Friday, August 27th/09, Call The Office, London ONT

The concept of a “Green Room” or “Dressing Room” has been a continuing source of amusement for me. Alot of my friends and co-workers automatically assume that because I am in a band that is constantly touring and playing shows in different cities, that I and my band, all the bands, have a special room in the back of the club, behind the stage or wherever, where we feed, even gorge, our drug and alcohol problems with a bunch of groupies that have been fabricated into existence by the sheer will of the entertainment industry. This is not entirely true, I will clear this up. Quite often, there is a room, for us to hang out, warm-up, talk at a reasonable volume, fix any equipment problems, and yes, even have a beverage or two, but 9 times out of 10, it is the most foul, dreary, undesirable, hollow and dimly lit space to have ever been carved out of a 50-60 year old building. Who knows what the couch is festering with or what lives in the ancient refrigerator, or what substance has been excreted all over the broken linoleum or if you will get electrocuted from using the outlets? Can you drink the water? Has the toilet ever been cleaned? All questions you may want to ask yourself if your band is ever given a room to “chill” in, and by “chill” they probably mean relax, not feel the presence of malevolent dungeon-spirits. I mean, I am not complaining. I am very much appreciative there is a room for us, that the venue has considered us, but there’s nothing in there I can’t accomplish in our van. It’s less scary and relatively well-organized, the home away from home, a place where you know where and what everything is, you know what it likes.

And now, to pull a complete 180! Call The Office gave us a room tonight, and it was actually amazing. It was upstairs, above the dance-floor, well-insulated, clean, with a bathroom and they let us bring guests. I was pretty stoked I could change my strings and warm up my voice in private. I usually settle for a solid set of stairs out the back of the venue and an empty bathroom stall, kind of awkward. It was an excellent show, alot of great bands on the bill, new friends and talented musicians, “The Spitfires,” “The Junction,” and “The Bad Ideas.” We opened once again, but the sound was good, there was alot of energy, and I could actually see some dudes and girls out of the 50-60 person crowd breaking down with us, playing air guitar, not a bad thing at all (LOL) the kind of thing that makes me happy. All the bands played amazing sets and we hung out for most of the night. A particularly awesome moment being the song “I spent my time in Hell” by The Bad Ideas, which was apparently about growing up in the suburbs, rough times I guess. My good friends, and an adorable couple, Heather and Chris, came out to see us without proper picture ID and against all better judgment, what with Tokyo Police Club playing and all, the same night. They had just moved to London, not much to do except kick out the jams with their old friends Jeff and Dan, and talk about the good times we used to have in high school, Like when Heather used to wear a hot-pink hoodie with ears and sing in a ska band called “The Combovers,” or that time my old band was staying at her house and her dad kicked our asses out for being a collective menace, or even that time she gave me a shoelace to wear as a bracelet from these awful bowling shoes she bought. Oh man, they were terrible.

We hung out for most of the night, but left before an apparently “world-ending” party with The Bad Ideas. Unfortunate, but we had promised to stay again with our good friend John, in Kitchener. This night brought back a few fond, and maybe not so fond memories, all of them relevant and pertaining to my current state of things. I also ran into a couple dudes I have not seen for good long time, Jer and Josh, who used to play in a band called “Far From Heroes,” a band who Dan and I used to put on shows for back in Nelson, and they even stayed at my parent’s house a bunch. It was good to see them, after I recognized them of course, I’m sure we all look much different now. Jer had offered to return the favor, but we really did have to get going on our way to Ottawa. Of course, we stopped at McDonald’s and then after leaving town, upon realizing we were lost somehow on our way to Kitchener, we were summoned to pull over by the O.P.P., mostly suspected of being from BC and driving late at night down a sketchy old road, but not for having a headlight out or an “N” displayed on the rear of the vehicle. We were clean, obviously, and he let us go with a few comments I didn’t much care for. We rolled into Kitchener at 5:00am and passed the fuck out in John’s basement.