RIDING ON THE SHORT BUS
AND HERE WE GO...
Show #1: Born on the 4th of July.
We launched the world tour in the middle nowhere, also known as the Anza-Barrego desert, just east of the Ocotillo Landing Strip.
The Location: a straight out of the 60's isolated desert house which hosted a 3 day Freedom Festival, featuring the Evangenitals.
First things first, I need to introduce our old friend and new drummer, Brett P. (Brett, you may recall, was the inspiration for the song, "The Pangs") Brett has boldly stepped up and stepped in where our old drummer Dubious dropped off. Dubious Dee, Lisa's adopted brother and an original member of the band since 1993, was having himself a bad case of Moral Outrage and Wanderlust when we saw him last, sometime around September 10th 2002. Still no word from Dubious, folks. He wasn't kidding about joing the Zapatista's, and I shudder to think what the fates have in store for a 5'4" transvestite heading for the jungles of Ixtapa in full fatigues.
It was a wild and rambling week of Music, Meditation, and as always, The Challenges.
It's a tradition of the Evangenitals to Challenge ourselves; good, hard, and often. These may be feats of a physical nature, risk taking, withstanding or avoiding pains, dares and double dares, projects to further the development of social skills, switching of instruments and identities within and without the band, and pretty much any zany trick that we think will expand our understand of and respect for the human experience.
Some of the 4th of July highlights:
*Lisa Dee shattered a glass bottle of Cactus Cooler by singing a high note.
*Julio walked a stark naked mile in 120 degree desert heat.
*Brett jumped 7 feet in the air. I shit you not.
*Team Evangenital challenged all of the Anza to High Stakes Backgammon.
*Lisa and Julio entered the Barrego LowRider competition (with Ramon's '62 Lincoln) and placed 3rd.
(Some photos of the Anza-Borrego Show are posted here)
As far as the show goes.... it was the Ultimate Challenge.
24 hours of non-stop Evangenital action. It rocked. Hard and quiet like a good lovemaking session. We played a 3 hour and 47 minute version of "pussy" which some kid from Escondido recorded for the bootleggers. I must say that the new acoustic sound really compliments the emotional pitch of our music. No one seemed to miss the glam-band extremity of the last tour. We travel light these days, with 3 nylon-stringed guitars and Brett's home-made, found-object drum kit.
The Red Demon takes us anywhere we want to go.
Lisa is a bit superstitious and almost cancelled the whole show due to the foreboding dead skunk which appeared next to the Samurai on the morning of our departure. We agreed upon accepting it as a warning to pack extra water as proceeded as planned.
This whole Anza-Barrego Independence Day Music Festival was organized by an Evangenital fan, Ramon. Ramon works at the Christmas Circle gas station in Barrego and has never been able to make it to a live show. We received a letter from him a couple months ago and the whole thing started as a joke about how insane it would be to play for 24 hours straight in 120 degree heat and who the hell would be crazy enough to drive for hours into the middle of the desert to hear a rock show. Well, there are a lot of crazy people in this world, and a few hundred of them were in the Barrego desert this weekend.
Ramon actually had to work through most of the festival, but he told us he could pretty much hear the music from the station. Sounds carry in the desert. We're working on a special song right now, "Postcards to Ramon" which pretty much sums up our feeling for him, heat, and the Anza-Barrego. We were trying to figure out what Anza means in Spanish... and haven't had any success yet. So far all we know is that it was a dude, Juan Bautista de Anza, and we are entertaining notions of following his expeditionary trail, al reverse.
We'll shall see.
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