I’ve been nominated for exactly one award in my entire writing career.
Back in college I wrote a series of tour correspondence pieces called Tales From the Underground: A Visitor’s Guide to Sick City for a now-defunct publication called AMP Magazine. At the time, I was a diehard disciple of Hunter S. Thompson and wanted to write my generation’s answer to Hell’s Angels. The band I was to be touring with, The Scarred, were poised for a resurgence. Unbeknownst to us, our career trajectories were in the shaking hands of a snake oil salesman.
Every time I look in the mirror and see the reflection of my faded tattoo, I am reminded of that summer. We were all in our 20s, drunk on optimism, rolling through the arid desert in a van with no air conditioning. After it was all over, we clawed our way back to California starving, exhausted, and forever changed.
It’s been almost 15 years since it all happened. All of us have moved on, started different careers, closed that chapter in our lives. I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally, I think a small part of me never came home. If I had to venture a guess, I would say there’s still a sliver of all of us still searching for something on that long stretch of desolate nothing between Nevada and Missouri.
I wasn’t sure I was going to write about this.
There’s an argument to be made that it’s my most compelling story, but it’s not a period in my life that I relish revisiting. I thought about digging out the original articles, polishing them up, and printing them here, but something about that felt like cheating. If Tales From the Underground is meant to serve its cathartic purpose, then I must properly see every uncomfortable beat of it through.
As my memory is imperfect, I am drawing from the original manuscripts. While I’m sure none of the other boys would argue with anything you are about to read, I want to make it clear that I am only speaking on behalf of myself. I’m also changing some names, details, and likenesses where necessary.
For the first time since its initial publication in AMP Magazine, I present to you my unabridged perspective of the infamous 2012 Mark Twain Tour.
…
The Review
Live Fast Die Poor
The Scarred
2011
There are only two records whose composition and release made a literal and tangible difference in my life.
As fate would have it, both were made by the same band. The first record, as discussed in a previous Tales From the Underground column, was No Solution. The other, to date the last album the Scarred ever made, was Live Fast Die Poor.
My stomach noticeably churned when I put my copy of Live Fast Die Poor on the turntable. I was in such constant contact with the band during the recording process that I wound up with a vinyl test pressing. It’s not that I don’t like the record; it’s arguably the best thing they ever made. It’s just that listening to it kicks up some fugitive dust that took too long to settle in the first place.
There was a palpable sense of promise surrounding the making of Live Fast Die Poor. The Scarred were road warriors who had made a career out of being the band that almost was. Often, through no fault of their own, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory as the buzzer rang. Their record label went under before they could release their third album, the one everyone in the industry had agreed would likely put them over the top. The comeback tour was cancelled the day before its first date when Justin snapped his ankle during the final rehearsal. Dominoes continued to fall like that for a long time, setback after setback.
Then the tides, as they always do when you least expect it, took a turn.
Drummer Ben 9000 joined the band, and suddenly, live shows were ferocious again. They recorded a cover of Ron Davies’ “It Ain’t Easy,” released it as a single, and began generating some heat again. A new label took interest, signed them to a deal, promised them everything. Soon after there was a new record, Live Fast Die Poor.
I can vividly remember the first time I heard Live Fast Die Poor. The band had sent me an advanced copy, a blank CD with the name crudely scrawled across the top in sharpie. It was in my Ford Ranger, rolling down 41 Highway, that the soundtrack to the craziest summer of my life first slapped me across the face. I loved it.
Like most bands, The Scarred tended to evolve a little with each album. The songwriting developed, the melodies got richer, and the lyrics became more poignant. At the end of the day, however, the first three were still punk records. Listening to Live Fast Die Poor felt like listening to the Scarred for the first time again, almost like a completely new band. The growth was miles ahead of anything else they had ever done. At one point I even got choked up because my friends had done it, the thing I always knew they were capable of doing.
It’s hard not to be immediately taken with the opening combination of “Restless” and “Gone Even Higher.” Those are back-to-basics rock ‘n’ roll bangers that set the stage for what’s to come; a new experience meant to shake, rattle, and roll. That’s not to say there isn’t classic Scarred DNA all over the record; one listen to “She’s a Mess” or “Alone” will confirm that, no paternity test needed. For me, the record shines brightest on tracks like “Worthless” and “Sirens Sounding,” offerings that are more layered and incendiary than what we were used to hearing before. Not for nothing, but if the line “if ignorance is bliss, you know I must be in hell, because I’ve seen too much desperation, fear and hopelessness” isn’t a perfect epitaph for the Scarred, then what is?
Listening to Live Fast Die Poor now scares up a complicated amalgam of emotions. I’m so proud of the band for accomplishing what they did, but I also have the personal burden of remembering it was built on the back of a huckster. Promises weren’t kept; lies were told, and the Scarred’s greatest record withered on the vine for years before finally finding its audience.
It also laid the groundwork for the most turbulent, adventurous summer of our lives.
…
The Tale
I grew up drinking sweet tea out of mason jars.
All things being equal, it was an idyllic deep south upbringing. We never had much money, at least not consistently, but that’s not something I tended to notice. Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. My spoon was made of plastic and jammed inside a bowl of cornbread and pinto beans. The gorgeous summers stretched out into infinity, as I drank straight from the water hose with my bare feet planted firmly in the grass.
It’s difficult to recapture it, the innocence of youth. As I got older, and my childlike wonder began to corrupt with the introduction of rock ‘n’ roll and girls, I still felt the cloying pang of adventure. My high school experience more closely resembled Freaks and Geeks than The Goonies, but damn it, I wanted both. The twain eventually did meet when I first met the Scarred.
I’ve written in a previous Tales From the Underground column about the first time the Scarred ripped through my sleepy little hometown, leaving a sea of hungry converts swimming in their wake. My personal interaction with them felt kismet, almost destined. We were cut from the same cloth, dying vinyl mercenaries in a digital revolution. When they came back through town later, I spent two days embedded in the belly of the beast with them when they invited me to jump in the van and ride along for a couple more dates. I remember feeling like everything before that had been a distraction, as if the previous idols from my adolescence were becoming obsolete in real time.
In the summer of 2007, about a year after I had first met them, I personally witnessed Justin leap from a drum riser and break his ankle on a guitar head case. It was just one of the times I was a fly on the wall for a big moment in Scarred history, but it wouldn’t be the last. Justin and I kept in touch, and I would even fly out from time to time. By the time I was entering into my final year of college in 2012, the Scarred were preparing to tour behind their latest record, Live Fast Die Poor.
I begged to come along.
There were mere months separating me from exiting the safety of my college campus and finally becoming a contributing member of society. I hadn’t lined up any internships, and Rolling Stone Magazine wasn’t beating down my door, so I figured I needed to try to conjure up a little of my own luck. If I could embed myself with the band on the road for seven weeks, maybe I could squeeze a book out of it. It would be an unfiltered look at life on the road from the point of view of a hardworking band who had come close but never quite made it. When I pitched it originally to AMP Magazine as a series of tour correspondence articles, I called the project A Visitor’s Guide to Sick City.
Take away the thousands of screaming fans, lights, and healthy cash flow. Strip the promise of luxury straight from the bolts. What is it like for a real band trying to make it, or even just make ends meet? What’s left is a story of triumph and tragedy, and dreams and nightmares.
What’s left is a story of life on the road.
…
I went home one last time before leaving that summer.
Days before that plane took off, I meandered around my hometown and slowly said my goodbyes to friends and family. It felt like strapping on my duffel bag and having one last malt with the fellas before launching off to war, uneasy and with the unmistakable whiff of finality. They say you can never go home again, and I think that’s because the home from your memories never really existed on the first place. When you come back after being gone awhile, it can feel strange. I’m not sure if anything was different, I was nervous about the trip, or maybe just overestimating some kind of bullshit personal metamorphosis, but whatever the reason, I remember feeling uneasy.
My friend Jeffrey had just bought a motorcycle, and we stood in the gravel driveway of his parent’s house, admiring it. Later I met up with my friend Chris, who had just started a new career as a chef at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. Heath—my best friend whom I met when we were both locked in the laundry room of our babysitter’s house as a punishment for misbehaving—came over the night before I left to listen to Clash records and make jokes about people we knew growing up. As I was finished packing the morning of departure, I asked my brother if he had any advice for me.
“The same thing I told you when you left for college,” he told me, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
An old man sitting next to me on the plane woke me up as we started our initial descent into LAX. He wanted someone to talk to while he pointed out landmarks in the desert beneath us, and I was happy to oblige. Coming to California always felt like coming home, especially tonight, when the lights of Los Angeles began to illuminate as the sun melted away. I put on my headphones and cranked up the volume of “California Sun” by the Ramones as I shuffled my feet on the sidewalk and waited for Justin to arrive.
It had been just two years since the Scarred had vowed never to tour again.
Punk scenes had been dwindling all across the country, and traveling in the aftermath of an economic recession seemed like a sinkhole worth avoiding. No one in the band was the heir to a family with significant means, meaning no one would be able to float the ship to the next harbor should disaster befall them on the road. The love they had for their fans was palpable; anyone who spent any amount of time with them knew that, but sometimes risk simply outweighs reward. Justin had told me personally that the only way he could stomach taking the chance of touring again would be if there was a miracle arrangement that meant not a single dollar would be taken from his family.
Knowing this, the owner of their new label agreed to every single term. Luke Boggs – the owner in question – was willing to cover anything necessary out of his own pocket if it meant getting the Scarred back on the road. Boggs sold the tour as a two-month vacation, complete with great venues and sold-out crowds. He also added a band called the Damn Rascals to the tour, claiming they drew giant crowds on the East Coast. All they had to do was agree to give him their trust, and he would take care of the rest. Even then, it was only after he agreed to put his money where his mouth was and personally show up, cash in hand, that they began to seriously consider the proposition (although, it didn’t hurt that they were also contractually obligated to tour behind Live Fast Die Poor). With their minds reluctantly assured, the band invested what they could scrape together into printing merchandise.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Justin said later.
On June 14, 2012, one day before the first show of the tour in Las Vegas, we stood around the van and contemplated the next two months. If everything went according to plan, years of struggling might just pay off. There was a nervous, optimistic energy buzzing through our bodies. We were modern-day renegade pioneers, called out of retirement for one last showdown. The sun hung low in the clear, blue sky as day turned to dusk. The band said their goodbyes to friends and family, and then we all piled in for the four-hour drive to the Plaza Hotel and Casino.
There were only two passengers with whom I was personally unfamiliar. Ben couldn’t make it; he had a previous engagement that prevented his participation. Filling in for him was a drummer that we affectionately referred to as Coolo. Coolo was young and hungry, endearing and optimistic, quickly becoming the heart and soul of the tour. It was hard not to like him immediately. The only times I ever saw him venture into any territory other than agreeably pleasant was when his blood sugar ran low.
The other stranger was Boggs.
I had never met anyone else like Luke Boggs, although we quickly got acquainted as I slept next to him on the rattling floor of the van all across the country. He was rail-thin, although his frame was often hidden by his collection of entirely too-large t-shirts and cargo shorts. He had an almost cartoonish southern accent, a native of Virginia. He had one of those faces that held stories of a hard life and an age I couldn’t quite place. Although he was perfectly jovial, there was an unmistakable air about him that I never quite trusted.
The back of the van held three amps, five guitars, a full drum kit, multiple merch boxes, a hardware case, and the luggage of six grown men. Everything fit together like an expert game of Tetris, and there was no room for error. With all the space crowded by gear – not to mention the multiple boxes of Damn Rascals records Boggs brought with him – it made for tight quarters. On this night, though, no one seemed to notice. We were all strung out on the adrenaline of promise. As the desert stretched out infinitely around us, I felt like one of those tan-faced children from “Pioneers! O Pioneers” by Walt Whitman. This was uncharted territory, and the future was ours to write. Around the time we reached Baker, Boggs pointed out a crack in the windshield to Justin, our pilot for the first leg of the journey.
“That represents the Scarred,” he said, “It maps out the peaks and valleys we had until we finally crashed.”
We reached North Vegas around 9 p.m. that evening and dropped our gear off with a friend of the band. The Scarred had pockets of friends all around the country, each having started off like me, just a fan of the band. Meeting them was always a singular experience, fellow tribesmen from a long-forgotten kingdom spoken of only in whispers. As we approached the hotel, Justin made an off-handed comment about the van’s alignment feeling rough. He had said it almost to no one, as if stowing it away for later. The night was too young and our hearts too hopeful to worry this early in the game. There was still a city to conquer.
I remember the stale, cigarette-soaked air of the Plaza Hotel. Scores of the elderly pumped their social security checks into an endless sea of slot machines. The lights were a touch too bright, and the artificial noise of manufactured whimsy loomed so loud that I could barely make out “Rock the Casbah” as it oozed lazily from the speakers above.
“There’s a funny thing about tour,” Monkey, the Scarred’s bass player said to me, jolting me out of my daze, “You never really realize you’re alone until you go to take a shit at a truck stop or something. Someone always has your back, though …”
After finally reaching our room (Room 2011, I still remember it), we decided to kick off the tour properly by partying like Vikings trying to reach Valhalla by morning. Chi Chi, the band’s fill-in rhythm guitar player, pulled out a bottle of absinthe he had snuck back into the states from a recent trip to the Czech Republic. We combined that with a hot bottle of whiskey that had been sitting directly in the desert sun all day, to create a new drink called the Double Dragon. After all the drinks had been poured, we toasted to the night, which soon began fading to black.
When I woke up, the sun had been out for hours, and my body was vibrating from dehydration. I couldn’t remember most of it, but apparently at some point I had drunkenly slapped a Scarred sticker in the middle of a car windshield and tried to fight an invisible stranger. That was the first and last time I ever drank absinthe. Chi Chi and I had a casino buffet burger for breakfast, and slowly my sinking and shaky demeanor began to improve. I felt good enough, at the very least, to stand in an air-conditioned room and sling merch, which was my only true responsibility of the day.
Back with the rest of the guys, though, things had taken a dire turn.
The initial concerns over the van’s alignment had been warranted. We found Justin and Monkey pacing around the parking lot of a Big O Tires, their hands anxiously running through their hair, seemingly immune to the 105-degree dry Nevada heat. Alignment issues were one thing, not necessarily grounds for a freakout of this magnitude, but as it turned out, two tires also needed to be replaced. As we found out later, all those Damn Rascals records Boggs insisted we bring had added so much weight that the tires were bulging. There wasn’t any money in the budget for a problem like this; we barely had enough between us to make it back to Los Angeles. Our internal temperatures cooled, however, when we remembered Boggs had agreed to cover problems like this one.
Funny thing was, though, Boggs didn’t volunteer to help.
It isn’t that he refused, exactly, he just didn’t say much of anything. He looked terrified, but we weren’t sure if it was because of the situation at hand or if there was something deeper at play. He offered his sympathy, in general and vague terms, and then vanished into the background. Justin made a mental note to delve further into that at a more opportune time, and reluctantly handed over his own credit card. I could remember him saying shortly before we left that his card had only barely been paid off.
Total Tour Debt (so far): $600.01
Total Shows Played: None
We made it to the show that night—the first one of the tour—at a venue called the Sanctuary. It had been set up by an 18-year-old kid determined to make his own scene. There were something like eight bands on the bill, including a guy who played bagpipes on stage by himself. The Scarred were headlining, and they played one of the best sets I had ever seen from them that night. The venue wasn’t packed, but everyone there glided towards the stage as if pulled by a magnet in their chest. I remember feeling lucky to have been in that particular pocket of the country on that particular night.
As it turned out, though, the inexperienced promoter had overshot the guarantee and could only give the band half of what he promised. It’s hard to blame him now, looking back. His drive to build something came from a genuine place; he just didn’t have a working knowledge of construction. Problem was, guarantees are the lifeblood of a tour, and his actions had dire consequences for us that he hadn’t considered. We were $600 in debt before we even arrived; the show was under-attended, and we weren’t exactly going to be able to eat like hogs in the slop house from the middling merch sales. Now we were expected to make it from Nevada to the next show in Colorado on $100.
We went back to the hotel, determined to figure it out. The solution should have been simple; Boggs was supposed to handle it, but he once again remained suspiciously quiet. Ignoring him, we spread maps and calculations around the room like a scene from the third act of a movie about the second world war. Pale and exhausted, faces illuminated by the glowing lights of Las Vegas, it was a haunting scene.
Amid everything, Boggs loudly announced he was going to the lobby to have a cigarette.
I’m not sure if it was intentional or if he was being obtuse, but all the conversations sputtered out as we turned to look at him. Justin insisted that he stay and help us figure out a plan, since that was the sole reason for his presence on the tour in the first place. Boggs countered that it wasn’t a good idea to discuss private band matters in front of outsiders—meaning the friends and girlfriends who had made it down for the show, and me, a literal journalist—which was a less than artful dodge. Justin maintained that we were all welcome to be there, and he would discuss anything he wanted in front of us.
“I haven’t even gotten to you yet,” Justin finished.
“Fuck you, Justin!” Boggs exclaimed.
I will never forget that moment in our cheap Vegas hotel room. The tension could have been cut with a teaspoon. Justin turned to Boggs with a biblical wrath in his eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t want to talk about this in front of everyone?” Justin began “It’s your fault we’re in this mess to begin with, and everyone in this room is well aware of it. I didn’t even want to be here; the only reason I’m even here right now is because you convinced me to be!”
“That’s why I’m here …” Monkey added with a sigh.
“I told you I couldn’t afford to go on this tour!” Justin continued, unadulterated fury bubbling up from his belly. “You promised me you would take care of us in situations like this. That’s the whole reason you’re here! Where’s the money, Boggs?!”
For a moment, not a word was said. The only sound in the room was the thud of our heartbeats.
In a flash, Justin was across the room and lunging at Boggs. Chi Chi stepped between them, holding Justin back. After a moment, Justin shook loose and promised not to get physical. Anyone who knows Justin knows he’s a passionate guy. He tends to feel things deeply and express them honestly. I’ve never seen him be violent, though. Even at his angriest, he usually cools off quickly after throwing around some hand gestures and walking it off. This was different; this was new.
“I have no problem kicking you out of this hotel room—which Chi Chi paid for, by the way—and leaving you stranded in Vegas,” Justin finally said. Then, he leaned in close and fell to a sharp whisper “So don’t you say fuck you to me.”
With that, he was gone.
The room began clearing out two at time, like in the aftermath of the tragic climax of a Shakespeare play. I didn’t know if the tour was over before it had even begun, but it sure felt that way. For all I knew, it could have spelled out the end of the band itself. I was left to ponder these questions on my own as I wandered out into the blistering hot Las Vegas night.
To Be Continued …
