In September  we drove to New York city  and Arlington, Virginia to play two shows as part of the Shelflife September Set tour.  Dave, our bass player kept a log...

Day 1 >> September 13, 2000

We leave Denver after work on Wednesday night, having procured another deluxe minivan through our usual system of charm and deceit.  Off to New York!  Cut to a gas station on the windswept plains of Iowa at about 2 a.m.  “are you sure this is how a tour is supposed to work?”  Oh well, the place has Krispy Kreme donuts and something that kinda looks like coffee.  Hmm….

Day 2 >> September 14, 2000

Drive like maniacs!  We drive through the night and make great time.  James, our cruise director and Julie’s hubby, insists on eating every breakfast at McDonalds.  Man, whassup?

Illinois is a reasonably short blur as we roll on through.  Would be nice to see Chicago but no time to lose!  Gotta make it to Pennsylvania today. What a haul!  Everyone takes turns at the wheel.  3 hours apiece during the day, 1 ½  to 2 hours at night.  Seems to work...

The current personnel on board include Julie (singer & keyboards), Alice (drummer), James, and myself (Dave on the bass.)  Due to a lack of vacation days Mike, our guitarist, has decided to fly into New York and meet us there.  This is a bit more of a stripped-down tour than our west coast jaunt.  No frills, just thrills!

Anyway, we stopped for lunch in beautiful Gary, Indiana.  Uh, huh.  Well, let’s just keep moving.  At this point I have to mention a slight tactical error made by Alice and myself.  Julie and James are asleep in the back of the van and somehow as we’re cruising into Indiana we veered ever so slightly off course and wound up in Michigan for about twenty minutes, desperately trying to get back to I-80.  Man, them roads is crazee!

On into Ohio, where we hit the monsoons.  It rained like a bastard for hours.  Still, we’re getting closer to our destination.  After Ohio  (and all it’s charming toll plazas) we hit Pennsylvania (which has it’s own charming toll plazas.)  Beautiful countryside with rolling hills and lots of trees.  Ahh…  getting closer to the coast.  About an hour in, the rain and fog have come up again and it gets difficult to navigate.  So, we stop around 12:30am and crash in a hotel for the night, with a mere 5 hours of driving putting us in the city on Friday.

Day 3 >> September 15, 2000

We leave Pennsylvania to the sounds of Kool & the Gang (DJ Al picking out some choice travelling music.)  Everything goes smoothly til we stop for gas in Ft. Lee, New Jersey.  As we’re pulling out of the station we get cut off by a couple of nuns in a van!  We steel ourselves for the traffic ahead. 

Actually, once we get on the George Washington Bridge everything goes fairly smoothly.  James is at the wheel, and as we roll south through Harlem into the city we get a call from Big Ed (Shelflife) checking up on us.  Julie gives him the lowdown and we head on down to Brownies on the lower East Side.  We’re a bit early, but they kindly let us drop  off our equipment so we can park and hit the streets on foot!

After a rousing vegan dinner we do a little shopping and sight seeing, winding up at a coffeehouse before hitting the club.  At this point we’ve heard from Mike and know he’s on the way, so we all try to relax.  We’ve had nightmares that his flight would be delayed.  Not to fear, Mike rolls up to the coffeehouse just an hour or so till our scheduled load-in time.  Sighs of relief and a feeling of peace fill the Maybellines.  Aaahhhh.

We hit the club at 6:30 and get to talk to Ed and Jill and meet the other bands.  We’re scheduled to play first at 8pm, and despite our nerves, we do pretty okay.  Next is Moving Pictures, a really good band from Spain via Wisconsin for some band members.  If you get a chance to see them you should, they are very sweet.  Next is an interesting group called Margarita y I.C.U.  I play music stand for one song as their singer reads her lyrics from a notebook.  I think there was brief nudity involved in their show but alas, I was outside drinking a coke.  Next up is Teen Beat impresario Mark Robinson who goes for a stripped-down style promoting his solo project, playing with a second guitar player and a drum machine.  His set sounds deceptively simple, but you have to be on top of it for the changes.  Pretty cool.  The last band of the night are local favorites My Favorite, who play a wave-y style of pop music which keeps the crowd at full strength throughout their set.  Good times all around!  Also, on a personal note, I got to see my good friend Benj who used to live in Denver.

A well deserved thanks at this point to Kerry, Amy and Bruno, our friends in NYC who helped us out in a big way.  After the show we load up our gear and crash at Kerry’s place in Brooklyn.  The next morning she took us to a great little diner before having to go to work on a Saturday (blech!)  Thanks a lot Kerry!

Day 4 >> September 16, 2000

Time to head down to D.C. for the second show of our little tour.  We run into Ed and Jill and the Moving Pictures bunch at a big rest area in south New Jersey.  Ed eats a crazy frozen yogurt that turns his whole mouth blue.  We part ways until we hit the site for the show: Now Music and Fashion in Arlington.  This is a good record store.  I buy the new Hot Pursuit record and Julie buys a jacket—fashion and music together—c’mon!!  Tonight, Moving Pictures plays first and has a good show, despite a drum pedal problem.  We play next and have a rockin time.  Lots of our friends are there to cheer us on.  Cool dance moves, Ward!

After the show we grabbed some food and drink and headed to our pal Tracy’s familial estate in Burke for a hoe-down.  Al and I thought we’d relax in the hot tub with a couple beers and enjoy the cool night air in peace.  Of course, within five minutes the tub was full of drunken revelers.  Ahh, the rock and roll lifestyle I always dreamed of as a lad!  Actually it was pretty chilly, Julie wore a ski cap in the hot tub.  We were pretty beat and zonked out at about 1am.  Thanks for the awesome hospitality, Tracy, Ann and Joe.

Day 5 >> September 17, 2000

Time to hit the road once more, but this time without James.  He headed down to Florida to visit his folks.  So, as Mike was flying back to Denver, we were down to three.  Al, Julie, and I stopped at a bagel place before leaving town and this guy wearing his Sunday best yells to the cashier to throw him his order of bagels.  The cashier declines.

The rest of the trip wasn’t too noteworthy.  Through Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, only a couple of things stand out:  trying to get our waitress to take our picture at pizza place somewhere in Indiana.  She kept saying she would, but never did.  We ended up using the self-timer.  Also, a place just outside of St Louis where we happened on a rough-looking bar called "This is It," which struck us as very funny at the time.