Northwest, Part I
An early morning departure got us into Portland by midday for lunch, and we headed straight to Chris’s (guitar hero, Book of Maps) pizza joint. He gave us free food and free pitchers of beer, which is better than sex for a band on the road.
Made it to Seattle by the evening. Leslie, the wonderful lady who set up the show for us, was crazy and wonderful the whole night. She must have bought the Maps and us three shots over thirty minutes.
Her husband played bass in the first band, Brother Wane. They were not like us or the Book of Maps, but their twang-rock got the show off to a good start. Congratulations to you, sirs, on the release of your new CD.
The Maps were second, and basically they gunned the entire bar down with their insanely tight and crushing prog assault. How they hell do these guys do it? Night after night of perfect rock crimes?
We played last and it went well, including our new song, Shoot the Pass. It’s long, weird, and fast at times, much like our post-show drive to Ellensburg, Washington. There we ate footlongs from Subway and the seven of us (Maps, Pilots, plus our friend Geoff) piled into a little motel room for the night.