Kelly Does Cali 2005

We’re baaaaack!

The Kelly Affair hit the road from July 23 to July 31, flying into LA, renting a minivan, and driving north, playing shows on the way. We cannot possibly describe the awesomeness of this experience, and we don’t have the space here to do it justice, so instead, here’s a brief recap of some of the highlights:

Within exactly two hours of landing in Los Angeles, the Kellys already consumed their first In-N-Out burgers (diagnosis: delicious!) and hit the beach, with awesome roadie Doc in tow. That evening, we hit a barbecue, and after some scrambling to secure the instruments that Rania and drummer Amanda were borrowing, the night ended with the four of us floating in our friend Andy’s swimming pool. He lives in one of those Melrose Place-style apartment complexes, where the apartments face the courtyard, which has a pool (minus the psycho neighbors – as far as we know).

It’s a good thing we relaxed that day, ‘cause the next day was hair-raising. We hit atrocious traffic and also had to do an emergency amp repair (an ampectomy?), so we got to the Anarchy Library about a half hour after we were supposed to go onstage. Being as they have the word “anarchy” in their name, they weren’t too bent out of shape about it and let us play anyway. But it was an incredibly stressful two-hour ordeal. We played an abbreviated, problem-filled set but decided to take our frustration out on our instruments. Apparently that was a good idea, ‘cause we were told as we were leaving the stage that it rocked.

A note about the Anarchy Library: it’s a biker bar. In a strip mall!!! Guitarist Amanda saw the strip mall’s exterior and proclaimed, “We’re playing at Hot Topic!” It must be said that the folks who work there were super friendly, as were the The Slingshots, who were the only band we had time to stick around for.

Then we packed up the van (named “Bessie the Blue Dragon,” it was tricked out mommy-style, with a DVD player in the back and a tape deck/cd player in front) and headed to Silver Lake for our show that night at Zen Sushi. That’s right – a biker bar and a sushi restaurant in the same day. The venue was cool, and we played what ended up being the best-matched show on our tour (more on that later).

The next morning, we packed up Bessie again and drove up to San Francisco, but not before stocking up on grub at Trader Joe’s. Yuppie food and mommy vans – how very rock n’ roll! That night, we played a show at a venue in the Mission District called Hush Hush, which turned out to be a pretty damned accurate name. During sound check, they told us that we needed to play reeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllly quietly, because they’d been getting a ton of noise complaints. This is not easy for a rock band to do, particularly one with a drummer. After some serious MacGyvering of the drum kit (think blankets and strategically placed cocktail napkins), The Kelly Affair: Barely Plugged took the stage. It actually sounded great, though drummer Amanda had a really hard time suppressing the urge to whack the crap out of her drums, as is her custom. Hence, she played the show with a facial expression that is probably most often associated with constipation.

But the guy who booked us was incredibly nice, and at one point actually blurted out between songs, “This is my happening and it’s freakin’ me out!” Biiiiig bonus points to the man who not only understands where we got our band name, but riffs on it.

Following the show, there was a short dance party, so we hit the floor and taught the local hipsters some new moves. We met a lot of nice and cool new people at that show, and we also met a crazy dude who tried to hitch a ride up to Eugene, Oregon with us. Because we are smart ladies who are not interested in getting knifed, we said no. Then we got to spend a day goofing off in San Francisco. After a long, delicious brunch with our friend Kandle, the Kellys made another beach run (Ocean beach, which was wicked cold). Rania and Doc learned to ride a motorcycle (our friend and host Basem taught them how), while the Amandas did… less productive stuff.

After stuffing our faces that night with mission burritos, we met our pal Bari for drinks before calling it a night. After a fairly restless night of sleep (in which all three Kellys slept on one air mattress, which actually deflated over the course of the night), we piled in the van (which by this point was really starting to feel like our summer home) and drove to Eugene, Oregon. We saw some truly gorgeous nature-y stuff on the drive up, as well as a giant nuclear reactor.

Our friend Molly, who lives in an awesome log cabin, hosted a barbecue, and we played with her boyfriend Jake’s band, Armored Frog, at Luckey’s. The show was fun, even though we were completely spent after. (Funny how that works – spending all day in a car, then loading a bunch of heavy shit into a club, then going on at midnight to play a quarter hour of rock n’ roll actually does make you sort of tired, we learned.)

After that, the final shows of our first West Coast tour: Seattle. Oh, Seattle. Our first show was at a bar called the Blue Moon. This place is something of a local institution, having hosted acts like Bob Dylan and TK back in its heyday. Today, it makes CBGBs look like the Ritz. Guitarist Amanda called it “a homeless shelter that serves beer,” which wasn’t too far off the mark. We shared the stage with some rockin’ suburban moms called the Kegels, and we went on before another act called Universal Measure. During the last band’s set, some middle-aged woman gets up and lights a couple of candles and sets them onstage. She then proceeds to do a frenzied, disturbing interpretive dance. Since the band’s music was kind of nu-metal and didn’t really seem to lend itself to interpretive dancing, this was a pretty fucked up spectacle.

We crashed at a nearby hotel (sleep! In a real bed! With clean sheets and a nearby shower!), then spent the next day walking around the waterfront and eating Pixie Sticks. We then went to the Catwalk Club, site of our final gig and conveniently located next to a crack den, and waited around for a half hour by the piss-smelling entrance to load in our gear. This place could not find its ass with both hands. They changed our set times about four times, but even worse, they matched us up with some ass-holish band of thrash metal retards who shall go unmentioned, because they sucked, and they REALLY pissed us off. (We also played with a very nice local band called Endless Grey, who let us borrow their gear and were hospitable and cool.) The thrash metal retards essentially got our set time cut in half, which was kind of a shitty note to end on, but we didn’t let it get us down too much.

We went out and partied with our pal Vanessa, who put us up that night, and traveled to Portland the next day for some well-deserved relaxing and hangin’ out with guitarist Amanda's buddy Olivia. So that’s it. Our first tour. You would think, after reading this, we’d be reluctant to ever do this again, but you’d be wrong. We can’t wait. Keep your eyes peeled for Midwest college tour dates this fall.