I OBJECT AT SMASH YOUR FACE WITH A SKATEBOARD FEST

KATHLEEN HANNA IS CUTE AND DRINKS OUT OF JARS

Meeting Kathleen was great, and the interview was really interesting. She talked about her history and the communities she's been involved with. She also discussed the differences between Bikini Kill and Le Tigre - a question we tried to phrase as delicately a s possible. I was really looking forward to hearing what she had to say about her transition musically - and she talked a lot about being angry and confrontational versus preaching to the choir. I definitely think both things are valuable, and I think I understand better now why Le Tigre is so different from Bikini Kill.

After her interview, our three person trip became two - as BK had to catch a bus back down to DC to work. Beck and I got the hell out of Manhattan as soon as possible, and headed back to Brooklyn to meet up with a friend of a friend, named Sweet-tooth, who said we could stay at his place that night.

Sweet-tooth lived on the top floor of a walk-up row house - but everyone on the other floors were mid-20's scene-types and the whole building kind of came off like a giant communal space, even though it was divided into apartments. The front door was unlocked, and the lady at the bodega next door (who apparently keeps a spare key) told us we should just go in. I was still exhausted from the night before, so I crapped out on a couch on the second floor, and spooned a big furry dog I found napping there. Sweet-tooth came hom e a little while later, and sent Beck to tell me I'd been hanging out in an apartment that wasn't his - so I went upstairs to his third floor living room and did some sewing while we shot the shit and he made us some coffee.

As afternoon slid into evening a girl (who’s name I wish I could remember) who was traveling and staying at the apartment came in, and everyone started talking about going out to some show that was happening nearby.  The girl was from Montréal, and we chatted a bit about how segregated the scene is there.  From what she was telling me there’s actually a pretty big divide there between the French kids and the non-French kids.  People don’t/won’t cross-book shows and stuff like that.  I’ve been to Montréal and loved it – but I definitely noticed a strange vibe coming from the French people there – they would be irritated and abrupt with you if you didn’t speak their language.  I just never thought about it reflecting in the scene there – just another way it’s a microcosm I guess.

An hour or so later the four of us walked to the party, which was also in Brooklyn, at a warehouse space.  It kind of reminded me of the Copy Cat in Baltimore, but with better rooftop access.  The show was in someone’s apartment, and there was some kind of a dance party kegger going on one floor above it, that people snuck into and stole beer from all night (see the resemblance to the Copy Cat?).  We spent most of the night on the roof talking and drinking cheap wine.  Shit was nice.

SWEET ROOFTOP VIEW IN BROOKLYIN

SWEET TOOTH AND OUR FRIEND FROM MONTREAL

Crashing on Sweet-tooth’s couches left us feeling a lot better the next morning, and we went to go meet Cristy in Williamsburg, the notoriously skinny-tie-hipster area of town.  There was a little area on the sidewalk there (next to the coffee shop, big surprise) where some people had set up (no lie) a photo shoot for dogs.  So, as if Williamsbug wasn’t ridiculous enough without it – there were hordes of hipsters with tiny dogs EVERYWHERE.  Don’t get me wrong, some of the more normal-looking dogs were cute, but a lot of them were just weird looking furry toys.

Once Cristy showed up we got the hell out of there and walked down to a nearby park to do the interview.  She stopped on the way and bought a beer, and I found a shady spot to set up the camera.  It’s weird that Cristy is the same age as me – I always think of her as this older, savvy woman for some reason.  Maybe it’s because I’m attracted to her in an I’m-not-worthy-of-this-person-but-damn-they’re-hot kind of way. 

 JULY 28^th: Baltimore in DC:

Okay I know this zine is called “Escape from DC”, but (like I said earlier) it originally began so I could chronicle the interviews I’ve done for From the Back of the Room.  So, even though the following is an account of something that took place in DC, it was for the film, so it counts, dammit.

 AUGUST 10th - 20th: THE WEST COAST

August 10^th (on our way) – August 13^th: Seattle

After more intensive fundraising, and throwing $800 of our own money down for the rental car, we left for the west coast in early August.  For some reason I felt like the interviews for this trip were less solidified than the ones from the Midwest trip had been before we left the road, I’m not sure why.  The trip did seem to have a doomed air about it, at least at first, which solidified itself when we missed our connecting flight in Hot-lanta.  Shit sucked. We spent about 22 hours in the airport, and eventually got on a 6pm flight the next day on standby.  Thankfully we didn’t have any interviews scheduled for day 1 in Seattle, so nothing was fucked, but we ALSO didn’t have a place to stay until about midnight pacific time, when we got off the plane and I checked my voicemail.  Luckily we had (barely) gotten hooked up with a place to crash at the last minute, but our first interview was the next morning.  In Vancouver.

Early in the morning, BK and I dropped Kiki (who didn’t have a passport) off at the Seattle open-air market, and drove the two hours up – only to find that our interview subject had bailed on us.  We waited around and hung out in this awesome leather-daddy coffee shop, and tried a few different ways of reaching her – we finally got in touch and made arrangements to meet in Seattle in a day and a half (thank fuck – I wasn’t trying to drive all the way back up to Vancouver). We were a little bedraggled after four hours on the road, but we had to go back to meet Kiki, so we explored the Seattle market, and saw the fish-throwers, which was pretty cool.  There was some rad artwork for sale outside the market also, but there was no way I could afford any of it.

After two days of leaving doors unlocked and leaving notes, we finally met the girl we had been staying with that evening – but only because we went by the bar she worked at.  I ate some sangria cherries from the bar and we hung around there for a bit before going back to her place to crash.  I can’t explain how amazing it was to have a place to sleep – especially considering that this girl didn’t know anything about us, she was just a friend of a friend.

The next evening marked our first actual interview of the trip (we left DC on the 9^th and it was now the 12^th).  Lisa from Oroku and Maygun from Profane Existence.  Both girls are Minneapolis transplants living in Seattle.

Just having finished helping with Richmond’s C.LI.T. fest in June of ’07, it was nice to talk to Maygun about the inception of the B.R.E.A.S.T. Brigade – the group that started organizing the C.L.I.T. fests that happened in Minneapolis in 2004 and ’05.  She also talked a little about her duties and about her involvement in Profane (a subject that I’m trying to mostly avoid in the film, as per the recent debacle with Witchhunt – I don’t think I have any business staking a side in that kind of forum).  Maygun unfortunately had burned the hell out of her hand at work, so the interview had to be done with a large bag of noisy ice on her wrist, and there were a bunch of planes and stuff that flew overhead.  I’m hyper-sensitive to that kind of stuff at this point and I always worry that the interview will sound/look horrible afterwards, even if I’m watching it as it tapes. (I wasn’t at the time – the problem with shooting the film the way we have been is that there aren’t two people with “good” eyes/ears around all the time – I only trust a handful of people I work with to judge what constitutes good audio and video… maybe I’m just too particular, but a few years of training and work have taught me to keep an eye on details when I’m filming). 

MAYGUN (WHO BRAVED THE INTERVIEW WITH A WOUNDED PAW) & LISA

Anyway, enough with the nerdity.  One thing that Lisa said during the interview was that, being a cellist, it’s oftentimes harder for her to combat sexist remarks at shows than it would be for say, a singer.  For sure, a cello is a more traditionally feminine instrument than most others that are played in punk, but in addition, she’s sitting stationary with her legs open.  She said (of course) she doesn’t get hassled for the most part, but there’s always the occasional frat asshole who’ll come ogle her.  I’d never thought about that aspect of vulnerability with the cello before, what a shitty side effect of such a beautiful, romantic instrument.

The next morning, the 13^th, we went to meet a woman named Julie Larry at a coffee shop.  This interview was horrible for a few reasons, none of which I will go into in detail here.  I’ve never met anyone who said they were straight edge that was that burnt before, and I doubt I ever will.  Too bad though, even though the coffee shop was noisy as hell, the shot looked good.

After the Julie Larry fiasco, we went to a place called Gasworks park to meet Jen Thorpe (from Submission  Hold/Vancouver).  Even though I had been irritated with her flakiness in Vancouver, Jen’s interview was great. 

GASWORKS PARK (THE SPACE NEEDLE IS TO THE RIGHT)

Gasworks is located across the Pugit from the rest of Seattle, and there’s an amazing view of the city there.  The park is exactly what it sounds like – an old decrepit gas works – and it’s a weird relic of rusty machinery.  Jen talked mostly about her experiences with touring while pregnant, and through most of her son’s life.  She toured right down to the end of her pregnancy, and started again as soon as her doctor told her it would be okay.  Totally amazing example of not giving up on something you love in order to become a mom.  I always really admire women who are able to tackle this.  Right fucking on. 

 
JEN, EXPLAINING SOMETHING MIND-BLOWING

Jen’s son (now 6 I think) was there as well – he was really well-adjusted and fun, but towards the end of the interview he started complaining that he had to use the bathroom, so we had to wrap it up.  He actually said the words, “Mom I have to poop and no one cares!”  After the interview, Jen and her partner took us to get vegan donuts from a place near the park, which was really nice.  Afterwards we caught a quick snack with the girl whose house we’d stayed at, before hitting the road south towards Olympia.

August 13^th – August 16^th: Olympia, PDX

We passed Sleater Kinney Road on the way.  Just wanted to put that out there.

Olympia was a pretty typical sleepy college town (only sleepy because school was out for the summer, but you get the gist).  There were a bunch of vacant storefronts, and we found our way to the Capital Theatre pretty easily.  After a few botched conversations where we tried to explain we weren’t interested in paying for whatever movie was going to play, some guy who was painting the back of the place let us in.  I think he had some inkling of the history of the place, and knew about the bands that had played there.  He told us to walk through the main theatre and into the back room – which we did – and there were shit-tons of flyers from old shows there.  Bands that I wish I could see, some super-historic shit.  If you watch the footage I shot in that room, which by the way was tiny and lit by a single light bulb, all you can hear is me saying “oh shit” over and over again while I readjust the shots.  We only had about five minutes in there, because they were starting some movie or something, so after we spilled out the back door we took off for Evergreen College. 

Evergreen is a trip.  I’ve never been on a campus like that before.  You have to drive through the woods for a bit to get to it, and it’s all cozy looking.  We strolled through the campus and found the radio station, which was in a larger hall-style building towards what felt like the middle of campus.  That whole day was really interesting – it was really intense to be in these places where so much historic and cool stuff has gone on, even if they looked really typical from the outside.  I mean you go to historic buildings and stuff like that all the time, especially when you’re a kid, but going to places that actually pertain to your life is much more interesting. Heh. The radio station had a LOT of records stored in it, so we nerded out for a while in there.  On the way out of the building we saw a sign for a collectively run bike repair place, so we stopped in to take a look. 

The entire time we were at Evergreen, I was getting this affluent activist vibe and it was really frustrating to me.  I dunno how things were in the 90s, but it just seemed kind of hoity-toity to me in a way, and smacked of some snotty-self-concerned shit.  Anyway, when we were in the bike shop, the kid who worked there (who was pretty nice, but really verbose) started talking with Kiki about collective business running.  The conversation held my attention for a bit, but then I started to get irritated and had to leave.  It’s just frustrating to me when people who have productive, activist mindsets choose to live completely within their own communities, and don’t attempt to make larger change.  Preaching to the quire is satisfying, but it doesn’t help anyone else if people with good ideas live in a bubble, you know?

Anyway, we left Evergreen shortly after, stopped at a place to get some snacks for the road (I ate SO many snacks on this trip!), and then started our two-hour drive to Portland.

HOLY SHIT IS THAT A DIY BREEDERS FLYER AT THE CAPITAL THEATRE?

We got into Portland in the evening, and we were planning on staying with my friend Chris, so I called to see where we should meet him. We got directions to this party, and when we rolled up we decided to hang out for a bit, even though we were pretty road-weary. The weather was awesome - it was like 72 degrees or something.  In the back of the house there was a grill going, a trampoline in the yard, and some friendly dogs. Apparently the kid who's house it was had struck it rich doing some kind of dot com shit or something, and he had all this money to throw around. Hence the trampoline, oh yeah, and the Jacuzzi built into the back deck. We hung out for a bit and ate some grilled zucchini, but once people started talking about jumping from the deck onto the trampoline we decided to take off and crash at Chris’s.  Okay so we saw one person make the jump and it was sick, but then we left.

I’d been at Chris’s place before, when I came through on tour with A Warm Gun the previous summer, so it was nice to see a familiar place.  Also their house is entirely inhabited by Baltimore transplants, so I got to see some people I don’t see too often – most importantly, Chris.

Portland is nice, but I don't know if I could live there.  There are SO many punks there that it’s gotten to the point where you don’t even get a nod of recognition from people when you walk into a bar where it’s mostly norms and you see a table full of punks.  Punk migrations are interesting phenomena – but they overwhelm a scene and make people get apathetic eventually, at least that’s what I think.

The next morning we went through downtown PDX and over to Burnside skate park.  I had gone there the last time I was in Portland, but it’s really rad and skate parks don’t really get old.  I shot a lot of cool footage of kids skating and hanging out, and generally had a good time zoning out and watching.  Then we took off to interview Dyanne. 

THE GRAFFITI IN THE BACK ON THE RIGHT SAYS BURNSIDE 4 LIFE

I was planning on doing a short interview with Dyanne until I saw some queer magazines on her coffee table.  Dyanne was in the band Harum Scarum, which I got into when I was in my late teens.  Mental Health is a great LP – if you don’t have it, get it (or call me up and I’ll play it for you sometime).  Dyanne and I talked a bunch about the intersections of the queer community and the punk community – which is something I’ve thought about a lot as I’ve figured out my role(s) in each.  This theme is something I hope figures prominently into the film.  I was happy about the lighting situation in the interview, but the floor was really creaky and the house echoed (fucking wooden floors) – and the way she was sitting made the shot look kind of funny.  Maybe it’ll look avant-garde?  Hopefully.

DYANNE FROM H.S.

 After the interview we went back to Chris’s house to chill before going “out on the town” (read: hitting a local bar).  I had been emailing with a woman named Erin about meeting up for an interview, and like a lot of people, she was nervous as shit about meeting me.  So I told her to come by Chris’s house so we could talk before hand, and if she was comfortable we could meet up to tape the next day.  I think she was nervous for sure, but also I got the feeling she wanted to make sure I wasn’t some Hollywood scumbag.  Clearly I’m not, and we shot the shit for a while before she had to take off – she told me to call her the next evening and gave me the address of the radio station she works at – so the interview was on, which was sweet.  Erin has a super-long-running radio show at a community station in Portland, and also did demo reviews for MRR for about ten years.  I was stoked to talk to her about both those things on camera.

After Erin had to leave, we went to a local bar (the name of which escapes me) to drink with some of the kids we were staying with.  There were two traveling kids who were also crashing at Chris’s house, and they came with us to the bar.  Apparently they were from Baltimore as well, but I didn’t recognize either of them.  The one dude had the Boris shirt with the rip-off Venom logo, and I tried to convince him to trade it with me.  No dice.

The bar had vodka and Emergen-C, and it was surprisingly good.  I also had an opportunity to squash some beef with a kid from Baltimore, which was nice. 

The next morning we went back to “downtown” Portland and went shooting/shopping.  The one thing I was really pressed to film (and did film) was footage of some of the international street vendors there.  I’ve always wanted to eat Thai food from a street cart in Portland, and I still haven’t done it.  Bummer.  We also stopped at this great record store – I think it’s called Second Avenue records or something like that – I went there last time I was in town and dropped lots of money, and I did it again.  Finally picked up that Sun O)))/Boris collaboration, and some other stuff.

THESE ARE CALLED BUBBLERS - PUBLIC WATER FOUNTAINS IN PDX

Before we were scheduled to meet Erin I had booked us an interview at a feminist bookstore called In Other Words.  The interview was kind of a backup – there’s nothing profoundly “punk” about this bookstore, but it is radical and locally run.  I could have dropped lots of cash here as well if I had it.  The interview was brief – we talked with an employee about how the place was organized and run, and discussed its interaction with the punk community.  The bookstore has loads of events, which was cool to see – including AIDS support groups and meetings for people with eating disorders. 

After the In Other Words shoot we drove across Portland to get to the radio station where Erin was working.  The place had an old-equipment cozy feel to it (is that easy to understand? I think it was built in the 70s if that gives you a better idea), and we were a little early, so we chilled outside so we wouldn’t be intrusive.  When Erin was ready we went inside, and set up for the interview in one of the empty sound rooms.

THE BIKE LOCKS OUTSIDE THE RADIO STATION WERE SHAPED LIKE HEADPHONES (ABOVE) ERIN IN A SOUNDBOOTH (BELOW)

Erin’s interview was cool because she talked about all kinds of stuff she’s done over the years.  She’s found ways to incorporate her community involvement into her daily life in a way that keeps her sane, and I think that’s pretty rad.  One thing I thought was really funny (and I can’t remember if she said this on or off camera), was when she said she had quit doing demo reviews because she “ran out of adjectives”.  I mean, it took her ten years to run out, so I think that’s admirable.  It was around 7pm when we were done with Erin’s interview, so we hopped in the car and started the (fucking) epic drive to San Francisco.

The drive from Portland to San Francisco sucks.  If you’ve ever done it, you know this.  It’s about twelve to thirteen hours long.  With brief stops to avoid killing all of us, we made it to San Fran just in time for morning rush.  It sucked.  We were frazzled as hell.  It sucked.

August 16^th – August 18^th: the Bay Area

Even though I was EXHAUSTED, I’m still kicking myself for not filming as we approached the city.  We went over the bridge (in the motherfuckin HOV lane, son!), and Frisco appeared out of a mist, just like everyone says.  It was tragic in a way, and pretty at the same time, and I wasn’t able to get a shot of the city that was remotely comparable to that first view in the rest of the time we were there.

We got to BK’s friend Christina’s house around 8 or 9am.  She lived kind of near the mission district in a second-story walkup.  There were two cute, crazy dogs – both tiny – one of them was named Mr. Fibblers. No kidding. 

We napped – thank hell.  Mildly refreshed later on, we woke up, ate some Indian food, and went to meet Ami and Athena (from Voetsek) at a poster show that was only about eight or nine blocks from Christina’s apartment.

The poster show was pretty rad – it was all art posters from different tours and fests, and some of the artwork was really cool.  I got a pretty sweet skull record mat that I wish I had kept (I gave it away when we got home), and hung around and shot the shit with Ami and Athena while they waited for some out of town friends of theirs.  They had initially wanted to do the interview at the poster show, but the bar was loud as shit, and their friends were late – so when they got there we went to this awesome dyke bar in the Mission district.

The place looked like a regular hole-in-the-wall when you went inside, but once you stepped out the back door you were in the middle of a seriously lush back yard.  There was a big back porch where some older people were smoking a joint, and everything was covered in ivy.  The porch had stairs leading down into this rad garden – more ivy and some crazy statues and Christmas lights everywhere.  Lots of neat wrought iron furniture and stone sculptures and fountains.  I wanted to hang out and have a drink pretty bad, but we had to leave after the interview to meet Christina.

AMI AND ATHENA WERE TOTALLY BADASS!

Ami and Athena’s interview was one of the ones I was looking forward to the most.  They’ve toured all over the place and are both really awesome people.  Of all the women I’ve had to call in order to set interviews up, they were some of the ones that were the most willing to just shoot the shit, which made me feel pretty comfortable asking them all kinds of questions.  We talked a lot about race and sexuality, Six Weeks Records and Short Fast and Loud, traveling internationally, and how people react to the fact that their band is political but not SO political.  Ami is a pretty big fixture in the Frisco queer scene, and apparently there’s lots of queer kids who are punk as shit out there – she told me a story a while ago about building a punk pirate float for a queer parade with a bunch of kids.  Their interview went on until the sun went down, which meant we had to enlist the help of a bar employee to rig up a floodlight, so we could finish the interview with decent footage.  The two of them were filled with awesome stories and ideas, and they were really really rad to meet and talk to.  Like I said, I wanted to stick around and party with them afterwards – I even tried to think up some way I could bail out of staying with Christina and meet back up with BK and Kiki the following day, but it probably would have fallen through (Ami and Athena both live out of the area we were in, pretty far too from what I can gather).  I really wanted to chill with them, but I guess I’ll see them eventually, one way or another.

After the interview we went back to meet up with Christina, and walked to this great late night falafel place where we all pigged the fuck out.  I slept SO well that night it wasn’t even funny.

The next day we woke up around noon I think, and went out to film some stuff around the city.  We went to (the now infamous) Haight Asbury district and walked around. I got some sweet blood wood earrings.  My dad used to live in Haight Asbury for a summer in the 70s – I think he hung out with some guy who had a motorcycle a lot.  It was probably around the same time he had what he calls his “pot smoker mustache”.  Yeah.  Haight Asbury looks kind of like a hippy exploded in Georgetown.  I mean, it’s a shopping district, but lots of stores are painted up all crazy, and Nag Champa is EVERYWHERE.  Anyway it was weird, but interesting none the less, and I was bummed we had to cut out before I could go into Amoeba records.

We drove back from San Francisco to Oakland to meet Tobia (from Look Back and Laugh).  Tobia’s house is an apartment in a bungalow-style building.  It was this half-sphere, and I think there were maybe a dozen apartments inside.  Her place is pretty neat because of the structure of the building – big sloping exterior wall, and a tiered loft where her bedroom is.  She also has a super-cute one-eyed cat.

TOBIA, IN HER AWESOME BUNGALO HOUSE

I’m glad (and I’m sure Michelle is too!) that there is more than one woman in this film who is around 30 and still straight edge.  Tobia and I talked about straight edge culture – I’m always interested in hearing how people feel about claiming this as part of their identity.  I was a little nervous about asking her about how she reacts to people telling her they’re surprised she’s a girl – I mean I was when I saw LBAL for the first time.  I kind of wanted to tell her at the time, but also didn’t want to be a dick, so I remember just telling her I thought her shit was fierce.  She actually didn’t seem to give a shit, which in a weird way is kind of nice.  Tobia also apparently works in tv and film, so it was interesting to talk to her about “the industry” once the camera was off.  Tobia was a badass lady – it was a serious pleasure to meet her.

After we left Tobia’s place, I got word from my friend Matt that there was a show that night… on a bus.  Apparently Christina had heard the same thing, but there was some dinner party that she had made a commitment to go to.  So, I split off from the others and met up with Matt by the bus.

If you talked to me shortly after my return from this trip, you can skip this paragraph, because you’ve probably heard me talking about the bus.  The punk bus is owned by this guy who bought it from a police auction I think.  It used to be some kind of weird law-enforcement vehicle, and it looks like a bus that got an RV stuck onto the back third of it – it gets about three feet taller towards the tail.  Anyway, when this guy bought it he converted it to run on veggie oil, and installed solar panels on it.  Then he started booking MOBILE shows.  The deal is that the bus will park somewhere, a band or two will play, and then it moves to a different location (a party, an empty parking lot somewhere) to continue the show.  Lots of kids rode up on bikes, a few had cars, and lots of others don’t.  If you don’t have any way to get from place to place, you can ride ON THE BUS, which is what I did with Matt and his two friends when it came time to change locations.  Dude, this was seriously one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced.  Then, less than a day later, I got to go to Gilman.  But I’ll explain that in a bit.

The first location the bus was at was kind of adjacent to a subway stop or something like that.  Then, when we moved, the bus parked outside a party that had some kind of crazy drumming contest going on inside.  I was hanging around by the side of the bus, and someone put a ladder up – turns out you can climb up top to see the bands through a window, which is on the vertical part of where the height changes.  I went up there with Matt and the two other kids we were with and checked out one of the bands.  Eventually, Christina and the people I had been with got to the party, and they only stuck around for a while before wanting to go, which sucked.  That night was probably the most fun I had on the entire trip. 

The next day we started out for LA, and stopped along the way to check out Gilman.  The building itself is innocuous looking enough, and I was content to film the outside and take off, but there was a side door that was left ajar and I couldn’t help but try and get inside.  It was crazy and amazing and great.  Thirty years of DIY history in one place.  There were some kids inside who were just settling down to watch a movie, and I think they were skeptical that we were narcs or something at first.  But once I explained everything to them they were cool.  I gave one kid my info and he said that he would bring it up at the next meeting, and if anyone had a problem with me using the footage, they would call me.

 
THE STAGE AT GILMAN!!! SO EPIC!

After Gilman we hit the highway, and drove through the huge windy mountains that separate the Bay and LA.  We could have gone along the coast, which I understand is the much much more scenic route, but we wanted to get the fuck there – it was our last long haul.  It was SO windy I almost lost control of the car a few times (did I mention they gave us an SUV again when we requested a compact?).  The drive didn’t seem that bad though; even though it was 5 or 6 hours that was much better than the 13-hour drive we had just done.  I got to talk to Kiki a bunch while BK was passed out in the back, and it was neat to see all the windmills.  We stopped once or twice on the way to LA, and one of the times was in this tiny town that literally smelled like shit.  A million flies went in the car, and we all lost our appetites.  Shit was disgusting.

August 18^th – August 20^th: City of Angels

We got to Venice beach around 10pm or so that night.  We were staying with my old friend Lauren, and it was really good to see her.  Her house is only three or so blocks from the beach, and everything’s all sandy and wind-worn.  The weather by the water was really nice – low to mid 70s, but the rest of LA was really hot and gross.  Lauren took us to a BYOB (wtf?) Chinese place, and we had a late dinner before going to her place and passing out. 

The next afternoon we met Slade from Tribe 8 for an interview.  I’m glad that there are a handful of people who are going to be able to give historical perspective in this film – even if “history” is only 20 years it’s important to know your roots.  I want to try and get a hold of the Tribe 8 documentary – if anyone has it hit me up, I’d love to borrow it.

 
SLADE IS A SELF-PROCLAIMED BEACH BUM

That afternoon we spent driving around LA to film some of the sights.  LA is weird.  There’s so much wealth and so much craziness in that city.  We drove by the Chinese theatre and saw a guy dressed up as Batman.  We saw the Hollywood sign and the stars on the sidewalks.  There were bigass palm trees everywhere, and lots of convertibles.  We drove to Universal Studios and stopped at an In-N-Out Burger to pee.  We drove up into the Hollywood hills, and also down Mullholland Drive.  We didn’t see any famous people, although I was rooting for Scott Baio.  His loss.

After all this craziness we met Lauren at her place, and went out for a bit.  When we got back to the house we drank a little and chilled and talked, and I’m sad to say that I had the opportunity to smoke some California weed and I didn’t seize the day.  Someone who was with us did, however, and it was pretty funny to watch.

The next morning we drove around LA a little bit more, and then went to meet Kirsten from Naked Aggression.  Kirsten is a little scatterbrained, and had just left to run an errand when we got there.  Her partner let us in and we hung out until she got home.  Kirsten talked in her interview a lot about how overtly political her band was, how New York compared to Wisconsin compares to LA (including some thoughts about the juxtaposition in LA of extreme wealth and extreme poverty).  She told me the story of how one of the original band mates, who was also her partner, died suddenly before they were supposed to go on their first tour.  I knew there was some kind of tragedy involved in Naked Aggression, but I didn’t know it was that intense.  On a completely unrelated note, it turns out that Kirsten and I were born in the same hospital.

The Bruise Violet interview had been set up at the last minute – earlier that same day actually – with the help of my friend Michelle.  So, after talking to Kirsten, we hauled ass to Long Beach and met the Bruise Violet girls at the tail end of their pool party.

BRUISE VIOLET IS SOME RAD GIRLS.

Bruise Violet is an all-girl band, and recently they had come home from a national tour with Condenada, so I talked to them a bit about traveling in a van with almost a dozen women.  I’ve heard about this tour from both ends now and I really feel like it must’ve been sick.  Also, most of the girls in Bruise Violet are under (or around) 20, and it’s totally sweet to see some girls who’re motivated and opinionated and generally on-point at that age.  I definitely got down with all of them, but vibed with their drummer Vanessa in particular – she reminded me a lot of myself in college (she’s a film student).  Also, they had a really funny dog that I wanted to squeeze.

The next day was our day to fly home – but we didn’t have to be at the airport until the evening, so we went for a swim in the morning.  It was the first time I’ve ever swam in the Pacific Ocean.  We had walked around on Venice beach a day or two earlier, and it is a fuckin freak show.  Beach towns are always weird, but do you remember how trashy Venice looked in the version of Romeo and Juliet that has Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in it?  There are all the regular beach weirdos, but there’s something extra that I can’t put my finger on – more crazies and homeless people and dudes with wacked-out beards.  

SWEET GRAFFITI NEAR VENICE BEACH

September and October:  Trapped in DC: 

December 6^th – 10^th: RVA (does that count), Greensboro NC, Asheville NC, Savannah GA, Raleigh NC

I’ve been listening to a lot of stoner metal in the past two years, so I was really looking forward to the trip down south.  I’d also never been anywhere south of Virginia except when I was really little (and in the hellish airport in Atlanta, but that doesn’t really count), so I was excited to go to Georgia and the Carolina’s.

Thursday night we left DC, and spent the night in Richmond at my friend Lexa’s house – it’s always good to see her, even if it was only for an hour before we crashed out, and briefly in the morning before we took off for Greensboro.

Greensboro is smallish, but the neighborhoods on the outskirts of downtown are pretty quaint.  We got to Stef’s house kind of early, and she agreed to come on a drive with us so I could film some of the area.  Lars and Kiki and I were superfucking giddy, but I think at the very least she got a kick out of our antics.  I was really glad to be traveling with the two of them  - it’s always nice to be on the road with good friends.  Stef took us to a new show space they’ve got, called the Hive, as well as the practice space that’s across the street from it, which apparently also does shows sometimes.  The Hive is apparently completely subsidized by a couple non-profit organizations, who use office space in the building – so the kids who use the space itself only have to pay for bills and maintenance and stuff like that – and Food Not Bombs has a nice kitchen in the back.  The practice space across the street was also really well maintained, which is always rad and encouraging to see.

After checking out the Hive, we went back to Stef’s house and did the interview.  I was really interested to talk to her about lots of stuff she’s done – the epic tour of Europe with Requiem, Crimethinc, her distro, and maintaining her amazing house.  The distro and Crimethinc were some of the first things we discussed – Stef even has a small screen-printing station set up in her bedroom, which is really awesome.  She explained that a large part of the reason she does her distro is that it gives her the excuse and funding to subsidize sending out free radical literature with everything she sells, which I think is a really productive and conscientious way to operate.  She also talked about her decision to go straight edge – and got at something that no one else had yet, which is the image that goes along with straight edge.  Lots of people take “fitting in” to the edge community for granted – which homogenizes the whole thing and makes it less appealing in general – at least to me.  Stef explained that she went edge without thinking about the connotations, and I think it’s exactly the kind of thing other people need to do.  Do things for yourself, and break the fucking mold if you have to.  That’s what punk’s supposed to be about in the first place, right?

 
STEF, NEXT TO HER AWESOME SCREEN PRINTING SETUP

Anyway, after her interview we walked around Stef’s house to film a bit.  She lives in a big communal space with a few other people who range in age – but the cool thing is that they’re paying the mortgage so the house will be theirs one day.  There’s also a big garden and some compost and a pond out back – as well as a really nice chicken coop with some chickens that her roommates eat eggs from.  We caught one and petted it for a minute – actually I was kind of city-slicker-freaked out and didn’t want to touch it.  (I thought it looked too pecky).  One of her roommates does carpentry (he’s the one that built the coop), and he’s made some really neat things in the house – an instrument or two, and a chair that has a xylophone built into the seat.  Stef said that he wants to mass produce them and sell them to posh people, which I think is a great idea.

THE AWESOME “HILTON” OF CHICKEN COOPS IN STEF’S YARD

After we were done filming, she took us to a restaurant where we met up with two of her girlfriends for dinner at a good veggie place.  It was really cool to meet all of them and we had a great meal together.  Afterwards we walked back to Stef’s – deliberating the whole way about whether to stay or go.  Eventually, we took off for Asheville.

There were no interviews in Asheville, but since Kiki had lived there once we decided it was worth a detour.  It was only two hours from Greensboro and about five from Savannah, where we needed to be in a day and a half.

We got to Asheville mid-evening and immediately started making plans to go out.  Kiki’s friend Kyle was generously letting us crash on his floor, but Lars had friends who she wanted to see as well.  Mostly to give Kiki some time alone with her friend, but also because I was getting bummed out for no reason and felt like I needed an adventure, I decided to take my bag and go with Lars after we ate dinner. 

Lars’s friend was a country singer named Brodie.  Red-fringed pants and cowboy boots, I shit you not.  He and his girlfriend took us to a place or two in the downtown area, but they all seemed to have cover charges for bands none of us wanted to see, so we decided to drive to a few places that were closer to Brodie and his girlfriend’s house.

It had been a long time since I’d been in the back of a pickup truck, and it was a little cold, but it definitely lifted my spirits.  We drove out of the center of town and through some wooded areas in the moonlight, and the smell of fireplaces was heavy in the air.  We parked around the corner from Brodie’s house and walked to the bar, leaving our bags in the cab.  I felt ten times better than I had all day.

The first place we went to was a dive-y neighborhood bar that Brodie worked at.  There were a bunch of locals shooting pool and some mournful country music drawling – and all they had was beer and wine.  We had a few drinks (Brodie drank cheap there so we figured we’d get a head start), and then headed to the grand opening of the bar across the street. 

The second bar was more reminiscent of something from the city.  There was more young people and new furniture there, and pricier drinks.  Lars and I met some of Brodie’s more youthful friends – there was even a guy there who recognized my Suspects back patch.  Weird.

After last call we went back to Brodie’s house, which was past the truck and down a windy road.  It was a cozy little house with two dogs, and a Christmas tree in the window.  Once inside, we made cocktails and Brodie pulled out his guitar and sang us some mournful mournful country songs.  I drank some gin and tonic, and noticed that the Christmas tree was decorated with lights that had airplane bottles of Sapphire gin attached over all the bulbs.  The trashcan was full of lotto tickets and the back porch had power tools and animal pelts on it.  There was even a wood stove in the living room that was powerful enough to heat the whole place.  Yee-haw.

Lars and I slept on the pull out futon with the dogs, and in the morning we got breakfast with Brodie at the diner his girlfriend worked at.  They had some really, really good mimosas.  Kiki and Kyle met us there, and we left Brodie and went back to the downtown area, which was closer to where Kyle lived.  Kiki and Lars and I messed around in that area for a while (Kyle had some friends to meet for an ugly-sweater Sears Christmas photo shoot), and we wandered into a glassblowing shop, where we zoned out and watched the glass being blown for almost an hour.  If you’ve never been in one of those places, seek one out – they’re so cool.

When Kyle came back, we had to stop at Circuit City so I could pick up a tripod (that’s right, when we were in NC I realized I had left mine).  Luckily I had picked up a copy of Reign in Blood at one of the record shops we were at, so at least the ride was entertaining.  Kyle even managed some sweet somersaults in the front seat.

Later that evening Kiki and I went for wine and snacks at this place called Rosetta’s (which has BOMB peanut tofu if you’re ever in the area).  Kiki got a little soupy and we shot the shit, went video shopping at a late night rental place, and then walked back to Kyle’s where we made some curry popcorn (brilliant and delicious, thank you Mikey T.).  We pulled out a mattress and crashed out on the floor, and geared up to leave for Georgia in the morning.

The drive to Savannah is about four or five hours from Asheville, which wasn’t bad – but a few hours into it I was driving and saw something weird in the road.  I couldn’t swerve to get around it, so I got the van to straddle it.  It kind of looked like a duffle bag.  Later on, one or two people honked and pointed at us while Kiki was behind the wheel – but she waved them in front of us and we didn’t think anything of it.

SPANISH MOSS IN FORSYTH PARK IN SAVANNAH

Savannah is a beautiful city.  All the Spanish moss makes everything look tragic and antique at the same time, and the southern-style houses are gorgeous as well.  We pulled up at Laura’s house in the early afternoon, and gradually started loading out the gear to set up the interview on her porch.  That’s when we looked under the car and saw the weird black blob we’d been dragging for hundreds of miles. 

Lars had to wiggle under the car with her knife to cut it out.  It was a duffle bag all right, but it was full of… hay?  For a minute this made NO sense to ANY of us, until we realized there were a decent amount of horse trailers on the highway earlier that day.  I guess it had just gotten its strap caught or something under the car, but I still can’t believe we dragged it for that long.  I also definitely remember thinking, for a split second, “who the hell packs hay??”

Anyway, Laura’s interview went really well.  She was a lot more jovial then I had remembered (in retrospect I think some people just get in the zone when they’re on tour), and she talked a lot about media representation of women, which is something central to my feminism, so I was stoked she was discussing it so articulately.  She also talked about doing music for the sole purpose of feeling good about making art – which in my mind (and hers I think) is something that should be respected regardless of gender.

LAURA’S INTERVIEW WAS ON HER SOUTHERN-STYLE FRONT PORCH

After taping Laura, we went down to the river and walked around a bit.  There are tons of little artsy shops and cobblestone streets in Savannah, and we just milled around for a bit and put off leaving for Raleigh, where we were stopping on the way home.

KIKI AND LARS ACTIN CRAZY BY THE RIVER IN SAVANNAH – MY GIRLS!

Raleigh was another four or five hour drive, and we got there around midnight.  We were pretty tired, but we stayed up for a bit and talked to our friend Chrissy, who was awesome to let us stay with him on such short notice (we had called him that day or the night before – I can’t remember).  I crashed out on a supercozy couch, we had coffee in the morning near the University, and then hit the road for home. 

Since we got back from the trip down south I’ve started messing around with the footage a bit, and I’m glad to say that it looks pretty good.  It’s weird to think that I’ve been working on it since August of ’06, and the year anniversary of the first interview I filmed for it (with Lars in CoMo) is coming up in February. 

Just after I got back from Georgia I headed down south again to go to This is For You Fest, but I’m saving that for the next issue of this (gotta leave you fuckers with some incentive, right?).  Soon I’m going to New York and Boston – and after that I have a ton of people to interview in Philly, and a handful in DC and Baltimore.  And even though Richmond” doesn’t count” as out of town, I might feel motivated to provide some kind of account of the ridiculous crust fest that’s going on there in March.  I’m meeting up with Janick from After the Bombs there, so I’m bringing my camera.

Anyway, thanks for reading this.  If you have any shit to talk, or any compliments to dole out, feel free to drop me a line.  I can also hook you up with a copy of the first issue if you want.

-kc

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