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When we heard that the Isotopes, our favorite baseball-obsessed
pop-punk band from Canada, would be touring through the
U.S., we had the band's Evan October keep a journal about
their adventures. Here's Part One of the Isotopes Tour Diary.
- Editor
Conspiracy To Commit Tax Evasion
By Evan October
Conspiracy to commit tax evasion in a foreign country: That’s
basically how the United States Immigration Office regards
what I had spent the previous four months planning with my
pals. The Isotopes were headed stateside to knock down a week’s
worth of shows between Seattle and Detroit on our way out
to play Montreal’s popular 3-day, multi-venue punk rock
festival, Pouzza Fest. It’s a combination of pizza and
poutine. We had never played that city before and it was an
honour to be included in the festival, and I don’t believe
that opportunity turned down often leads to further opportunity,
so I confirmed without consulting the other guys that the
Isotopes would play Pouzza Fest.
I ran costs on (a) flying out just for the show, and (b) touring
out, playing a total of nine (9) shows. Both options had risks
to be considered. Flying out was a guaranteed financial loss
in the neighborhood of $3500. Touring out would cost roughly
the same, as I had it budgeted, but we’d have eight
(8) extra shows to try to break even. Economically, the risk
of a tour – barring any terrible misfortune –
was negligible compared to a fly-out. However, touring to
Montreal from Vancouver with the goal of breaking even would
require us to travel through the United States of America.
Gas is cheaper in the USA, cities are closer in the USA, hotels,
food, beer and cigarettes are cheaper in the USA (if we were
going to do it, we were going to do it properly), and most
importantly, there is a market that actually appreciates what
the Isotopes stand for in the USA. Fans, if you will. We call
‘em Juiceheads. The only problem was actually getting
the Isotopes into the USA.
The risk of being denied entry was considerable, and loomed
heavily over the band throughout all pre-tour stages of conspiracy
and deployment. Horror stories carom around Vancouver’s
underground music community of local bands being denied entry
to the United States for what we consider no reason, but what
the United States Immigration Office - and presumably the
IRS as well - consider unlawful employment and as a result,
tax evasion. The worst case I have heard of is our friends
You Say Party! We Say Die! – a much more famous band
than us, by Canadian standards – not only being denied
entry to the United States for their tour, but also having
an integral member of their outfit banned from the country
on a personal basis for five (5) years. That happened in 2006
or 2007, I believe, and it stifled the band, which had just
been signed in Canada, maybe Europe too, and was poised to
make a splash in the USA.
The plan was that I would cross first, and alone. On account
of my participation in the MLB FanCave contest this year,
Googling my legal name yields about three pages of results
identifying me as the singer of the Isotopes Punk Rock Baseball
Club. From there, it doesn’t take a trained professional
to find the band’s tour dates. But these people are
trained professionals, and fucking with musicians seems to
be high on the list of job perks for these bozos. If they
find those tour dates, it’s game over – the fat
lady collects her check while I start reading up about Canadian
tour grants on the FACTOR website.
But, I digress.
The bottom line was that nobody else in the Isotopes can be
linked to the band via their real name using Google, and since
I now can be, I was at the greatest risk of being denied entry
to the United States. Therefore, the plan was that I would
travel alone, so that on the good chance that I do get banned
from the USA, I wouldn’t take anyone else down with
me.
The Gods Must Be Juiceheads
May 8, 2013: According to our tour schedule, the Isotopes
were booked to play a show in Seattle tonight; first night
of tour, but in my mind, there was no show. Despite the insistence
of the promoters and venues and bands I’d sought out
and negotiated tour dates with over the course of the past
four months – in my mind, there was no tour. All I could
think about is where I’d be eating my consolation dinner
that night when I got back to Vancouver.
Las Tortas would be nice, I thought, as I boarded a Bolt Bus
bound for Bellingham, Seattle, Portland, and made my way down
the aisle – I was in the mood for a Mexican sandwich.
Las Tortas is this authentic Mexican sandwich parlor at Cambie
and 18th in Vancouver. I’ve never had a better sandwich.
Tonight, I decided, I would have the chorizo club sub and
contemplate how to spend the next five years of my life as
an artist banned from the geographical market he relies on
for survival. I thought of that scene in End of The Century
where Johnny Ramone reflects on the moment he realized his
fate that the Ramones would never have a hit single. He said
he accepted his lot in life, and now, so had I – leader
of the World’s Greatest Baseball Punk Band, banned from
the country that for all our intents and purposes, owns baseball
and punk. The band has accomplished enough, I finally supposed.
Maybe it was time to hang up the leather.
Leaving it to the Gods of baseball punk, I sat down in the
very back row, which is the very last place I want to sit,
because that’s where the bad kids sit, and today, I
do not want to be perceived as a bad kid; but it was also
the very last seat available where I wouldn’t be forced
to sit beside a stranger, so pretense yielded to neurosis
and I sat down, alone. I could almost taste my chorizo club
already when a pair of vagrant lovers caught my attention
and jarred me right back to reality. Fucking enviro-punx!
Three rows up. The fellow was wearing an unkempt beard and
greasy hair combo, brown slacks, naturey-looking shoes, and
a grey, wool button-down that his counter-part was furiously
buttoning and straightening out for him, and that looked about
as comfortable as it did clean. The girl had on a ratty dress
and cardigan, half a buzz-cut, and they both had the kind
of backpacks you take hitch-hiking on a trans-American acid
trip with no definite return date. A wave of relief crashed
upon the rocky shores of my mental well-being. I had an entire
summer – or more – of tour plans hinging on a
bunch of idiots – myself included – being able
to outsmart government agents whose sole job is to not be
outsmarted by a bunch of idiots. But, by some stroke of luck,
here were two even bigger idiots than us, who, I was almost
certain, would not be doing any out-smarting today.
Jello and Jane Goodall passed the 30-minute bus ride to the
border by grooming each other like monkeys, while I deleted
incriminating texts from my pay-as-I-go, Canada-only cellular
phone. I couldn’t use it in the States, but I couldn’t
cross without it, either.
That’s what someone who has no intention of returning
soon would do. According to my return ticket, I would be returning
home tomorrow afternoon. I had my toothbrush, my garbage cell
phone and a canvas beach bag with my laptop in it, and I’m
wearing a creamsicle coloured Ralph Lauren button down, black
jeans, no hat, Ray-Ban Wayfarers, and my Nike Free cross trainers.
It was my best effort to not look like a threat to the Department
of Homeland Security.
The bus pulled into the US Immigration line at the BC / Washington
border, and had only begun to slow down when the girl –
Jane, I’d been calling her – stood up in the aisle
and announced to nobody in particular “I AM SO ANXIOUS!”
Jeeeesus Chriiiiist, I thought.
Jane was first off the bus but she let her mating partner
hang back a while. This was their attempt at being conniving,
as if these Bullshit-Snipers won’t be able to tell they’re
travelling together. I jumped into the herd somewhere in the
middle, wearing my beach bag like a purse over one shoulder
because I felt like it made me look docile. Once in queue,
I forced about 10 yawns and laughed at an old timer’s
old-timer jokes until I was up.
“Where you going Evan?” FUCKING ON TOUR, DICKHEAD!
“Seattle.”
“What’s the nature of your trip?”
“Pleasure.” The trick is to appear annoyed, not
compliant. Compliance is a dead giveaway. Only give him the
one-word answers he’s expecting but make sure he hears:
Hey listen, I’m a busy guy, so with all due respect
Sir, don’t waste my time with this immigration bullshit.
“What are you doing in Seattle?”
“Attending a concert at El Corazon.”
“What’s El Corazon?”
“A concert venue.”
“Have a nice trip.” HOLY FUCKING SHIT! My heart
felt like a pitching machine firing fastballs, three per second
– kthunk, kthunk, kthunk – until fucking finally
I was back on the bus and the driver closed the doors and
pulled away out onto the I-5 South. I looked around: Jello
and Jane Goodall were not on the bus. Thank fucking God for
those two. It appeared the baseball punk Gods were looking
out for the ‘Topes again, and finally after four months
of preparation, I felt like we might have a tour on our hands.
Tony Hustle was planning to be on the Bolt Bus behind me with
a concoction about going to Portland to source Bonnaroo tickets,
and I was no less skeptical of his chances of crossing than
my own, being that he was a black man with an inability to
directly answer direct questions. It made him a lovable character
amongst his bandmates but I always worry that the US Immigration
Officers didn’t share our sense of humor.
Matt Shatters and Justin Safely planned to travel together,
last, in my newly purchased 1991 Volvo Turbo Wagon loaded
with absolutely nothing but what the two of them needed to
go see Living With Lions at El Corazon that night, and return
immediately after, as they both had jobs to be at in the morning.
We were one-quarter on tour and because my cell phone was
only a prop now and the other guys didn’t have American
data plans, I had four hours to kill in Seattle before I’d
discover the band’s fate. So, having done no previous
research so as not to jinx the tour, I looked up sports memorabilia
retailers in Seattle and found a very cool little baseball
nostalgia store called Ebbet’s Field only a few blocks
from the Starbucks I was sitting in. I went there and shopped
around for a bit. They had 20 great t-shirts, and a bunch
of old timey hats and uniform stuff from the minor, independent
and Negro leagues of yore. I wanted everything, but I only
ended up getting two tees: A Twin Cities Atoms shirt in black
with an orange and off-white Isotopes-y logo for Matt Shatters
(who’d spent his entire pre-tour week pestering me on
Facebook chat about what shirt I wanted him to wear on tour.
I told him I would figure it out it Seattle), and a Hiroshima
Carp shirt in Navy with an orange and on-white logo for myself.
Normally I don’t wear navy but I’d just finished
writing a song called “Hiroshima Dreamin’”
that will be on our new record and I thought the shirt was
a great reference to that. The store owner in that place must
definitely have thought I was a weirdo because as a result
of my day so far, I was feeling pretty fuckin’ elated,
and in that store was about the best place I could think of
being at that time.
Two hours and a large format black IPA by Pyramid later, I
hopped off a city bus outside the venue we were supposed to
be playing and found the rest of the guys loading in. Holy
shit, we’ve got ourselves a fucking tour. I took my
first calm breath in days, high fived the guys, lit one of
Matt’s cigarettes and let a well-earned grin spread
across my face.
The show was great. The bartender grew up in the same shithole
in Alberta that Matt Shatters did, so she gave him a free
Pabst Blue Ribbon sleeping bag. Tahoe Jeff and his girlfriend
were good enough to put us up on their floor, feed us bagels
and let whoever was into it test out his bidet. For days,
it was all Matt could talk about.
[CONTINUED here]
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