words

Auckland – Billy West is on our flight today (the second coolest Billy on the whole airplane). We’re pretty excited about this, as close to geeked-out as we get in our old age. We cut our teeth on Ren and Stimpy and Futurama is our best friend.

When we land, no less than seven people meet us at the airport. They introduce themselves not in their professional capacities, but by their first names, so we really have no idea what any of them are doing there. They seem nice though and they carry guitars and suitcases, so we go with them willingly, us being free spirits and all.

And they do, in fact, bring us to our hotel after working out who should ride with whom in whose car and who gets to carry the equipment in whose boot, etc., all the while apologizing for the rain. “Sorry about this. I did request better weather for you,” says a sunny young man named Jim.

“Yeah? Who do you know, God?”

“My cousin went to school with him. He’s my in.”

“That’s a pretty good in.”

“Yeah, well…” he puts his hand out to feel the rain. “It is usually.”

All seven Kiwis get out of their cars and go into the hotel with us, still carrying our stuff and chatting pleasantly. We try to figure out what their actual jobs are with subtly ham-fisted questions, to no avail.

“So…how’s…work?”

“Oh, fine. Busy.”

Seven people will hover around us the entire time we’re in this country and we will never figure out exactly who they are. They all know each other and they seem to know us, and they’re all swell human beings who appear to be working on either the record or the tour, but exactly how, we’re never sure. Every now and then, one will leave and be replaced by someone else who also knows the group and us, is pleasant and helpful, but whose role is as mysterious as the person’s that he or she replaced. We figure there is a promoter, a tour manager, a publicist and…well, we don’t really get much farther than that.

Since they are all lovely and I don’t have to be in charge of anything but the shows, I just leave it be. I do try to keep the conversations about work to a minimum so as not to embarrass myself. There are plenty of other things to talk about, of course and I find that most people in the music business hate it as much as I do and are relieved when you don’t make them talk about it.

Our first night in Auckland is a little dismal after the fun people leave. Auckland is completely unrecognizable to us. We remembered it as a watery city like Seattle: hilly and beachy. It is watery, but only because it’s raining so hard. We’re staying downtown and tonight downtown Auckland looks more like Detroit. Just not what we expected. We hunker down in our hotel room and watch anime DVD’s Bodhi’s brothers gave him for bedtime stories.

In the morning, I have a session at Radio New Zealand. Some members of the gang pick us up and drive us around the corner. I feel guilty. “We really could have walked, you know.”

They are appalled by this thought and refuse to discuss it. They also insist on carrying my guitar. Golly, these people are nice.

During the session, employees of the station gather in the control room to listen. I can’t see or hear them, but Billy says later that the general consensus in the room was that the music wasn’t coming from the person playing it. I will hear this time and again on this tour; people close their eyes when I play because that’s the only way it makes any sense. I’m still trying to figure out what I think about this.

After the session, we’re taken to a restaurant where we meet up with other members of the Kiwi gang and our breakfast is bought. Then we’re driven to a playground so Bodhi can play. “Are you sure you guys want to go to a playground?” we ask them. It can’t be standard rock star treatment.

They insist, of course. They also insist on buying us groceries at a health food store when they see us blanch at the prices. “We’ll just call it the rider…” Golly, these people are nice.

The whole gang comes to soundcheck, takes us out to dinner, hangs in the dressing room, laughing and joking the entire time. It’s like being in a big, happy family. One mystery solved: a member of the gang is actually a musician in the opening band. What the hell he’s doing driving us around for two days is beyond me, but I’m happy to at least know one person’s job.

Sunny Jim carries posters for the show in to the dressing room for me to sign: beautiful posters with a drawing of a beautiful woman on them. “Is that supposed to be me?” I ask him.

He narrows his eyes at me. “What would you like me to say?”

The show sells out which makes them even happier. They all stay and watch my whole set, they all help us pack up, they help us sell my homemade signed t-shirts, then they all bring us back to the hotel, gleefully. I’m going to miss this happy family.

Wellington – Before meeting our friend Paul McKessar from Ye Olde Muses Days for coffee, I check e-mail. Grant Lee Phillips has written me about the earthquake on the south island, asking if it’s my fault. Me and natural disasters are pretty tight, but I don’t see how I can be blamed for this.

At the airport on the way to Wellington, Bo is so jet-lagged, he’s practically high. He lounges on the suitcase. “Mom, where are your tunes?” he asks. I’ve never heard him use this word before. I don’t say tunes. “Did you forget to pack your tunes?”

“What?”

“Where are your tunes??”

“They’re in her head,” Billy says.

Bo looks up at Billy. “Did she forget to pack her head?”

“Her head? What are you talking about?”

Bo looks back down again and waves Billy off. “Aaah, go mate with a shark.”

Billy looks at me. “Did he just tell me to go fuck myself?”

“Well, not exactly…”

The Kiwi gang is still here, as it turns out. Some of them flew with us, we lost some (they’ve been replaced) but we are still members of a large and very happy family. We are still carted around gleefully, our luggage is carried, our needs met (including finding tropical fish tanks in the airport), the rain apologized for. We still aren’t sure why these people are doing this, but we’re enjoying it so much that we’ve stopped trying to figure it out.

We also see our friend Tanya here in the airport. Tanya lives in Wellington and is flying home after having been to the Auckland show. We met years ago when she was deejaying at a radio station here in New Zealand. She even came to a 50FootWave rehearsal while visiting LA. She appears to know the members of the gang (how small is this country, anyway?) and offers us her house and car for our day off tomorrow. We readily accept; nothing like a taste of home when you’re away, even if it’s someone else’s home.

I do radio in the afternoon, then soundcheck is late because a refrigerator in the club’s kitchen died in the night and now the whole place smells like sour milk. They are inordinately upset about this. I don’t know too many clubs that smell good; I’m not sure I would even have noticed, but club employees scrub floors with baking soda, light scented candles and spray air fresher into fans placed strategically around the room. They’re beside themselves; they can’t stop apologizing. “We’re so sorry, Ms. Hersh!”

“Please don’t call me that. I really don’t care how it smells in here.” I think of some of the places I’ve played. “It could be so much worse.” We stand in a small group, all of us taking a minute to imagine worse smells.

A club guy offers, “Once a mouse died in my bedroom and I didn’t find it for a month.”

The soundman talks through his t-shirt which is covering his nose and mouth. “My roommate threw up in the laundry hamper and didn’t tell anyone.”

The group appreciates this. Oooooh’s and oh man’s. I slip away before the conversation gets any grosser.

Another sell-out tonight makes for a happy gang. I’ve challenged myself with the set I’m playing: trying to play both bass lines and leads, Throwing Muses songs as well as solo songs I rarely play live. It’s far more interesting to me to be able to play catalogue material with my effects pedals rather than a straightforward acoustic set of only the new record, but it’s a little nerve-wracking, too. Especially in these big, packed rooms. Luckily, it seems that these audiences want to hear songs from all the tours that didn’t make it down here as well as new material. Like I said, these people are nice.

Walking from the hotel to the club in the rain right before my set, I step over puddles and garbage and make my way past dumpsters to a fire escape I need to climb in order to get into the dressing room without going through the crowd. It’s funny. Even in this beautiful country, I gotta walk through Meningitis Alley in order to get to work.

The sour milk smell is mostly gone anyway, obliterated by clouds of perfumey goodness. Everyone’s a little dizzy from the headiness of this mixture, but none the worse for it. This is an intensely happy crowd. After the set, I sign many, many CD’s, posters and oddly, t-shirts. “But I already signed your t-shirt,” I argue. “That was the whole point of the signed t-shirts.”

“Please?” they say, smiling.

What can I do? “Alright. Should I sign my name over my name or under it?”

Our day off is as cold, windy and rainy as our days on have been. Tanya picks us up as promised and takes us on a tour of Wellington which includes the ubiquitous (for us) beach and breakfast place which beats out the last breakfast place to become our new favorite. This one was right on the beach.

After a short walk in the damp sand and wild wind (Bodhi’s Melbourne Aquarium hat blew off his head and into the surf — Tanya raced in and retrieved it), we headed for a table by the window and drank endless cups of floral tea while she regaled us with stories of national health programs and shipping container architecture. She even surprised us with dark chocolate that Bodhi and I ate on the drive to her house (“Breakfast dessert!” Bodhi squealed).

Tanya lives on a hilltop which is so windy, satellite pictures of her house taken by insurance companies show an enormous red “X” on the roof, meaning, I suppose, that it will soon blow away. Today, the wind screams and buffets the tiny house, pelting it with rain. It’s not unlike hurricanes I’ve been in. She says her car door has blown off a few times up here. We love it. Bodhi and I race around her back yard, pretending to fly. He does appear to fly for a second which worries me, so I then carry him while we race around the yard.

Back in her cozy living room, Tanya takes out her crafts box and we throw ourselves into paste and sparkles (Bo makes pasty, sparkly sharks — I make pasty, sparkly Bodhi’s) while Billy calls the kids back home. They sound happy and healthy, if a little wistful that they aren’t in New Zealand with us today. We ask them what they want us to bring them.

“A koala,” they decide.

“No koalas in New Zealand,” says Billy. “Try again.”

“A kangaroo.”

“Nope.”

“Well, what do they have there?”

“Wind,” we answer.

“Okay, bring us some of that.”

In the morning, we wake long, long before dawn, say goodbye to the fish in the aquarium at our hotel and climb sleepily into a taxi which takes us to the aquarium at the airport. Bodhi says goodbye to these fish, too. “Where are we going?” he asks, taking my hand through the departure gate.

“Back to Australia.”

“Do they still have fish there?”

“As far as I know.”

“Phew,” he says.

(thanks to Tanya Fretz for the photo of our table at the Maranui Cafe)

Melbourne – Billy, Bodhi and I fly from Boston to L.A., touching down briefly in the state of California just as it catches fire. Our next flight will take us to Melbourne, Australia, quite possibly the best city on earth. Australia, aka “England, Outside” or “Clean California” does most things better than the rest of us. Just so you know. When you aren’t there, you should probably feel bad about it. We do.

Bodhi has packed his wet-suit, flippers, mask and snorkel, roughly 4 million marine biology books and about 5 million toy sharks. He brings only one pair of shoes. “I wasn’t planning on wearing shoes,” he says.

Mirko, our new tour manager, picks us up at the airport. Mirko is German, raised in Australia. He has an interesting accent: he talks like a pirate like all Australians, but his speech is clipped and precise. He claims the combination of German and Australian is perfect for tour managing, “Efficient and lazy!” he grins. I never do catch him being lazy, but he is calm. And efficient to the extent that everything somehow gets done without you seeing him do it. I now know I can relax on this tour.

Mirko brings us to our hotel (next door to “The Sisters of Divine Zeal”) and while he is checking us in, it begins to rain. I look down at Bodhi and grab his hand “Wanna go outside and smell the rain?” He nods and we run out the door.

Billy then carries our suitcase into the lobby and asks Mirko where we’ve gone. “They’ve gone outside to smell the rain,” he says, deadpan. Billy meets us in the courtyard, smiling.

“I think I like Mirko,” he says.

•••

This is a day off, so we go out looking for apples and snakes. The apples we find are expensive and disappointing; I keep thinking it’s fall because I left that season behind in New England. It is, of course, spring here in Upside Down Under, dewy and green. We switch to more seasonal produce.

Then the three of us look under stones, in tree branches and in people’s yards for snakes but, embarrassingly, the only snakes we find are in a pet shop. Of course, this pet shop is fantastic (Australians doing stuff better than us again). We talk to the reptile handler for a good twenty minutes, admiring a 7 foot python. There is also a nice selection of fish for Bodhi. “An epaulet shark!” he squeals. Then he races around the store, pointing into various fish tanks. “Neon tetras! Yellow tangs! A pipe fish! A long-nosed gar! Axolotls!”

Melbourne looks to us like someone laid New Orleans over Tucson. With maybe a little Reykjavik thrown in. It is wet and chilly. I pray that the fish don’t remind Bodhi of his wet-suit; it’s so cold. We walk through beautiful neighborhoods and parks until we’re tired enough to fall asleep.

•••

The next day is a show day, with press in the afternoon. The cab to the radio station doesn’t show up, though, and I am very late for a live session. The publicist finally drives me there herself and we listen to the station on the way. The dj keeps hyping my interview. “She’s so trusting,” I say. “I’m four hours late!”

When we race into the studio, she smiles, “Thank you so much for coming!” No mention of the time or the fact that she’s almost off the air. They’re so kind here — (Australia = better).

I am then late for sound check, which is nerve-wracking, as it’s the first one. I have brought no band mates with me this time, which means I must make all the sounds myself and they should be good ones. Of course, there are buzzes and power issues, the amp is a rental and seems excessively bright, one of the delay pedals is acting weird, song to song, my distortion pedal sounds completely different, the mike feeds, etc. Eventually, Mirko and Billy sort out the sound in the room and I sort out the sound for myself on stage. Then we go back to the hotel so I can sign t-shirts.

We couldn’t afford to bring printed shirts into this country to sell, so Billy bought blank t-shirts ahead of time and had Mirko pick them up and bring them to the hotel for me to write my name on. The names of the colors are entertaining: “Ocean” for men, “Merlot” for women. Interestingly, “Ocean” is not the color of the ocean and “Merlot” is not the color of Merlot. Also, it’s really hard to draw on a t-shirt. I try a Sharpie, a paint pen and an industrial marker. They all catch on the fabric and make me write my name retarded. Then I feel guilty about trying to sell this to someone and draw them a sad little picture: a guitar, a tree, a spiral.

“I’m really bad at this,” I tell Billy.

“Shut up and do it,” he offers helpfully.

I eventually get 36 shirts done: 18 men’s and 18 women’s. Then Billy writes numbers on them all. We’ll have a drawing at the end of the tour and the lucky winner will receive a guitar. Hopefully not a crappy one.

Tonight’s show is a blur, but I am reminded of why I’ve always loved to play here: people care. They are just enough out of the fray to be able to. They aren’t as relentlessly subjected to trendiness as Americans, they just want you to know your shit. Which I sort of do.

Bodhi sleeps on the couch throughout my set. Afterwards, I bundle him in a blanket I swiped from the airplane and carry him outside, where it’s still cool and rainy. It’s strange for Australia to be so cold. I like cold, I just have no sense memories of this place cold. Usually it feels like a carnival here. And Bodhi so wanted to snorkel in that ocean. I put him inside my coat to keep the rain off and take him back to bed.

•••

Hepburn Springs – Before heading out to the next show, we all feel so bad for the 4 year old marine biologist that we take him to the Melbourne Aquarium. It is a peak experience for Bodhi, who can name every single shark and ray there. I am mystified as to how he does this; they all look pretty similar to me. He says there are subtle variations in fin and tail shape and number of gills, eye placement, etc., that differentiate one shark from another. And the rays are different sizes with distinctive stingers. I don’t know. I try to keep up, but Billy’s the fish guy. I don’t even really like fish.

“If you want to know anything about reptiles, just ask,” I say to Bodhi. “Like sea kraits or something.” No response. “Marine iguanas…” Nothing. He’s busy staring at something so well camouflaged I can’t even see it. “Did you want to know anything about reptiles?”

“Not really,” Bodhi answers, touching the glass wall behind which a shark glides past. “Look, Dad, a white tipped reef shark!”

I wander off and buy a cup of tea with a pocketful of beautiful change (their money’s pretty, too). Eventually, Bodhi is cajoled into leaving (we have to buy him a Melbourne Aquarium baseball cap to get him out of there) and we drive to Hepburn Springs.

On the way, Mirko makes sure that we all wear seat belts because we’re driving out in the country, where it’s not unusual to “wang a roo” or two.

“Jesus, your roadkill must be spectacular,” says Billy.

“Yes. And interestingly, if you kill a kangaroo, it can kill you too,” says Mirko thoughtfully. From this point on, we no longer use the verb, to drive; driving is now known as “wangaroo-ing”.

Our hotel is next door to the club tonight. It is my favorite kind of hotel: 70’s + brown + a shower cap in the bathroom. There’s a party atmosphere here, too, as many people from the Melbourne show have come to tonight’s show as well and are staying in the same place. Our room is freezing. Like it’s haunted. In fact, Hepburn Springs is freezing. They light fires in fire pits on the sidewalk. It’s strange and very beautiful. This town reminds us of Santa Fe, but without the tourists. Really lovely.

While Billy and Mirko set up my equipment, Bodhi naps on a beautiful velvet chaise in the club and I do phone interviews staring out the window of my hotel room into the neighbors’ yard. It is full of cockatoos and a kind of wild parrot called a rosella. There are no kookaburras, ’cause they only show up in the morning(!). I can’t get over this. How can a place that feels so comfortable also be so exotic?

I make another 36 t-shirts and then skip dinner in order to sleep for a few hours before the show. This makes me a little fuzzy, but I figure it’s better than sleeping during my set. After the show, I mention my nap to a couple who brought CD’s for me to sign; I’m feeling a little slow and figure this is a good excuse.

“We know you took a nap before the show,” they answer, smiling. “We peeked in your window on our way to the club!”

•••

Walking back to the hotel, we hear what sounds like Flipper on the roof. An Australian friend says, “That could be a koala…” and walks up to investigate. I’m glad Bodhi is already asleep because he’s afraid of koalas (“They can be nasty!”) — sharks, yes, koalas, no. Billy and I are thrilled, however. We’re getting our phones ready to take pictures for the kids who aren’t with us when our friend says, “Naw, it’s just a possum.”

“Aw, crap,” says Billy. Then we see the possum. It is stunning. Like a huge masked bush baby, smooth and elegant with vivid markings. “That’s what you guys call a possum?!”

“Well, what do you call it?” asks our friend.

“Our possums are like…big, dumb rats!”

“Oh. Sorry, ” he says. Australians are better than us and so are their possums. I should’ve guessed.

•••

In the morning, we have an early flight to New Zealand, but we are told that we can’t leave town without first going to the Red Star Café. This is true, as it turns out. Each morning, we find a breakfast place so amazing that it becomes our new favorite restaurant and beats out the one before it. The Red Star is now our new favorite place. The wait-staff all appear to have been to the show (Hepburn Springs is a small town) and are extra nice to me. We leave healthier and happier and head out to the airport, Mirko and Billy still studying Hepburn Springs real estate listings.

Land of Oz indeed.