So, reading between the lines you probably pieced together that change was afoot in The Mollys long before I posted that note about Catherine and Gary leaving to pursue other interests. I’m not going to make them disappear from history. I just don’t have much to say about it. It was their decision that they didn’t want to go on touring indefinitely. Anybody who knows me knows I was a huge fan of Catherine's, having played with her since 1983 (in another band with Nancy, The MoPhonics). And even Gary, a relative newcomer by comparison, had played with the band longer than a lot of people stay married; he joined in 1995 (?). So, this was a big change in my life. I don’t speak for anyone else, but I can’t imagine that it wasn’t a big change for the others, too. In that time, we racked up enough mileage to go the moon and back (well, most of the way back). But, the band goes on. And that’s something I can speak about.
We started rehearsing with guitarist Danny Krieger and drummer Marx B. Loeb as soon as we returned from the Folk Alliance conference. My attitude was very deliberate, and stated to the new guys like the disclaimer before an adult content show in prime time: “There’s no right was to do these songs, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s see what happens. Don’t worry about doing them the way we used to do them.” That was kind of freeing, definitely for me and - I hope - for the rest of the band, old and new. Anyway, we had a fine time working up a couple sets of material for the first tour. People actually weren’t ready to leave when rehearsals got to their scheduled end (for my dear neighbors’ sakes, we wrap it up by 9 pm). Now, that’s a shocker. This band, in the best of times, only rehearsed slightly more enthusiastically than it went for tax audits and root canals.
So, with a faint idea of how the new versions of the old songs were going to be played, we hopped into the new van (a 1989 Ford 350 15-passenger van) and headed out for Los Angeles and our first show - a radio broadcast from Jack’s Sugar Shack in Hollywood. (“No pressure guys, but the first gig is going to be recorded and played on the radio.”) It went well, actually it went great - we had a blast. We blew right through any uncertain moments and wished we had had another 25 minutes to play (and 25 people to hear it). This was definitely going to work.
Danny is a former Angelino (OK, LA dweller) and had some of his old musician friends there. And Marx had a former record executive friend of his there, so it wasn’t like we were all that uncertain about whether we were going to pull it off. Still, it was a relief to have it go even better than we hoped.
Then it was on to San Jose for a night at Fuel, a nice looking music room/bistro - a new venue for us. Not much of a crowd, but we played two full sets and amused the rather thin weeknight crowd that was there. We had a few of our longtime fans in the audience, and a handful of newcomers. It was an impressive enough performance that we got some of those unanswerable questions: “So, how come I haven’t heard about you guys until now?” I love that one. (“It ain’t for lack of trying, sport.”)
Next was our annual (OK, three years running) St. Paddy’s day/week run at Fitzgerald’s Casino in Reno, NV. We play three one-hour sets a night (6-10 pm) on a little cabaret stage behind the horseshoe bar at the end of the gaming floor. They treat us great at Fitzgerald’s, and unlike most casino shows, we actually (usually) get an attentive audience. There are always a few people who make every show for the entire run. This was a real trial for the new guys, since neither of them has played the traditional Irish tunes we load our sets with for this show. We do a lot of Nancy’s originals, but we play way more of the traditional tunes (that used to be regular material years ago) than we now do during the rest of the year. We hadn’t rehearsed the Irish stuff with Marx and Danny. Most of them are played at breakneck speed and involve time signatures (jigs, reels, polkas and even scarier rhythms) not commonly found in rock, blues and other pop music. The changes are unusual, there are lots of stops. At one point I turned to Marx, who was starting to look a bit apprehensive about the upcoming Irish material, and said, “Sorry, I can’t even put into words the horrors that are about to come your way. Hold on and stay loose.” For the most part, it went well. And, when it didn’t, it got better the next time and provided a lot of laughs. He's such a fine drummer that when he has to fudge his way through the unknown, he makes it sound like an inventive fill. Who’s going to notice a few screams from the drummer in a room full green cocktail waitresses, guys dressed up as Leprechauns and squawking slot machines?
Everyone in the band was so pumped up and ready for “train wrecks” we almost forgot about the crowd. But, they didn’t forget about us. There was a guy at the bar, clearly taken with Nancy (and apparently well into the St. Paddy’s Week spirit and spirits) who would intermittently bellow, in what I suspect was supposed to be an Irish accent (but sounded more like a bad pirate): “Arrrrgghhh Lassie.” Nancy has handled that kind of stuff before, but during one pregnant pause in a song, just as she opened her mouth to sing some pithy line, he bellows another “Arrrrrggggghhhh Lassieeeeeee” and she lost it. (Hang on the one, guys.) So, now anytime we want to get a rise out of her, one of us will let out an “Arrrrrggggghhh Lassie” and hope for the worst.)
While not playing, we had really nice private rooms to hang out in. Krieger spent a lot of time on the 21 tables (supplementing his income, to our envy) while the rest of us rested up, read, went to movies and tried to avoid the slots.
Marx, Danny, Nancy and I are movie fanatics (OK, maybe that’s putting it mildly) and could easily do that every night. Kevin, for the most part, can’t sit still long enough to sit through a movie. (He prefers bungee jumping.) We couldn’t pry Danny off the green felt so the three remaining film fans saw “Boys Don’t Cry” (this was before the awards, which usually put me off movies for a few weeks).
The last day we played outside in front of the casino - in a cold 40 mph wind that pelted us with dust from a construction site across the street. (I’d be picking dirt out of gear, pockets and worse for days.) But, we had a good time and even sold a bunch of CDs to the hearty types who stood out there getting sand blasted.
Next day we hauled across Donner Pass (yup, the site of the famous winter picnic in the mountains) for Berkeley and a show at The Starry Plough. We’ve played the Starry Plough two or three times before, so more than elsewhere we were wondering how the crowd would take to the new band and the new treatment of the original material. Not that there was a damned thing to do about it. So, we just threw ourselves into it and it went over in a big way. Kevin and Danny had been working out how to share some solo spots while we were in Reno and they really came together this night, particularly on “Come On Strong.” The crowd picked up on the fact that they were spontaneously trading fours, rather than playing set parts, and things took off from there. Kind of like cheering at a bull fight.
We were having a fine time, laughing at the new stories the new guys brought into the band. Danny and Marx have worked together before and snipe at each other like a pair of brothers (I’m thinking about 8 and 9, though I’m not sure which is which). I’ll leave the source of much of the laughter at saying it involves imitations of people they played with in the past (Danny is particularly good at doing accents). Both of them have been playing about as long as I have, and have the stories to prove it. Think I’d better leave it up to them to tell you those stories.
Well, I can tell you about one thing. We were staying at a motel in (I think) the computer valley south of San Francisco. Anyway, we get up fairly early for a drive and we’re kind of foggy. We had a late night the night before (probably after Berkeley) and Danny, Kevin and I are waiting outside in the motel parking lot, loading up the van while waiting for Marx and Nancy. Marx walks out the door, steps off the curb and goes flat on his face in the parking lot. With his nearly perfect comedic timing, he doesn’t move, just lies there face down for what seemed a minute. Turns out, he wasn’t hurt and laughed hard about it, after he got up; as he said later he was very loose, thanks to being half-asleep, and probably that saved him from injury. Anyway, we saw he wasn’t hurt and started yukking it up with him. Fully awake at this point, he launches into a dramatic reading of this absolutely foul column (Savage Love, I think it’s called, and, OK, I did suggest he read it) from one of the San Francisco weeklies about a bizarre incident allegedly involving a crazed woman and a live lobster. (Listen, I’m not going there, but it ran in weeklies nationwide in mid or late March. You can look it up, if you’ve got a strong stomach.) So, he’s reading this rank tale from the National Probe in a faux serious Ted Baxter newsman voice and doesn't notice this really prim looking business woman (suit, heels and the perfunctory neck bow) walk up behind him toward her rental car, just a few feet from the loudly profane Mr. Marx “News at 10 am” Loeb. We all saw the horrified look on her face when he built up to a dramatic, and loud, peak for the most disgusting part of the story. He turned around just in time to catch the look as she stuffed herself into the car and got the hell out of there. She didn’t hear his meek, “I’m sorry,” as she zoomed off, door locks a clicking.
We closed this little shake down cruise of a tour with a night at Morgan’s in Monterey. Morgan’s is a coffee house in an old stone building (I think it used to be part of a turn of the century - not the recent one - hotel). It’s small, the sight lines are great, everybody can hear - including the musicians (I like shows where I can hear everyone directly, without amping them up through trashy sounding monitors). Had a great time, even though we gave Morgan Christopher, the owner, heartburn and a couple extra ulcers by getting there at the last minute (California traffic, sorry). It was an odd feeling afterwards. It wasn’t that we all didn’t want to go home, there’s never any question about that, it was that we didn’t want to stop playing. It was agreed upon all around that this new thing was going to work - very well. It might take the fans some time to get used to the new sound, but we knew we were onto something.
This time we were heading east, and with another new band member. Danny had some pre-existing commitments to his band - The Fluffingtons - and couldn’t make a couple nights on this tour so we called on hotrod Austin fiddler Darcie Deaville. Darcie played a few dates with us last fall and played fiddle on several tracks from our latest CD, “Only A Story.” She’s played with a lot of big names and we felt lucky to get her to fill in. (She’s going to do some festivals with us this summer, too, so you may get to hear her with us even if you missed this tour.)
We pointed the van toward Memphis and an off night at The Hi-Tone, a very cool venue for touring roots acts on Poplar Street in Memphis. I got a call from Live On The Internet right before we left for permission to webcast our show live on the Internet. Live On The Internet
The next night was The Down Home in Johnson City, TN. It’s about as far as you can get from Memphis without leaving Tennessee. A hell of a drive (500 miles), but worth the haul. It’s a beautiful time of year in Tennessee, the dogwoods (I think that’s what those magenta bursts of color were) were in bloom and the hardwoods were starting to bud in the mountains. Like I’ve said before, The Down Home brings in more good acts to Johnson City some months than you’d see in some cities of a million. A finer bunch of people you will not meet, either. Mike, the sound engineer, is an audio Jedi. We try to take him along everytime we play there, but he’s no fool. We had a decent crowd and a great time. Things were going so well that we could even joke around on stage about the inevitable glitches with a couple of new band members. At one point, I think it was on “Moon Over the Interstate,” Marx kicked the song off considerably faster than usual. Some songs have a wide tolerance for tempo, it just doesn’t matter all that much if you kick them off five or 10 beats per minute faster than the ideal speed. But some don’t have much room for changes in pace. If it goes too fast it’s kind of like a semi going downhill with no brakes, and when you come to the tricky stuff at the end of the song, where someone (maybe everyone) is playing at their limits you might not make it around that last curve. Anyway, this got off to a smokin’ start and it seemed like we might be headed into Dead Man’s Curve at - or near - the limits. I leaned over to Marx and said casually, “Hey, Chief, where’s the fire?” He about lost it. That quickly became a running gag. He is now known as “Chief.” Between that and “Aaarrrgghh Lassieee” we can bust Marx and Nancy up at will. One of Marx’s cousin’s, Jim, drove up all the way from Chattanooga, to see Marx. He used to be a recording studio engineer and worked sessions on some fine recordings (including The Band).
Next night was a hot spot for us, Paddy Mac’s in Silver Spring, MD. It’s kind of an unlikely place (Silver Spring is kind of sleepy and Paddy Mac’s is on the second floor of a street full of store fronts, nearly all of which are closed at night, but we’ve packed it the last two times and we were looking forward to bringing in the new band. Besides, my brother (Randy), his friend (Laura) and an old friend of ours from high school (Dave Hintz), and a bunch of fans we made over the last few years in DC and Baltimore, were there to hear the new band. We had more audio demons than seemed believable, but the system came around and we had a good night and a lot of fun. We didn’t get any press to speak of, and couldn’t do any radio this time, since we just barely made it in from Johnson City in time. But the crowd showed up and we played well. Things were really starting to gel with Darcie and I think it occurred to all of us that it was too bad we couldn’t play with her longer. We only had a couple shows to do on this trip and then she was back to the Austin scene. The festivals this summer, when we have Danny and Darcie in the band, should be memorable.
This has been a busy time for us, releasing a new CD and building a new band without a break in the touring. If anything, it’s going to get more hectic because we’re committed to giving this CD the biggest push we can work up. We’ve had one break so far. Border’s Books & Music agreed to put us in a program that has them carry our CD and put it on all their stores’ Americana/Folk listening stations for two months starting April 11. (If you don’t see it there, you could do us a huge favor by letting us know.) That’s a big deal for anyone, but huge for an indie band. (That would be us.)
Radio is a big help to us, so we try to do live radio appearances (what’s the aural version of an appearance?) whenever we can. So, we did a show at WDVR-FM, a community station in Sergeantsville, NJ, just north of Trenton. It was a blast. Marx stripped down his drum kit, just playing snare and hand percussion and I used this little GK bass amp I bought at a pawn shop in Phoenix last summer. It makes for a very personal performance, but it comes across well on radio. I’m going to try to start posting the times and dates for our radio shows on the home page since many of the stations we’ve been visiting in the last few months not webcast the shows via RealAudio on their web sites.
Our last show for this tour was at the Rosebud in Pittsburgh. We’ve never played a public show in Pittsburgh and don’t have much of a mailing list for the area. To make it worse, it was a Tuesday night. Not much of a crowd, but we had a good time at this beautiful venue (an old warehouse that was decorated like a giant Starbucks with booze and a big stage and great sound system.)
Nancy apparently is feeling pretty comfortable with the new group. She brought out one of her new songs, so new it’s not on “Only A Story,” as an encore at a couple shows. That’s a good sign. We’re heading home for a few days before we take off for Montana, Washington and BC and Alberta, Canada, next week.
dan s