Road Stories

“I know there's something going on/I know it won't be long/Won't be long before you're gone,” Frida comes through on the airways as I pass by olive trees, cruising down Interstate 5 going south towards San Francisco.

I love the sound of a cheap car radio, static sound turned up loud, warm breeze rushing through open van windows. Tires hum as I look out on the world, feeling alive and free, traveling 75 miles an hour on a highway that stretches to the horizon. The cruise control is on and the sun feels good on my face.

Did you miss me? Last month I was gone, traveling around the country with my band THE PROFITS. We left Boston during the last week of May and headed west. As I write this, I’ve been back a few days, and July is just starting to cook.

There are too many things to tell, too many days that ran together stretching from coast to coast and back again. There are dozens of people who made it possible, good bands I saw perform, and untold nights when I stayed up until dawn, enjoying company and sharing thoughts and conversations about everything from capitalist war to the perfect power chord. I’m forced to abbreviate, reduce my book into a column, and leave things out. I apologize in advance, and share here only a few thoughts from the road.

Bodily Injury

The day was clear and bright, and we sailed from Chicago through Wisconsin, arriving in Minneapolis early. For me, tour is as much about visiting far-flung friends as it is about playing shows, and Minneapolis is home to some amazingly cool people like Gary and Stephanie who are always so kind to put us up, get us drunk and hang out until dawn. The city is also one of those places where I feel at home. There are lots of older punks covered with spikes and tattoos who drink with a passion, who give a shit about what’s going on in the world, and make brutal, pissed off music. It’s beautiful.

SCORNED played wonderful crusty, heavy, melodic punk with strong female vocals. THE PROFITS had a fun set, with our friends dancing, heckling and singing along. Then, for our last song, I put down my guitar so I could sing and run around.

Before I knew it, someone grabbed my hand and pulled me off balance–I found myself flying off the enormous four-and-a-half-foot stage headfirst towards the floor. Instinctively, I rolled. I avoided smashing my head directly, but my shoulder and ribs took a hit. Somehow I managed to get back on stage and finish the song. Punk fucking rock and enormous ovaries.

After our set, I had the same dizzy feeling as my last concussion, and my back and shoulders felt really fucked. Argh. While trying to get my head on straight, I watched PHALANX from Seattle play loud as fuck and BORN/DEAD deliver a brutal wall of sound.

The next afternoon, after a night hanging out, talking about the world and nothing in particular, I woke up with intense pain, and my side cut into me for the next two weeks, all the way to Phoenix. Oh well, I left with a good loving kick in the ribs from Minneapolis!

Gerbil’s Not Dead

At the Hurricane Café, a stone’s throw away from the Space Needle, Pabst was a dollar, bands got free pitchers, and the only respectable thing to do was get stinking drunk. SKEEZIK were good classic pissed-off punk. THE ESCAPED (from Portland) were a blur of energy on stage, with two singers and catchy tough street punk songs. Zack, one of the singers, kept getting tagged in the head by flying beers, making me laugh as he smiled and tried to duck unsuccessfully. The best thing about THE PROFITS set was a beer-soaked cover of UK SUBS’s “Four Minute Warning” and almost passing out due to the heat.

On another note, I had fun at the show, but felt really bad that it was 21+. I would have much rather played an all-ages show of course, but being a Tuesday night, and not knowing many people in Seattle, it was the only show we could get. What to do? We decided, like many bands, that a 21+ show was better than no show at all. Tour isn’t a free ride, after all, and we needed gas money. We had just crossed Montana, North Dakota and the Rockies. Still, not being inclusive bothered me. While I was thinking about this, I saw a kid get thrown out by the bouncers during THE ESCAPED’s set, as he was caught trying to sneak in using the back door. Good for him! Bar shows in theory suck, but sometimes it’s what a band has to do. Between bands I spent a lot of time playing Simpson’s pinball, taking in a few moments being by myself.

The next night we met up with THE ESCAPED again in Portland at the Paris Theatre. ONE DAY WAR were good–they had male and female vocals, and said intelligent things between songs. THE ESCAPED and the crowd were bouncing off the walls during their set–during their last song I think about thirty people took over the stage and were singing along. Kick ass. When you’ve managed to piss off a large club’s sound guy, you know you’re doing something right. It was also cool to see some of the same kids who came to THE PROFITS Portland show last year (you rock!), and to catch up with fellow Bostonian Gerbil. There had been an odd punk rumor going around the country that he had been shot in the face by a gun and killed. Go figure, the shit people make up. Well, it was just a fucked up rumor, Gerbil’s fine, and says, “Hi, fuckers!”

Resistance and Intolerance

I woke up in a yard in Ashland, Oregon feeling hot, with the sun already severe by 8 am. I lifted my head up just in time to see the neighbors staring as they drove by. It had only been a couple of hours since I put my sleeping bag down, and after a night of hanging out with Kimbo and the rest of the crew I felt tired and baked by the heat. The night before we had played in a beautiful hippy café called Evos with GRUK (from Chico), LADY LIBERTY LEGS SPREAD (who we unfortunately missed) and BAREFOOT ARMY (from Redding). All of the bands were amazing, with strong women in all. You should definitely check these bands out! Buffy, who sings for BAREFOOT ARMY, really impressed me with her CRASS-like style of singing and talking, making “politics” personal, and I was really captured by her energy, thoughts and creativity. GRUK was straight forward, and played with enthusiasm and as a solid group. Both bands are now on my top ten.

After we all woke up and got ourselves collected, and said goodbye to beautiful Kimbo and Evos, THE PROFITS hit the road with BAREFOOT ARMY, and drove south through the hills, sun hot as hell. We passed Mt. Shasta, and I drove the van over the highest peak on Interstate 5, creeping along at 45 mph with the heat on to stop the van from overheating. My flip-flops began to melt and I turned the radio on, trying not to worry and to just drive steady.

A few hours later, we came out of the desert and arrived at Milleville Grange Hall, just outside the Redding city limits. From several stories different punks told me, Redding was full of people who hated anyone who wasn’t American, and punks and queers didn’t qualify by a long shot. One young punk about ten years old told me about a time she and her punk rock mom were waiting in line at a grocery store. A man behind them in line told them something like, “Once we get out of here, I’m going to slit your fucking throats.”

In Cambridge and Boston, people stop me in the street and say they like my dyed red hair. There are as many freaks as pigeons, and nothing is really that shocking. As with New York, Minneapolis and San Francisco, tattoos, piercings, punks and queers are nothing new. Where I live, being punk is about as rebellious as eating baked beans.

It seems it would have been easy for the Redding punks that I met to have moved somewhere else. Or to give punk up, and just lay low and try to fit in. But instead, I found a large punk scene, creative activism, and people who were standing their ground to improve their community. I was inspired by Buffy, her roommates and the other Redding punks and people I met, who worked for their beliefs and art when everyone seemed to go against them.

At the show, we played with BAREFOOT ARMY again, and I loved them even more. The NOGOODNIX (from Chico) rocked out with political punk, and kids danced despite the intense sweltering heat. At the end of our set, one young punk jumped up on stage and yelled, “This was the best show ever!” Rock on.

Another Song on the Wall

It was a little surreal to be sitting in the MRR house eating breakfast. Bandmates Rich and Adam were reading magazines, and Brian was outside smoking. I was awed by how the house resembled a punk rock compound, and how well organized and cared for everything was. Especially considering over a hundred people volunteer for the magazine and have keys to the place. Crazy. That amount of trust and responsibility within a group was inspiring, and a little hard for me to fathom. How many people would you give keys to your house?

I was also really glad to meet Arwen in person, and behold the largest DIY punk rock record collection in the United States. Gasp. I kept thinking of how each green-taped square in the many bookcases, that lined an entire side of the house, represented a punk band somewhere that made it to vinyl. The good and the bad, the famous and obscure, it was all there, a million punk songs up against the wall. And, of course, I visited THE PROFITS two 7”s sitting with the P’s.

Mission Rocks

Mission Records is closing at the end of the summer, I’m told, and a lot of punks are sad about letting it go. I can see why. Mission Records was one of the best shows I’ve ever played, just for the sheer energy of it all.

If you don’t know it, Mission Records is a small hole in the wall in the Mission district of San Francisco. Behind the actual DIY record store, through a large door covered in carpet, there is a small room with a low stage at one end. It’s hot as hell and dark, with only one bare bulb lighting the place and a cement floor wet with beer and spit. However, once the bands began to play, the place seemed to swell to twice its size, taking in all the dancing people and music that filled the room.

I was thrilled to see ABANDON. Clara and Jake Filth both sang over intense music, creating a powerful combination.

As soon as we started our set, people started dancing and jumping on top of each other. From where I was standing, basically at the front of the pit, getting smashed in the face along with everyone else, it was beautiful mayhem. With all the energy around me, I played probably harder than I have in a long time–there was a feeling of immediate urgency, that this place, this stage, this time will soon be gone. Someone up front yelled at me, “Play until we all pass out!” and I knew what he meant. I screamed and held my guitar in the air and enjoyed a moment of feeling totally alive with everyone else in the room.

Here I am

Enough for this column, I’ve reached my word limit and the end of anyone’s attention span. Tour stories are a little different from my usual rhetoric, but I suppose a summer break isn’t all that bad. I’m also a little frazzled, it seems as usual, getting back to work and the daily routine. Tour did my soul well, however, and crossing the Appalachians, the plains of Montana, the desert of west Texas and the Rockies all lifted my spirit and helped clear my head. I’ve pledged to be less stressed, to get out of the city more, and not worry so much. Also, meeting amazing people on the road inspired me by their example, and I came home refreshed, and ready to write new songs and renew my activism in different ways.

Tomorrow is July 4th and I’m heading to New York for the weekend, hanging out with Zola the wonder dog and playing at the mighty ABC NoRio. Hell ya! Next month, I’ll bring on, “Sweet Sick Smells” and “Cops do the Fascist’s Dirty Works” as I continue with Part II of Road Stories.

Photos, notes and random notes will be up at www.THEPROFITS.org. Old and new friends, please get in touch. An enormous extra thanks to Bev (Bitch Crew San Fran), Joe SHITLIST Rizzy in Seattle (who let me play his guitar and made me think deeply about TONE), Joe CREEPS of Columbus (honorary Bostonian), everyone at Gilman Street, Mike Thorn Tofu King, and everyone who said “hi,” talked to me, and made me feel at home while I was on the road. Biggest thanks of all goes to my bandmates Adam, Rich and Brian, three awesome guys. No fights, no whining, we just road the miles together and rocked out night after night. What a lucky girl I am!

Keep a sharp eye out during this time of increasing fascism, work with others to make create a better place, have a great summer and keep kicking this unjust system in the face. Love, Erika