Feeling like a superhero in the "sleepy" Pacific Northwest

In Seattle we played two shows, both were fun for different reasons. We liked the DIY space of the bicycle shop, and of course The Can Can was great because we were playing with members of Circus Contraption (love!)

On Monday morning I went to a coffee shop and ended up chatting with the girl who worked there who had had her purse stolen that morning by a customer. Later that day we heard about the local philly cheese steak sandwich shop which had just closed down because someone had walked in with a gun and blown the owners away - driving by we saw the bullet holes. We heard gun shots in the neighborhood and were told of a 58 year old man who'd been murdered just last week. And then...

We were just a block from our home at 2:30 in the morning after our Monday night show when I spotted something bad happening on the sidewalk. I stopped the van and backed up to where I had seen a man hovering over a cowering figure. I couldn't see much because of our tinted windows. Dakota and Zoe were wondering why I stopped.

"Something is going on there." I said. And then Zoe screamed,

"Go! Go! Go!" With visions of gun toting maniacs in my head I hit the gas until Zoe screamed, "Stop!"

The van bounced to a halt and a terrified woman with wide eyes flung herself onto the van, she lifted her body and clung to the side view mirror and screamed, "Drive!"

I hit the gas. We careened down bumpy neighborhood streets, Dakota and Zoe afraid the woman was going to fall screamed for me to stop, but the woman was urging me to drive on and since she was the only one who really knew what we were running from I decided to listen to her.

"She's got a good grip," I said, "She'll be ok."

After we made it to a major street and it was clear the man was no longer chasing us we stopped to open the side door and take on our new passenger. The woman collapsed onto Zoe's lap and started to cry so hard she couldn't breathe. Zoe soothed her and told her she was ok and we were taking her far from that place.

I drove us to the police station.

We got a little bit of a fractured story about an ex boyfriend who just got out of jail and forced her into his car, beating her (and more) and taking her phone and her wallet. The talk was intense, emotional, she cried and shook. We sat with her until she was composed enough to make a phone call with Zoe's phone. I glanced into the rear view mirror and caught a glimpse of my stage makeup still on my face - moustache and all.

While the woman stood outside smoking and talking on the phone a car pulled up with two men who tried to pick her up. She explained to them (unnecessarily, I thought) what was going on. "I don't care," one said, "You're just hot." They looked back at the van where we watched in horror and fascination. One man pointed to us and said, "Who are those motherfuckers?"

I turned to Dakota and asked, "Are we motherfuckers?"

Dakota nodded seriously and replied softly in a maternal tone, "Yes, I think we're motherfuckers."

Keep in mind we were parked right in front of the police station.

Our story with our passenger ends there. She declined our help and didn't want us to go into the station with her. We gave her our phone numbers in case she needed us as witnesses and told her to call us to tell us how everything had turned out, but we never heard.

When I tell people I want to move to New Orleans they always ask about the crime rate. I live in Oakland - ranked fourth in the most dangerous US cities to live in. I've been mugged at gunpoint outside my house, my sister had a gun pulled on her just recently. But from now on when people cite the crime rate in New Orleans I'll have to say,

"I can handle it, I've been to Seattle."


This is what a super hero looks like (when that super hero is me.)

Day one: Wash bears and banana slugs

Drove from Oakland to Ashland on biodiesel. Dakota (the new merch girl and longtime friend) did a fine job on her first time behind the wheel of Malcolm Lovegrease Vermillion.

Kerry and Jason set up the night's shows and were very wonderful. We are staying at Jason's mother' house now - she vacated so we could have the place to ourselves. The house is filled with great old things that are very Vermillion-esque: like old medical emergency tins and tiny antique sewing machines.

We also met the "pet" raccoon. Not a pet per se because it doesn't get petted, but it does get fed and it is fairly people tolerant. The raccoon enjoyed its food while we watched (several bowls of food actually.) At one point a second raccoon popped its head up over the lip of the porch a few times before depositing something on the edge and shambling away. We realized that the thing the raccoon left behind was moving and it was in fact, a banana slug. We figured it was a present for the raccoon eating the cat food.

When our new friend was out of food she wandered away but came back when she heard her bowl refilled. Before climbing onto the porch she deposited a banana slug in the same place as the last, she then hopped up and began to eat again.

Does anyone know the deal with raccoons and banana slugs? Are they "paying" for the food?

Anywiggins, Ashland is a great town with some music loving people and NO real music venue. So strange. But we do love it here so we'll keep coming back.

12, 000 miles ahead

The tour looms ahead: 12,000 miles of Vermillion stretching off into the foreseeable future. In a flurry of tulle and velvet we hurry to finish our new costumes, while simultaneously designing the new cover for our new 7" record (out in October,) packing up and moving from one house to another, rolling Kim's cat across the floor, mapping out our tour route, booking (still!) and all the million other things we have to do before we leave - in three hours!

We're charting out bio-diesel stations, YMCA gyms, and health food stores. We have a super cute merch girl (continuing our tradition of super cute merch girls!) and someone with a fancy moustache will come along as driver for part of the journey.

We also started a new diet which is basically weaning ourselves off starchy, fried, and heavily processed food stuffs. No bread, no cheese, no french fries. No alcohol, no coffee(!) We can still eat all kinds of yummy things, just staying clear of oily, bad. Heading into a four month tour we knew we had to start a new regimen before we left so we would have some momentum to keep us going on as long as we can. It is hard to eat healthy on the road, Fritos are abundant and cheap when in the middle of the country. But we'll have a cooler full of veggies and a jar of nutritional yeast! Hurray! We're hippies!

We have new songs we are very excited about, including some which will go on the upcoming 7" vinyl record! We also have new costumes and new "instruments" to share. This tour is very exciting. Hurray! We're hippies!

And we're already working on the next album.

**

To help us please join ourStreet Team

Tell everyone about us, about our shows. Bring your friends. Bring your enemies.

Big things are happening, bigger things will happen when more people know the Vermillion Gospel.

Swamp Love - Kim in New Orleans cont....

Yesterday I wandered into the swamp; the hot, humid, teeming, writhing mass of camouflaged predators. The swamp eats everything, even itself.

Cicadas vibrated their big beautiful bodies and made that deafening electrical sound they make. Spiders spun fantastic webs to catch cicadas. Moquitoes were eaten by dragonflies, were eaten by tadpoles, were eaten by egrets. Alligators laughed their creepy old man laughs and pretended to be floating logs that watch with hungry gold eyes.

Reptiles are beautiful and terrifying. They are complete opportunists, there is no reasoning with them. Not that one would reason with a tiger that was chewing off your head, but there is the feeling that a tiger is a big kitty which could be cuddled with - under the right circumstances. And while some people play with alligators, wrestle them, show them off for fun, no one - not even for a second - thinks that an alligator is their friend.

Unless of course you consider it friendly to be dragged underwater, spun unconscious, stowed under a log until you are half rotten, and then enjoyed with great delight by something with more teeth than your entire family. (That last bit about the teeth was a bit of "artistic license" a.k.a. exaggeration -- they only have 74-80 teeth.)

Some photos of new swamp friends:
















This is small gator - they often get to 14 feet around here!

I'll have more to say soon about my time here. And I wrote a song about the swamp!

Sex, Drugs, and Nuclear Physics - Kim in New Orleans

Yes, it is hot here, but the heat has a different quality, it is both more, and less, tolerable. Even when it is not very hot, everything is sticky, and even when it is very hot I don't necessarily notice. Ice will melt with a rapidity that shocks me because I myself am not melting. The hot, moisture filled air makes me feel like I have been turned inside out. The pulsing, wet skin of the city merges into me.

Yes, New Orleans is hot.

Thunder shakes the sky, hard crash and flash of light. The thunder is closer here. The sky cracks open and soaks me in minutes while I'm out for a walk. I shelter and think of Bob Dylan. My camera captures the rain.



The city is gastronomically delightful with many fine restaurants priced lower than the Bay Area. But I do miss the fertile land of California and its abundance of wonderful organic produce. Sunday dinners at Bacchanal are always a delight and one of the many reasons I first fell in love with this city.

Coffea is my morning place, it's owned by Christopher Starnes (the secret mayor's brother.)





And right next door is my favorite store in the world: The Bargain Center. Two giant stores next door to each other, filled with the best junk.



$40 for a prosthetic leg!





My room:



Shoes and feathers and a million dollar bill.



I've written a song a day so far! Song titles:

Let's just kiss
Shipwreck
Rainbows and Unicorns
Sex, Drugs, and Nuclear Physics

I have no idea if they are any good. I suspect that maybe one of them is good and the rest will never survive the heat.


Until next time.................

Kim Vermillion in New Orleans

First night:

New city. New house. I met my new roommate as she was leaving for the weekend - fine by me as I love being alone and the shotgun style house does not afford much privacy.



My room is bare except for some cobwebs and a rickety bed - a slight upgrade from a cot. Empty is good for me right now.

Since I hadn't eaten a real meal in two days I went to Yuki's for some delicious food. Yuki is very sweet and brought us a free bowl of baby octopus salad. Since I don't eat cephalopods for that can be best explained as "sentimental" reasons, I just fondled the perfectly formed creatures (they weren't cut up into pieces - just whole tiny octopuses in a bowl.)

After a nap I had a hard time waking up but did make it out to Mimi's to watch Clint Maedgen of The New Orleans Bingo Show play a set of improvised music and songs with a cellist and violin player.

My friend Starnes (he's the secret mayor of New Orleans and he has an international award winning moustache) and I sat at a table filled with pretty ladies from Fleur de Tease Burlesque.

All the pretty ladies loved my head dress and if Julian wants to set up shop in New Orleans I can send him his first customers.



One of the pretty ladies asked where I was from and what I was doing - here is an accurate representation of a memory mangled version of our conversation:

Kim: I live in Oakland, I'm just in New Orleans for the month of June.

Pretty Lady: It's funny that you came here for one of the hottest months.

Kim: I do everything backwards.

Pretty Lady: That's a good policy.... New orleans is a great place.

Kim: I love it.

(Then the pretty lady looked at me for a moment.)

Pretty Lady: You're never going to leave.


*

This morning it is HOT. My friend Kate once said that being in New Orleans was like being inside someone else's skin and that is the best description I can think of.

Like a sauna, inside someone's mouth. But not gross.

*

Ew.

*

And here are some pictures from the train journey.....


In LA with beautiful Julian. (Julian made me the choker which I turned into a head dress in new Orleans.)



In the observation car:








Crossing the Rio Grande:



Crossing the Mississippi:



New Orleans in the distance:




*

P.S. I love Scream Club myspace.com/screamclub

The tour so far...

13 shows into the tour now and everything is going swimmingly.

We started out on the West Coast with a great show in Ashland Oregon. This is what fast trees look like:



We made our way up to Seattle where we stayed with Fuscia Foxx - sexiest burlesque dancer in Seattle.



Then we played in Eugene Oregon where there were 600 balloons on the floor. For some reason our photographer didn't take many pictures of us on this part of the tour, so here's the sky:





After Eugene we played in Trinidad, CA at the Westhaven Center for the Arts. We looked like this:





Then we headed to Monterey, CA for two magical shows. This is Kim with her favorite tour present ever:





In Monterey we picked up Kris Angelis who is opening for us with her lovely songs, selling our merch and sometimes dancing:



We saw a space ship:



We headed south and east into Arizona. We met some great new friends in Phoenix, like Jeff who was one of the best hosts ever. The we headed to Prescott, AZ and met Constance Hockaday:



and Brian hockaday:



This is one of Constance's paintings:



We also did some acrobatics. That's Kim:



Then we went to Taos, NM. Myles practiced polar bear faces:



We passed some desolate places:



And telling signs:



And here is what we looked like on stage:



Then we drove to Dallas. Twelve hours. And some backwards things:





Our dashboard:



and wrote this song about Texas:





more photos and videos to come!!

Love,

Zoe, Kris and Kim