RAILROAD JERK SPRING TOUR 1991

by Marcellus Hall

Today is Saturday. Our "Mega Spring 1991 Tour" began on Wednesday. On that day we left our small homesteads in New York's lower East Side, kissed our wives and children, and set out for the wild frontier of New England. Boston was our first stop. We met up with the nice people at MIT's WMBR and recorded a "live" set to be aired later the following week. It went fine and we were pleased with the result. That night we stayed at M. Hayuk's art-loft in Boston's south end which, of course, we trashed. We did a few paintings too.

The Middle East Restaurant - Boston, MA 4/4/91

We spent the next afternoon strolling through greater Boston (many of us had not been there before). We saw Paul Revere's and Ben Franklin's graves and lounged in front of the aquarium ruminating about life's true meaning while the oily, green-brown water of Boston's harbor lapped up against the stone wall and gulls soared freely overhead, their cries joyous in the cloudless sky, free as birds.

This was our second ever show at the Middle East and the Elvis impersonator who did sound wasn't nearly as sour with us as he was the first time. Consequently our sound was good. The crowd appeared to enjoy themselves too. Tony Lee had a small scuffle with an exceedingly drunk patron at one point, resulting in the latter being thrown out. Also, Steve overheard a conversation outside the club where the woman said to a man, "I hope you don't think I'm taking you home, because, you know, ah .....I'm homeless."

I slept that night in the van while the others smoked Chris Mueller's pot and slept in the art-loft again.

Club Babyhead - Providence, RI 4/5/91

Providence is one-third student types, one-third pastel-clad yuppie types, and one-third mustached working-class types, with some overlap. One might say this is a very shallow generalization which, when it comes right down to it, doesn't really say much at all and could just as well be left unsaid.

We met the members of Six Finger Satellite who agreed to put us up for the night. I was feeling ill this show but I gave it my all, as they say, and Chris Mueller and Tony Lee did their best with a sort of spastic dancing that may or may not have added to the performance. A quick lube job for the van the next morning and breakfast with Six Finger Satellite and we were back on the road. Steve Cerio had gotten over the distress he was feeling for an over-worked Dunkin' Donuts waitron ("She must've been seventeen years old and those ladies were yelling at her!") and was back in the driver's seat, ecstatic over the rurality of our surroundings and on the lookout for twigs for his collection (This is no lie).

Godfrey's - Albany, NY 4/6/91

When we got to Godfrey's we were pretty freaked out. It was, like, this small, paneled tavern with a back room for the bands to play in. There was no stage and the room looked like a rec. room without a pool table. It turned out that Godfrey's wasn't so bad after all. True, we couldn't play so loud, but they fed us platefuls of spaghetti.

Luckily, Steve Cerio ran into an old high school classmate slumped over at the bar who offered us a place to stay. We took him up on the offer and got friendly with the locals.

In the morning I took a cruise in the can and got very lost. I finally made to the club though at 1:30 pm to meet the guys (just in time, I thought). Imagine my horror at finding out that it was daylight savings time and that it was 2:30 pm instead of 1:30 pm. The guys called me "dick" and refused to speak to me for a good fifteen minutes. It seemed like an eternity before they finally eased up and began laying into me with good-natured jibes. I could only take so much, though, and at a certain point I was forced to tell them to chill out or I would chill them myself, or something to that effect. Naturally, they did and we were back on terms.

The Moon - New Haven, CT 4/7/91

Well, we arrived at The Moon at dusk ("the magic hour," Steve Cerio said). At this point on our tour we felt like seasoned pros. The procedure of doing a show, breaking down, sleeping, waking up, driving, arriving, doing a sound check, eating, and then doing another show had become ingrained in our systems and we were becoming good at it, working together like circuits in a microchip. We learned quickly that a tour is not all drinking, fucking, and rocking, no sir, there were other things to do as well.

Lisa Suckdog was sitting at the Moon when we arrived and soon The Honeymoon Killers pulled up in their private plane. It was good to see fellow New Yorkers way out in the "desert", as it were. We gave each other the usual sneer and proceeded to set up.

The show went well. Railroad Jerk played tightly and smoothly, wowing the uninitiated. The "Killers", as they were affectionately known, and Lisa Suckdog, et al., also put on fine performances. Too bad for the New Havenites who chose to stay home and watch "Married With Children."

We drove back to the Big Apple. The first leg of our "Mega Spring 1991 Tour" was over and a general bonding feeling swept over us.

We spent the next four days counting our dough and preparing for the big haul - the "real tour". I returned the camouflaged can to Phil Puleo of Cop Shoot Cop and began scouting the neighborhood for one that we could use for the next three weeks. There were so many to choose from, but none with their keys left in them, so I was forced to rent one.

(Later 4/14/91, Baltimore, MD) It says "Barn Rental, Woodside, Queens, NY" in huge red letters on all sides of our newly rented van. It also says the telephone number which I forget at the time of this writing.

Khyber Pass - Philadelphia, PA 4/12/91

Two of us broke strings at this show, which was a drag. Also, Chris Mueller told some jokes that may have been offensive to women. And indeed they were, as a member of that sex approached me after the show and put in her two cents. I thanked her for her opinion and we went our separate ways. Needless to say I didn't sleep with her that night. Neither did Chris.

The Cows of Minneapolis also played on this night and they played pretty good.

The Upstage - Pittsburgh, PA 4/13/91

We traveled the length of Pennsylvania and arrived at Pittsburgh, the "iron city." Starvation Army of Cleveland did not show up so we were asked to play two sets, which we did. This show was good, thanks, in part to a good sound system, but I swear we'll not play "Glamorous Bitch" again. I can never remember the words and I don't care much. (But alas, we did, I can, and I do -- MH, 1996)

The Dry Dock - Baltimore, MD 4/14/91

Rain has hounded us for the past three - no, two - days. But that doesn't matter, our spirits are not yet dampened (Tony Lee's futon is, though). Baltimore is a scream. (It's not, really, but I always wanted to write that.) Anyways, we found our way to the white trash neighborhood where The Dry Dock is. It turned out that our show was moved to a VFW-style hall about three blocks away. The place was swarming with kids of all ages (it was an "all ages" show) and I felt a little weird because I did not have a PMA (Positive Mental Attitude). I tried, but I just couldn't. Tony Lee broke a bass string for a third straight time on our tour. This makes him three for three. It's an expensive habit, but it's the price one has to pay for rock!

Twisters - Richmond, VA 4/15/91

Suddenly we realized: "this is the South!" The air was humid and big drooping trees lined the streets in front of manor-like buildings with columned porches. We asked for directions to the club from several of the locals, but we couldn't make heads or tails out of what they said. One thing we kept hearing, however, was "Where y'all from?"

We finally found the club. It was clean and had a checkerboard motif. The soundman, however - and I'll say his name: Mark Thomason - the sort who hates his job. Either that or he had just scratched the paint job on his Honda that day and was grumpy about it. Whatever it was, he was not a pleasure to work with. Our first three or four songs were fraught with insane feedback and the crowd was losing its patience. Eventually things got straightened out though and we played a good show.

Afterward, we grabbed a couple of six packs of Milwaukee's Best and went down to the James River to sit on the rocks with some friends we had made. We also climbed aboard an idle caboose that was parked on some train tracks.

The next day was our day off. I bought a bottle of Night Train apple-flavored wine and we hit the road. Our goal was to drive like hell and get at least half way to our next stop, Columbus, Ohio. By the time we pulled into Ripley, West Virginia, my bottle was three quarters finished and I was singing Woody Guthrie songs.

We found a motel called "77" in Ripley. The man at the front desk had a wad of tobacco in his cheek and every so often he would spit a couple gallons of juice out in the waste basket. "Where y'all from?" he said. I told him we were from New York and that we were musicians. He said, "Whut kinda music d'yew play? (spit) ... bluegrass?" "No," I said, "we play rock...country-rock." And he smiled (and spitted), "They have a jambo-ree here (spit) ever' Saturday night (spit) and they play that kind of music too (spit)." "Oh, yeah?" I said. "Uh-huh," he said. And we paid for a room.

The Club Heidelburg - Ann Arbor 4/18

The Michigan Daily featured a quarter page article on us. They used the old photo, the one with former drummer Jez Aspinall instead of Steve Cerio, and on the front page of the paper it said, "Railroad Jerk, They Don't Suck, See Inside." We cracked up at this. We played that night with N.L. Mule (Nigger Lover) whose members include Jim and Kevin of The Laughing Hyenas and Preston of Wig. The show went well and we taped it. Roland Diaz was one of the better (or best) promoters we've run across so far. After the show Tony Lee hung out with the guys from Mule while the rest of us crashed at a guy named Larry's house. Tony Lee said he watched a girl drink a bottle of vinegar. She thought it was gin, but she was wrong.

Dreamer - Chicago, IL 4/19/91

Finally we arrived at the fabled Windy City. We drove along Lake Shore Drive and were awed by the violent waves of the mighty Lake Michigan. We found the club all right. The folks there were friendly and the show went very well. We heard our old friend during the performance: the guy who yells, "go back to New York!" He seems to follow us. He showed up at Philadelphia and Minneapolis too. Promoter, Ralph of Romp Productions, who booked the show was there doing sound and we were pleased. After the show, a friend of a friend named Jason brought us to a late night restaurant featuring a colorful patronage of male transvestites. Some of them where okay-looking, but mostly we tended to our meal.

Gabe's Oasis - Iowa City, IA 4/20/91

As we drove across the great Mississippi River and entered the great state of Iowa, we pulled over for a look. We thrilled at the sight of not one, but several, restored paddlewheel boats! Then we heard the lonesome whistle of a freight train and we put pennies on the tracks and watched them get squashed. The sun was setting on this little town of Le Claire, IA and reflecting on the quiet, majestic waters of the Mississippi. Soon we tired of this romanticism and got the hell back on the road.

We arrived at Iowa City at the crack of dusk and proceeded to Gabe's Oasis. This show turned out to be a low point on our tour. We were poorly promoted and we opened for The Didjits and Rifle Sport. Also, when an old friend of mine from the circus, who now lives in Iowa City, called the club to see if we were playing, the bartender said, "Railroad who?" And to top everything off, we were harassed by college jocks on the street. Tony Lee recalls seeing carloads of fraternity fellows singing choruses of "Doo wah diddy, diddy, etc."

That night we stayed at The Star Inn - a true-to-life, honest-to-god, truck stop motel. My bed sagged like a trampoline and we took turns reading from the Gideon's Bible.

The Uptown Bar - Minneapolis, MN 4/21/91

Minneapolis! My old man lives here and Chris Mueller lived here for two years before moving to New York. Needless to say we were glad to be back in this "Mecca of the prairie." Promoter Peter Davis did us up right at the Uptown and, despite a few technical problems, including a sore throat, we rocked the house.

First Avenue (Cameo Appearance) - Minneapolis, MN 4/23/91

Thanks to the great people at Creature Booking, namely Pat Whalen, Pat Dwyer, Peter Davis, and Mike Wolff of WMMR (not nec. in that order), we were able to secure this gig at First Avenue. The same stage that such luminaries as Joan Jett once stood on! Not to mention The Babes in Toyland and Prince. We had fun and felt like gods what with our big dressing room and all. Afterward we hung out with our new friends and drank and stuff. (Now we are used to big dressing rooms and think nothing of them -- MH, 1996)

Okayz Corral - Madison, WI 4/24/91

We traveled down I-94 through "America's Dairyland" and made our way to Madison, WI. I had bought some dumb things on the trip, but the dumbest thing I bought was a hunk of Swiss cheese at one of Wisconsin's wayside tourist traps. I was inspired by all the cheese signs along the way and somehow felt the desire welling up in me to buy some. It turned out to taste no better than any other cheese -- in fact, worse, as I had no peanut butter to go with it.

Okayz Corral is the now-famous place where Surgery's van and all their equipment got smashed by a drunken truck driver.

The Reptile House - Grand Rapids, MI 4/25/91

Grand Rapids is a shit hole. It used to be the furniture capital of the world, but I believe some other city has taken the title now.

Chris Mueller and Tony Lee played golf the next morning and at about 4 pm we headed to Columbus, OH. We hoped to meet up once again with our friends, The Blood Family, who we had met a week and a half earlier. Sure enough, there they all were, hanging out late on a Friday night at their rock 'n' roll apartment. Generously, they allowed us to stay the night. We had no show to do so we bought a coupla twelve packs of beer and lounged around. We had a jam session with members of The Blood Family and Monster Truck Five. Chris Mueller went riding around on Vince's motorbike, and Steve Cerio slept in the van as he was exhausted from driving.

Snagilwets (Tewligans) - Louisville, KY 4/27/91

The country was humid and hazy and we were becoming aware once again that we were going south. Somehow, not only does the landscape change when one heads into the South, but it seems that everything changes... even the people look Southern. This is not meant to be a slag.

Anyways, we found our way to Snagilwets (or Tewligansm, which is backwards - they can't seem to decide which way it should be) and I don't know if it was the heat or the fact that we had been in a van for two and a half weeks, but our tempers were high....

The bill this night was unique. We were to play with both Louisville's Pour Floyd More and some guy named Pauly Shore of MTV. This Pauly Shore is a sort of comedian who, in his nightclub act, fraternizes with the audience and makes them feel good about being fuck-ups and wanting to live in the sixties. So the place was packed with pastels (and paisley) and pimples, everyone drooling with anticipation for this guy. Well, they saw him. He came and did his thing, then it was over. We helped shoo everyone out and then got ready to play. There were a few hangers-on, though, and we socked it to 'em.

Two members of our tribe had had a "run-in" of sorts earlier on this day, and so, as I said before, not everything was going so smoothly for us. And after the show these two (of us) had another run-in - this time a real live, knock-down, drag-out, throw-in-the-dirt fight. This drew more of a crowd than the show itself! Even Pauly Shore watched from his tour bus.

Well, obviously this was a setback. Everyone was confused and we needed time to cool off. By the next day we had cooled off. And we knew in our hearts and minds that it was the music that binds us together. We knew that our main goal is to entertain! And we put our heads to this aim.

With our minds set on this, we took some time to enjoy Louisville, or "Luv'l," as the locals call it. We met some very nice people in Louisville and that night we watched our label mates, Superchunk, rock at Snagilwets.

The Flaming Grill - Knoxville, TN 4/29/91

Who plays in Knoxville? We didn't know. We had visions of hillbillies and moonshine as we drove toward this Appalachian city. It was Monday night and the Flamingo Grill was packed with dolled-up students from the University of Tennessee. We looked out of place in our dirty t-shirts. At least they knew who the band was. We opened up for a disgusting corporate Nashville band who wore bandannas and cowboy hats and sounded like a long beer commercial. The students loved them. We got a whopping $100 and went to the Hilltop Inn to trash a few rooms.

The Chameleon - Atlanta, GA 4/30/91

This show was spacious; the place was packed with empty space. If it was filled any further, the space would have spilled out into the street. We were suffocating in emptiness.

Seriously though, the show went good. We played loose and lively. And those there will no doubt remember the evening for years to come. We stayed that night at surfer Greg Webb's house.

The 40 Watt Club - Athens, GA 5/1/91

Gregg Webb drove us over to WREK, the radio station at Georgia Tech University (if I'm not mistaken) and we did an impromptu interview with the general manager there. She gave us WREK t-shirts which was totally cool since I can't think of a cooler name for a radio station. By mid afternoon we were en route to Athens much celebrated music capital and birthplace of jangly rock revolutionaries, R.E.M. (rapid eye movement).

The two bands who opened for us competed for the longest set award and we ended up being squeezed. I don't know which band got the award but I know we didn't. Nevertheless, we had some fun. Tony sang a version of "Ace of Spades" while Chris and I set fire to our guitars. We saw R.E.M's Mike Stripe at a local restaurant before our show but he didn't recognize us. Also we saw two other members of that band but I'm not aware of their names. That night we stayed at Greg Webb's girlfriend's house in Athens. He knew about it though so it was no big deal. He was there with us, or rather, with her. I don't know if she surfs too or not.

Our tour was over. The next morning we piled into the van. Steve Cerio and I prepared ourselves for a day of marathon driving and we did it. From daybreak to day's end we drove -- North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey... Our minds were set on one thing: we wanted to get home and get home we did.

At 2 a.m. (not bad) we pulled up at our rehearsal space, waved to the junkies and dealers, unloaded our equipment, and bade each other a good night. It was a beautiful spring night in New York. The moon was shining high and there was a feeling of tranquillity and solitude throughout the streets. Transit workers dutifully ran the subway trains and a street musician strummed a simple tune on his guitar, the music floating softly upward into the cool night air. Plus I was not mugged on my way home.

The end.