I know this is supposed to be a ‘road diary’ and we are not quite on the road yet this Monday - more sort of
at the side of the grassy verge waiting for our ride to come along with a comfy spare seat and a flask of coffee for the journey tomorrow. First stop, Pennsylvania - the depths thereof - and two cities almost side-by-side, York and Harrisburg who will be regaled by ourselves and Tower Of Power as a Halloween treat. Unless, of course, they have some trick up their sleeves that we don’t yet know about, in which case we’ll better be prepared to counter with some surprise of our own. I would personally prefer subtle means for starters - perhaps replace the M&Ms in their dressing room with my own Halloween candy recipe of vile originality - Brussel Sprouts dipped in Swiss chocolate. This is a fiendishly cunning concoction guaranteed to keep children away from your door forever (or get your mailbox tipped & sprayed next time around). Perhaps sackloads of these for the Taliban could be a little side diversion during this time of military uncertainty, and it would certainly give US a bit of a laugh in the interim while we decide exactly who we want to replace them with at some time in the future....perhaps Pat Robertson & Jerry Falwell leading a band of religious nutters from the Bible Belt wearing country-club golfbag towels on their heads. Discuss.
We are then headed for Rochester, N.Y. for our first visit there in quite a few years, at the Water Street Music Hall on Thursday. I seem to recall that’s the old brick building down in that funny little corner of warehouse buildings, restaurants etc. where a couple of on/offramps converge and diverge, making it difficult for anyone who doesn’t belong to the city to get the right turning and not have to re-circumnavigate the ring road to find it on the second pass. I remember a couple of great concerts there in the past, and always a really good atmosphere in the room. Hope to see all you Rochester funketeers there this week for your tri-annual dose of medicine. Then down the Thruway a piece, for Friday night at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona (again with T.O.P.) where Rocco Prestia and I had threatened each other with a game of golf on the day. It was 86 degrees in Fresno last month when we discussed it, never thinking ahead to the fact it’ll probably be 36 degrees by the time we all get there on Friday, so once more the interdenominational Bassists’ Classic will have to be put on hold for another season. Unless, of course, we can actually get to have them tour Scotland with us, where there would be no shortage of opportunities for such recreational comedy.
Finally, we will truck on down into The City for Saturday’s event at BB KING’S, where, as you know already, we are making our personal contribution to the disaster fund by donating the proceeds of the night to the Special Ops. Fire Company on Roosevelt Island, who took a huge hit on the 11th September, and who are Onnie’s neighbourhood firehouse. As I mentioned in the last bulletin, Brian Dunne’s family is also of the firefighting persuasion, and will be in attendance en masse to see business done, and lend moral support. Don’t forget,
Your AWB Needs YOU!! See you there.
After that we have finally some space and time to really get into the business of writing and/or scaring up material for a) the new CD, b) some new stage clothes, c) new curtains for the back lounge of the bus, and d) a much-needed bunch of stuff for this ailing page, I hear you say. I can say with certainty, however, that the DVD is to be released at the end of March, entitled "Tonight - Average White Band Live" and on the Image video label. Hopefully we can coincide our audio contribution with that time scale in order to give y’all the biggest bang for your Buick. Meanwhile, I’m off to look out my fur truss and thermal chassis for this week’s foray into the sub-Arctic wastes of the Northeast, so please do your level best to attend one of the concerts this week since a full room is a warm room, and I, for one, can’t play worth a toss when my hands are cold, and Fred’s sax sounds like a kid with a kazoo on a crowded night-flight. Just ‘peachy’. On that bent note, I will leave you to imagine other tortures we could inflict on all non-believers. Funk the lot of them, I say.
A.G.
