On a Rock Tour without an Instrument
By Jesse Farrell
(Portions of this article appeared in The Phoenix Online)

Part 2
Read Part 1

“Unfortunately I haven’t heard anything about Uncle Graham Cracker.” -Kelly in Athens, GA

Woke up to a beautiful Cary, NC morning. Our hosts, a different Potters’ aunt and uncle, have two small boys. Three-year-old Dominic joins us in the living room. He seems a little confused as to what this group is doing in his house, but is perfectly happy to show us around. When I mistakenly refer to the device on the upright piano as a metronome, he corrects me: “No, it’s a tick-tock.” Silly me.

Joe plays piano. “I know 'The Perilous Fight Song,'” Dominic tells us. We’re all intrigued. From the safety of his mother’s arms, Dominic quietly sings

“O say can you see…”

Leave it to a kid to remake his world by focusing on the coolest part of the national anthem.

Off to Athens GA, which is as beautiful a city as I’ve heard, with its warm climate, shady, tree-lined, wireless-internet connected streets, and friendly people. We ate at a diner with good food served by sexy, plump punk waitresses. I went to Bizarro Wuxtry, a comicbook store well stocked with books, toys and old records that feels as much like a friend’s attic as a retail store. It is a funky little town, Athens, and I take to it immediately. The forced proximity of traveling together this long together is eased as we disperse to check out different places to shop and get coffee.

Probably our most anticipated show of the tour was to be at Athens Georgia’s legendary 40 Watt Club. They sell a t-shirt there drawn by Jamie Hewlett, pre-Gorillaz, of his character Tank Girl herself wearing a 40-Watt t-shirt, a pretty ringing endorsement, if you ask me. The venue itself is nice; a spacious but comfy room with a Tiki-themed bar off to one side, a high stage and lots of room for the band, its projection screen, Puppet Theater, and Uncle Monsterface himself to move. The folks who run it are good people and very helpful.

It was arguably the worst show of the tour.

No, it isn’t a disaster; nothing goes wrong, exactly. Uncle Monsterface isn’t booed off the stage or anything so dramatic. But after the Uncle Monsterface intro, usually a big number where the crowd is encouraged to cheer the name of the band, it sounds like there might be a problem. This is a crowd that wants to sit back and listen to a show, not be dragooned into a lot of call-and-response.

When we came in I saw the high stage and recalled a stagedive I once witnessed. A kid had jumped off and, like a drop of Dawn in greasy water, the crowd parted for him. He took a nasty face-plant. It’s like that for Uncle Monsterface tonight, throwing themselves into the arms of an audience who isn’t inclined to catch them. There’s nothing substantively different about the set tonight; no one plays any more wrong notes than usual or forgets their parts, but the audience isn’t there to give anything on their end. And now I come to realize how much the rock show is a dialog between audience and band. One does not carry the other. One is not there just for the other.

Afterward we console ourselves with the legendary food of Polish Sausage King JB and his famous Comeback Sauce (who was conscientious enough to offer tofu dogs, too, I was thrilled to discover). We meet some kids who were at the show and had really loved it. It had not all been in vain. As Marty said, there is never a wasted show.

A guy named Jeff works at Caledonia, a nearby bar where some Math bands are playing. After I pulled Joe aside and asked what a Math band was, we head over. A group called Mouser was in full swing; two guitars, bass, and amazing drummer, and most interestingly, a horn section with two beautiful women on trumpets and a guy playing the tuba. They had an amazing, hard, progressive and fun sound. Thirty or so people watch with quiet intensity, soaking up everything the band plays. Their great show redeemed our so-so one and we could go back into the beautiful Georgia night feeling good rather than unsatisfied and restless.

Maybe we broke the first of my tour rules in Athens; we had expectations. And the road doesn’t work like that.

“This is why we can’t have nice things.” -Common tour refrain

“You were going to be in Purgatory, but you sold so many tickets you’re going to Hell.” -Guy from the Masquerade Club, Atlanta, GA

This is exactly what you want to hear when you’re on a rock tour.

The Masquerade is divided into three rooms of different sizes. Like the man said, we’d oversold Purgatory and been damned to Hell. And while it isn’t as bad as Sunday school may have led us to believe, it’s dark and everything there is sticky. Half an hour before showtime, and I hear that there are already fifty kids lined up outside. Surprisingly, I spot a trio of teens I recognize from the Athens show. On sees me and says “It’s Uncle Monsterface!” I hear this periodically and I don’t get it. Uncle Monsterface has a giant green head. Still, it spooks me and I casually walk back inside.

Paul starts frantically looking for the Potters’ drum machine, which has gone missing. At first he thinks it’s been misplaced, but then it’s clear, no, it ain’t here. He calls the 40- Watt, who it turns out does have the drum machine. And their keyboard. They’ve left half their band in Athens, a two-hour drive away. “It’s pretty intense,” Joe says. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do.” Still, it registers on the junior brother's face as no more than a flicker of concern.

They end up borrowing equipment from Uncle Monsterface, just enough to get them through their set. Luckily enough of their music is backed up on digital media that the audience probably doesn't notice anything amiss. The song-a-day song which commemorates this night, "Drunk Athens Part II," begins with the DeGeorge brothers singing the phrase “How did we get so stupid?”

The crowd is more receptive than in Athens, and Marty has no problem telling them that, eliciting a big cheer. Although we didn’t know it until we got here, there are five bands playing the same stage tonight, so with two songs to go, the soundman -a gruff, joyless man who looked like Hunter Thomson dressed as an Emo kid for laughs- informs us over the PA that we had one song to go. “Capes” is quickly edited out of the set.

While this hiccup didn’t hurt them too much, Uncle Monsterface is met with their lone unsatisfied customer, a chubby redneck teen who proclaimed, “That was the worst goddamn show I ever saw,” a giant grin on his face. Marty, with the aplomb befitting a frontman, shook his head and with a weary smile replied, “Like I really give a fuck what you think.”

The same kid is later overheard telling the guitarist of another band “I can play like that, just not live.”

Back to Athens to reunite the Potters with their band tonight. We’ll head out in the morning.

“You gotta sorta jump on those random opportunities, I think” -Paul on playing at an Army base in Ft. Campbell, KY

“At first I was confused, then I thought you were awesome, now I have to sacrifice babies to you!” -Joshua, Uncle Monsterface Superfan #1

When we started the tour we had two days off in the two-week schedule. Paul got an offer that coincided with one of these days and was not too far off our route. It was at an army base, playing for kids who lived there. The catch was we wouldn’t be getting paid; however a cover would be charged. We were all a little apprehensive about where this money might go. Paul got on the phone with the promoter.

“See, we want to make sure that money isn’t just going back to The Man, ‘cause we’re all about sticking it to The Man.” But no, the money went to keeping the 24/7 Youth Recreation Center open, which seemed a good enough excuse for us to do it.

Plus we’d all seen This Is Spinal Tap.

24/7, I suspect, is merely a catchy name: I don't think the large rec room, which has the pleasant antiseptic scent of my elementary school and contains a small stage, some vending machines, tables, and inexplicable barber and beauty supplies, could possibly remain open later than midnight (and that's just weekends). 4H posters and Polaroids of wholesome past events line the walls, as well as smiling pictures of the Colonel and Major in charge of the military installation. In their duty uniforms they looked at the ready to judge a pie-eating contest or be on guard against agitators at a three-legged race.

The room has two means of entry, a door marked "The Outer Limits" on the right and "Beyond Da Limits" on the left; somehow managing to be embarrassing and dated to at least three generations of people.

"Have you ever seen that Beyonda Limits movie, Manstorm 2: Heat by Friction?" James asks me. "She was okay in that. Not as good as in Pinkeye."

While the median age at most Uncle Monsterface/Potters shows has been fairly young, the group that turned up for this seemed especially youthful. A teenage girl, perhaps confused by Dan's distinguished blazer, thinks she knows him from somewhere.

"Are you a substitute teacher?" she inquires innocently.

"Do you want me to be?"

We meet the promoter, a harried, longhaired kid in his late teens named Ian, who is doing ten things at once trying to produce a professional rock show with the scant equipment available. A few bands precede us, good, local rock acts with a lot of intermingled members. At different times it seems like half the audience is up on stage. Since both the musicians and what they're playing seem familiar to the kids assembled, I wonder how we're going to go over. Will Uncle Monsterface be too bizarre, too childish, too… Something other than what they’re used to? Prejudicially, I worry that unless they've already heard of a band, that band won't stand much of a chance. And almost no one here has heard of us- Almost.

Joshua, scraggly haired, bespectacled and wearing a heavy black trench coat, seems sent by central casting to represent "disenfranchised youth." Excited almost to the point of hysteria, we discover in him Uncle Monsterface's biggest fan. He's learned all the songs and had been hyping us to his peers for weeks. "So you can tell I'm not getting laid tonight!" he boasts. Thanks, Josh.

By the time Uncle Monsterface takes the stage there are maybe forty kids watching. When the puppets come out before the music starts, they are met with enthusiastic cheers. This might work after all. When Uncle Monsterface himself makes his way out to find the capes, he’s faced for the first time with the obstacle of overzealous fans wanting hugs, tripping him and spinning him careening into other people, a big green meteor in an orange blazer.

God save us from our fans.

We survive the show; what's more, even the kids seeing us for the first time seem to like the cultivated peculiarity of Uncle Monsterface. Getting close to midnight now, we're still unsure of where we're going to stay in Kentucky. Ian hooks us up with some folks from the previous bands who have a place we can crash. "They drink and smoke; I hope you guys are okay with that." Ian my man, if there's a roof and something resembling running water, we're good.

We follow the guys from the first two bands in their souped up Camero and watch as they narrowly avoid at least one accident. We're on the darkened highway for a while until we turn down a long, quiet street and they pull up beside a house next to a trailer park. Which one are we staying in? The house, as it turns out.

BAM! The stench of cat urine belts me in the face when we're five feet from the open door. It's like walking through a forcefield of stank. Inside, it's like the house from Fight Club: ramshackle, a three-story behemoth filled with rock kids, laundry, odd, remaindered furniture and overflowing ashtrays. Despite all this, the people are friendly, welcoming, and make us right at home.

We're inundated with questions about the band, the stage show, what kinds of drugs we're on. I actually take this to be a polite inquiry into what kinds of drugs we're carrying right now. I won't say that no one in the band uses, but it doesn't seem like a priority for anyone and there weren't any on the tour with us. Some kids politely offer some of their own, but even those in our group who might otherwise indulge are too exhausted to think about it.

But not too exhausted to bust out the Playstation. A game of Soul Caliber III starts and Joe is handed a controller. Not a hardcore gamer like the guys in Uncle Monsterface, watching him take to a fighting game is like watching a hippie's child get their first taste of sugar. The normally placid Joe is wild-eyed, shouting; in a fury even a guitar to the face couldn't stir up. "I'm going to fight you, Marty!" he shouts, "For real! I'm going to fight you!"

A scruffy kid who also played the show tonight sits on the floor, describing his bizarre take on numerology.

"I'm not real good with math, but I figured a few things out," he explains, "Zero is the womb. One is God. Two is birth." He had corresponding concepts for zero through ten, glossing over four, for which there is a noticable flaw in his theory. He glosses over it and continues. "I was working my job as a fry cook and I couldn't concentrate. They let me go home so I could work on it." How generous of them. Everyone humors this grubby would-be Euclid for a while until it's clear to all but the most stoned that his math doesn't actually add up to much.

A dozen or so people walk in and out through the course of the night; nice conversations come and go. I say I'm haven't spent too much time in Kentucky; Ashley, a local girl with a bright smile and pierced lip, seems amused by my Yankee naiveté. "Aw no," she tells me "You're in Tennessee now." Say what? Apparently we crossed the border following our hosts to their house.

And now I have no idea where the fuck I am.

Ashley tells me: "Well... It's Clarksville. We don't really have much in Clarksville, but we just have to make the best of it. But that's what friends are for, right? We just usually go to someone's house and chill. That's usually where memories are made." She's right, too. We all came in as strangers and left as friends.

“Don’t go outside or you’ll definitely die/ Cause it’s raining Frankensteins.”

From there to a YMCA in Lexington Kentucky, then we start back to the cold North, playing the famous Barking Spider a wood-paneled Irish bar in Cleveland. I'm surprised and dismayed when a large family shows up, staking out a table by the puppet theater. “Oh good, they got ashtrays on the table!” mom said, overjoyed as she and I think a couple of the kids light up. The puppets stink for days after.

We don't have anywhere to stay in town, but by the end of the night Paul's convinced two Potters fans, Marti (her name a source of confusion, amusement) and her friend Michelle, to put us up for the night. That people would do this, that complete strangers will open their homes to people who they only know from their music, or in the case of Uncle Monsterface, people they’d never heard of until that night, is remarkable. To a person, I've liked everyone who put us up and all of them went above and beyond letting us crash on their couches and floors. That Marti and Michelle are lovely, charming and have finely honed senses of sarcasm is just gravy.

In Cleveland we also meet Ashleigh and Melanie, two college girls in Hogwarts’ attire. Apparently they enjoy the show because the following night they travel two hours to Artists Upstairs, a cavernous, 1500 square-foot art space in Pittsburgh, our next gig. That anyone would do this indicates maybe we’re doing something right.

“The Road gives and the road takes.” -Me, after finding out I’d left my nice sunglasses in Athens.

“Every night was a challenge!” -Wolf Colonel

Philadelphia is the last show of the tour. For all the hard work, sleeping on floors, the endless, restless tedium of traveling in the van, all of us feel like after two weeks we are just hitting our stride. Another two weeks? I could do that standing on my head. And after that? Who knows how long we could go. If there was a wall, we hadn't hit it. Even Marty’s voice, the part of the Uncle Monsterface machine that took the most wear and tear, adjusted after some earlier rockiness; in fact, it had come back stronger than ever as he screamed and wailed each night.

The tour ends as it began, in a church basement, one with a posted maximum occupancy of 150. Luckily for us, there's no fire marshal present because double that number turns up at the First Unitarian. Ten minutes before showtime and Dan and I lament that Ashleigh and Melanie, despite saying they’d be there, aren’t coming. We had begun, after a mere two shows, to see them as signs of good luck. It’s perfectly understandable, though:it had taken us six hours to get from Pittsburgh to Philly. It was quite a hike for someone who wasn’t schedule to perform there. In a moment I’d consider blatantly telegraphed if I saw it on TV, this was when they choose to show up. I make myself scarce and set up the puppet theater.

Normally before the show starts, Uncle Monsterface pokes his puppet head up to look around and perhaps one or two people notice. Seeing them, he‘ll then jump down and hide. Tonight a huge cheer reverberated through the crowd when he appeared. He was stunned, visible, jaw-droppingly stunned, before he turned tail. The crowd was so happy, so excited, so ready to have a good time that Uncle Monsterface could not let them down.

“Philly, you are the best audience ever!” Marty tells them. This could have been mere hyperbole, but not this time. Not tonight.

I watch as Uncle Monsterface performs their last set of the tour, no one wanting this to be over. For their finale, Lobster Building, usually they ask a handful of people from the audience to rock out with them, given inflatable prop guitars, lobsters and puppets. Tonight, Harry and the Potters- the DeGeorge brothers- join them onstage, as do so many other people it looks like a Prince’s Trust concert. When Uncle Monsterface himself makes his appearance at the climax of the song, he needs to gingerly step between fans, careful not to crush toes with his size 13 ½ feet.

And I am there in that crowd, watching, but the line between watching and taking part has evaporated. We’re one wave, a circuit, beginning with the band onstage, running through the crowd, back.

“We build and we build/ We build and we build,” Marty shouts into a megaphone, as their finale crescendos. Ordinary things are transformed by will and imagination, excitement and sweat. I am inside that puppet’s head. I am inside that crowd. I am in the belly of the beast, and Uncle Monsterface is in their hearts.

These moments happen, if you let them.

No more tour. Goodbye for now, Uncle Monsterface.

The road is life.

(Thanks to the people who came to our shows, and everyone who was good to us when we were on tour. Special thanks to our hosts: Kyle, The Sarlis, the Marraccinis, the Piazzas, Marty & Lori, Myke, Jack & Haylie, Matt, Marti & Michelle, Nick, and Seth. Our couches are your couches.)

(Potterface Tour videos and Song-a-Day songs can be downloaded here. Free!)

Read Part 1