Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
The next morning we were awakened rather early by the phone ringing in our hotel room. It was Barrett and it was urgent.
“There’s a rehearsal you have to be at and the only flight out that makes sense is two hours from now, so you need to get going.”
“Two hours from now?” Ziggy’s voice cracked with morning roughness. “You know I’m like an hour from the airport, right?”
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
In the morning we woke up to find Courtney had already left for Janine’s. She’d gone with Remo, of course. Remo wasn’t exactly what I’d call a morning person, but he had a kind of fortitude for keeping a daytime schedule that I just didn’t seem to have. Maybe it was related to the whole moral character equals early riser thing that we seem to have in American culture which of course I didn’t follow since most Americans would’ve considered my moral character to be completely degenerate anyway, no matter what time I got up. At least according to Janine.
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Court had her own room at the motel. Now that Christmas was like a week away the place had emptied out, so there were plenty of vacancies. I said good night to her at her door and said I’d see her in the morning to head over to Janine’s.
Ziggy was waiting up for me, reading a book in bed. He was in nothing but a bathrobe as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. “I was just starting to worry,” he said, setting the book on the nightstand.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
So it turns out you don’t have to do a lot of drugs or have a lot of sex to have what I–and probably most people–would consider a rock star weekend. Magenta seemed determined to prove us “kids” weren’t going to outlast her and when you have three lead-singer types hanging out together, they will sort of compete with each other for the spotlight. Okay, maybe “compete” isn’t the right word, but whenever one would cede center stage, another one would step up. It meant things never got dull and I was content to be along for the ride.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
It was full-on rush hour when we got to the New York metro area, and getting down to Ziggy’s place in lower Manhattan took over an hour. When the limo dropped us off at last, I was feeling slightly car sick and I just wanted to lie down.
I did that while Ziggy made some phone calls. He took the phone into the office and closed the door, I guess so he wouldn’t disturb me? Or maybe so he could talk about me. I don’t know. For an otherwise uneventful five-hour car ride, given how little we had spoken, it had felt like an emotional rollercoaster. I didn’t even know how I felt: up, down, or turned around.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I took a long shower as if that could thaw my frozen brain. It didn’t work. But Ziggy didn’t object and he didn’t rake me over the coals or anything so that was good, I guess?
When I emerged from the water I spent a very long time combing my hair. I had conditioned it the way I had been admonished to, and it was slick and wet as I combed carefully through the strands. This wet the blue was almost invisible but as soon as it dried it would start to show. Comb comb comb comb… I had been combing so long I had made my good hand cramp. The rest of me was dry and chilly by that point. But at least my brain had rebooted somewhat.
I found Ziggy sitting up in bed, reading a book in the light of his bedside table. The whole apartment was a tableau of urban nighttime blue except for the pool of golden light around him. I thought about what I wanted to say so that there would be at least a half a chance that I might say it, and then I crawled into bed.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
We got into a cab in front of the hotel in St. Louis. The weather was a hot drizzle, with the temperature around ninety and the air like soup. The cab driver was a black guy who definitely didn’t seem to think he had anyone but maybe a couple of college kids in his cab. Ziggy was still in stealth mode and I didn’t gel my hair or anything, just pulled it back in an elastic which meant the red streaks weren’t all that visible.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I finally talked to Ziggy for a good stretch on the phone around lunchtime in St. Louis. It had been like seven in the morning when we’d pulled in, Flip made sure I was tucked in and passed out before he went to bed himself, but he’d apparently slept through all the drama on the bus the night before so he got up in the morning and was not there when I woke up.
I ordered room service and caught Ziggy at home.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I saw Court briefly that night when she came over to see if I needed my laundry done. No, I’m not kidding. (The only reason I didn’t is that Ziggy sent his out to be done and had a bunch of mine done at the same time.) Okay and maybe she wanted to hang out before I left again. All three of us sat around in Ziggy’s living room reading. What can I say? A rock star’s life isn’t all drug-fueled orgies.
Court glanced at the tour dates on the sheet Carynne had given me. “Huh. You know who’s in Kansas.”
“No, who?”
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
(Reminder! Join Daron tonight from 7-8pm in the DGC chat room to celebrate the 7th anniversary of Daron’s Guitar Chronicles! And then ctan will video chat from 8-9pm on YouTube Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPUQFyNEBCg)
—
Ziggy headed back to the city (by which I mean “the” city, i.e. New York City, for those of you not from the northeast) and I went with the Nomad entourage to Saratoga Springs, which was an old school upstate resort town known for its racetrack. Horse racetrack, I guess I should specify.
I didn’t see much of Saratoga Springs. I spent most of my time asleep in the bus, then powering my way through a cramp-inducing soundcheck, and then praying that the muscle relaxant would work properly.
It did.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
After our soundcheck was done I handed my guitar to Flip and slipped over the front of the stage. I climbed up the steps of an aisle between seats–shallow but numerous so it took a while. Ziggy didn’t look up. I reached the back row and then walked along behind it.
I had almost reached him when his head jerked up and he reflexively closed his notebook at the same time. “Oh, hi.”
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I had restless, relentless dreams all night that were full of snippets of my life–tour buses and parties and album covers and keeping track of my things–but which never made any sense. Maybe it’s an illusion that life makes sense to begin with. At any rate, I woke up confused about where I was.
In my own bedroom. I know. Funny, isn’t it?
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Remember how the crowd had seemed extra excited, extra loud, extra into it, the first show we did after the explosion? This was like that.
Our usual entry to the stage had Remo come out last. The rhythm section would start first, and gradually each of us would kick in, me last with a recognizable riff that would make the crowd roar, and then Remo would come bounding onto the stage and start the song for real. That night we did it a little differently. I hung back with him, and at the point where the riff would usually kick in, he strode out onto the stage with his guitar held high, both hands in the air, soaking in the cheers. And then he vamped a little at his mic, as if checking his pedals and such, letting the thought sink into the audience’s minds that maybe I wasn’t coming out.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I ended up seeing Sarah’s doctor, because that was faster and a better idea than sitting around in some New York City emergency room waiting to be seen for a non-emergency. He confirmed I probably had a concussion and said the main thing to do was to avoid things that might aggravate it, including hitting my head on anything else, vigorous physical activity, brights lights, and loud noise.
Ha.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
When I woke up I had a moment of disorientation for two reasons, one, because I slept so hard at Ziggy’s (and therefore forgot I was at Ziggy’s) and two because somehow we ended up sleeping across the bed instead of the normal direction.
Once I got past my moment of where-the-fuck-am-I, though, I felt good about lying there with him, like there was something healthy about feeling as comfortable with his skin as with my own.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I had enough on my mind that I forgot to feel crappy about being in New Jersey. For one thing, the Byrne Arena wasn’t that different from a million other venues like it, so it was easy to forget where we were. For another, we saw a lot of the New York crowd, which seemed a positive thing–then again, New Jersey’s best feature was that New York City was Right There. Apparently many folks did not heed Remo’s warnings about contagion and so at various points I got to say hello to Jordan, Jonathan, and Artie. Marvelle was there, too, because he was friendly with various folks–it’s a small world and it would be even smaller if I could keep track of how everyone knew each other.
Anyway, I my Jersey angst seemed low. Maybe the more time passed since I’d lived there, the less stressed it would make me. I hoped that was the case.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
(Sorry for the late post! Here’s hoping it goes through…! -ctan)
One of Flip’s great talents was his hangover cures. He knew how to cure every kind of excess, not just booze, including too much playing, too much singing, too much of any kind of drug, et cetera.
You know what happens when you squeeze a lemon into half a bottle of Gatorade, mix in Tang, and then top it off with Mountain Dew? You get something that looks like it should’ve come from a mad scientist’s lab. I was feeling better within 15 minutes of downing it, though.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Any thoughts on what Ziggy’s wand would be made of? Daron’s would clearly have a core of guitar string ;)
(A note about the Orlando fanworks & fanworks submitted earlier in the year. I apologize for how long it’s taking to get them posted. I hadn’t counted on traveling taking up July in the way it did, or needing to disconnect from much of the internet after some of the news in the US. It’s been a rough summer, yeah? I have several more submissions waiting, including songs from Bill and Meg and stories from S and Chris, and will be posting those over the next few weeks. I promise you, they’re all worth the wait. ~sanders)
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I called Ziggy when I got upstairs. I got his machine. I left the number of the hotel and my room number. Then I opened the minibar wondering if there was any Gatorade in there.
There wasn’t, but there was Coke. And Jack. Which meant there was Jack and Coke.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I went back to Boston for one more reset of my laundry and my psyche before I hit the road with Nomad again. On July 19th I flew from Logan to Miami to meet the entourage and who did I run into in the gate area waiting to board? Louis.
“Let me guess where you’re going,” he said, after we’d done the kind of manhug thing where you give each other a mutual backslap. “Aruba.”
“I don’t even know where Aruba is,” I replied with a laugh.
( Read the rest of this entry » )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}