Notes from the Wilderness: Shreveport, LA and Houston, TX

Of course there has to be a coffee shop on every tour. This was certainly the case in Shreveport at the Naked Bean Cafe. We were told that electric acts have played there before, but a quick survey of the simple square-footage of the place showed that we would have probably blown the windows out. If you’ve ever seen an Only Thieves show you probably know that we are loud as fuck, like, Dinosaur Jr. loud. It’s just in our nature. At that point we made the decision to strip down the set. I was to play an acoustic, Marc through my combo, Aubrey armed with only snare, high hat, and bass drum, and Thomas on a much smaller amp. 

To kill some time before the show Thomas, Marc, and I went for a stroll around the neighborhood, which was beautiful, lined with ancient oaks that formed great canopies and old southern mansions (I’m a sucker for relics from Antebellum south) and tried to find where Fangtasia (a bar popularized by the HBO program True Blood) was located. As it turns out THERE IS NO Fangtasia, it’s some bar in Los Angeles. So much for scamming on vamp broads all night. In lieu of that we went to the mall. Shittiest mall ever. There wasn’t even a food court, just a hot dog stand and soft pretzel shop. 

We returned to the cafe and had some tea and coffee, because, of course, there’s no booze. The act before us was a staple of the shop, an acoustic act with some life-affirming/observational lyrics and this-and-that about getting high. We played after.

We did a lot of ad-libbing that night, changed up the rhythms on a few songs, played a song we’ve never played before, and just had fun with it. It’s good to know that when pressed we can switch things around, and not completely fuck it up. The six baby boomers in the audience really seemed to enjoy it. Of course “last time these guys played here the place was packed” was used as a tag line. After the show we went over to Chris’s (who played in the first act) house to get high. 

It was an awkward experience. The guy was nice enough, but a helluva chatterbox. He just went on and on, and because I was really stoned I kept going in and out of consciousness watching his mouth move not really registering the sounds. At some point we heard some disturbing human noises emanating from a back bedroom. I’ve heard OD’ing sounds before, and these resembled them pretty closely. Chris shrugged them off.

Eventually he suggested that we go out to some bars. Yes, Chris, bring us to the women. Unfortunately there we none to be had. All the bars were packed to the brim with young professionals and their weird wives and girlfriends. For lack of a better term, we asked him if there were any “punk bars” around, but he didn’t have much of a concept of this. 

He offered us a place to stay, but then launched into how his roommate would probably awaken us with a gun in our face, and we just have to yell out “Rob, don’t shoot!” and to mention Chris’s name and that he had let us crash there. Remember all these things at some point in the early hours of the morning, hungover, and you won’t get your teeth blasted through the back of your skull. Needless to say we opted to sleep in the parking lot of a Burger King instead. 

Upon waking, we made the six hour drive to Houston. We needed a good show. We had been playing incredibly well almost every night to fucking nobody. We needed to be reminded of why we chose to do this. We played a place called the Mink in the backroom space reserved for shows. The first band, Wildcat, actually had some decent songs, they were a little closer to our style, but still miles apart. I was feeling sick, so I sat the second band out in the van. From what I gathered they were too big for their britches and not very good, but thank god there were people there. Not many, mind you, and it was one of those “parents come out” gigs, but fuck it, at least some one was watching us. 

The last band of the night was quite a find. They were called Midnight Carnival, and they played some kind of conceptual goth rock deemed “steam punk.” The lead singer looked like Billy Idol, and furthered comparisons by doing the whole sneer thing. 

We made friendly with the bar staff and they took care of us very well. I won a Guinness chugging contest. I’ll have to post that video. They offered us a place to stay, but it looked like the beginning of a late night. We were beat to shreds and anxious to get to Austin so once again, we slept in the van.