October 14, 2013
... two goals today. 1. Drive to the other side of Chicago (playing in Flint, MI tomorrow). 2. Do laundry. A bit of a late start this morning... didn't end up getting out of the hotel until 12pm. I checked Google maps and there were a few places on the other side of Chicago that had vacancies at Holiday Inn Expresses. We prefer them because they have breakfast, a "gym", pool, and in this case... which is desperately needed... laundry. Nothing too eventful today... driving... driving... construction... driving... construction. We made pretty crappy time on the road and I knew around 4pm it wasn't going to be an early evening (it's 1:26am right now). At one of our stops for gas... I saw something we'd been keeping an eye out for since last summer... well we've seen them but it's always been like $35+ and nobody in the band will actually pony up the cash to buy it. Our van has no CD player or Aux input for iPods. Most of Canada that we've been touring has no radio so the van is typically pretty quiet aside from our own chatter. Yes... we're probably the only band in Canada that doesn't listen to music on tour... because we basically can't... partially because we can't afford it. lol. So in this gas station store, I saw the Cassette-to-1/8" adapter for iPods... for $15. I had the free breakfast that morning so I figured I'd put my per diem towards it as a gift for the guys and Green Machine (van). Maybe it'd make things a little better in there since now we'd actually be able to listen to music. I make the purchase and bring it back to the van. I show the guys what I'd found. First response... "How much did that cost?" "$15" "That's a lot." ... well... you're welcome guys. I also realized buying this adapter possibly meant two things... 1. Giving up my iPod for personal use... for the greater good. 2. Being subjected to metal. I'm totally cool with metal... but on 10 hour drives... that's too much metal... and although metal is a great soundtrack to road rage... it doesn't help suppress road rage whatsoever. I opened the package, and Tim plugged everything in. iPods are alphabetical and I have a lot of music on there... days and days. So what's the first thing he puts on? ABBA. Occupants of Green Machine revolt. I understand it's just music... but I was a little concerned some people might get out of the van, push it over, and set it ablaze. ... next choice... Johnny Cash. ... someone has a problem with that. ... Foo Fighters... someone doesn't like the first song on the album. ... we did manage to stay on Guns'n Roses for a bit... but still... all could not agree on what to listen to. I yelled at Tim a few times "no schizo DJ's". It's a pet peeve of mine... but I can't argue it too much because that's how peoplw consume music these days. One song at a time. Finally we landed on Motely Crue's, Shout At The Devil and everyone was ok... for a bit. Bottom line... this adapter was ripping our band apart. Sorry guys. Eventually we did start making it through some albums though... Smashing Pumpkins... Rage Against The Machine... U2... I'm sure things will settle down and although it was highly disruptive... the addition of "music" to the van will overall be a positive one. So back to driving... and driving... and construction... and driving... and tolls... and driving, construction, tolls, tolls, driving, and tolls. Seriously that was our day. We were talking about how awesome it is gas is cheaper in the US but the amount of tolls we paid to today might have evened it out. ... actually it's still far cheaper to drive in US than Canada. We finally made it past Chicago and set the GPS for a place called Portage. It had a Holiday Inn Express. I asked Matt this morning if he wanted me to call and make a reservation and he said no, we'll just try our luck. We arrived at the hotel, went in, asked the lady at the front desk about vacancies and she quickly said "no we're full". ... we'll that's not good. There were a couple signs around town that said "Welcome Elvis Fans" or something along those lines... I starting thinking maybe there was an Elvis convention going on or something and we might be screwed for a place to sleep tonight... it was 11pm already... and worse... no place to do laundry. I seriously have nothing left except pinstripe stage shorts and a button up dress shirt. So we get back in the van and backtrack a few blocks to a Days Inn... the one with the Elvis sign actually, and ask for room there... $80, good to go! Laundry? Yes! I had to laugh since when we checked in... I was looking along the lines of "people of Walmart"... I went back to ask the guy at the front desk about quarters for the laundry machines dressed like I was going on a date or something. ... it's all I had left! I think we're back on the road for 9am tomorrow. I just heard the dryer down the hall stop... so I'm gonna stop here as well. The show tomorrow is sold out and I've heard tons of awesome about the Machine Shop. Should be good! - Mike P.S. I hardly took any pictures today... but this basically sums up the day.
0 Comments
|
Mike Langford - Official BlogBeing on both sides of the glass, I get the chance to wear many hats in the music industry. This is a place to share my thoughts, views, predictions, rants, stories and news! Categories
All
Archives
October 2017
|