.  Hopefully soon I can once again tap into the stockpile of tour stories for your reading pleasure.  Until then, keep drinking….

Tokyo Sunrise….

We are leaving Thursday morning for a brief, one-stop weekend show in Tokyo.  It’s been almost two years since Allister was last in Japan and, although we’ll spend almost as much time in the air as we will on the ground, I am extremely excited.  People frequently ask me what it is that makes Japan so special; why it is that we tour over there more than we do in the U.S.  The obvious answer, I think, is because we can.  We’ve toured there enough that we are able to sell out small clubs, drawing a few hundred kids to our shows and making it financially worthwhile for us to continue to play and release records there.   The more subtle reason, though, is one built more on friendship, camaraderie, and an appreciation of cultural differences.

In 2006 we did a three month tour of Japan with the Japanese band, Ellegarden.  To this day, I think we still hold the record for the longest Japanese tour by an American band.  We played in every major city from Sapporo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, down to the far southern city of Fukuoka, and the rarely traveled islands of Kyushu and Shikoku.  We played in a myriad of small towns and completely immersed ourselves in a climate and culture that was vastly different from the one we were used to.  Although it wasn’t the first time we had been in Japan (it was perhaps the fifth or sixth time), it was the first time we truly got to experience the people and the culture.  And as contrived and cliched as it sounds, that trip changed my life.

Most bands that tour Japan play shows in only three or four major cities before they turn right around and fly home.  They barely have time to take a breath before they get back on the plane.  Sure, they’ll most likely be taken out to local restaurants to sample traditional cuisine, or get a chance to ride the bullet train from one city to the next, but they’ll never really get to know the people or the local customs.  Our tour in 2006 allowed us to actually spend time getting to know the more traditional parts of Japan, as well as getting to know the people.

Ellegarden, at the time, was THE biggest band in Japan.  Japanese radio was playing them non-stop and their record was flying off the shelves, yet they were some of the most humble guys I’ve ever met.   With the exception of maybe six or seven shows, every venue we played held no more than four hundred.  Kids were lined up for blocks outside the clubs, most without tickets, just for a chance to get an autograph or a picture with them.   While the band could have played every night to three or four thousand, Ellegarden chose the intimacy of small venues because they wanted to be able to connect with their fans.  It was a breath of fresh air in the world of “mainstream” punk rock and it was an attitude I respected a great deal.

They traveled with a crew of about twelve people, none of whom we had met prior to the tour.  Slowly, over the course of three months, we got a chance to know all of them.  We spent a good portion of every day working with them and, at night, I found myself quite often at the local izakayas (bars) drinking beer and sampling various flavors of Sake with them.  The mutual respect we had for each other was evident as they did their best to speak and learn English, and we did our best to speak and learn Japanese.  We would stay up well into the early morning hours, drinking and telling stories by drawing pictures or looking up words and phrases in our pocket dictionaries.

We also shared quite a few new experiences.  We conquered the Japanese tradition of Wanko Soba together in the town of Morioka, a few of us got tattooed together by a Japanese tattoo master in Shikoku, and, perhaps most poignantly, we toured the WWII museum together in Hiroshima, collectively moved almost to tears by the magnitude of destruction caused by the atomic bomb.

Throughout those three months, we learned quite a lot about our new Japanese friends’ lives and culture, and we developed an extraordinarily close bond with some of them in a relatively short time.  We discovered that many of them shared some of the same ideals and beliefs that we did, whether it was about music or life.   Their generosity and hospitality was unparalleled.  Not once during that trip did we ever feel like outsiders.  In fact, the bond was so strong between us that almost the entire band and crew drove us to the airport on our last day.  There, in the middle of the airport, stood twelve grown men, crying and hugging goodbye.

Inside Tokyo’s Narita airport, there are escalators that descend to the departure gates.  Above these escalators is a line of tall glass windows.  It is customary for people to stand behind these windows and wave last goodbyes to their loved ones as they disappear down to the lower level.  I will never forget the image of our new friends that day, waving and saluting goodbye to us as we rode down those escalators.  I suppose this is one of the main reasons I love touring in Japan.  That intense feeling of kinship and camaraderie always seems to get rekindled every time I return.  And I don’t think this time will be any different. Kampai!

Halfway There….

This past weekend we officially wrapped up laying down tracks for almost half of the new Allister record.  It’s a shame that we have to take three weeks off due to scheduling conflicts, but things will eventually resume and we’ll have this thing cranked out in no time.

It gives us an interesting perspective on these new songs, though, which could be both good and bad.  Three weeks away from the studio gives us an exorbitant amount of time to critique, analyze, and (if possible) objectively listen to everything that we have recorded.  It’s a double edged sword because on one hand we have time to write and restructure the songs to make them even better, yet, on the other, we have more than enough time to over-think the songs, thereby potentially diluting them and miring them in mediocrity.  Since all of our previous records have been recorded in one continuous block of time, we’ve never come across this situation before.

I’d like to think that we’ll spend the time making the songs even better.  But let’s be honest here, even though we’re trying out some new things and experimenting “outside of the box,” at our core we’re still a punk rock band playing songs with only three or four chords.  There isn’t a whole lot you can really do to change things.  Most of our songs are completely written in about 20 minutes.  We’ll tinker with some ideas, add a few guitar lines, and probably come up with some alternate harmonies and melodies, hopefully making the whole record better.  I suppose there’s always an outside chance that one of us will write an earth-shattering new song during these next three weeks that we’ll be able to include as well.  We’ll see…

Right now, I gotta rehearse for the shows coming up this weekend.  Hope to see everyone there.

Brand New Allister record….

So we’re a little more than a week into recording a new Allister album and things are coming along nicely.  Its easy to forget just how much fun the entire process can be now that it’s no longer a full time job.  Our conflicting job schedules though have mandated a somewhat unconventional recording session. We’re putting the album together in pieces; recording a few days here, a few days there, and we’re hoping to have it all finished by mid-April.

Most albums are generally recorded in this order: drums, bass, guitars, vocals, keyboards/effects, etc.  Bands typically spend around four weeks putting a record together, working straight through without any days off.  It can be a long and arduous process, especially when working with time constraints or working under a budget.

What’s great about this session is that we don’t really have any time constraints.  We know when we’d like to be finished, but if it goes longer than expected it certainly won’t effect a label’s release schedule or throw a serious wrench into any touring plans.  We’ll obviously do our best to reach the goal that we’ve set for ourselves but we have the freedom to extend things if necessary.  And we DO have a budget, but we’re pretty confident it won’t be an issue.  The entire record (except drums) is comfortably being recorded and produced in the home of our good friend, Marc McCluskey, who has worked on records for Weezer, Bad Religion, and Ludo. He’s a fucking brilliant producer, button pusher, and knob twister, and he makes shit sound GOOD.

Another interesting thing about this session is that we’re essentially doing things backwards; recording all the guitars, bass, and vocals first, and then laying down the drums to all the songs (Marc creates fake drum tracks that we play along to).  Its a simple enough process and it really seems to be working well, especially when sorting out the arrangements for the songs.  Because we’re not locked into a drum track, we have the liberty to simply cut and paste different sections of the songs into an arrangement that we’re 100% happy with.  We can easily try out new ideas without having to commit to anything.  Purists may consider it cheating but, what the hell, it’s our fifth full length record and I think we’ve earned the right to do what we want.  The results so far have been awesome.  We’ve finished about 4 songs and each one is a million times better than the original demo.  The first demos were simple, rinky-dink melodies that were thrown together in a basement.  The final versions, though, have now completely taken on new life and have exploded into something far better than I could have imagined.  They’re big.  They’re powerful.  And a lot of the credit goes to Marc.

One of the things that most people don’t realize is just how much songs change throughout the production and recording process.  Out of all the original songs that we have written and recorded (I’ve never actually counted but I’d guess it to be somewhere around 75 or so), there are perhaps seven of them that were actually recorded exactly as they were written (In all honesty, I suppose you might have to exclude our first record, “Dead Ends and Girlfriends” here.  That entire album was recorded and mixed in 4 days and so, by default, we had to record the songs exactly as they were written since there was no time to do otherwise).  And with the exception of maybe two or three songs, the final album version has ALWAYS been better than the demo.  And I’m not talking about the sound of the song.  I’m talking about the actual arrangement.

It’s a testament to how well the band and producer work together.  Its the producer’s job to get the sounds and tones, but it’s also his job to bring a fresh ear to the songs.  A good producer will always find a way to make a song better.  Take any of your favorite songs from almost any popular band and I guarantee the song is at least 25% different than how it was originally written. Not many bands are able to craft #1 hit songs from start to finish without any editing.  Hell, even the Beatles had George Martin to arrange most of their material.

Anyways, if these first four songs are any indication of what’s to come, I have a feeling this record may well be our best yet.  I like all of the songs already and, considering Marc will most likely make them even better, it’s easy to get excited.  It’s shaping up to be a nice mix of the old sound (circa “Last Stop Suburbia”) and the more recent “Countdown To Nowhere.”  We’re trying some new things and expanding our minds, so to speak, and we just might even throw some electronica/synthesizers on the record.  You’ll just have to wait to find out….

Arrive on vacation…Leave on probation.

On a few occasions during our touring days we were lucky enough to travel by bus.  There were really only 3 things you had to remember when traveling by bus; 1) Always sleep with your feet pointed towards the front; 2) Always make sure you knew what time bus call was because the bus would, in fact, leave without you; and 3) Never EVER take a shit in the bus toilet.  Of course, these rules were occasionally broken, but overall bus tours were great.  We never worried about where to sleep.  We drank as much as we wanted and never worried about driving.  We always had plenty of room to store extra beer, and we had more than our fair share of obligatory “back lounge” parties.

For as much freedom as a bus tour allowed however, it also took some liberties away.  Showering was infrequent since we would often go a week or more without getting a hotel room.  Late night stops for food were rare since we couldn’t simply pull through a drive-thru when we were hungry.  And probably worst of all, finding our way around town on days off almost always proved to be a hassle.  Cabs were too expensive and there usually wasn’t anything exciting within a reasonable walking distance.  There was one off day in Odessa, TX however, that turned out to be anything but boring.

Odessa is, quite simply, a shit town in an even shittier state.   We were only there because the drive from Phoenix to Dallas is too long for the bus driver to do in one shot.  He needed a break and Odessa just so happened to fall somewhere near the midpoint of the drive.  After riding all night on the bus, we pulled into our hotel around 10am.  The hotel was on a main road about 2 miles outside of what would be considered “downtown” Odessa.  The general area wasn’t overly developed, but it wasn’t barren either.  It certainly seemed like we’d be able to find something to do.  So I showered, changed my clothes, and immediately went to work trying to figure out how to spend the day.

We soon discovered that there was a shopping mall and movie theater within walking distance of the hotel.  The desk clerk pointed us towards the back exit and explained that there was a shortcut to the mall.  We followed his directions and found ourselves outside on an asphalt path, winding our way through a large community park.  A small pond shimmered peacefully in the middle and we saw numerous couples holding hands and enjoying the beautiful late summer weather.  It just so happened to be the first anniversary of September 11th and, to honor the victims, the city had covered a large portion of the park with hundreds of six foot high American flags.  They were literally everywhere.  It took us about 20 minutes to weave through the park and the flags before we reached the mall on the other side.

We spent the next few hours wandering the mall and sitting in the theater, stuffing our faces with popcorn and candy.  As we were leaving the theater, I happened to notice an advertisement for a small karaoke bar located in a corner of the mall.  We happily made our way to the bar for a few drinks.

Around 1am, the bar closed down and we were forced to stagger our way back to the hotel.  I had secretly stashed an unfinished beer into my jacket so I would have something to drink for the walk home.  We crossed the mall parking lot and found ourselves back in the flag-littered community park.  It was dark and desolate.  Our drummer and sound guy had managed to keep themselves under control at the bar but I, on the other hand, had not.  I was thoroughly intoxicated, as was Magoo, our guitar tech, and we were having a difficult time keeping pace with the other two.  We lagged a good 50 yards behind them, whooping and hollering and drinking our beers.  One of us (I still don’t remember who it was) thought it would be a good idea to pull one of the American flags up out of the ground and wave it back and forth while drunkenly singing the National Anthem.  It was a hilarious sight I’m sure, and I had just stuck the flag back into the ground when I heard someone yell, “FREEZE! Get down on the ground, NOW!”

I turned around to find four cops about 20 yards away, their guns drawn and aimed directly at us.  All of them were yelling for us to get on the ground.  I was thoroughly confused.  Was this really happening? Were there really guns pointed at my face? What the fuck? I wasn’t even doing anything wrong…

I threw my hands up and laid face down on the asphalt.  I was immediately surrounded while a cop shoved his knee into my back.  My arms were yanked and twisted behind me, the handcuffs clinched so tight they nearly cut off the circulation to my fingers.  Magoo got the same treatment.  I heard the fading clatter of running footsteps as two of the cops ran up the path towards our friends.  I was hauled up by the jacket and dragged over to a group of police cars idling in a parking lot on one side of the park.  Magoo and I were thrown into the backseat.

The entire situation suddenly became so funny that we could not stop laughing.  The cops, on the other hand, did not think it was so funny.  Apparently they didn’t see the humor (or harmlessness) in a couple of out-of-town punk rockers drunkenly walking through a park at 1:30am.  Admittedly, Magoo and I did not help our cause.  We had a few choice words for the cops which probably only got  us into more trouble.  They eventually tracked down our drummer and sound guy (who were literally about 20 feet from the hotel when they were cuffed) and transported all of us down to the Odessa jail.  We were initially tossed into a holding cell to sober up and await our fate.  It smelled like a mixture of feces, urine, booze, and sweat.  In one corner sat two homeless looking men, quite clearly going through substance withdrawal.  We shared smuggled cigarettes with them and took turns pissing into the drain in the center of the floor.

Eventually we were moved to the actual jail, but not before we had been made to strip and shower, all in the presence of a watchful officer.  We were given a pillow and blue jumpsuits and locked up in jail for the next 8 hours.  It wasn’t so bad, really.  There were about 12 other guys in there with us but everyone mostly just kept to themselves, awaiting release.

Finally, around 10am the next morning, we were released.  Our guitar player came with a wad of cash to bail us all out.  My charges read like this: Public Intoxication, Consumption of Alcohol in a Public Setting, and Disregarding Community Curfew (being in a park after hours); and came to a whopping $1200!  That’s a pretty fucking heavy fine for essentially just trying to walk home drunk.  As we were at the desk paying the bill, the overweight, overly cheerful cashier put everything in perspective for us.  “You poor boys…don’t you know what the Odessa motto is?” she said.  “No, what?” we asked.   She looked at us with a shit-eating grin and said, “Odessa, TX, where you arrive on vacation but leave on probation.”

Show Announcement!!

So August Premier has been nice enough to allow to me to attempt 30 minutes of acoustic entertainment at their record release show on March 24th at The Township.  It should be a great time.  It’s an early show (doors @ 6pm) which means the drinking will commence early and will most likely continue well into the night.  Advance tickets are only $6 and you can get them here, otherwise they’re $8 at the door.   Come and hang out, share some drinks, share some laughs, and be sure to bring extra cash to buy August Premier’s new record, Happy Miserable.

 

The Party Bus….

After spending a day in the hospital and trudging through the last week recovering from an appendectomy, a bit of good news is definitely in order.  August Premier officially has a release date for their new record and I cannot be more excited.   “Happy Miserable” is slated to be released on March 27th.  Go to www.facebook.com/augustpremier to check out some fun stuff about it.  In honor of this wonderful news, I thought it would be fitting to relive one of my most favorite August Premier memories, if only in a few paragraphs….

Lawrence, Kansas is a fairly typical college town.  Loud yet sleepy, rebellious yet conservative, and large but with a small town feel, it has a decently thriving music scene and is home to the well known rock venue, The Bottleneck.  We were on the road with August Premier and Lucky Boys Confusion, churning up the south and midwest before landing at The Bottleneck for the night.  The crowd was great, the show was a success, and the promoter was gracious enough to allow us unlimited access to the PBR tap behind the bar.

I was on stage tearing down my gear and packing some things away when I noticed a tall, disheveled looking kid frantically run inside the venue.  He spotted me up on stage and ran over.  “Hey did Allister already play?” he asked.  I told him that the show had ended and he was about 20 minutes too late.  “Damn!” he cried, “you guys are my favorite band!  I can’t believe I missed it.”  I asked him how he could possibly miss the show if we were indeed his “favorite” band.  “Well, today is actually my 21st birthday and I’ve been partying all day on my bus,” he told me.  “Your bus?” I asked.  “Yeah, my bus,” he said.  “I rented a party bus to celebrate my birthday and we’ve basically been driving around all day riding the bus and getting drunk.”  “Sounds like a good time,” I told him.

All of sudden his eyes lit up and he got this huge grin on his face.  “Hey, I know!  Why don’t you guys come and hang out on my party bus?  That would be the ultimate birthday present!”  he said to me.  I was a little leary but it sounded like it could potentially be a good time.  “What would we have to do?” I asked him.  “Nothing!  All you have to do is get on the bus.  We have at least three coolers stocked with beer and the bus stops for a few minutes at various local bars so we can go in, get beers, and move on to the next one,” he said.  “You guys can drink all the beer you want on the bus and you don’t have to pay for anything.”  Now, of course, I was hooked.  “Ok, give me ten minutes to pack up my gear, gather the guys, and we’ll meet you out front,” I told him.

Nobody else from Allister was into the idea of spending the night on a party bus, so I grabbed the August Premier guys and we met the kid out in front of the venue.  Sure enough, idling in front of us was a massive yellow school bus, stocked with coolers of beer and about 6 or 7 of the kid’s friends.  Being the drunken, crass, loudmouths that we are, we immediately began guzzling beers from the cooler and yelling at people out the windows of the bus.  We drained beer after beer until the first cooler was gone and we started in on the second.  We were all getting good and drunk while seeing the sights of Lawrence.  We stopped at the first bar and decided it would be a good idea to all order pints, slam them down, and then secretly take the pint glasses back to the bus as souvenir tokens of our time in Lawrence.  We stopped at a few other bars, staying only long enough to slam a pint and take a piss.

We all finally got back on the bus and it quickly became clear that the kid’s friends were getting rather annoyed with us.  They seemed to be part of the stereotypical fraternity/sorority crowd and weren’t digging the rock and roll antics.  They were also getting pissed because we were drinking all of the beer for free while they each had to pay something like $50 each for the right to ride the bus and get drunk all day.  The kid who had invited us wasn’t really sure what to do.  Words were exchanged and things began to get a little heated.  The next thing I remember is beer flying everywhere.  Bottles and stolen pint glasses were getting tossed out the windows of the bus, shattering on the street as we made our way down the road.  The fraternity/sorority group cowered in the back of the bus while we systematically destroyed it.  We were yelling and throwing things out the window, drinking what was left of the beer, and hanging ourselves out the emergency back door, drunkenly yelling at the passing cars. It was a rowdy good time.

The party bus/bar crawl finally came full circle and ended up back at The Bottleneck.  The kid politely asked us to get off the bus but the damage had been done.  The beer was gone and the bus was a wreck.  The kid’s friends were furious but we were elated.  I haven’t been back to Lawrence since the night of the infamous party bus, but if I ever do make it back to The Bottleneck and another massive yellow party bus pulls up, you can be sure to count me in.

 

So you need to add some new music to your collection?…..

I’ve finally posted some of the new solo stuff I’ve been working on for the better part of the last year.  It’s available for download at www.timrogner.bandcamp.com.  I’m in the process of booking some shows so check back often, as I’ll post them once they’re confirmed.  Hope you all had a lovely new year.  I spent mine sitting on my couch drinking whiskey….

Allister vs. The Canadian Border Patrol…

I saw a commercial today for the NHL’s Winter Classic and it got me reminiscing some fond memories of Allister’s experiences with our neighbors to the north, Canada.  All in all, I enjoyed just about every show or tour we did in Canada.  At various times, we were lucky enough to catch a few Expos games (for those of you non-baseball fans, the Montreal Expos packed up and moved to Washington, D.C. and began calling themselves the Nationals sometime around 2005), we played in Edmonton at a club inside the largest mall in the world, we played in a tiny town called Ft. McMurray, which is so far north that it actually closes all access roads and shuts down for the winter, and we nearly wrecked our van more than a few times courtesy of the giant infamous Canadian moose.  We also played a show in a Calgary gymnasium during the 2004 NHL finals that saw the Flames battle the Tampa Bay Lightning.  Hockey is such an obsession there that we were only allowed to play during the 15 minute intermissions.   We blazed through a few songs during the first intermission, waited out the second period while the 400+ kids turned their attention to the giant projection screens at one end of the gym, and picked up right where we left off during the second intermission.  It was very strange.  My most vivid memory of Canada, however, goes all the way back to 2001.  I always like to think of it as Allister vs. The Canadian Border Patrol.

We had been touring the East Coast during the spring of ’01, playing mostly VFW halls, backyards, and basements, when we got word from our record label that we had been offered to open a few shows in New Brunswick, Canada for the Canadian punk band, GOB.  We were excited because GOB was a real band and the shows were going to be in real venues with real crowds.  The shows were also a few weeks away so we had enough time during our current tour to make sure that we were tight.  Our label promised to take care of all the paperwork and we found ourselves counting down the days to the shows.

Luckily, we wrapped up our U.S. tour in Connecticut so the drive to meet up with GOB was not far.  New Brunswick is north of Maine and it was only a 6 hour drive to the border.  Our van (I don’t think we had a trailer at this point yet) was loaded down with all of our gear and a hefty new order of Allister merchandise.  We were hoping to sell quite a few T-shirts and CDs.  One thing, however, was amiss.  The paperwork that our label had promised us had never arrived.  For fraud and for tax purposes, Canadian law usually required you to have manifests of all the gear and merchandise that you were carrying into the country.  Merchandise would be counted and taxed, ensuring that the Canadian government got its fair share of revenue from sales.  Serial numbers on gear would be documented and saved, thus (theoretically) preventing the trafficking of stolen goods.  You could generally get by without paying the tax by stuffing all your T-shirts into a personal suitcase, making them appear as clothes, but we had just received a new shipment and everything was stuffed into boxes.  For a broke band like ourselves, it was imperative to save every penny.  We knew the tax would be heavy because of all our merchandise, so on the way up to the border we decided that it would be best if we all told the border patrol that we were simply visiting friends.  Yes, we were in a band, but we were merely seeing the beautiful sights of Canada during a few much needed days off.  One little white lie wouldn’t hurt anyone…

As we neared the border crossing, we went over our story again to make sure everyone had it right.  I was confident that we’d have no problems getting through.  We pulled up to the checkpoint and I explained to the guard that we were a band from Chicago, touring the east coast but now taking a few days off to visit some Canadian friends in New Brunswick.  She smiled and asked me to pull up so our vehicle could be checked.  This was standard procedure with large vehicles so I wasn’t worried.

I pulled the van up, turned off the ignition, and got out.  A few other guards came over and collected our IDs, asking various questions.  Back in 2001, you only needed a Driver’s License or state ID to cross the border.  I could see some of the guards going through our boxes of T-shirts and CDs, talking quietly between themselves and occasionally stealing glances our way.  It was taking a lot longer than I expected and I was beginning to get a little nervous.  Finally, the head security guard walked over to me.  “So you guys are in a band, eh?” “Yes, sir,” I replied.  “And you say you’re just visiting friends up here?  You didn’t drive up here to play shows or sell merchandise?”  “No, sir,” I said.  “We just drove up to spend a day or two seeing New Brunswick.  We’ve never been here before.”  “Well then what are all those T-shirts and CDs doing in the back of your van?” he asked.  “Like I said, we’re touring the east coast of the U.S. selling that stuff,” I told him.  “I see,” he said.  “I see.”

He motioned over to one of the other guards.  The other guard came over and they talked quietly between themselves.  One of them spoke a few words over his radio.  They parted ways and the head security officer looked at me again.  “I’d like you all to follow me please,” he said.

Fuck.  This wasn’t going as easily as I had anticipated.  They led us all into the border building, a drab, gray brick structure that had about as much life as corpse.  As we entered, we all quickly got separated, each of us led away by a different security guard.  Holy shit….they’re taking us into interrogation rooms!  Sure enough, I found myself entering a tiny, stale room, furnished only with an old metal office desk and two folding chairs.  There was a very mean-looking security guard sitting behind the desk as I took my place on the chair in front of it.  The door slammed behind me.  I remember being extremely nervous.  We had done nothing wrong (except maybe trying to skirt the Canadian tax) but I felt like a criminal.  The guard fired questions at me and made me feel like I was guilty of committing some heinous crime.   I answered all of them to the best of my ability, trying to focus by reciting the facts of the story that we had all gone over in the van.  My hands were sweating but I was trying to stay calm so he wouldn’t think I was lying.  I was in there for at least 25 minutes before he finally released me.

I walked out of the building and found my way over to the van, chain smoking cigarettes as I waited for everyone else.  One by one, the rest of the guys shuffled out, along with the head security guard who had inspected our van.  He lined us all up next to our van and said, “Guys, I’m sorry but we just don’t believe you.  We don’t think you’re here just to visit friends.  We do, in fact, think you will be playing and selling your merchandise.  You have two options.  You can pay the tax on the merchandise or you can leave all your gear and merchandise here in a storage shed and continue on your way into New Brunswick.”

Paying the tax was out of the question (it was something like $500 which we just could not afford).  We also didn’t want to leave all of our gear in some storage shed.  What if we weren’t able to borrow anything from the other bands?  It was pointless for us to go any farther.  Dejected, we informed the security guard that we would simply turn around and head back into the U.S.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least.  We ended up forfeiting those 3 or 4 shows with GOB.  We were all pretty upset about it at the time, but something tells me now that those Canadian shows would not have made or broken the band.  As it turns out, we spent the next week or so back in Hamden, CT, marking the first of many times we would end up crashing with our friends in the band Grover Dill.  They became some of the best friends that I’ve ever made while touring the country, and some of them remain so to this day.  So I suppose all was not lost on that day at the border…