Bring Me the Drummer

Feeling pretty awesome about our San Francisco show, we headed off down to L.A. Scott said that the Globes had a great time at the Silver Factory, next venue we were about to play, and our hopes were high. The GPS took us onto Hollywood Blvd, although this turned to be a GPS joke. It promptly put us right back on the 101 to go further south. As we approached our destination, our confusion increased. "You destination is on your right", the GPS reported. We did not see a destination here, just a warehouse with some 20 somethings hanging out by a loading dock packing studded leather belts. We pulled over and tried to figure out what happened. Did we enter in the right address into the GPS? Was this a similarly named establishment like Silver Factory Belts and we were on the wrong side of LA?

We asked the kids on the loading dock if the new where the Silver Factory was. Surprisingly, they did know where it was. It was downstairs. We walked around in this warehouse for a while, not seeing any signs indicating where the venue was. Were the owners trying to hide it intentionally? Finally, a guy who practiced music in the building happened by and showed us where it was. When we got there we found closed double doors, totally unmarked. We gave the doors a knock, another knock, then a good pounding and no one showed up. Frustrated and hungry, we left to find some nearby dinner. A couple of blocks away a kid spray painted something on the side of a building, hopped on his bike, and was gone. I had a fleeting idea that we would be driving our rented minvan back to San Fransisco with a giant swastika spray painted on it. We stopped briefly at a McDonalds to use the bathroom. A lady was laying on her stomach in the drive through lane making bird noises. From here you could see the American Apparel building with a banner reading "Legalize LA". I wasn't sure what this meant, but probably something along the lines of declaring-by-fiat that insanity was truth.

We stopped to eat in an International District of sorts. Lucas was meeting some of his L.A. friends here so he split off from the group. Devon got sushi somewhere. The rest of us took a chance on a Korean BBQ place that paid off in spades. Yum. If I lived in LA, I would go to this place all the time. Devon, Scott, and I went to a little Japanese knick knack store. I bought Rachel a present. Devon bought nunchucks. We could use them to hurt the spraypaint thugs if it came down to it.

We drove back to the Silver Factory and waited for the doors to open. Finally, a guy with spikey black hair and a Purple Kush t-shirt showed up and let us in. I immediately thought the place was really cool. This opinion would later be changed. The stage was enormous and the sound system looked decent. People we knew started to show up, but they awkwardly had to stay in an outdoor holding area. A house drum kit was still on stage and we could not setup until it was moved. Jared asked if he could move the kit. Spikey Kush snapped "one thing at a time! Someone will be by to move it." When that person arrived, they asked Jared for some drum sticks. Usually, you do not need drum sticks to move a kit. This certain kit needed to be rocked before it could be moved, apparently. This guy continued to play it while our friends waited outside.

The dude stopped playing and we moved the kit ourselves. We setup the gear and Stencil went first. The 3000 square foot basement sounded a bit harsh when Stencil was playing. A few songs in, Jared broke a string. He switched to my Telecaster for the remainder of the set. I tried to replace the string on his guitar and looked for a pack of strings in his backpack. First, I rifled through his dirty shirts and underwear. No strings. I dumped all the contents of the backpack onto the floor and looked through them. Still no strings. After the song, Jared pointed out that the strings were in the guitar case and that there was no need to be combing through his dirty clothes anymore.

I tried to get a gin and tonic from the bar. Spikey Kush was behind the counter and asked if a gin and mineral water would be OK. I was not sure if it would good or not. I paid for it and found out that it most certainly was not OK.

Our set was fine -- nothing spectacular. We played Factory Song, which was fitting.

We loaded up our equipment (yay no spray paint on our cars) and headed to Scott's friend Brian's house. I had met Brian before when he came to Seattle to go to Sasquatch -- a genuine and nice person. He is tall and clean cut, but his exterior hides an inner movie nerd. This is evident that he has models of the Batmobile, the Blues Brother's car, the Ecto-1, and the Back to the Future Delorean.

In the morning he recommended that we go to House of Pies. Aisha Tyler (she played Ross' girlfriend in Friends for a little while) and was there with a male friend. A trio of photogs sat in the next booth and would occasionally hop out of their seats for a little photo shoot of Aisha. I imagine the point of the shoot was that the setting was so normal. Her smile was so contrived that any attempt and normalcy was defeated. Aisha's friend pointed to Joe and said "you are the lead singer" then pointed to Jared and said "you are the drummer". After it was explained that he had it backwards, the friend asked if Joe had a boyfriend. It was explained that his assumption about Joe's sexuality was also mistaken. The photogs got up from their booth, snapped more pictures and sat back down. "Bring me the drummer" Aisha's friend jokingly commanded. Then he laid down sideways in the booth as he laughed. We decided we still needed Joe, so we brought him with us.