This is the second from Venice Is Sinking‘s Summer 2009 tour diary, by VIS member and Drive A Faster Car contributing writer, Lucas Jensen. Let us know what you think of these and if you’d like to see more tour diaries in the future! — Tessa, DaFC Editor-In-Chief

So our van was originally a Baptist van (Deep Springs Baptist Church, Peachland, NC), and it’s not very comfortable. That’s understating it. There is a not a single comfortable aspect to this van. The seats lack headrests and armrests. The Baptists must have considered them too extravagant or something and decided to go without. You get whiplash just from sitting down. The upholstery is stickier than flypaper adhesive and the seat belts are constrictive little straight jackets.

Combine this with the fact that we didn’t sleep at all, except for “van sleep” (equivalent to about 1/5 the potency of actual sleep), and it was a most unpleasant trip, though the natural beauty of Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, and Pennsylvania did make up for it. Sorta. We did eat at a really sweet Taco Bell that gave us some free mints. It’s the little things. Driving all night always seems like a good idea when proposed, but then, right before sunset, as jacked up big-riggers swerve around your van, you just want to cry.

After numerous shapeless hours, we arrived in Greenpoint in Brooklyn punchy and greasy as hell. We are a cleanly, showering band, so this doesn’t work for us. We are wimps. It’s no wonder we don’t tour that much. My friends Alex and Dave put us up, and they live in a very Polish neighborhood, wherein we received many surly looks and surlier restaurant service. Somebody spat at Karolyn when she went jogging! The Polish bakery next door picked us up, briefly, but I felt like we were sleepwalking as we drove into The City for the show at Fontana’s.

The club, on Eldridge Street, is squished between the beginnings of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, and it seems a little upscale for the block. It doubles as a karaoke/trivia bar. The club was in a small room downstairs, load-in was alright, parking was problematic as per usual, and the sound was pretty good (another nice surprise), but the opening band… well, wow. This is where being a lesser-known indie band can get kind of demoralizing. Because we don’t have a booking agent, we pretty much have to jump at any show we’re given, and Fontana’s offered us one on a Thursday night. We don’t really go out on many package tour kinds of things, so we play with whom we’ve been given. I don’t wanna talk trash about another band, but let’s just say that the opening band was the exact opposite of us in every single way.

There was a decent crowd there for them, including many women who seemed into it. I found this pretty shocking considering the lead singer, at one point (and quite seriously), dedicated the next song to “all the pussy in the house,” (I am quoting here… please don’t hold this against me!), further noting that the fellas in the band were equal opportunity connoisseurs: redheads, blonds, brunettes? They like it all! It was the kind of modern funk rock that doesn’t understand that great funk is often about restraint and not overplaying. My God, what hath the Red Hot Chili Peppers wrought? The singer had two giant black bras tied to the mic stand and managed to get shirtless during their last number, “Sex Junkie”. To be fair, dude was pretty ripped. Along the way, they raped the legacies of James Brown, Otis Redding, and Pink Floyd. Oh yeah, they’re from LA. Make of that what you will. I didn’t know what to say to them afterward. I couldn’t even muster the requisite “good show.” Karolyn told the shirtless guy that she “liked his act.” Not a mincer of words, that one!

So, we got up there to play, and the previous band’s audience bugged the heck out of there at the site of Karolyn’s viola and James’ trumpet. I think there were… six people there? Seven counting the bartender? Yep. And Jeremy’s bass pooped out on the first few songs. Turned out it was just a pedal battery problem, but what a way to get a show started! We had to cut two songs, and the attendance only increased when the next band I think they were called the Revellers… talented folks) showed up. Listen, we’ve played plenty of shows to nobody, but the pain of this one had a particular acuity given we’d driven all night and hoped that in a city of millions we’d have more than 3 paid! Our only recourse was to drive back to Brooklyn and get drunk. Two of us even failed at that! It was that kind of day.