Zoroaster Tour Diary, Part 3

Posted July 16 by sarah.kitteringham

Zoroaster has been burning through the United States, performing their just released third- full length Matador for crowds up and down the west coast. In this third five-day entry, drummer Dan Scanlan offers his observations on salmon and yellow popped collared polo shirts, “Mountain Dew hot chicks” (could he be referring to this?) and reeking of farts and sweat in a hot ass van.

Day 12
L.A.

So you would think playing the Viper Room would be awesome just based on the name alone... but no.  I think the coolest thing about the Viper Room is that you can walk to the Rainbow room and have some beers.  No Lemmy sightings unfortunately.  The show was actually really good. There was a good crowd, but a slightly different one than what we usually see.  There were a few local openers, I didn't actually see the first band, but the second was a dual female singing pop rock band.  The two girls were young and cute and had perfect harmonies with a much older and graying drummer.  It was pretty much a thrown together LA pop band, no business being on the show.  This meant the crowd was very mixed as well.  Lots of salmon and yellow popped collared polo shirts.  From what I heard this became a problem for our fans that had to endure some amazing conversations I'm sure.  Since we were not allowed to load in until right before we played, chugging beers in the parking deck next door was our refuge.  It's always a pain in the ass to have to set up your gear on the sidewalk outside the venue before you play, but there was no way out of it.   At least the people watching was good, especially by the time we were done.  Hopefully Oakland will fair better conditions.


This house belongs to Evil Elvis.

Day 13/14  
Oakland/San Francisco

The drive wasn't too bad compared to some of our blistering desert drives the past few days.  Getting a good night's rest always helps too. Before we hit the club for load in, we have to make the journey to Amoeba Records down in Haight.  This proved to be a huge pain in the ass!  We didn't get the memo that it was gay pride weekend until it was too late.  We were surrounded by half naked, I mean, fully naked dudes with nothing on but a smile wandering the streets of San Fran causing more than a few traffic jams.  I could care less about all that, it just would have saved us a few hours of sitting in the van and trying to park, that's all.  Finally make it to Amoeba.  Last time I was here I dropped about 400 bucks in 10 minutes on vinyl and was not going to do that again but after only 20 minutes, I had already spent $150 and knew it was time to run while I still had any money left. We raced over to the venue with plenty of time to spare.

The Oakland show was good.  Not a huge crowd, but not bad considering High on Fire was playing the same night not too far from where we were.  I think Thrones played the same venue the night before and Saint Vitus was playing the next night.  The promoter was awesome.  All you really need is to have some food and beer backstage and most bands are more than happy!  This also poses a problem when you have a local band opening and their friends think that all the backstage beer is for them too.  More than once we had to run some kids out, beers confiscated.  It's not that big of a deal, but it gets on your nerves a little.  Although I think Athon from Black Tusk almost made a kid shit his pants after he yelled at him to put a beer back in the cooler before he knocked his teeth in!

Priceless.



Day 15
San Francisco

San Fran show was AWESOME!  The Parkside is a great small venue and the crowd was incredible.  I love it when everyone is right up against the stage throwing down!  It also helped that we hung out at our friend Cameron's house all day and cooked out a shit ton of meat and drank a shit ton of cheap beer!  Getting to do laundry is always a treat on tour too.  You take that shit for granted at home, but after two weeks of sweat and farts in a hot ass van, everything starts to smell like a porta-potty!  So yes, I'm this excited about clean clothes.  Who knows when we'll get to do them again. Cameron has a huge bull mastiff dog.  She's about eight years old and 150 pounds and very protective so next time you see Will, ask him how his pecker's hanging because he almost lost it!!!  Tonight we head to Chico, CA!



Day 16
Chico, CA

Ok, so today was supposed to be a drive day to Portland with no show, but we picked one up in Chico, CA.  I wasn't really expecting much since it was last minute.  We hit the road early so we could there and possibly hit the pool for a bit before the show, but when we got there it was even better. This seems like a small college town, nestled up in the hills somewhere, with probably not a lot to do.  We couldn't get a room yet since it was so early so I asked the bartender at the club where we could go swimming and she sent us to this magical place called One-Mile (Recreation Area).  This place was great!!  It's a natural spring fed river that flows into a local park, so the city dug out a hole and made a natural public swimming pool.  It's only five feet at the deepest spot, but its fresh cold-ass water!!!  Ok, it might have been safer to swim with some chemicals considering the amount of little kids peeing in the water up stream, but there's not much of a choice here. There was no drinking beer in the park, so we dug up a bunch of old to-go coffee cups off the van floor, and kept them filled with ice cold beer the whole time.  I thought for sure we would get busted by the park police considering it was 90 degrees and a bunch of tattooed white trash are wandering around the pool drinking hot fucking coffee… but we didn't!  So after a nice few hours of downtime, we head to the show.



Day 17
Chico, CA

So the venue was small last night, sort of a coffee shop/ restaurant of sorts.  It was kind of on the end or beginning of a residential neighborhood, and holy shit, directly across the street from our van was a house built on meth!!  There was a woman, looked like she was probably about 40, but going on 60, desperately trying to break down a hammock in the front yard and scattered amongst the car doors were beers cans and stray cats.  We were all just hanging out front watching, having a ball!  She was even wearing the cut-off jean shorts and red bandana bikini top!  I know she thought she was the fucking Mountain Dew hot chick in the summer time, especially when she whipped out the garden hose to have a drink and cool herself down in front of all us!  I could have pissed myself it was so funny... but that comes later.  Next thing, she puts on a pair of boxing gloves, jumps on a kids BMX bike and takes off down the street into the sunset!!  Amazing. 

A few hours later, a different dude shows up, we'll call him Billy.  Billy and his buddy wrestle the hammock into the back of his salvage truck, meanwhile Brent and Nick are taking photos and all hell breaks loose!   He starts yelling across the street about not taking his picture, calls the cops, they show up and start laughing, tell Billy it's not against the law to take pictures, but Billy and his girlfriend, or mom, I couldn't tell, were still having none of it.  It was apparent that the power was cut off to the house, which was strange since they all had cell phones, and a trail of visitors came in and out of the house all night.  We were about to go on stage and there was a line for the restroom and I really had to piss. Action taken, so I go out front and piss by my trailer, which I feel is my right since I own it.  Holy shit!  The front porch lights up like a fucking Christmas tree of cell phone lights!!!  Billy's mom starts screaming, I'm laughing, and she’s running full sprint across the street into the venue. Battles her way through the crowd to find the owner and tell him I offended her!!! The cops come back again, and again just laugh and leave.  I walk back in to get on stage and look out the window to a brawl about to break out with Nick, Cameron and some other random dudes who were there to take up for momma!!  If I only had a video camera.  After all that, we played a great show, the crowd was awesome, and I got to leave my make on the streets of Chico, CA.  Off to Portland!
 

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