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Saturday, March 17, Little Rock, Ark.
"The heaviest bands and cheapest beers in town," is the motto of Downtown Music, TBIC's first stop on its seven-day tour. It's a motto that the venue lives up to: a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon is a dollar and all draws a $1.50. The bar's construction looks like a high-school woodshop project and the beer is in an old, beat-up family style fridge. The concert calendar is full of metal and Southern-style rock 'n' roll bands like Little Rock group Crackfight and Lawrence's own Filthy Jim.
TBIC plays second in tonight's lineup after Oklahoma band Fumar (who announces to the crowd that the shape of Oklahoma is the ax chopping off the head of Texas and the Red River is the blood pouring out) and the local acts. Before the show, the band filters in and out of the club and the Short Bus. On the Short Bus a bottle of Heaven Hill is passed around, a $7 liter of whiskey that is as divine tasting as turpentine-mixed urine and brown food coloring. As some members float on the whiskey cloud, J.C. climbs onto the bus and announces that he has changed his "tampon" in the club's restroom, a code word for smoking marijuana and using the bathroom at the same time.
After a sound check, TBIC begins its 30-minute set to a nearly empty room and fills the venue with its instrumental metal sound. A unique aspect of the band is that it has no vocalist. After months of auditioning vocalists, none fit with TBIC's sound. The absence of lyrics is now one of the band's musical trademarks. All band members hate to classify what their sound is because it's restricting creatively. But Chris describes the music as a melting pot of ideas, or, as Joe puts it, "It's basically a bunch of guys who can't decide what type of metal they like."
Whatever it is, by the end of the set all of the people milling around the back of the venue are in front of the stage, some pumping fists, others hypnotized and a few adventurous souls head-banging in front of the 12-foot-tall public announcement speakers pushing ear drums and brain cells to the limit — truly a small, but enthusiastic crowd. Pleased with the performance, the TBIC guys sit in the bus relaxing with alcohol, marijuana and snacks. Tonight they were tight and the soundman made them sound like a CD. "I think I felt Satan," Chris says, making fun of the stereotype that metal musicians worship Satan. "It's always good to feel a little Satan when you play." Before the band takes off to a friend's house to crash, a scraggly homeless man taps on a passenger window of the Short Bus. Through the open window he offers a dog leash for a lighter. After the transaction, the old man offers TBIC some advice. "Don't go there, ever," says the old man, pointing to the venue they just played. "They a bunch of rednecks in there."
Monday, March 19, Shreveport, La. Joe is refueling the Short Bus at a gas station in the small town of Hope, Ark. A rusted-out gray Cadillac pulls up to the fuel pump next to the Short Bus. A middle-aged African-American woman comes out of the car and looks at Joe. "Aren't you the singer for the Ataris?" she asks. For a second Joe doesn't know what to say. Being tattooed and wearing an AFI T-shirt, 'tattered dark blue jeans and sunglasses, Joe could be a rock star, but it's doubtful that Kris Roe (vocalist for the Ataris) would be pumping gas for his own tour bus with a couple of gold records to his credit. Joe nods and tells the woman that the band is on its way to play a show at Shreveport that night. After fueling her car the woman wishes him good luck and drives off.
Living in the Midwest can shelter people from the finer things in life, for example, the drive-through daiquiri stand. A few blocks down the street from tonight's venue, 'Lil Joe's Taverne, a small building resembling Burrito King, sits between a Chinese restaurant and a drug store. A giant sign with bright pink letters glows the words "Cajun Cocktails" on a dark blue background, beckoning passing cars to pull up to the drive-through window and purchase its frozen, alcoholic goodies ranging from margaritas to the Cajun Curse — a concoction made of Bacardi 151, Everclear, margarita mix and crawdad juice. Inside the roadside shack two attendants work busily, filling up 16-ounce cups from Slurpee machines for drivers to take home and drink, taping down the straw to make it a legally unopened container. The asking price of $2.50 is a little steep for a band on the road trying to save money, but luckily it's the 2-for-1 happy hour special.
"You're in This Building Is Christ, right?" A bartender wearing khakis and a Hawaiian shirt asks Chris as he fills him a pitcher of free band beer. Chris corrects him and the bartender apologizes, saying that's the name someone else told him, despite a flier with the correct name inches from his face. But what can one expect from a bar with the slogan: "Drink to get drunk, or not at all." The misspelling of TBIC's name occurs often. Names such as This Place is Haunted or This Body Is For Christ pop up on fliers
In the hours leading up to tonight's show Chris calls his parents and updates them on the tour. His parents worry about him if he doesn't call to reassure them that he is still alive and isn't in jail. Matt doesn't have to worry about letting his parents know what's going on. His older brother toured regularly with his band, Stick. "He went on tour for six months once," Matt says, "and when he came back my mother about flipped the fuck out because he was really skinny. He lived off of mostly pizza and Rolling Rock."
while on tour.
The band got its name after reading a High Times article on a French cathedral dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Unlike other cathedrals, this church has underpinnings: non-Biblical portrayals of the stations of the cross are painted on the walls and a bird's eye view of the buildings around the church makes the form of a Pentagram. On the doorway of the main building the words "this place is cursed" appear.
Unlike all the other shows on this tour, 'Lil Joe's Taverne does not have a PA system or a sound guy to make the music clearer, but that isn't a problem. A 40-person crowd fills the floor in this tiny club and all eyes are on TBIC, "You guys are shaking my bones!" yells a drunken man from the bar after the third song. "If I was a chick I'd give yall blowjobs." A woman from elsewhere in the room yells to him that he doesn't need to be a female to give fellatio if he likes the music. "I know, but I ain't a fag, en gay or whatever. Imagine I'd might bite it off." The man moves closer to the stage, and cheers. Along with another half dozen people, he buys a $6 CD. Much needed gas money to get to the next destination: New Orleans.
Wednesday, March 20 New Orleans Somewhere between god-awful and atrocious is the gutter punk rock
band The Simple Fucks, the kind of band who wears eponymous T-shirts and sport Flock of Seagulls style reverse mohawks. Playing to a crowd of about 10 people, the four-piece band cranks out distorted, sloppy, three-chord punk rock that only a loaded methead could love in the Dixie Taverne, a venue where Chuck Berry played in the 50s. More than a half-century later, the Dixie Taverne smells vaguely of urine and the black-and-white checkered linoleum floor looks as if it hasn't been mopped since legendary punk pioneer Johnny Thunders died in New Orleans 13 years ago.
After SF's short set, TBIC tries to load its equipment during what could be a taping of Cops. The guitarist for The Simple Fucks attacks the singer of his own band because he "doesn't want to play second fiddle to his drunken standup routine." After a few swings and some grappling on the sidewalk, a cop car rolls up and two giant cops peel feuding punks off each other. "Oh, Mr. Officer," says a skinny woman in torn clothes and spiked hair, "don't arrest them, they do this because they love each other. They're roommates, too."
Hours before the show, Chris, Joe and Matt are at Big Daddy's Bottomless & Topless sipping on hurricanes and watching Cat, a full-figured stripper whose talent is sliding dollar bills in and out of one of her orifices without her hands. While all of the other patrons — overweight, sweaty and middle-aged men — hoot and holler, the trio is disappointed. It's hard to enjoy a stripper when you have
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