Shake it, Shake it, Sugaree

Part 1: Shake it

For all of my mockery of John Dwork, I envy him 7/13/84. In a story that he wrote for both Deadbase and The Tapers Compendium, he started out the night of 7/12/84 thousands of miles from San Francisco with no money, plane ticket, or concert ticket... but with the knowledge that "Dark Star" would be played on the 13th. He somehow managed to make it to that show. My goal in life is to somehow have something like that happen to me once. Mind you, I'd hate it at the time, but it would be worth it later.

It was in that spirit that I gave into the excitement when two Phunky Bitches decided to lure me down south for Trey tour. I didn't really want to go to it, but Jenn and Melanie let me know that I had tickets. I still wasn't sure about it, but then I had a dream that the Atlanta Trey show would really be the first post-hiatus show. I didn't believe it of course, but if it did happen, I would have sure felt stupid for blowing it off. One cheap plane ticket on Priceline later, and I was on my way.

As a way of getting myself excited for the show, I spent some time listening to the Jerry Garcia Band. While Trey is no Jerry, the idea is basically the same. My favorite member of a band plays songs he loves. It might not be spiritual, but it will be a fun evening.

So there I was, thinking about my flight, thinking about meeting some people I had only emailed, thinking about another road trip. I was getting excited. Two days before my trip, on Wednesday February 28th, at 10:55 AM, I was driving to look into getting a new cd player for my trip. Normally at that hour I would be heating up my lunch and sitting at my desk, but we had had a meeting that had run late. I was about to merge onto a highway (WA 520), when something went desperately wrong.

On the entrance ramp, my car began to shake violently back and forth. At first I thought I might have had a flat tire, but it seemed too violent for even that. I pulled over to the side of the road. The vibrations increased if anything. Looking at the trees outside my window, I didn't see a breeze. I walked around the car to look at the tires. Finally I noticed I was still shaking. It wasn't my car after all, it was the ground. For what seemed like 5 minutes, the ground shook back and forth.

This was not my first earthquake. Since my move to Seattle in 1995, I had been through four of them. The first two quakes were fun. Measuring in the low 4's, they were exciting like a carnival ride. You'd ride back and forth for a bit and then have an adrenaline rush for the rest of the day. There would be no damage and you'd have something to talk to everyone about. This earthquake was nothing like that at all.

Earthquakes are measured on a logarithmic scale. What that means is that for every increase of a number, energy increased goes up 10 fold. The fun quakes were around a 4; this quake was close to a 7. That's a 1000 times more powerful. Buildings lost bricks, cars were crushed, bridges were damaged, the Fenix Underground (a local club) was destroyed and - most importantly to me - the air traffic control tower at Sea Tac airport was destroyed. Three of the six supports broke and all of the windows were smashed. Fortunately, the rains held off long enough for the equipment to get salvaged, but the airport was closed for a day and was only at 50% capacity after it. Moreover, the spillover airport (Boeing Field) was completely useless. The soil "liquefied" underneath the runways, causing cracks a foot wide. No planes would be taking off from there.

After an earthquake all senses are heightened. Driving home that afternoon (I only went back to work long enough to send out emails letting people know that I was ok. The building was closed an hour later and didn't reopen until the following afternoon, a fact I discovered after I drove into work on Thursday.), scanning for damage, I saw things that my mind usually blanks out. When you do the same drive over and over again, you stop noticing it. With a more open mind, I noticed that there was an large building visible from Sand Point Wy that I had never seen before. I had driven by the sign for this building every day for 3 years, but it took an earthquake for me to notice it.

The damage to my apartment was minimal (books thrown off of shelves, a lamp broken, some new cracks in my ceiling), but the damage to my psyche was not so. I live on the 4th floor of my building. It naturally sways a bit in the wind, another fact that I ceased to notice. All Wednesday I was aware of the slightest sway. I had to go on regular walks just to get out of the building. I especially had to avoid the stairwells lest claustrophobia attack. The well meaning reports on the news explaining how we dodged a bullet - somewhat controversial spending on earthquake retrofitting and an unusually dry winter is all that stood between Seattle and dozens of deaths - just made things more scary. On some level things seemed normal in the wake of a quake of such magnitude [1]. I just wanted to pretend that nothing had really happened, but the news wouldn't let me. My trip was more than just a vacation and music now, it was necessary to my sanity to just go somewhere where people didn't understand how the Richter scale worked.

I arrived incredibly early to the airport on Friday just to be on the safe side. The temporary air traffic control tower [2] only caused us a 20 minute delay. We pulled up to the runway. We started to accelerate. I found a brand new exciting mantra. "No aftershocks, no aftershocks, no aftershocks, no aftershocks," I muttered over and over again. I didn't want to think about what could happen to a vehicle moving 100 miles an hour if the earth started shaking. Finally, the wheels lifted, and I could relax. "HA! You can not get me now earthquake for I am above you!"

Flying over Montana in late winter is an impressive sight. Looking out the window, you see snow that clearly has been there for months. Roads appear as narrow bands of black in the white. When the novelty of the view wore off, I started reading my stack of papers. I rarely feel like an adult - in fact my entire life is organized to avoid feeling that way as much as possible - but there are few things that are more adult than sitting in an airplane evaluating grant proposals as a director of a non profit foundation.

The charity work was kind of an afterthought for me, just something stemming out of a feeling that we shouldn't be profiting from Phish's music. Reading actual proposals made it more real. While some of them had goals that seemed improbable to me, others just were amazing. People will get a better sense of their culture, some songs that might otherwise die out will be preserved, all due to the inspiration of Phish on a bunch of freaks. It's another piece of evidence to my "Music is my religion" theory. One of the major societal roles of organized religion is to make us better human beings, to make us more in tune with our culture and more willing to help out others. The Mockingbird Foundation could be seen as a faith based program, only the faith is in the spiritual power of music; maybe we can get some money from Bush.

Part 2: You know in spite of all you gain

South Carolina, according to Jenn, was suffering from an incredible drought. So of course, as soon as I land in Atlanta, I encounter a huge rainstorm. I had a 3 hour drive to Columbia. The rain never let up. In fact, it rained the entire time I was in the state.

After the earthquake, I did manage to pick up a cd player. In addition to playing normal music cds, it also plays cds of mp3s. I made up 2 cds worth (named "Chyk" and "Doods" - they both had about 12 1/2 hours of music on them), and thus was able to drive through a southern rain storm the way you should do so: listening to the Cowboy Junkies. I arrived at Jenn's apartment at 3 AM. A few hours of sleep and I was ready to explore the town.

The Fire Hydrant Statue, Columbia, SC

The Township Auditorium is a tiny venue. I had balcony tickets for this show. However in this venue the "balcony" is separated from the floor by exactly one step. We had a lot of fun dramatically jumping from the balcony to the floor.

In addition to being small, someone forgot to explain to them how a venue is supposed to work. I went down to get some pre-show caffeine. I bought a coke and a big bag of M&M's and they charged me... $2.50? I thought about complaining to the management, but I figured I'd let them get away with not ripping me off this once.

While down there, I spied someone opening up windows to let people in. Ever since Pittsburgh 89, I have no patience for gate crashing, so I walked behind him, closing the windows he was opening. Now I do understand the motive behind doing this. When he came up to me to tell me to stop undoing his work, I expected to be swayed a bit. His rationale? "If those custies didn't buy $100 tickets, I wouldn't have to do this." I had never actually heard anyone use the word "custies" before. For those who are not up on the Phish lingo, "custies" (short for customers) is an attack on people who have the nerve to work between tours to have money to spend on the lot. It's one thing to romanticize the life of the road, but attacking those who choose a different path destroyed any sympathy I might have had towards his friends.

The lights went out. Trey walked on stage. They started "Push on Til the Day" I suddenly remembered something. I really love seeing Trey play his guitar. Trey can get a certain sound out of his guitar that makes everything else go away. He can play it all night and I'll be happy. While I enjoyed most of the show, "Sand" really made me miss Phish. Trey walked over to his keyboard, which in 2000 was the cue for Mike and Page to start jamming. Instead though, the horn section conferred for a minute, came up with a plan, played that for a few minutes, huddled again, came up with a new plan... A horn section just can't turn tight corners. Trey was spot on. This version would have been legendary if the rest of the band could have done something with the space.

Last month's column came at the same time as a similar thread about Tom Marshall appeared on rec.music.phish. Since I was already thinking about the topic, I jumped in. It ended up digressing into a long discussion about lyrics. Somehow I ended up discussing in great detail the quality of the lyrics to "Strawberry Fields Forever." Was it - while historically important - kind of silly on the face of it (my argument) or rather one of the best lyrics ever written? The debate about it went on for five or six rounds before we all got kind of bored of the whole thing. That sort of debate is a lot of fun, and I'm glad to have been in it, but I suspect I might have been set up for something.

Trey came out for the encore and explained how he was going to let us hear a song without all of the "junk" that it usually has. Stripped free of it, we would be able to appreciate its beauty more. I was expecting to hear something by Nirvana for some reason, but no, "Strawberry Fields Forever." After the song, he gave a little speech about how great of a song it is. Thanks a whole lot Trey. You want to destroy my credibility on rec.music.phish any more? Maybe you could announce that Tela really WAS a spy at the first post-hiatus show. It was a pretty amusing coincidence. Oh and Trey. Guess what? Like Tom Marshall, you're wrong. It's a dumb song!

South Carolina Republican HQ, 2 blocks from the venue

Part 3: One more thing for me

Saturday was a driving day. The rain had finally slowed down a bit (My cape was still soaked the next day from the walk back to the hotel.), and the sun even came out for a bit in Georgia. For the first time since the quake hit, I was totally at peace. Driving really is the most perfect form of relaxation ever invented. Your focus is narrowed down to the ever changing landscape and the music playing over the stereo, but you have to keep paying attention to it. You can't read or sleep or do anything other than observe and think. The best part of this trip came right outside of the 285 Beltway. I passed a car covered with bumper stickers. One had a picture of the Confederate Flag and said, "Heritage not Hate." Another said, "Stop all immigration!" I had a bit of trouble reconciling the two there.

The obligatory southern breakfast stop.

Due to the weirdness of my friends, I had an entire house to myself in East Point to hang out in. I spent some time fixing the Jambands Script Crisis. When that was done I turned on the tv. I wanted to see if the rain was going to end any time before I left. They weren't talking about rain then. They were talking about the blizzard to hit the northeast the next day... the day I would be flying out and changing planes in Pittsburgh. Ok, so in one week, I get to go through an earthquake, a tropical storm force downpour (Columbia experienced quite a bit of flooding), and now a blizzard. Natural Disaster Tour 2001. All I needed was a tornado to make it complete.

The Atlanta show was at the Fabulous Fox Theater. Putting "Fabulous" in your name increases the pressure on the venue. Would I really think it was fabulous? Well the FFT lived up to the pressure. I've never seen a venue that had throne like chairs everywhere, perfect to sit in and demand dancing girls for your entertainment. I've never seen a venue that caused people to tell each other that they had to check out the bathroom. I've never seen a venue where people sneak off of the floor to go to the balcony. The faux night sky effect reminded me of the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara. The inside of that venue looks like you're outside in a Mexican village. The Fabulous Fox looks more Eastern, but no less Fabulous.

The outside of the Fabulous Fox Theatre

It's a good thing that the Theatre was fabulous, because the music wasn't. While the next night looked spectacular, only the "Mozambique" and the "Sand" this show were above the mundane. I do have a request for Trey. Please keep "Sunday Morning" as a solo song only. I don't EVER want to hear you sing that "Fishman's gonna do it to you."

Mini tour was over. All that was left to do was to make it somehow back to Seattle. I got into Pittsburgh no problem. I killed three hours there, looking at the sun. As soon as it became time to leave though, the snow hit. By the time we were sitting on the de-icing pad - seeing a plane go through de-icing was a new experience for me - the conditions were getting close to being a white out. For the second time in a week, I had a white knuckle take off, praying for the weather gods to be nice to me. For the second time, they agreed. We got above the storm and headed westward.

Part 4:Aftermath

We didn't escape the earthquake as easily as I thought we had. In addition to the Fenix Underground closing, it came out in damage inspection that the OK Hotel was also closing. The OK Hotel earned its name in the same way that the Fabulous Fox Theatre did; it was just an ok place to see a show. However, they always had amazing lineups there. It's where Rockin' Teenage Combo played their first show. It's where Ekoostik Hookah played their first Seattle show. I've seen Skerik terrify me there and DJ Logic amaze me. The Seattle jambands scene lost one of its most important venues. Damn you ground!
What was left of the OK Hotel, 3/10/01
Note the yellow sign telling people that the building is unsafe and the white handwriten "CLOSED" sign below it.

[1] The earthquake was as strong as the San Francisco earthquake in 1989 and stronger than the Northridge quake.

[2] They were operating out of a trailer. This is not the kind of thing which increases confidence in the safety of the airport.

David Steinberg got his Masters Degree in mathematics from New Mexico State University in 1994. He first discovered the power of live music at the Capitol Centre in 1988 and never has been the same. His Phish stats website is at www.ihoz.com/PhishStats.html and he was the stats section editor for The Phish Companion.