We woke up and left Tucson EARLY as the show in LA was supposed to start at 7:30.  Egad! 

Along the way we stopped at The Thing on I-10 and attempted to re-create the not so famous photo of Brown Whornet in front of The Thing.  Phil actually paid the dollar charge to see the thing at The Thing.  I can't remember what he said it was.

As soon as we crossed the state line into California, gas went up from $2.99 to $3.25.   I remember being particularly tired on this trip and I kept trying to sleep in the back of the van but we were getting whipped around by the desert wind and I kept waking up in fear that we were being thrown off the road.  No wonder they put all those windmills out there.  

We stopped at an In And Out Burger where Tommy ordered six hats in addition to his food.  I was surprised they didn't charge anything for the hats.

The Knitting Factory is in a weird place.  I had just been to Hollywood in November with Graham Reynolds' Golden Arm Trio (in fact, I missed two Golden Arm Trio tours and a chance to play on Graham's  DVD of Battleship Potempkin because we were doing this tour - but alas, Estradasphere!).  The Knitting Factory is right on Hollywood Blvd where all the street actors/performers come out - near the Chinese Theater and all those other places that they like to premier Hollywood pictures.  It seemed so odd for a cool club like the KF to be in what seemed like a really fancy strip mall  meets Disneyland kind of setting. 

When I think of the Knitting Factory, I think about all the weird music that's been performed at the one in NYC - the first performer I ever recognized that played/plays there is John Zorn.  This is NOT what plays at the Knitting Factory (at least in Hollywood) every night.  They had all kinds of music.  Still, it's cool that a club of this size is still willing to host some pretty obscure stuff.  The Hollywood KF has at least three rooms of live music - the Main Room (which I didn't see), the front bar (where we played - this was probably a 300 capacity room) and the Alter-Knit lounge (I also didn't go in but it's for smaller acts).

Everything about this place was totally pro and it was nice to deal with them.  The usual flakiness that we have to deal with at most venues was NOT present at this place.  When we arrived, Estradasphere was already soundchecking.  Fortunately, we were informed that the show would not start until approx. 8:30.  Our soundman Jake was hilarious and a pleasure to work with.  I wish we could play this stage every night.  It sounded really good.  

This was the best show of the whole tour - great sound, we played well and a great audience.  We learned that night that the individual members of Estradasphere are mostly from the LA area so all their friends and relatives were out.  Wow.  I remember looking out and seeing a few very LA blonde gals who would normally (in my mind) have never paid a second of attention to us raising their drinks and haedbanging as we played.  Afterwards one of them came up to tell me we rocked.  It was surreal.  

Rick nearly deafened me onstage when we played "Blood and Thunder".  He was so loud in the stage monitors that I actually stopped playing and RAN behind Tommy's set and my amp.  I was still extremely loud so after my vocal part I finally took a running leap over the railing of the stage and onto the floor with the audience where I was finally safe from Rick's vocals... just in time for him to stop.

Afterwards we all kind of split up.  I watched some of Estradasphere's set but after 4 nights of the same show by them, I was ready for a break.  I was also starving.  Phil, Tommy and I ate Thai food with an old high school friend of Tommy's who lives in LA.  

Oddly, the power went out twice during Estradasphere's set.  I missed this but I heard they just kept playing - all the acoustic instruments held it down I guess.

We wound up the night and we drove to Santa Monica where we stayed with Bill's friend Jeff from his days at High Fidelity (the stereo shop in Austin).