Diablos West Coast Tour Part III - How to Overstay Your Welcome

It's Monday, November 20th and the craziest leg of our innagural West Coast tour is behind us. What's ahead you ask? sleep. Pure & Simple. Well, that and another radio spot at 4pm. So today we gotta truck on up to Santa Rosa for a quick spot on KRSH to promote our upcoming shows north of San Francisco.
We hit California 1 and head north, passing some damn fine scenery:
We get to Santa Rosa and check into Mike Buckley's parent's house. They've graciously opened their doors to our ragtag ensemble for a couple of nights - guess Mike didn't really tell them about us...
KRSH goes well - 3 full band songs and a quick interview in which host (and local radio legend) Bill Bowker can't get our name right. Oh well, it's a small town and people will surely know where and when we're playing. We get some invaluable info from Music Director Pam Long about some fine local wineries to hit, and away we go.
Josh, John and Pete all head back into San Francisco to party while Mike and I decide to stay in Santa Rosa and get some rest. No gig tonight.

DAY 5 Tonight we're lined up to play The Larkspur Cafe Theatre in Larkspur, CA, just north of the city. It's a cute little room, primarily accustomed to jazz, folk and dinner theater, so I'm not sure what they're gonna make of us. But, hell, it's a Tuesday so whatever happens is fine with us. The Theatre is cute - definitely a throwback to an era when communities each had their own little playhouses. This one comes with a nice menu and a bar with fabulous wine. We've gotten some great press in the local weekly The North Bay Bohemian, so hopefully between that and the radio show we'll get some folks out.
8pm showtime, and apparently people around here don't a] read newspapers or b] listen to the radio. Very sparse crowd. BUT, certainly not empty. And, once again, size doesn't matter so much because everyone who shows, LOVES us. There's some fine waltzing, much applause and we even get two old Jewish grandmothers to whoop it up for Ana Nevsky and our new as-yet-untitled Hungarian Wedding Song. Also, Lee Templeton, madcap Dj of the One Night at McSorley's internet radio channel, and one of the main reasons we came all the way out to CA, makes the scene and we finally get to meet in person. We've clearly hit our stride musically - every night is better than the previous - and we're keeping people glued to our performance. Our music seems to really resonate with people out here.
After the show I decide to head into SF with Pete and Josh. Turns out, an old buddy of Pete's lives in Pacific Heights and has allowed us the use of his beautiful home for the next couple days. I don't wantto get into too much detail without his permission, but suffice to say, he came to California during the tech gold rush and struck it rich. His partner is having a late night thanksgiving party tonight that we crash. It's quite th stylish scene and I'm afraid we may get dumped back on the street for being too shabbily dressed and too pasty of skin. Everyone's tan and gorgeous and cooler-than-thou. But, hey free booze, turkey legs and a Ms. Pac Man machine. Plus, a view of the Golden Gate from the roof that is so incredible it looks fake. Eat and drink, lads for tomorrow we, uh, eat and drink some more.
DAY 6 Our 5th gig lands us at The Makeout Room in The Mission part of San Francisco. A very cool club with an impressive roster of now-famous bands that have graced their stage. For instance, here's a picture of my idols Calexico playing there in 2004. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of this evening. The opener is a fantastically unusual and talented performer named Uni, who accompanies herself with a ukelele and a whole lot of charm. you can check out her songs here. Her simple, catchy songs and her lovely voice captivate Josh. More on that later. In the meantime, we take the stage, and as has been our custom this trip, we promptly blow the room out. Everyone's dancing by the end of our set, and people scurry up to buy our CDs and chat us up. Sweet Jesus! Do these people know who we are?!?!? We are not worthy of this! I'm starting to get worried that we're exhausting every ounce of gig karma we've ever accumulated...
so, as I was saying earlier, Uni has cast a pervasive spell on our hero, Josh. So, when it comes time to settle up and get on back to our pad, Josh decides he's gonna ask Uni out for a late night dinner. She accepts and away they go into the Mission for 2am burritos. The rest of us head back to Pac Heights and drink with some old and new friends. Eventually we crash in the wee hours of Day 7.

Day 7 - Thanksgiving

Ouch, my head. Stop talking so loud. And get me a coffee if you're going out for one. And shut the blinds. Ouch. We actually have a busy agenda today. Our penpals Lee Templeton and her brother David Templeton (who runs the Glaser Center in Santa Rosa where we're playing on Friday) have invited us to their family Thanksgiving dinner in Petaluma. And after that, we've got our 4th Bay Area radio show on KRCB with the illustrious Doug Jayne at 8pm. If we start getting up now, we might barely make it.
Dinner is fun and the Templetons are EXTREMELY gracious. We are not worthy. In fact, we are quite hung over and make pretty lousy conversationalists. Josh even falls asleep on the couch stroking ther cat. I think I hear him muttering, "Uni..." as he dozes off.

At 7, we come to, pile into the car and off we speed to the radio station for a 2 HOUR SHOW! Egads. That's as long as a gig. Doug meets us there and he fits into our scene so well we almost knight him an honorary Diablo right there on the spot. what follows is a 2 hour broadcast of food-related songs interspersed with a couple of our tunes live in the studio every so often. We give away some tickets, we chat pointlessly, and we discover that a handful of people are actually listening. Poor fools. Doug lets some of us crash at his pad (his wife's away in Japan of all places) and we make a night of it, imbibing until the wee hours and listening to the new Tom Waits box set. Then we actually do knight Doug an honorary Diablo before dozing off to sleep...ahhh Tryptophan...

Diablos West Coast Tour Part II - Radio, Radio

If I were a betting man, I would definitely have laid odds against Josh and the boys making it to Santa Cruz for the 10am radio show after the harrowing night we had. But, to their credit they were out the door at 7am and made it to Freedom, CA with time to spare. This morning's spot is on the world famous KPIG, just outside Santa Cruz. We've got a 3 song slot on the show "Please Stand By" hosted by longtime radio personality Sleepy John. KPIG is a station that's right up our alley. Not only do they spin the kind of roots based rock and folk that fits our style, but they also ingest their playlist decisions with some actual feeling and heart instead of picking the 8 songs that are gonna sell ad space. Ya gotta respect that in this day and age. Josh, John and Pete played "Rain Keeps A'Fallin,'" "Chinatown," and a new one called "55 Words" and were interviewed inbetween songs about the tour. Turns out, ur previous evening's adventures make great on air commentary, and everyone in the studio has a good laugh. Then, to everyone's surprise, Sleepy John actually asked for an additional tune; hig hpraise indeed! So the lads ripped into "On The Way Back Home." At one point, John offered up another nice compliment by telling Josh The Pogues should cover "Chinatown." Egads! Perhaps they didn't make the show and we're all still dreaming. The set sounded fantastic, and you can listen to and download the version of "55 Words" on the Los Diablos MySpace site.

Now would be a great time for the band to regroup and relax - maybe find a local hotel in Santa Cruz and catch some much-needed rest before tonight's show. Too bad the guys have to truck 2 hours back up to Berkeley to play another radio show on KPFA at 2pm. Back in the car, stopping only to use a bathroom, they make it to the KPFA studios with neary a minute to spare. This spot is on Mary Tilson's America's Back 40 program, a fantastic 2 hours of bluegrass, Americana, old-timey and folk music. Mary became enamoured of our last release Let's Waste Another Evening and has been playing it often in the past 16 months. She admits to being a big fan and we're honored to be on the program. Not that you'd know by the fact that Pete looks like death and John, uh, smells like death...
Anyway, the lads do a full 30 minutes of interviews and music and even get the usually unflappable Mary Tilson to mistakingly say "urine" on the air several times - good stuff. You can hear the entire program on the KPFA archive here.
Now they have exactly 45 minutes to scarf down some Indian buffet before they drive back to Santa Cruz for our early show at The Attic!!
You may be wondering what the fearless rhythm section has been doing while Josh, John and Pete rush to make all of these engagements. Well, after exchanging rental cars in Berkeley, Mike and I decide to stroll around Telegraph Ave and take in the beautiful Fall day. We do a little record shopping, grab a nice lunch of spicy Pakistani food, and generally act like we're on vacation. Of course, when Josh calls to check in we act like we're working hard...
Back in Santa Cruz we regroup and prepare for the evening's show - the first with local's The Mad Maggies. The Attic is a beautiful space and the hospitality is lovely - big bottles of local brew and delicous food. Unfortunately, it's a Sunday night and the crowd is, uh, slight. But, man The Maggies are FANTASTIC and the faithful who do show up are wonderfully appreciative, waltzing and drinking the evening away. After the show, a few of us are swept away to Santa Cruz's only real Irish Pub, The Poet & The Patriot because there's this perception that we might like Guiness. Talk about stereotyping! Not that we mind this kind of stereotyping...