No Yellow Roses Anywhere

Amarillo, TX....Amarillo means yellow en espanol. The only yellow colored thing I saw here was a puddle of piss emptied out of a stumblebum next to the taqueria we stopped at. This place makes Detroit look like Paris in the Spring.

We were booked at a BYOB death metal club in the middle of the wasteland section of Amarillo at a place called the War Legion Underground. We were wrongly booked. neither the outside or the inside of this place was anywhere near finished, but I guess fans of Cattle Decapitation and Cannibal Corpse don't really care.They keep the lights low and the patrons can't really see through all of that hair. The stage was held together by 3 or 4 drywall screws and looked like an after school project for shop class refugees. The drum riser was very metal...being a foot above the stage so most drummers heads can pleasantly graze the ceiling while they are thrashing around. How was this gonna hold 12 guys!!??

Alex decided to form a jam room situation with everyone facing each other during our set. The singers remained on the stage and Alex, Doz and Bryn stood on a curve in front of us on the dance floor...err, pit. The idea was that the 15 people who were there could be surrounded by us and rock out as one tight little unit. It worked and we had a blast wailing away and flailing around.

The staff was friendly, though and seemed bummed at the low turnout. But we ended up selling some merch and signing autographs for the fine folk who actually left their homes last night.

The precursor to this interesting evening was being forced to drive through a sketchy section of the Texas panhandle stamped with a severe threat of a tornado touching down 15 men strong and towing a trailer. I had never seen skies like that..grey talons of dripping clouds just waiting to funnel up and scoop us off of the highway and toss us towards the stratosphere. I pictured being launched into the swell of sky with stray cattle and a tractor or two swirling into the tendrils with us, and ended up calling my wife to check the internet for updates...err, say goodbye. But we made it through and at the next rest stop, I checked my drawers for any pee pee.

Today...we move west towards Albuquerque where a great portion of the meth labs and Krylon huffing Indians of the United States are located. Should be fun....rock on , we must.