Roadie For A Day

By D. Brian Burghart

Forgive me.

I’m not going to start this piece in the typical fashion—some sort of paragraph that will sum up the entire story in a pithy way. That’s altogether too stodgy for a stream-of-consciousness story about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

It’s also a bit humdrum for a narrative about the fantasies of men, women and youth, and the desire to be worshipped, loved, or at least appreciated.

This story germinated one evening last summer at the now-defunct Area 51. Marianne Psota was tending bar. Kathleen, Bruce Van Dyke and I had been drinking for several hours, talking 20th century literature, music and all points in between.

Talking about the greats of literature, the Hemingways, Faulkners, Fitzgeralds or McCarthys, is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, discussing the topic with knowledgeable people is the mental equivalent of a great game of hacky sack—you play off the skills of those around you, shine when you can and pass the sack when you should. On the other hand, for a writer, a journalist, it is akin to getting your nose rubbed in your own inadequacies and mortality—no matter what your fantasies were when you were growing up, you are never going to be your heroes.

I momentarily was alone in my head, and I was thinking about all the youthful fantasies that I would never fulfill—to be a great novelist, a pro-sports icon, rich. Or a rock ’n’ roll star.

That’s when the boys came in.

Like a thunderclap, the atmosphere changed from a bar with too-few customers, the odor of stale beer and a lousy cigarette smoke ventilation system to the nucleus of nightlife and fun. The band was here, and shit was going to start happening.

“The boys” are Reno rock ’n’ roll band Phat Couch: Steve Foht, Scott Loring, Nick Ramirez and Pete Tiffany. They were scheduled to play at the Zephyr Bar on Virginia Street, but they’d come in to get tuned up (excuse the mixed metaphor).

I’d seen them play several times, and I was always struck by the packed houses, the alcoholic excess, the approving fans and the number of women who were taking their clothes off in public. This was, I thought, the quintessential Reno rock ’n’ roll band.

Shots of Jägermeister were poured all around.

“So, when are you going to do a story about us?” Foht asked me.

That’s when the idea crystallized in my mind: Maybe I will never be a great writer, maybe I will never be a rock ’n’ roll star, but perhaps I could scratch the itch, live the fantasy and write a story about being a rocker.

“So,” I asked, “do you guys ever tour?”

Band On The Run
Months passed. Photographer Dave Robert and I finally got a plan set with Foht, who is slightly more likely to return phone calls than Reno Mayor Jeff Griffin. We were riding along for a Sacramento gig with the band at a bar called the Press Club. It’s the fourth time the band has played in Sacramento.

Since Robert and I were driving, our status had been upgraded from unattached observers to honest-to-gosh roadies. It was 4 p.m. Friday evening, and we were at the Blue Lamp, where Stacey Tolle, of dust-punk band GunShot Licker, was slinging gin.

As the clock ticked on, approaching half-past, we began to get nervous.

“Don’t worry,” said Robert, “those guys have never been on time a day in their lives. They’ve got to stop smoking so much pot.”

We decide to go to Ramirez’s house, but we ran into him and Foht before we’d gone 30 steps.

Ramirez, 29, plays bass for the band. He sprained his thumb the week prior while skiing with his son, Quentin, and he winces as I unknowingly shake his hand too hard. Ramirez is the quietest member of the band, thin, with longer-than-shoulder-length black hair and a haunted, brooding look that wears well on a rock ’n’ roller. Over a black and white, horizontally striped shirt, Ramirez is wearing a coat that looks like something a gas station attendant would wear. On one side of his chest is a patch that says “Phat Couch,” and on the other is one that says “Nick.” He and Foht are the founding members of the band. They played together in the band Source. Ramirez’s regular job is at the Zephyr Bar.

Foht, 25, is day to Ramirez’s night. He’s bounces off walls even when he sits, hopping around like he’s got St. Vitus Dance, and he keeps up a constant infield chatter, singing snippets of songs, repeating pop lyrics, trying to get the inflection right. He’s 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, and he’s got sideburns, a nose ring, a couple of earrings and a five-inch goatee. His blond hair is matted like a bud of sensimilla. He’s wearing a red, long-sleeved, insulated underwear shirt and black jeans. He’s got a regular job at the Summit.

They tell me to pull my car around.

“That’s your car?” Foht rasps.

He is impressed by my 1964 Mercury Park Lane. It’s got a trunk big enough to hold a whole troop of Brownies and will certainly serve to tote some equipment and musicians from here to Sac. We go into Ramirez’s house. It’s filled with the accouterments of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle—show posters, equipment. There's even a hemostat in the ashtray.

“That is so hesh,” says Foht.

I had to ask Foht what “hesh” meant. I took his explanation to mean “unhip, with permutations of ’70s kitsch.”

Just about then, Pete Tiffany, 27, comes around. He’s the guitar player and wears a sort of ’60s Jimi Hendrix shirt and a black woolen hat that says “Unsane.” He’s a good-looking, even-featured guy who lives next door to Ramirez. We’d never been introduced, and he gives me one of those looks that says he’s clearly unimpressed with my journalistic credentials. He has red hair and, at first meeting, a businesslike attitude, although the glint in his eye and pointed beard give him a Mephistophalean look. Before he played in Phat Couch, he played for bands like Orange Peel and Psychiatric Petting Zoo.

We start to carry equipment out to the cars (Dave’s got a blue and white 1988 Bronco II). We fit most of the stuff in my car, and the plan is to pick up Scott Loring at his house and put his drum kit in the Bronco.

We head to suburbia, where Loring lives off Robb Drive.

Loring, 27, has short dark hair, a straight brow, a steady gaze and sideburns. He’s the most regular-looking guy in the band, but everything he says has a twist of irony. He’s got an All-American look, and he kind of reminded me of David Arquette, or maybe Emilio Estevez in Repo Man. This short-haired look is new for him, as he cut his hair just before Thanksgiving. He came to Phat Couch by way of bands Werm, Vibrant Roots, War Maggots, Lodestar and Dirt Miner.

Since there are now six of us loading, the work goes quickly. The Merc looks like the rear shocks have gone out.

Before we hit the road, the group has a little confab about where we’re going, who is riding with whom, and who has which kind of pot.

Ramirez rides with Robert, the rest pile in with me. Foht’s got to tune his guitar, so it’s riding in the back seat with him and Loring. Tiffany rides up front with me, and we finally hit the road, two hours late.

Turn The Page
“Did you used to hang out at Scruples?” Loring asks me.

I answer in the affirmative.

“You knew David and Brian?”

“Yeah.”

“You used to be a cop?”

“What?”

“They said you used to be a cop, or consult with them or something.”

I explain to him I know how to do very few things, and being a cop is not one of them.

“Maybe I’m thinking of some other big, bald guy. Is it all right if we smoke back here?”

Loring follows up his inquiry with a joke so foul that, after floating it past everyone I talked to in the next few days, I decided it was unsuitable for a fucking family newspaper. It is the first of a string of jokes that ends when the tow-truck driver drops us off at my house 22 hours later.

A couple bursts of coughing, a sweet odor, and all the pot is gone before we hit the California state line.

The trip over the Sierra is fast, and, except for a 55 mph turn I took at 75 mph (which put visions of sudden mortality in my head and my foot too heavily on the brake), it is uneventful. The stereo is playing just beyond the point where we can easily carry on a conversation.

I try to get to the heart of the rock ’n’ roll thing, asking questions about how the band got its start, what drives them to to keep making music in relative obscurity, what bands do they model themselves after (“Everybody always asks us that, we’re just a hard rock ’n’ roll band”), and why do all those women take their clothes off at Phat Couch shows.

“Phat Couch music makes people want to phuck,” says Foht. “You can say that, right? Spell it with a ‘ph’?”

“Of course they can, it is the News & Review,” chimes in Tiffany.

I ask them if they want to be famous, and to a man, they shrug their shoulders.

“I just want to sell a million CDs,” says Foht.

“So you want to be rich.”

“We just want to make enough money so we don’t have to work anywhere else, just play music,” says Tiffany.

“So how much will you make for a gig like this?”

“Fifty bucks,” says Foht.

“Let me get this straight. You’re going to load all your equipment, drive to Sacramento, play a show and drive back for $50 bucks apiece?”

That’s taking suffering for your art to a whole new level.

“That’s $50 for the band,” says Loring.

“So I guess at this point, it’s more about the music than the money.”

Foht says the band makes more money when they play in Reno. Loring says it’s usually $100-$300, and sometimes as much as $500.

“It’s about getting our name out there,” says Foht. “And to sell CDs.”

“It’s just something you have to do,” says Tiffany. “It’s like anything in life that’s worth doing well. You just try to do it right, and then it’s behind you.”

“Hey, you know how to get a nun pregnant?” asks Loring.

I’m With The Band
The Press Club is a divey little place in downtown Sac. It’s got some brick walls, a fair-sized stage and some beer signs, but really, the only thing that distinguishes it from any bar in California is that there are ashtrays on the bar, and customers are smoking.

There are maybe 15 people in the bar, and, except for the bartender, they don’t look to be rockers.

We pull the equipment out and place it against the wall, stage right. The expensive stuff goes behind a curtain at the back of the stage.

Tiffany is working on the play list at the bar, and we each get a beer. The other band members are taking care of business—Foht’s changing into some sort of a leisure-suit-looking thing in the car, Ramirez is futzing with equipment, Loring is chatting with patrons, Robert is snapping photos and recording some video.

We head out to get some food. First, we go around the corner to a place called The Tavern, where the jerkoff doormen won’t accept Tiffany’s Nevada driver’s license, demanding some sort of California identification. He produces his Triple A card, but that wasn’t exactly what the doorman had in mind. Unfortunately, Foht has forgotten to bring any ID at all, so it becomes a moot point.

We end up eating some middle-of-the-road Chinese.

The bouncers have come on duty at the Press Club, and they’re taking cash at the door.

“I’m with the band,” I mutter at the window. I get my hand stamped, and that makes it official.

A couple former Renoites, Ted and Dana and a friend of theirs, are there to see the band.

There’s a college-looking band, and while their instruments appeared to be in tune, and Loring is impressed with their lyrics, after a 17-hour day, they’re a little subdued for me. The bar’s ashtrays have disappeared.

Phat Couch finally takes the stage. The crowd in the bar has probably tripled, but they’re still moving around like refugees from the geriatric ward.

And Phat Couch rocks.

They rock with sincerity and gusto. They play a 40-minute set of about 10 songs, some I’ve heard, some I haven’t. Foht plays his acoustic and sings as though he’s bleeding on the microphone. He occasionally hawks the CD. Loring plays the drums so hard, it jars my teeth, the strain shows on his face, and he’s got more expressions on his face than Mick Fleetwood. Tiffany plays coolly, passionately and coolly again. Ramirez takes awhile to get warmed up, but once he gets going, he’s into it, driving the bass home like he’s going to meet his one true love. They rock with the abandon and energy that has always been what rock ’n’ roll was supposed to be.

And then it’s over.

“So how’d you like it?” asks Ramirez.

“Great. The crowd kind of sucked though.”

“It’s too short,” he says, a bit disgustedly. “It takes us a set just to get warmed up.”

We’re An American Band
We load the equipment back into the cars. The boys are passing around a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, but when it’s gone, there’s nothing to replace it.

This is apparently what being in a rock ’n’ band is all about—load in, play, load out, party until it’s time to go home.

The next band, three women and a man called Universal Groove, is playing. Again, while they are all competent players—the singer’s got a good punk ethic, and the blond bass player has got a definite groove going on—the crowd is unappreciative in that apathetic way that is either studied hip, cynical or jaded. You’d get as much movement at a Parkinson’s convention.

Our plan is to stay in Davis, at Ted and Dana’s place, but when Foht collects the night’s pay, the bar manager slips him an extra $40 bucks and calls in a reservation for a room at the Clarion.

We’re fat—except we’ve got to stock up on some beer before the stores stop selling liquor. We pick up an 18-pack of Coors Light and an 18-pack of Bud Light at a convenience store and head back to the bar, where Universal Groove is finishing up.

The night’s headliner, Hate Dept., out of Los Angeles, has a techno-industrial look and some butane-powered flames in front of the stage. The keyboardist and the singer are the hardest-working members of the band. Much of the music is sequenced, and the singer is plainly getting pissed off at the lackadaisical attitude of the bar’s patrons. Loring points out that the bass drum is just there for looks.

“Last song,” he says. “Dance. Or at least bob your heads. Spit on me, be a little punk, for Christ sakes.”

A mosh pit begins, but it’s languorous and only slightly more threatening than a game of Rock ’em, Sock ’em Robots. Hate Dept. plays an extra song in the moshers’ honor.

The boys are schmoozing with the other bands, exchanging numbers in hopes of playing together in Reno or Sac in the future.

The bar closes, and Robert and I wait as members of the band finish up some last-minute business with the bar manager. The band has sold one CD. Somewhere along the line, we've been joined by a groupie. Her name is not Heather, but to protect her anonymity, we'll call her that anyway. She's originally from Reno.

We drive to the hotel, and my engine has taken on a disconcerting flutter. I'm exhausted, but the band is still keyed up. The room is small, two double beds and seven people to fill them up. We haven't put a deposit down on the phone, so nobody can call their girlfriends without going to a pay phone outside.

Without the fear of a DUI, everybody is ready to kick back and loosen up. The TV gets turned on to one of those late night talk shows with the topic “I've Got A Secret,” and beers get passed around.

Foht suggests we all shotgun some beers. A “shotgun” is when you put a hole in the bottom of a beer can, hold it upside down, and pop the top so the whole beer flows into your mouth in a matter of seconds.

The boys are cracking jokes, and the atmosphere takes on a distinctly college-dorm-room feel. Robert is shooting pictures, and the band is camping it up, posing everyone on one bed, messing with some photographs of naked women from Phat Couch shows that Robert shot. There isn’t even enough pot to scrape together a bowl.

It doesn’t take long to polish off 36 beers among seven of us. Ramirez is starving, and the groupie says there is a place to eat nearby. We walk into the foggy Sacramento night, but after the better part of a mile, we can’t find anything open, so we head back.

Foht and Heather, who have been taking frequent breaks along the walk, stop by the hotel’s office and procure another room, next to the one we already have.

Robert is the first to fade, grabbing a comforter from one bed and crashing on the floor. I’m next, and I get a bed to myself, although whether it’s in deference to my status as a journalist or my advanced age, I can’t really say.

The Long Road
Robert and Ramirez are the first up, and they’re on the road before 11 a.m. While the room is slightly mussed, it’s not like Keith Moon had spent the night there.

“Now if we can just get Steve up,” says Loring.

“What? Is he a heavy sleeper?” I ask, anxious to get home.

“No, he just doesn’t give a damn,” he says.

It takes a surprisingly short time for everyone to get up and around. Apparently, everybody slept pretty well except for Tiffany, who had a dream about picking mushrooms and did some sleepwalking. We head out, dropping Heather at her apartment before going to Burger King for breakfast. A quick stop to fill the tank, and we’re back on the road.

The conversation turns to drugs. Loring is emphatic that the bad drug days are past—especially crank, which he overcame about three years ago, about the time Phat Couch was getting started.

“It turned me into a masturbating son of a bitch,” he says.

Later, he says that drugs are an occupational hazard for rockers, and the problems they cause even broke up one of the bands he was in.

The Merc is still running like it’s got a tank of bad gas, but I’m hoping that it’ll straighten out when we get to a higher elevation. The stereo is turned up to the point of distortion, and we’re all singing unselfconsciously at the top of our lungs. It feels like a scene from Wayne’s World.

We are just approaching the Emigrant Gap exit when the engine dies. We coast to a stop on the offramp, and I try to start it a couple of times, but there’s no juice.

Pop the hood, and I shortly realize the distributor is not working. I come up with the mistaken diagnosis that the timing chain is busted.

“I guess we should have told you about the Sacramento Curse,” says Foht. He says that the band has broken down every time they’ve played in Sac.

No matter, the instant we make the decision to call for a tow, 17-year-old tow truck driver Rex Arashi comes around the corner. We flag him down.

The fee is set at $200, and we all pile back into the car, except for Loring, who elects to ride in the truck.

We get to ride in the car until we arrive at the Nevada border. It’s almost a psychedelic experience riding 65 mph backward down the freeway. After the last evening, I feel as though the clock is turning backward, and it’s going to be 1984 when we arrive home. The stereo is louder than is comfortable, and we’re banging our heads and smoking like fiends. Everyone who passes us smiles, waves or takes our picture.

I can’t say whether that is because it is unusual to see a bunch of rockers riding backward down the freeway, or because it is unusual to see a bunch of rockers riding backward down the freeway smoking like fiends when the tow truck driver has punctured our gas tank, and we are spewing fuel like the Challenger space shuttle.

After we arrive at my home in Sparks, because of damage done to the gas tank, rear quarter panel and the bumper, Arashi decides it’s better just to write the tow charge off to experience.

The Song Remains The Same
Six hours later, Phat Couch is having their official CD release party for their new album, Violet, at the Zephyr Bar. It’s 10 p.m. and the band hasn’t started because Foht is scrambling to get a PA system. He arrives a half hour or so later.

It’s packed. The boys are playing to the hometown crowd, and the energy level is high. Sweat is flying, people are dancing and many of the fans sing along with the band. I’m still the band’s favorite journalist/roadie, but at this point, all there is for me to do is drink beer, supply the band cigarettes and the fire to start them with. Loring takes a break so that Ramirez’s dad can sit in on the drums for a couple of songs. We each have a shot of Jäger.

Later, I ask him why the band would bother to do road trips, when they get this kind of reaction in town.

“I don’t know, I really can’t answer that question,” he says. “It’s just nice getting out of town, playing in a different atmosphere, seeing different faces. I do kind of know that when we play out of town, we’re probably going to get screwed.”

And that’s rock ’n’ roll.