Gigantic.36

The Van

You’d think we would’ve learned our lesson about crappy vans in Europe.

Just before our first domestic tour in 95 opening for Luna, we bought a heavily-used Chevy, a high-top from the mid-80s with a diesel engine. It had been used to transport retarded adults to a sheltered workshop. To some extent, it continued to do so.

According to the rock-n-roll handbook, it was imperative that the inside be spray painted black and silver. It still wasn’t dry later that afternoon when we left, which meant we all got black and silver paint on our boots and clothes.

On our way to Cleveland, the steering box went. Whatever influence the steering wheel had over the van’s trajectory was a polite suggestion. Unable to stay in a single lane for more than twenty seconds at a time, we swerved our way across New York State until the concession was made to get it fixed in Buffalo. Five hundred bucks.

Drummer Jimy Chambers, who lived in Buffalo, theorized that Buffalo was the first of a series of Chicagos heading west. If you could find your way around Buffalo, you could navigate just about any mid-western city. This wisdom came in handy finding the first venue in Cleveland, we were actually on time.

After the show, the van wouldn’t start. The Triple-A guy wasn’t technically supposed to do this, but he towed the van to his buddy’s backstreet garage in the middle of the night. We waited in the cold in a sketchy Cleveland neighborhood while he worked on it. Something about the glow plugs. He managed to get it started. First night.

The entirety of the Luna tour was maybe six or seven dates. By the second date, it became clear that the only way to keep the van going was to keep the van going. That is, we never turned it off. Ever.

In his book Black Postcards, Dean Wareham barely mentions the tour at all, except the detail that Mercury Rev’s van had to be kept running 24/7 and that it was a seriously bad move to have bought a van in the first place.

One night somewhere in Ohio, an apoplectic motel guest somehow got the extension of Jimy’s and my room.

“Turn off that fucking van or I’m gonna come in there and KILL you!”

This wasn’t hyperbole, the guy was cranked and serious. I hung up. The phone rang again. I looked at Jimy.

“Don’t answer it,” he said. Neither of us wanted to be bludgeoned to death with a motel lamp by an irate trucker. I put the pillow over my head and let it ring.

After Luna, we toured the US almost continuously for the remainder of fall and throughout the winter.

Rather than cutting bait, the van stayed in the picture. Once, we hit a new record and needed to call Triple-A three times in a single day. It was also likely that we were all getting carbon monoxide poisoning, but with various other competing substances in the bloodstreams it was hard to say for certain.

Thankfully we added a projectionist and more equipment. It was decided that we needed two vehicles, so we rented a Dodge Neon to go along with the van. Jimy and I were happy to take the Neon as much as possible, and I didn’t mind driving it myself. Covering long expanses late at night to the point of hallucination was in my toolkit.

One night somewhere down south, I saw the Virgin Mary by the side of the road, plain as day. I pulled over.

“Jimy, I think you better drive for a while.”

No shortage of whacked-out shit that winter.

On Sunset Boulevard, we were nearly caught in the crosshairs when nine LA cops surrounded a car just across from the Whisky with shotguns drawn. In New Orleans, two enthusiastic fans presented us with a freshly severed pig’s head. And somewhere in Florida, of course, the transmission finally fell out of the van.

The van was beyond symbolic. It was part and parcel of a specific time period in which a series of bad decisions were being made and stuck with. There were heroic buddy film moments, but there were ongoing, fundamental disagreements that would not go away.

The album that was supposed to break did not, but the band did break.

There’d been some talk about me playing on a record over the summer, but I didn’t put much stock in it. When we got back to Kingston in February, it felt like the band had dissolved.

I myself went into recovery mode. Once I’d rested, I began contemplating what I might do next. Probably just get a job or something. It seemed like my Mercury Rev adventure had run its course.

About a month later, Jonathan came over for dinner one night. I hadn’t seen him since the tour ended. Having a smoke on the back porch, he surprised me. Out of the blue, he asked me to join the band as a full member.

I’d witnessed more dysfunction in a single year than in the five years previous. The band was getting kicked off its label. The other members had scattered. Jon’s offer was poorly timed, at best.

But going through my journals from the time period has been eye opening. Where I assumed I’d find unrelenting darkness, I’ve actually found my thoughts along the way to be lucid and precise in a way that surprises me.

About five months before Jon came over for dinner that night, somewhere on the road in the middle of yet another dramatic motel scene I’d written: “I still believe this band is only two doable steps away from success, but the race against time is on.”

This is what I believed. So without missing a beat, I said yes to Jon’s offer.

The band was at its lowest point since its inception. And I was all in.

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