Tour Diary: Hellpets - Fall 2000, Autumn in Portlandia...

September 27, 2000
Venue: Laurelthirst Public House
City: Portland, OR

For all the differences between Portland and Baton Rouge, there is an overriding sameness. Everyone is a nomad, for instance. The difference being, in Baton Rouge everyone was making plans to leave, whereas in Portland, everyone has just arrived. Such is the case with the most recent additions to the live band. Since neither Pinky nor Robbo could be convinced to drop their entire lives and head out west, we've hooked up with master drummer Chris Baker from Syracuse, New York. Additionally, supplying our pretty harmonies and keyboard leads is Audrey, formerly of Wisconsin or some such place. Audrey was exempted from this particular show since she had only practiced with us once by then.

The band's progress in Portland has moved along much like a biblical genealogy of who begat who. After many such steps, it led to the Countess and I being asked to play backup for a Robyn Hitchcock tribute night. I've never been much of a Feg (that is to say, a Robyn fan), but Lord knows I'm a sucker for a tribute night. There we met local folk/rock icon Colin Meloy of the band Decemberists. A couple of weeks later, talking to Colin after one of his solo performances, he became terribly impressed by some of the bands I used to be in (not that I had much to do with their greatness, necessarily), and offered us this opening slot. Suddenly we had an actual reason to practice!

Turns out that we were the first of three bands for the evening. Following us was the Sauvie Island Moon Rocket Factory and finally the Decemberists Redux (the Decemberist bassist and drummer had to bow out for reasons I never fully grasped). The first glimmer of hassle arrived via an email from Colin three days before the show. It seems that Nicole, the Laurelthirst manager, in an effort to maintain her lofty entertainment standards, required tapes of the opening bands for the evening. One would think that Colin's recommendation would be enough, but it seems not.

Shortly after we arrived at the club, a butch punk rock looking girl (who later turned out to be Nicole herself) came up to the stage to inform us that the Laurelthirst was a "low volume" club and proceeded to outline the three strike system of band ejection. Yikes! Does our reputation precede us? Well, no. Sauvie Island Moon Rocket Factory got the exact same lecture. Before long, the rock-deprived crowd became audibly restless, so we took the stage to prevent any riots (or, since this is Oregon, any non-violent demonstrations). I set a new record for getting through an entire 12 song set without breaking a string. As usual, the Countess attempted to auction off my underwear and, mind-bogglingly, received no takers. Apparently, we managed to achieve the highest allowable volume level. Go us! SIMRF put on a terrific set of quasi-psychedelic folk/punk numbers. Dave the guitarist was getting an interesting tone from his 12-string Danelectro. Later, he played the 11-string Dan and, finally, the 10-string. Talk about versatile! Finally, Colin, though continuously croaking out apologies for the raspiness of his voice, played and sang fantastically in his quasi-solo set. He's written some really pretty songs - a few that I wouldn't at all mind having in my music collection.

…And who should be in the audience but Chantelle, the booking agent for another of Portlandia's fine live music/bizarre art spaces, the Medicine Hat Gallery. Naturally, she was wowed by the collective efforts of tonight's lineup and immediately booked us and the SIMRF for a show at her club in three weeks.


October 17, 2000
Venue: Medicine Hat Gallery
City: Portland, OR

It was bound to happen eventually. Before only our second show, our band "Ross and the Hellpets" was listed in the Willamette Week as, simply, "Hellcats". I wonder at what point the communication broke down. Still, one can only imagine how they might have mangled some of my previous band names. I should count myself as lucky.

This was quite a special evening in Hellpet history. Not only was it Audrey's live debut, but it was the Countess' birthday. Yep, she's made it all the way to 23. Our Medicine Hat liaison, Chantelle, assured us that bringing a celebratory cake to the venue would be A-OK. However, when we called the venue to inquire about possible ice cream storage, the "kitchen manager" launched into a tirade regarding their status as a fully operating restaurant and how, in light of that fact, bringing food was highly improper, though he would grudgingly allow it. He went on to state the virtues of communication in food related matters. Well, we twice inquired about the bringing in of food. More tellingly, a member of his own staff gave us the original green light. Where exactly is the communication problem? Hellcats my ass!

The ravings of the power mad kitchen manager would have made more sense to me had there been a single person dining there. Upon our arrival at the club, this same fellow took over a full minute to ponder my driver's license before drawing the conclusion that I'm over 21. My petty gripes aside, the Medicine Hat is a fantastic place to play. The décor is a perfect mix of early 20th century elegance and early 21st century dank. The house sound guy, Justin Swanson, was fabulous in spite of the aging house equipment. He was very accommodating and instilled me with a sense of confidence that the mix was in good hands.

For the second show in a row, I broke zero strings. I'm beginning to suspect divine intervention. Our set was thoroughly rocking, though the Countess had to periodically catch me falling over and prop me back upright. Sauvie Island Moon Rocket Factory played second and sounded even better than they did at the Laurelthirst. I was especially impressed with the third band, Spacebreath. I didn't get to meet any of them in person, but they had a very interesting and diverse sound. We left after only about four Spacebreath songs because a) it was a weeknight and b) tbe Countess still had to open her birthday presents. Before leaving we were approached by a curly mustachioed figure known as Dr. Z. He invited us to play at his party this Saturday and not only do we not have to bring any equipment (a major plus in my book), but Spacebreath is also slated to perform. Yay!

Some notable highlights of the evening:
1) The smashing success of Audrey's powerhouse singing/ivory tickling debut.
2) The debut of the actual plush Hellpets/amplifier ornaments, including: Mr. Satan (the red teddy bear), Hellvester (Sylvester the cat in a devil suit), Cerberus (the red, though single-headed bulldog) and, of course, the triumphant return of Teddy Bear Satan (who clings to the hi-hat stand).
3) The delicious cake!
4) The three part harmony rendition of "Happy Birthday To You" sung to the Countess by the members of Sauvie Island Moon Rocket Factory.
5) Our friend Natalie's fabulously appropriate birthday gift to the Countess, Elaine Pagel's The Origin of Satan.


October 21, 2000
SPACE PARTY 2000
City: Portland, OR

A lovely time was had by all. The Countess and I couldn't find the place initially, but luckily we spotted Dr. Z himself crossing the street in front of us. He was most helpful. The Bolsheviks played a hilarious set consisting mostly of covers. My personal favorite was their rendition of "Stranglehold" by Ted Nugent. We followed with an abbreviated set of tight, punchy numbers. We were originally slated to go on before the Bolsheviks and I thought that I had the timing down perfectly. The plan was that the Countess and I would finish setting up at the exact moment that Chris and Audrey arrived. Well, after stalling momentarily we had to pull our stuff off to the side. The Hellpets arrived about two minutes later.

The next act was another four piece with a keyboard going under the curious moniker of So Sadly Fucked. Excellent stuff. They never lived up to their name, even when the main basement circuit fuse blew out four songs into their set.

Dr. Z's house (located conveniently next door to a Trader Joe's grocery store as it turned out) was a fine venue for such an event. When the partying became too intense, one could retire to the well kept and (relatively) serene confines of the main floor. Meanwhile the mayhem and wanton consumption of alcohol could continue unabated in the basement.

I was rather impressed with how well the basement insulated sound. Despite the raucousness of the bands, outside the house was still well within city sound ordinance. Watch your head around that ductwork though.


October 28, 2000
Chris & Jessica's 5th Annual Halloween Bash
City: Portland, OR

Fake guest review by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times:

Ross and the Hellpets performance in the subterranean confines of Chris and Jessica's 5th annual Halloween Bash was nothing short of riveting. Carefully constructed songs, banter and choreography gave way to fabulous demonstrations of musical and dramatic ability by the assembled Hellpets involved. The eternal biblical struggle, so masterfully illustrated by the manic Pentecostal Minister (Beach) and the fiery beast of the underworld (Countess), took on a new dimension of ambiguity as the party patrons were forced to reconsider their notions of good and evil. Meanwhile, the drum pounding visage of the blind man leading himself (Baker) virtually redefined the very notion of blindness in both physical and spiritual contexts. At that same moment, an additional demonic presence (Grettie) was manifesting itself to stage left, threatening to upset the fragile balance of power between heaven and hell. Only Charlton Heston could have made this creepier. **** 1/2










November 4, 2000
Venue: The Rabbit Hole/Mad Hatter's Lounge
City: Portland, OR

Wow! It's not too often that a booking agent makes first contact with me about putting on a show at their venue. I think the last time was in the summer of 1997 when Dave, the owner of Chelsea's in Baton Rouge, called me up about playing Abitafest. It turns out that the Rabbit Hole and the Laurelthirst share a booking office, which is incredibly convenient for bands such as ourselves. Having made all the arrangements by telephone, I never even met Jessica, the Rabbit Hole booking agent.

We played after a fantastic and pretty acoustic set by the local songster Ben Gilde (pronounced like "Gilda", as I horrendously misspelled it on the flyer). Lucky for us, he didn't mind playing amid the sea of cables and stacks of half assembled equipment that we dumped onto the stage immediately before his set. It took Ben and I about 45 minutes (okay, I'm exaggerating) to eliminate the bass feedback coming from his guitar, but he wound up sounding great in the end.

So there we were on stage, ready to start rocking out, when I hit the power button on my Alamo Fury amp and nothing happened. After determining that the electricity wasn't simply being diverted away by the Futura Light and that all other elementary trouble-shooting avenues had been explored, I reluctantly plugged my guitar into the P.A. $89.95 just won't get you a reliable 35-year-old tube amp anymore, I guess. It probably doesn't help that the amp's power button has been so battered in transit lately that I have to use a blunt object to operate it.

After "solving" the amp problem, we played our usual set, plus three Ross oldies that Chris and Audrey had never played publicly (and only practiced once earlier in the week). Afterward, I filled up some time with a solo bass set that included two obscure songs of mine, two songs by Jeff Mangum (his songs always creep into my solo sets for some reason) and a Tall Dwarfs song. The response was healthily enthusiastic, I thought. Even though we only had about 25 audience members (good thing that the Rabbit Hole is so small).

In general, it's nice to have shows like these where nothing especially traumatic, dangerous or emotionally scarring happens (aside from the amp situation, of course). The downside is, they make for really dull tour diaries. In the interest of intrigue and high drama, I'll now make up some stuff: Um…after bailing Chris Baker out of jail on a trumped up indecent exposure charge, a moshing audience member was thrown through a plate glass window by a ceiling fan. I woke up the next morning covered in saltwater taffy on the floor of a Chinese bakery.