NO-FI "MAGAZINE"
presents
SAD TALES FROM THE ROAD
band breakup tale abridged
by Jim McCray
Hey all. This is Jim from GYMICRAE.
Let me get this going, since I am now living in St. Louis Missouri, and am forced to do my e-mail through the public library system.
Ok, I am skipping past the tour details up until IOWA CITY. We played a very good show at Gabe's. Unfortunately, Mike, the bass player, decided to do some theatrical nonsense which ended up with a cymbal landing in the face of Scott, the drummer. Scott, I am told, then started hitting Mike abouts the back. This is the point at which I turned around to see a very upset Mike saying to Scott, "You are lucky I don't beat the shit out of you right now."
Scott was saying that he'd had it with us. To this day, I don't know what I did. Anyhow, he and the roadie (Name kept secret) split for a couple of hours, and when we all finally met up later, the roadie attacked me, threw me into a headlock, and choked me until I almost passed out. After this, the roadie and Scott split for the house of some girl they'd met in a bar, both of them with the intention of flying home.
Apparently, in the time he had been gone, roadie had called home, to find that test results showed him to be very sick; and I guess Scott was just sick of us. I punched a phone booth and I broke my left pinky finger.
So, there were Mike and I, abandoned to complete the tour by ourselves. Well, this was what I thought, but as it ended up, Mike just wanted to run home to his mommy. I managed to get him to make our two next shows, where we played a couple songs with other bands drummers. The first show was good, and the second not so good.
Between Mike's bellyaching, and the trouble I had finding the place, I decided to give up on our next show in Springfield, Illinois. We blew through to St. Louis.
After a few hours sleep, I got to awake to the sound of Mike's sickening whining; this time a personal attack on me. "So what do YOU want to do today?"...the implication being that I was some kind of slavedriver and Mike couldn't do what he wanted. Well, I'd had it. I told him that his whining was making me sick and that I would give him money out of my pocket to fly him back home. Finally he got off his ass and did something. We found out where the airport was and sent him on his way that very afternoon and, no, he didn't want to take my money.
Epilogue:
I was trying to make the best out of a bad situation and hold up my end of the verbal contracts which I had made. Nobody but me thought about these shows as anything more than shows. This tour was not just spat out by some punk rock vending machine; it was built on the backs of hardworking kids all over. They deserved our best efforts to come through. Also, nobody seemed to appreciate the fact that I had spent hour upon hour on the phone setting this up, and that I now have about $2000 in debt between the van, the phone bill, and the records.
Well, fuck them all.
So, here I stay. I am gainfully employed by the fabulous Starbucks Coffee Company, and I am in search of a home.
THANKS a TON to all the kids who helped out. Apologies to those who we missed on tour.
Love, Jim
NO-FI "MAGAZINE"
