4/22/08 Midwest Tour Day 6

Day 6

8:30 am: After a night of restless sleep, due to the allergic reactions of a cat in the house, The Wee Trio started their day with a couple cups of coffee and a eight hour recording session. Needless to say the 2am Jack in Box dinner mixed with the rare moments of James drinking coffee did not sit right with his stomach. Quote of the day “If you don’t drink coffee you shouldn’t drink coffee.” – Jared S. Unfortunately that bit of weesdom came too little too late.

Later pm: 4 songs were laid down at the session. Many tournaments of Extreme Table Tennis (aka Ping Pong) took up much of our studio time, as did 10 pushups before each take at Peter Stevens Studio. (Thank you so much for your engineering Peter-Stevens-Miller-Karl-Allen-Hampton-Hawes)



5:30 pm: Downtown St. Louis – BBQ at the Loomis Household

7:30 pm – Big Gig at the C Sci Church. No gig would be complete without a series of unfortunate events. We can start by forgetting the drums at the recording studio. Thanks to Joomis for bringing us his drums at the last minute. First song, Jared chokes the ride cymbal slicing his finger open, blood pours out and the bleeding never stops. Even though stitches were required Jared plays through it like the Starship Trooper he is.



9pm – Many Cd’s are sold, many souls were filled, and enough cookies were baked to feed Steve Turre.

10pm – After Party at K-Mack’s house featuring special guest appearances by the Unconquerable Joomis and Hairy Carey. An array a Pale Ale’s, Rogues, and Chinese Herbal Beer helped liven up a hard hittin hang. As we leave, the police don’t scare James to restrain his New Orleans Open Container Law Conditioning. Fortunately, their doughnuts blind them from upholding the great laws of St. Louis.



12am – Jared takes a monster Dump that has a similar shape to the head of Jay Leno.

4/21/08 Midwest Tour Day 5

4/21
10:00 AM: Joe Locke blasting on the computer, dry cereal, and thank you notes. This is how we started our morning. Our trip to Mundane (Mundelein High School) was eventful. Below are pictures of our fan club (est. today). Matt Farmer also pictured.


5:30 PM: Goodbye, Mundelein. Let’s go and meet Ramon Banda. Let’s eat tasty food. Let’s take pictures with the wait staff. They are cute and fun. Even the creepy owner.







10:00 PM: Halfway to St. Louis, the boys are restless. “Lets hit a rest stop,” Dan says. The pictures below are the results of an interesting stop, including a second stop at the Jack-In-The-Box drivethru.

4/20/08 Midwest Tour Day 4

Day-off

What can one say about a day-off in the suburbs. We know you Wee fans have become accustomed to glorious accounts of fascinating misadventures and captivitating concerts. Unfortunately, we of the Wee trio regret to report that it is difficult to find either of these things in the northern Chicago Suburbs. We did however, manage to stir up a modicum of trouble and sample a some serious local delicacies. And the charm of Midwestern hospitality is something (we’ve discovered) is not something to be trifled with.

10:00 Awake

10:05 Discover Tom and Joyce (our Midwestern hosts) digging a large hole in their backyard to do their own repair on their septic system

10:30 Short-order breakfast provided by Tom Noller – featuring homemade cranapple jam made by Tom from the cranapples in his own backyard – now that’s home-cookin’!

2:00 Dan gets cabin fever and agitates the trio out of their domestic bliss (featuring sunny porches, 30’ televisions, friendly moms and endless cups of coffee)

2:45 Trusty old GPS (Gangsta Positioning System) leads us to Mickeys, an excellent suburban micro-brewery (go figure). We persuade the bartender to put on the Lakers game (interest is limited to the three of us at the bar). Lakers have a strong game (no surprise – looking at their defensive record this season) with Pau delivering strong rebounds.
The ‘english half-yard’ glass catches Dan’s eye and he samples the bar’s local Doppelbock in the Chicago’s biggest beer glass. The rest of the trio cannot be without a sip.

5:30 Find a great ‘beach’ (sand by a large body of water that one cannot see the other side of --- even though in this case it is not the ocean, but Lake Michigan). Also find some college students celebrating 4/20 on the beach in plaid shorts.

7:30 Ritual visit to Giordanos for Chicago deep-dish pizza. Finishing a large deep-dish (complete with its 8 beeeig slices) pizza is a gauntlet for all both the most seasoned eaters. In the end we barely made it.
Here are the final scores:

Jared – 3 (and bonus points for going out first)
Dan – 3 (trailing heavily)
James – 2 (by a nose)

4/19/08 Midwest Tour Day 3

Day 3:

9:30 am: After waking up from a night at the Square One Brewery, Dan eases his hangover doing his Downward Doggy Dog Style at the Marbles Yoga center while James and Jared enjoy their Bacon and Eggs with The Loomis Family at “Fountain Soda Restaurant”.

12pm: A car ride full of Jazz Name Games and ipod blindfold tests eases the 5 hour drive from St. Louis to Chicago. Out of this a new game was spawned...”Who am I?” Example: I don’t know why I’m famous. I am a great jazz guitarist with long hair. I have lots of gigs and look white trash...answer: Mike Stern”

5:20 pm: Arrive at Casa de Noller. The license plate was very inviting.

5:30 pm: Finally arriving in Chicago wee were ready to play at the infamous Peter Miller’s. Wee are off to a rocky start with a miscommunication about what time the gig was going to hit. Jared soon morphed into “DOJS” (Dark old Jared Schonig) and the fall of the 1st set began. After a few beers and watching a New Orleans Hornets victory over the Dallas Mavericks, the round of half shell oysters kicked in as The Wee Trio rallied for an enthusiastic 2nd set with a captivated audience. The 3rd set was brought back down to a mediocre performance as we mourned for the defeated Houston Rockets. The power of basketball .... what a sad and marvelous thing. On the plus side we were able to run through some music for the first time before our Recording Session on Tuesday. In order to follow the Wiitinerary (see below) as accurately as possible, James then took it upon himself to strike up awkward questions with locals...”Club or restaurant...raise your hand” as Jared compulsively checked his iphone.



1 am: Many hours were spent figuring how to reload a vehicle with a vibraphone, bass, and drums. The packing was finally accomplished and we were ready to get back “home” for a night of corona and potato chips. Nothing satisfies the Wee Trio more after a gig than closing the night out with a nice brief discussion about our friend Good Old Ron Paul (GORP).

4/18/08 Midwest Tour Day 2

5:30 PM: After a mostly smooth ride and a wee bit of traffic through the downtown St. Louis area, we finally made it to the Upper School. Greeted by an enthusiastic James, Martha Stitzel and Keith Evans, we were promptly ushered into the theatre to rehearse a burning rendition of “All of Me.” First great quote of the day: After seeing the car filled to the absolute fullest with drums, bass, luggage, and trash, Keith Evans politely says “I only thought the brothers rolled like that!”

6:15 PM: The mess hall was waiting. Caffeine-free soda and a plethora of high school kids surrounded the tasty “frito pie” James wanted to concoct. While eating our final meal before “James Brown explosion time” we learned that James had explained the differences between New Orleans and New York City shortly before Dan and Jared had arrived. We also learned that explaining the difference in “beer pricing” was a no-no.

6:45 PM: The shortest “wee-hearsal” ever. Ready to drop.

7:00 PM: Jared wears a policeman hat to sound-check. James irons his clothes. I mean jeans. Dan practices. He almost has memorized the head to “Milton’s Blues.”

8:00 PM: The concert has started. Big band. James is featured on a number of big band compositions on piano, and did a superb job. Following student renditions of “All of Me” and “But Beautiful,” the Wee Trio gets on stage to start their 30-minute power set.

9:15 PM: Jared receives standing ovation for a crazy drum solo (and jingling his keys). The Wee Trio receives a group standing ovation and the stage is set for “Diggin on James Brown.” Dancing, singing, and an excellent “Allen Toussaint” impersonation from James ended this amazing concert. Probably one of the best audiences we ever had, the concert followed with an autograph session of CD’s lasting close to an hour.

10:30 PM: Pack up those vibes and drums now! Where we going next? Do I hear a Steak ‘n’ Shake???

11:00 PM: Walk to into Steak ‘n’ Shake. Receive standing ovation. Go high school kids. All right now. Eat some burgers. Drink some shakes. Night is complete.
<---James and Jared at Steak n Shake. Post shakes.

4/17/08 Midwest Tour Day 1

Day 1 –

9am – Delicious poached eggs provided by chef Elizabeth Loomis, who prefers to be called Lizzie Loomis

9:30am – Realize it’s time to leave, but the hollandaise sauce hasn’t coagulated yet – Jared runs out for butter, Dan slices cantaloupe

10:30am – Finally get on the road, bound for St. Louis

7:30pm – (30 minutes into Dan’s first stint driving), Jared notices an all-to-familiar foul smell and looks up to see steam pouring our of both sides of the hood

10:15pm – Jared and Dan finally stumble upon a bit of luck (in an evening that hadn’t been going so well lately) in the person of Richard the tow-truck driver. ‘Yup, Zanesville Ohio, don’t blink you’ll miss it.’ Their spirits are raised substantially when Richard (whose uniform had the name ‘Roger’ stenciled on it) when Richard delivers the quote of the evening:

Dan: So, how much are beers around here?

Richard: Well, I guess they’d be about a dollar and quarter.

(raucous, jubilant laughter from Jared and Dan)

Richard: Well, I haven’t been to a bar in a while, I guess they could be a dollar fifty now.

* * * * *

From there our luck got better then worse then better again. Better, because we seemed to have broken down in one of the most friendly and charmingly rural towns in America. Richard drove us (in his tow truck) to the best bar in town and even made a stop for Jared to buy contact solution at Rite Aid (which used to the Army Navy Store until they moved to smaller storefront down on 6^th street, just down the street from Christ’s Table). We drove to ‘The Barn’ by way of the famous Y-bridge (every town has to have a claim to fame, apparently the Y-bridge is Zanesville’s). The Y-bridge is the only bridge in the US to fork mid-river(!!!) which means that has to point of entry on one side of the river and two on the other. We weren’t able to discern why such a bridge was built, but it certainly looked cool trying over it.

The Barn didn’t have $1.50 beers but they did serve us over-size pints of Killians for $3. So we still basically felt like we were getting a free beer every round. The Barn was also packed full of bar games. Our time there reached its peak hilarity when we met Samantha, who thought we were scam artists when we told her we didn’t know how to play ‘cornhole’. Cornhole (we came to discover) is an outdoor game in which sacks are tossed at wooden platforms with a hole cut in them; 1 point for on the platform, 3 points for in the hole – hangers don’t count, gotta go down the hole. Apparently it is so ubiquitous in southern Ohio that the idea that one would be in Zanesville without knowing how to play it raises serious suspicion in even the friendliest young women.

Our morning in Zanesville couldn’t have been more charmingly Midwestern Actually, our luck initially turned south (again!!) when what we were told would be a cheap fix turned out to be a broken radiator and two hours of labor. But aside from that unfortunate the picturesque Ohioan morning was filled with -- first the garage that was fully staffed and caffeinated 15 minutes before their 8am opening time (ordering parts by 8:10 – nice work); then the semi-toothed waiter at Dixie’s Diner who asked if we wanted our eggs ‘dippy’ (which seems to mean ‘over-medium’); and the man who walked up to us while we were getting cash out of the ATM – he asked for help using it and actually wanted help using it – he wasn’t scamming us (it took a minute to suppress the new-york impulse to run)!

11am – back on the road!