Ricki & Colin's Strange Tales from the Cheap Trick Merch Table

This piece originally ran back in October of 2014, and Pencilstorm management is reprinting it now to encourage all of our readers to travel to the Ohio State Fair this Saturday, August 4th, to see the mighty Cheap Trick open for Styx.  (And let's face facts, it's gonna be an early night for ya, NOBODY in their right frickin' rock & roll minds would stay for Styx's entire set.)

 

The Watershed show opening for Cheap Trick at the House Of Blues in Myrtle Beach, S.C. last week went great, there'll be various blogs about different aspects of the trip over the next coupla weeks, here's the first installment. 

Tale # 1

Ricki C. - Classic merch moment: At a bar adjacent to the Myrtle Beach House of Blues where we're all kicking back after the show, Watershed drummer Dave Masica walks up to me with a "Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock & Hall of Fame" t-shirt draped over his shoulder.  He pulls it off, hands it to me and says, "That guy over there wants to buy this, but I didn't know what to tell him, or how much they cost.  I told him to talk to you."

"Where did you get this?" I ask Dave.  (We had WICTITR&RHOF t's at the show, but weren't selling them.  We brought them for Colin to throw out into the audience as prizes during a quiz in the middle of set-ender "The Best Is Yet To Come.")  "I found it on the floor of the dressing room," Dave answers.  I shrug my shoulders, walk over to the guy and charge him 20 bucks for the shirt we normally sell for $15.  (I had come up $10 short on my merch totals that night according to Watershed road manager extraordinaire Michael "Biggie" McDermott, and figured this was my best shot at turning that deficit into a surplus.)  (By the way, I probably came up short because I left Colin in charge of the merch table while Biggie & I loaded out the gear after Watershed's set and Colin gave stuff away.)

Later that night, at yet another bar, Colin asks me if I picked up his WICTITR&RHOF shirt from the dressing room and I realize that I have unwittingly sold the sweaty, crummy t-shirt Colin had been wearing most of that day to some unsuspecting Rick Nielsen fan, who thought he was getting high-quality Cheap Trick merch.  Ooops.  Open message to random drunk Myrtle Beach guy: I'll make it up to you someday down the road.  

Tale # 2

Colin G. - So after we finished our set opening for Cheap Trick, I fight my way through the crowd to head out by the merch table because sometimes it helps to sell stuff if a band member is there bullshitting.  Ricki C. uses this opportunity to jam me there alone while making sure Biggie didn't need help backstage. I suspect he was going to the dressing room to make a peanut butter sandwich, but I can't prove it.

Anyway, it's kinda slow because people are waiting for Trick to come on, but one middle-aged woman is slowing picking up Watershed CDs and very thoroughly looking them over. Eventually she looks up at me and asks, "Which one has all the songs I know on it?"

"Come again?" I reply.

"Which one of these CDs has the songs I know on it?"

"Uh…."

This was a tricky question. See, with a band of our stature people usually know all of our songs or, as is much more likely, none of our songs. Thankfully, she could see I was struggling and added, "What's that one…..'I Want You to Want Me.'"

"Oh, that is a Cheap Trick song. That CD you are holding says Watershed on it. See right there? (I pointed to the big word Watershed on the front cover.) That means it's a Watershed CD, not a Cheap Trick CD."

"So you aren't in Cheap Trick?"

"No, I'm in Watershed" 

Never mind I had just come off stage and was still wearing my Watershed Hitless Wonder blue jumpsuit 

"Do you have any Cheap Trick CDs to sell?"

"No ma'am."

"Ok, goodbye."

Tale #3

Colin G. - So now I am standing at the merch table with Ricki,  Dave and Joe after Cheap Trick is done and it is mayhem. People are stacked three deep buying CDs, books, T-shirts, etc. and being good rock soldiers we are chatting with folks, offering to sign stuff and all that.

A woman leans forward and says loudly above the din of post show chaos, "Do you know who Richard Petty is?"

"Excuse me?" I said, not quite sure I was hearing her right.

"I said, DO YOU KNOW WHO RICHARD PETTY IS???" This time she said it quite loudly and seemed a little upset.

"Uh, like Richard Petty the race car driver?" was my unsure reply, spoken like a clueless Yankee.

"Yes, that one. You know, he told his sons that if they ever wanted to be famous they needed to write their names legibly so people can read them."

"You want me to sign my name more like Richard Petty's sons?"

"You already signed but I can barely read it. And you never even asked my name."

I mounted a weak defense: "Well, at least we are out here signing and being friendly. Doesn't that count for something? Besides, see that guy right there, he is an author and is really smart, I bet he will ask your name."

"Well, if you want to be famous and get on TV you better learn to write your autograph better, like Richard Petty's kids do."

Right then Joe O. leaned in and asked who he should sign this book to.

"Ha! Told you he would ask," I said, triumphant at the end.

 

Learn more about Ricki and Colin and the rest of the Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here.

Live Taping of Rock & Roll Book Club, Gramercy Books, Tuesday June 19th: Thomas O'Keefe & Joe Oestreich's "Waiting To Derail" - by Ricki C.

Shy, socially-backward, book-reading child that I was, libraries were my first love, bookstores were my second.  (True story: My senior year of high school in the prehistoric ages of 1970, a few of us cut school and went up to the river to hang out.  My best friend Dave Blackburn & I were being the lives of the party and a girl named Christine George – who I had gone though 12 years of Catholic education with, at St. Aloysius and Bishop Ready – looked at me being a rock & roll clown, shook her head and said, “I can’t believe you’re the same person I went to grade school with.  In third grade we were all absolutely SURE you were mentally retarded, but you still got straight A’s.  We all thought the nuns just felt sorry for you.”)    

My current favorite indie bookstore in Columbus (Bexley, to be precise) is Gramercy Books at 2424 E. Main Street, right across from the Bexley Public Library (how perfect).  At 7 pm on Tuesday evening, June 19th, Gramercy will host a live taping of the Rock & Roll Book Club, presented by Mark Danzter, Patrick Buzzard, Chuck Johnson & Ryan Smith.

The subject of the podcast is the long-awaited Thomas O'Keefe book Waiting To Derail: Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown, Alt-Country’s Brilliant Wreck (co-written with Joe Oestreich).  Joe – as many Pencilstorm readers are certainly aware – is the bass player & co-lead singer of Watershed: Columbus, Ohio’s power-pop dynamo.  (Oestreich will be appearing at Gramercy Books for an author talk on July 13th.)

My previous experience with a live presentation of the Rock & Roll Book Club was an event at the Upper Arlington Public Library back in 2015, but next week will be the first time Dantzer, Buzzard & Co. will record their podcast LIVE for re-broadcast on July 2nd.  (The book being covered in 2015 was Joe's Watershed memoir Hitless Wonder, and Watershed's other co-founder/co-lead singer/guitarist - and Pencilstorm mainstay - Colin Gawel played a live set that evening.  Those Watershed boys are so literary.)  

There will be an ample supply of Waiting To Derail on sale at the store during the Rock & Roll Book Club taping, so support a local business, buy your copy at Gramercy Books, and maybe skip Amazon for once, okay?   

It's mid-June, not-quite-summer, we're done with rain, rain, rain, so get yourself over to Gramercy in Bexley on Tuesday for some books and rock & roll; it's easily my favorite combo, and I wish it could/would be yours.  - Ricki C. June 16th, 2018.

 

 

Original Drummer Herb Schupp Playing w/ Watershed @ Ace of Cups. Advance Tickets Online Now!

Hey folks, Watershed is playing their only Columbus show of 2015 on Saturday, August 15th at Ace of Cups. Original Watershed drummer Herb Schupp will be behind the skins, so you old school fans of Hitless Wonder don't want to miss this.  AND... all-around rock 'n' roll bad-ass John Speck (The Generals, Hoarse, The Fags, Skeemin' No Goods) is opening the show. 

Get your pre sale tickets here. 18 and up. Only $10. It might sell out. Seriously playing with fire if you don't get tickets ASAP. 

Click Here For Advance Tickets for Watershed live @ Ace of Cups Saturday August 15th. Just 10 bucks. 8 pm.

I Just Saw The Replacements Play in Denver. Actually,.. by Colin G.

I just saw The Replacements play in Denver.   Actually, that isn't exactly true. I saw Tommy Stinson and Paul Westerberg play 23 Replacements songs with two other dudes in a dusty hole 80 miles east of Denver. And it was great.

Q: "Wait just a second, I read Hitless Wonder and I'm wondering how you and Mike "Biggie" McDermott ending up seeing this show in Denver when you could have caught it in Chicago the week before? Did you guys hit the Powerball or did Biggie just prefer driving the van an extra 1200 miles for the hell of it?"

Speaking for myself, it doesn't take an accountant to figure:  coffee sold + music royalties - real life expenses = way less $ than it takes to fly me to Denver for a rock show. But that is exactly what happened.

As Mats' guitarist Slim Dunlap use to preach to me at a very impressionable age, "God* takes care of his writers and musicians. He may not get you a new car, but he gives you little gifts every once in awhile to let you know that he appreciates you. The key is to notice those gifts and not get hung up on what everybody else is getting. If a pile of cash is important to you, work at a bank. Songwriters get different gifts."

So about a month before this show, I get a call out of nowhere from a longtime Watershed friend who happens to live in the Denver area that I haven't heard from for a  while. "Hey, you and Biggie need to get your asses out here to see the Replacements show. It wouldn't be the same without you. It's on me. I got your tickets and just booked your flight. See you there." (click)

Now that is an offer you can't refuse. And a pretty obvious gift from whomever doles out that sort of thing.  

Speaking of Slim, sadly, his illness is also the reason Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson ended up wearing pink skirts performing in a dust bowl for Biggie and myself. Slim had a serious stroke awhile back and a number of musicians released some music to help raise money for his health expenses. (Unfortunately, health care is not a gift typically given to musicians.) Anyway, Paul and Tommy reunited to release a single as The Replacements and I can only assume had enough fun to want to play a couple of gigs in the meantime. They paired up with Paul's original solo band compadres David Minehan (The Neighborhoods) on guitar and Josh Freese (everybody!) on drums to round out the line-up. The show in "Denver" was the third and final of a three show run as part of Riotfest. The previous two shows were in Chicago and Toronto.

The reason I write "Denver" is because although the flyers said "Denver" the actual show was 80 miles east of Denver at May Farms, which, to the naked eye, looked to be a dirt farm.  It would be like advertising a show in Columbus while setting up the stage in Tipp City. 

I'll write another post about the rest of the bands at the festival soon, but let's stick to The 'Mats for now. I was curious about the crowd make-up for the event, because even as an over-the-hill rocker myself, I would be on the young side for a typical Replacements fan. I had never even heard of them until Joe Oestreich showed up at the Watershed house on 65 E. Patterson with a copy of "Don't Tell A Soul" and said, "Somebody said we should check this new band out". We listened, weren't impressed, and if I recall correctly even went so far as to sell the record back. (Probably got a good trade on the latest Dokken or something.) 

But then two things happened that changed my life forever. I turned twenty-one, so I could now drink beer whenever I wanted and I purchased a used copy of The Replacements "Pleased to Meet Me" on cassette tape. The opening of "I.O.U." tore open my sheltered suburban soul and suddenly a world appeared where I could hang out at bars in the afternoon if I felt like it. Like Slim once said, "When Tom Petty stands behind a microphone everybody feels safe. When Paul Westerberg stands behind a mic, it feels dangerous." 

The Replacements gave me the guts to push the envelope a little bit. Not to the point of real trouble, but just enough to quit being such a pussy. You know, if you happen to stay up for a few days and make out with a stranger every once in awhile, the world isn't going to end. Embrace a little danger. And Paul's lyrics were like discovering a long-lost brother I never knew about. A really smart, older, crazy brother.  The songs of Ray Davies, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Westerberg shaped me, for better or worse, into the person I am today. And I am not talking about musicality, I am talking about my actual personality. 

So yes, I was quite excited to see Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson perform together again as I stood about 30 feet straight back from center-stage with a mouth full of dust and my ears still ringing from Iggy and The Stooges. 

I won't bore you with a review of the show as actual music writers do a very good job of that already. I will say that they looked and sounded great. The crowd was about 7,000 strong and knew every word. I was probably in the middle, age-wise. The younger kids are hip these days, so quite a few hung around to see what all the fuss was about. The ones I saw seemed to be digging it. 

I suppose some Albini types could knock the band for going on a nostalgia trip but I don't think that is fair in this case. I mean, they hadn't played in 22 years so it's not like they are out milking it, and, more important, these songs deserve to be played. To paraphrase Pete Townsend - "Write your own fucking songs and then you can choose not to play them. I'll do what I want with mine."

Speaking of songs, the set-list is as follows: Takin' a Ride, I'm in Trouble, Favorite Thing, Shiftless When Idle, Hangin' Downtown, Jingle Jangle Jingle (Tex Ritter cover), Color Me Impressed, Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out, Kiss Me On the Bus, Achin' to Be, Androgynous, I Will Dare, Maybelline (Chuck Berry), Merry Go Round, Wake Up, Borstal Breakout (Sham 69 ) , Little Mascara, Left of the Dial, Alex Chilton, I Don't Know, Hold My Life, Can't Hardly Wait, Bastards of Young. Encore: Hootenanny 

Having never seen The Replacements before, just Paul solo, it is always interesting to notice what songs the band seems to really enjoy playing. Maybe they aren't the best songs to listen to, but just fun songs for the band to play, dig? I would throw "Hangin' Downtown," "Tommy Get His Tonsils Out," and "I Don't Know" in that category. The version of "Androgynous," sans keyboard was stunning. I was mildly disappointed they blew off show-closer "I.O.U" after an inspired mess of "Hootenanny," but really, it was all I could have asked for and more. Okay, got to run. I hope to write another essay soon about the under-appreciated Tommy Stinson and some thoughts on the other bands at Riot Fest, but don't hold your breath. I've got a kid to raise, a coffee shop to run, songs to write and The Wire  to watch. Oh, and football & baseball. I'm swamped. 

* God, as in some mysterious higher power. Not the one made famous from the Bible. 

 

Colin Gawel writes stuff sometimes for Pencilstorm . Learn more about him and the other contributors by clicking here.

 

Below are my favorite three Youtube clips of the show. 

 

 

Somehow I ended up backstage and on stage for THE REPLACEMENTS in Denver. I hate people who take videos at shows, but it was THE REPLACEMENTS, when are you ever going to get this chance again? Here is a video of them playing BASTARDS OF YOUNG! Make sure to watch CAN'T HARDLY WAIT!

The Replacements playing "Androgynous" into "I Will Dare' live at Riot Fest 2013 in Byers (Denver), Colorado. 0:00 - Androgynous 3:53 - I Will Dare Filmed on my HTC One on 9/21/2013.

The Replacements' performance of "Takin' A Ride" on the Riot Stage at the Riot Fest Denver http://riotfest.org, September 21, 2013 in Byers, Colorado.

How I Spent My Sunday Morning by Colin Gawel

Ah yes, a free Sunday morning. My wife is out of town and Owen is at a sleepover. I usually take Sundays off from the coffee shop so no worries there. Three hours of unadulterated free time. The sky is the limit. What to do? Write a song? Read the NY Times? Go for a run? Drink some coffee, or perhaps even a Bloody Mary? Call some old friends and catch up? Start tackling Pencilstorm stories I need to write, such as Watershed opening for Cheap Trick or recording with Tim Patalan in Michigan? Clean the house? Winterize the lawn mower? Write about Ray Davies being the best songwriter? The upcoming Dead Schembechlers show? Practice guitar? Call my Dad? or sister?

Yeah, those are all good ideas.

or..

I could lay in bed with the blinds drawn and Google myself to read old reviews for an hour or so. The highlight being Todd Baker defending me from the charge of being an irresponsible parent on the NPR weekend edition message board. At this point I probably should have at least gotten up to make some coffee but.......

I just had to check in on YouTube to catch some footage from the 2014 KISS Kruise. Bam! Full second night show posted thanks to my man Larry Hirshon.  They played "Plaster Caster?" Well, I've just got to watch that. Ooo, and a full acoustic set too? Larry, you have done it again. Then I wondered if those greedy bastards were changing their set lists during their Vegas residency. They aren't. Tough luck for all you Kiss fanatics who bought tickets for every show hoping they would play lots of deep cuts from Unmasked. I bet Jim Johnson doesn't spend his Sunday morning googling KISS set lists.  Speaking of set lists, didn't Cheap Trick open on the KISS Cruise? I wonder what they played. And when we opened for them in Myrtle Beach that was a hell of a set list. I should really write a follow up on that. But damn, check out this version of Speak Now in Los Angeles in 2013.

Whoops, too late. Owen is home. Three hours gone. Better clean this house and get ready to watch football. Nice.

Colin Gawel plays in Watershed, owns Colin's Coffee and is concerned about the nature of his true nature. He did get off his ass and start Pencilstorm, though.