Category: Music

On April the Sixth, we returned. Our port of call was San Francisco, the homeland. We were to play the fabulous Regency Ballroom, where I’d seen GWAR a number of times before. Now, I was gonna share the stage with them for the best audience of all: family.

Yes, that’s Ma, Bro, and Sister Sewage in attendance and doused with a tidbit of blood. Pa couldn’t make it, he was watching over the littlest Sewage, my niece. I seriously have the best family ever.

We also had an amazing show. We’ve honed our act, tightened our chops, and delivered one of our tightest sets ever for our beloved Bay Area. We got to see a lot of friends and loved ones.

Sadly, my poor girlfriend was eaten by the World Maggot. She will be missed, until I can sift her outta the pile of maggot poo I collected. Here’s the tragic video. Try to guess which one she is! (hint: it’s not the dude)

It was hard to leave the next day, sleeping for just one night in my own bed. Alas, Reno waited! Reno, the biggest little shitty in the world. Reno is what Las Vegas would look like if it retired, lost its pension because its former employer declared bankruptcy, and then had to work as a Wal-Mart greeter so it could afford arthritis medication.

I was starting to feel under the weather AGAIN this night, maybe that affected my ‘tude. Still, we had a fun show and hung out afterwards in the casinos. I didn’t win anything, but I was gifted some much needed new socks for the rest of tour! Viva la différence.

We charged out of Reno into the Nevada desert towards Las Vegas. There were ghost towns galore, run down Indian reservations, and so many crumbled buildings with no one left to tell their stories. It’s no wonder the Air Force could hide something so well in plain sight out here. When I entered it into Google Maps on my phone, though, it just pops up. Area 51.

At least I think we saw Area 51. Or one of the gates to it. Who the hell knows, really? It was a long drive out of our way, dodging free range cows that sat in the middle of a darkened highway. Down a dirt road for twenty minutes, and we found an ominous fence. A door was slammed as we approached. I guess this was it.

And that was that. We headed out but not before stopping by the Little Áléinn for some souvenirs and completely average grub from one of the most foul mouthed line cooks I’ve ever encountered. Dino: “$7? That’s a lot for a cheese sandwich.” Cook: “It’s a fucking good god damn cheese sandwich.” Etc. A scene from the movie “Paul” was also shot here, but that’s hardly interesting because that movie wasn’t good.

We made it to Vegas that same night and met up with a small faction of the GWAR camp at the Double Down, Vegas’ filthiest bung hole punk dive. I highly recommend the “Ass Juice.” It’ll fuck your shit up good, as it did me, exacerbating my sickness further.

The next day I holed up in our hotel room. My throat felt like I’d gargled razor blades. Writing this days later, it still feels rough. This tour, though so amazing and maybe the best I’ve ever been on, has been a petri dish of communicable diseases from the get go. I wasn’t too sad to miss Vegas in the day, though. This town is full tourist douche bags. It’s built on artifice and vice. I don’t like to gamble, I can’t afford the shows, and so the whole artificial oasis sucking up so much energy and water in the desert is entirely lost on me. That said, we had a great show, though my personal worst due to feeling like I got mauled by a tiger in a magic act. Too soon?

Sadly, we would become bereft of Cartel Brownbuzzardepicbeard. He was doing sound for us and Municipal Waste, as well as tour managing for the Waste. He was leaving the tour this night, the first casualty of the Waste’s limited time on this tour. This was dose of reality that the magic would inevitably come to a close.

Tuesday reared its ugly head and our drunk asses had to be woken up for a drive to Salt Lake City. We were playing at the Great Saltair, which we thought was the location of filming for the classic flick Carnival of Souls. Unfortunately, it was not. The original location burnt down. Still, the place is cool, located on the Great Salt Lake itself. It smells like shit walking towards it, with scores of dead birds who’ve apparently tried to drink the over-salinated water. Stupid birds. According to those who swam in it (I did not) it was refreshing… until the salt starts to tingle and then burn your skin. It’s quite a sight to watch people walk for hundreds of yards in the shallow yet enormous lake and still only stay waist deep.

Thursday was the final day for Municipal Waste on the tour as we headed into Fort Collins, Colorado. The club was tiny tiny, and the security barrier was gone. Ruh roh! To add to the chaos, Mr. Tony Foresta was suffering more of the illness that was besetting the whole tour. Unfortunately for him, a sore throat seriously impinged his raison d’être. As a consequence, the night before in SLC, he’d made a sign up sheet for Municipal Waste karaoke. Lots of folks on the tour joined in, included a couple hooded menaces.

At the end, we all jumped up and let the Waste know they fucked us up… real good. Sayonara, fellas. Touring with these old friends was the amazing fun experience I imagined it would be. It’s weird when your expectations are actually met. In celebration of the tour, spew tech Germ doled out some final matching tattoo work to the Waste folks and a few of our own.

That blurry finger on the lens wasn’t a mistake… seriously, I’m not that bad a photographer. I’m blocking shit. You’d thank me.

From Colorado to… San Antonio, Texas. Fuck, that’s a long drive. We had to have a day off and drive all night to make the 20 hour trek. Plus, we added one hour for a little tourist diversion before the show that awaits us tonight. We had to see… who would survive and what would be left of them!

If you don’t recognize that building from a massacre that happened round these parts years past, then the saw is probably not part of your family.

If I have any more fun today, I don’t think I can take it!

Doktor Ross Sewage

Maybe I should’ve shut my stinkin’ trap about how smooth things had been going. Breaky brakey!

We had a four score of fun in Lincoln, NE. Lincoln was particularly fun watching all the whitest ever Ed Hardy wearing douche bags go out on the Friday night pub crawl. We got to watch one get arrested and taken down after trying to cold cock his friend and then resist arrest. It’s fun when you get to cheer for the cops beating the shit out of some one, and oh so rare.

We rocked out in Boulder, CO. Grand Junction was grand. We were all a bit zoned out from some night drives as we rolled into Flagstaff early. It was about time that we got the rebuilt transmission checked out at another AAMCO. BAH!!!!

The trailer was dropped and the van went up on the lift. And then it sat there. We watched across the street from a diner as the van was not let back down. This is a bad sign. Turns out, the front rotors needed replacing and some coolant tubing was leaking that was missed when we had the rebuild done in New Jersey. This free van of ours was costing us a lot of money.

The staff was friendly and took us and our trailer to the show over at the Orpheum Theater. They said they’d have the van done by five o’clock, and indeed they did. It cost us a bunch, but we hope, we pray, this is it. The show in Flagstaff was great and we saw a lot of friends out in force for that one.

For this tour we’ve upped our game a bit, taking notes from Every Time I Die and Gwar on the last tour. We’ve incorporated wireless systems into our rigs. This is hardly punk, but when you’ve got a robot and a proto-human fighting on your stage while trying to play, having the ability to nimbly get around becomes paramount.

That’s my new, and more expensive than my own amplifier, wireless unit. My Sansamp Bass DDI sits atop it. The wireless receiver is part of the Sennheiser ew172 G3 wireless pack made for guitar and bass. I was looking into the previous model, a G2, but it turns out that it doesn’t carry the full note frequency below 40Hz. That’s theoretically detrimental to my bass. Tuned to D standard, my lowest note is 36Hz. The G3 goes down to 25Hz. It also has infinitely more transmitting frequencies available than its predecessor. I can’t say I’m stoked on investing so much on something made after 1980, but we really needed it for these kinds of shows. I can bounce around stage so much easier these days.

We drove all night yet again to San Diego. Heading into California I was excited, until I was stopped at three different checkpoints along Interstate 8, the most fascist of American interstates. The border guards took especial delight in asking me why my face was covered in red dye. Try explaining shock rock to a guy looking for trucks full of Mexicans. It was all worth it to get to some California air and sunshine and play an awesome sold out show at the House of Blues. I even got to pull apart a fight between some dick bag and the lady security guard he was hitting! Reminds me of all those old blues houses along the delta, alright, right along with the nine dollar beers.

Apropos of little is this awesome picture of Sean at our friend Doug’s house in San Diego. Coolest house ever, with a coffin entertainment center, multiple skeletons in the wall, and secret compartments everywhere.

We made our way to Ventura the next day and more much needed California sunshine and weather. We hit the beach, looking kinda like the gang that Frankie and Annette were going to have to expel in order to save the Big Kahuna hut along the shore that all the kids did the twist at.

The show was loads of fun with lots more friends coming out again. Joel from Toxic Holocaust sang a ditty with Municipal Waste, which gave time for Tony to drive onto stage on a pink scooter with a pink sparkly helmet in an attempt to emulate Judas Priest. I think even Rob Halford would’ve said, “That looks a little gay.” But what fun!

Another night drive, and we showed up to the Senator theater in Chico, CA. Hippies abounded. Fuck hippies. Good god, there was more burnouts here than in an Oakland sideshow. The show itself was a lot of fun, though. The kids raged and we got great back stage seats to see GWAR. We’re still a little desperate for cashola, though I didn’t have any idea how much until the band tried to auction me off.

Luckily, Ross Sewage is not an in demand product round those parts. Halfway through our tour, we head home for a night in a city we all left our hearts in… and a few hearts we dug up along the way.

Doktor Ross Sewage

The best part of the last week is that there has been so little to write about. After the drama and problems of the previous week, we’ve had a largely smooth ride of it. Like the Bones Brigade, we just been rolling.

We drove all night to Toledo, Ohio and arrived early at Headliner’s. According to Jim, a terrible teevee show, but according to Jim the GWAR truck driver, he was surprised to not see us late. Yipes. Anyway, we took the extra time to get an oil change, an oft forgotten piece of tour maintenance.

Headliner’s was… interesting. It’s a place in flux. So much so that the backstage toilet was installed DURING the show. The load out was a bit chaotic as well. It started raining and our trailer was unhooked because a jack ass parked in front of our unhooked trailet. Who does that? Luckily, someone from the club, or we’d have been figgedity fucked moving the trailer to the load out area like pack of bipedal mules.

Lexington, KY was next and a total surprise at the awesomeness of it all. Not saying I expected anything less, it was just over the top awesome fun with an absolutely mad crowd. We got to hang with our friends in the Hookers and had a smashing time.

Joliet, IL was a bit rough. The entire tour took over the tiny kitchen area for a backstage. The GWAR “castle” had to be downsized to a split level apartment to fit the tiny stage. I played next to the staircase, literally menacing people headed to the mezzanine face-to-face. It was another great night, though, and we got to meet the artist of our album cover, Bill Hauser. Awesome artist and great guy!

On the way to Wisconsin, I picked up a rather important piece of new gear. See, I got sick of hacking up from being a weak addict, so I’m trying out the eCig. So far, it’s helping me cut down and I’m digging it.

One thing I don’t mind be addicted to is Wisconsin cheese. Near the Majestic Theater in Madison I had the second best ever bowl of mac ‘n’ cheese ever. First best? Unicorn in Seattle. Oh yeah, the show was great, too! Fuck, this is boring. Everything is great.

Madison was another nice night when we met our new pals Kristen and Mercedes. Kristen took good care of us and ripped it up as punk rock DJ at her pad and made sure we got fed the next day.

In Des Moines, I got to meet up with my friends Krista and Josh. Krista met Josh at an Impaled show in Des Moines some years ago and they ended up married. Impaled brings love! And G.O.R.E.! The show was great. Again. Sigh.

Next we drove into the night to Tulsa. Muggy, muggy Tulsa. This show was a bit more worrisome, being that it was earlier and I was afraid the tigers wouldn’t even be outta school before we went on. I was wrong. Another great show. Holy shit tards, something best go wrong soon or this journal is gonna be dull as fuck. Well, at least Dave Brockie finally got to meet his hero, Oderus Urungus.

Now we’ve had a day off between Tulsa and Lincoln. We’re in ghettotel and recuperating for more awesomeness to come. And some of us have decided the best way to beat a cold is to galavant about town, drinking until they puke on themselves. You say tomato, I say potato.

If this continues, I may have to just start breaking things for something to do. Time for a relaxing swim in the lovely pool.

First day of the tour, and already things were getting tense within the band. Sometimes aggression just has to be vented, and sometimes that just takes a machete to the head.

Right up to the last minute, we were working on props and running errands all over Richmond. I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t have time to see the Slave Pit. Maybe at the end of tour.

Continue reading “Ghoulection 2012: Transmission One” →

It was a dark and stormy night. Then she rolled in… a grey dame who needed some work. I was gonna ride her like Mitt Romney’s convictions… all over the place.

Thanks to all the kiddies who donated, we got ourselves a van. It was better than ideal… it was available. A ’94 Ford E-350 Club Wagon Van. For that year, the mileage is low, like the point of a career after making “Jack and Jill.”

After purchasing the van in SF, we took it to a shop. It ended up needing more work than the citizens of the state with the currently most unemployed, i.e. Nevada. Our weekend of doing interior work to the van was shot full of more holes than a “suspect” detained by the BART police. We had to begin our work around 7PM, the very night before we were gonna 23 skidoo.

The previous owner had installed a loft and a vintage loveseat. All it was missing was a fixed gear on the roof to really be from San Fran. Sean and I ripped out the loveseat like a pair of divorcees… he took half. We ended up dumping that sofa in Oakland like… like all the other fucking sofas that are dumped around Oakland.

The loft was made well with back doors in the back that locked. It was big, a queen size. The exact dimensions required by one Elizabeth II. Not being beholden to the commonwealth, we cut that fucker down about a foot. We had to fit in a coupla benches so our band of roving troubadours could sleep like a real touring band… homeless.

To bolt down the bench, I thought we’d have to make new holes like a Roman decorating his cross. Sean had the idea to move the mountain to Mohammed, or in modern parlance, move the building to the plane. We’d move the legs of the benches to fit the stock mounting holes in the van. I drilled some holes and used some self-tapping bolts for the job. By Tuesday 1AM, we were more finished than a crappy rock band dressed like monsters winning the Eurovision Song Contest.

5AM and we were on our way. We packed up our shit like a port-a-potty attendant and headed on our way to Richmond, VA. The rain was coming down on us hard and thick, like Peter North after drinking a banana smoothie. I checked my smart phone and the prognosis was bad… blizzards, and not the kind that come with crumbled Oreos. We turned away from our path towards the Sierras and headed towards the Mojave, instead. We wouldn’t be heading through all those weird, NASCAR-lovin’ pro-lifin’ militia-havin’ immigrant-huntin’ guv’ment-hatin’ states, rather we’d be headin through those other weird, NASCAR-lovin’ pro-lifin’ militia-havin’ immigrant-huntin’ guv’ment-hatin’ states. America, truly the melting pot.

And somehow, magically, after a 3,000 miles long drive we’ll be in Antarctica livin with monsters like Kurt Russell in the best horror movie ever made. Disagree? “Yeah, well fuck you, too!” But first, taco night at Jim’s in Richmond. It’s so nice to be back in my jammy pants.

For a list of the tour dates we’re going on with GWAR, Municipal Waste, and Kylesa check out it out here. 

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com

After the show in Calgary, some of the nice kids took us to a motel for a night of much needed rest. Unfortunately, the rest was not coming as 12 or so of them filed onto the room we got. No worries, these Canadian youngins were ever so polite, shushing themselves and comporting quite unlike their American counterparts might have. We had an excellent few hours discussing with them all the things we probably cared about 15-20 years prior to giving up hope on life.

If anything got outta hand, it was probably our fault.

We had the following day off for the long drive to Vancouver. We took it easy, driving during the day to enjoy the majestic view of the Canadian Rockies. I think on the Canadian side, the giants play curling and drink Elsinore beer. Take off, eh, you hosers.

We stopped about four hours outside of Vancouver in the next biggest place, a city called Kamloops. It was colder than a witch’s tit stuck in an icecube. Luckily, we’ve discovered the Canadian economy motels are of a caliber higher than their American cousins. It seems they all have indoor pools and spas. A good amount even have indoor water slides, apparently a strange obsession for these syrup-slurping flapper heads. Voyeur cam:

Snow started coming down in the morning. Tire chain check: check, we don’t have any. Roll out! Not very smart, but this ain’t my van and it didn’t come with chains. I was sure crossed-fingers were about as much assurance a we could get.

Without incident, we entered Vancouver. We were loading out in the loading zone of the club into their loading elevator when some lady-boy bike cop said we were unloading illegally (in the loading zone) and had to move. Whaaaaaaaat? Okay, we’ll move, and Sean grabs the last cab as I’m walking to the front with keys. She-he says, “I don’t appreciate you illegally unloading after I gave you a warning…” as I flash her the keys in my hands. Holy fuck, we all wanted to go 99% on the he-bitch, but dammit, we are acting professional on this tour! Plus we are all cowards who can’t afford a ticket. Canadian bacon sucks.

The show in Vancouver went off fantastically. We got to see our drummer friends Hesher from Mass Grave and Jay from Golers. Our new bud Germ from the GWAR production crew went on stage in our monkey suit and proved to be quite the perfomer as he battled a robot and air guitared a might club. This is the most awesomely nice guy on this tour.

The next day we headed towards Seattle and one uppity border guard wanted to see our “carnet,” aka a “merchandise passport.” That’s the sheet that I’d drawn up with our gear list on it that no guard going INTO Canada asked to see or stamp. According to this guard, it was our job to ask and make them do their job. Kinda like when you have to stop the post man when he’s dumping mail in the street and remind him it goes in the box in front of your house. We just played dumb and annoying, she got frustrated and waved us on. God damn bacon. We were back in the land of freedom (from healthcare)!

Into Seattle, and the first of our last shows. Sad whale song! At least we had a cool place to park.

Warbeast, featuring our friend Bruce of Rigor Mortis fame, began their leg as the openers for the second half of the GWAR tour here.

We added to the bill later and went on first of four sans pay. It was well worth it for us, as setting up shows opposite GWAR on our way home would’ve been stupid. Our only crisis was a cracked kick drum head and missing the runner by about one minute. I headed to go get one and discovered if you wanna get anywhere quick in a city, DON’T take 5th Avenue.

We still got on stage in time and had one of our best, most trouble free shows. Kogar the Destructor managed to make it into the crowd and bop all the people selling merch, Kevin, Brad, and Nicole, on their heads. Warbeast was also amazing. GWAR was loads of fun, as I sat in the back with Ryan from Engorged singing all the lyrics to Crack in the Egg, Salamanizer, and more. I think Ryan had a better handle on it than Oderus.

Our party split up a bit as some headed to PDX, some to another house, and some to Capitol Hill where I got to meet up with my lady fair and some other fine friends at Unicorn, probably my favorite bar in Seattle with the most kickin’ mac & cheese in the world. After a nights rest at Vince from Anhedonist’s pad we rolled on to PDX and met back up at the Roseland Theater. It was time for the final confrontation.

Portland was a super fun show for us, with the crowd going apeshit and the ape-thing going apeshit on a robot, and just general mayhem. At one point during a bit where I complain about being hungry, Andy from ETID brought us all sandwiches.

I was laughing as we threw them all around and into the crowd. My so-far trusty V4-B amp died somewhere in the middle of the show. My Sansamp didn’t, though. I’m not looking forward to repair costs, ah well. Warbeast and ETID likewise had great sets. PDX is always kind to our lot.

GWAR had asked us to help them on stage later and kill the World Maggot. We were super excited. When they hit the stage, Oderus was… not Oderus. His energy was low, something was up. In fact, GWAR was cancelling the next two shows for the wake of Cory Smoot, aka Flattus Maximus. This had to hang heavy over the scumdogs.

We waited backstage in costume at the appointed hour. We watched GWAR during the last song of their main set. Oderus began to shed his skin and there appeared Dave Brockie. He leapt into the crowd as the song ended. What the fuck? Sean and I were in shock. Dave came around to the backstage, grabbed a mic, and jumped back up. With all due emotion, he brought back and introduced the members of GWAR to the stage sans scumdog uniforms. Mike was walking around with goat legs. Jameson was without a helmet. Brad was on drums. Bob, Matt and Scott were the stagehands.

Holy fuck. I didn’t want to go out onstage. This was their moment. This was catharsis. Bob told us backstage, “fuck it, we are still doing what we planned.” Ooookay. I was still hesitant until I saw Dave point at us and say, “Ghoul, get the fuck out here!” I headed onto stage while Maggots played, and the crowd cheered. Either Bob or Matt grabbed me and started me towards the World Maggot. I, like Jerry Springer and hundreds of slutty broads before me, was going to be lunch. I got fed to the Maggot and reborn into the hands of Germ on the other side, as he screamed, “fuck yeah, Ross, come on!” Oh man. I was in a daze. Dan, Dino, and Sean were busy chopping off the head of the maggot while I went downstairs to change.

I headed back up as Sick of You was playing and saw our robot, aka Scott Bryan, and our monkey-man, aka Peter Povey fighting on stage with GWAR and the slaves as the Biledriver squirted the crowd. At some point, Dave brought out Cory’s guitar and held it for the crowd to revere. I couldn’t contain myself, and jumped next to Beef, aka Jameson, and launched into the last chorus of Sick of You. I got a Biledriver to my backside from Bob. I left the stage watching robots, monsters, and slaves hugging. What the fuck.

Tour was over. Lots of hugging all around and a few beers over at Ground Kontrol. A lost DDR tournament. Basically, a blur. Like this whole tour.

It’s the biggest tour I’ve ever been on, with monumental highs and the most catastrophic downs. Totally indescribable. GWAR has always been one of my all time favorite bands, digesting their music, lyrics and movies, seeing them on every tour since my first on This Toilet Earth… this was the most amazing opportunity. I didn’t wanna see my heroes go through something like the loss they felt on this tour, but it’s heartening to see them pull through it.

Thanks, guys, I wouldn’t be doing what I do without you.

(drawing from a fan hanging in the GWAR tour bus)

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
filling in at the Creepsylvania Hospital’s traveling burn ward