IWTDI tour blog, Volume 8 (Day 18), 10 April

We arrived at El Rio in San Francisco to see a building on fire a few blocks away. We took the chance to both relish the beauty of the conflagration and reflect on the obvious tragedy. We hope that no one was hurt, but at the risk of sounding insensitive, it was a fairly awesome sight. Fire crews were there from right when we arrived until right when we left. SFFD did a great job.

By the way, being in and around San Francisco inspired me to irritate the band with constant but varying renditions of the Monk theme song, one of many great Randy Newman jingles. I personally believe that to be annoyed is to feel very much alive, so I try to keep my bandmates as annoyed as possible as often as possible. Because as we all know, it’s a jungle out there…Disorder and confusion everywhere…

The show at El Rio was a lot of fun. We played with Shuteye Unison and Silian Rail, the latter of which features John’s old friend Eric Kuhn. El Rio is divided with a straight up bar on one side, a nice, open patio out back, and a stage in a separate room next door. It’s a really great setting for a show. We had played there the last time we came through, except on that occasion, a July 4th party/festival, we had set up facing the patio instead of the house of the club. It’s a fine place to play regardless of which way you face, and we finished the night ecstatic to have played in front of people again.





We spent our last night in California and headed out of town early enough in the morning to ship out a mail order (yep, even when we’re on the road you can buy our stuff!) and take Joe across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then we stopped at the Marin Headlands, and John showed us some of his old stomping grounds. Being a fan of both ruins/urban decay and old military installations, seeing some of these places was almost spiritual for me, just like the old ruins I saw at Point Lobos on the west side of town. We spent some time there and then head out of California. We had spent a week there, and while we enjoyed it tremendously, actually leaving the state felt like we were making real tour progress. At least for me, it felt like we had been stagnant for a while. Plus, I love Oregon. On to Medford. More soon!