01.20.03 - Frozen Rats
One of the greatest things about being a musician and being in a band is you never know what could happen next. This cuts both ways of course. One of my most memorable on-road experiences was with a long ago band that no longer exists. I won't give their names because some of the members own frightening types of cutlery.

Anyway, we were scheduled to play at a club in Albany, NY in the dead of winter with another band that were great friends of ours from Saratoga Springs. When our band arrived from Boston in an evil smelling rented van, the temperature was -2 degrees F. I hadn't eaten in about 24 hours and the club manager said we could order a pizza on the house if we wanted. While I was busy with something, our dimwit lead singer told him not to get any food, that we were fine. Needless to say, I was broke. And hungry. And I noticed something one has to watch for when playing clubs like these in towns like these. They had a smoke machine. And the man who ran it, we found out, didn't take no for an answer.

So we played that night wreathed in dry ice looking very Spinal Tap, and afterwards set about to load our van. The temperature had fallen to -17 degrees F., and our van was nowhere in sight. It had been towed to a charming town called Watervliet quite a few miles away. Taking a cab to the impound yard, we waited in the cold for the tow truck guy to give us the van back. He decided to tell us stories of his wife, family, etc. Long stories. Outside. I was starting to see grey spots in my vision, and my toes were completely numb. I felt like I had lost both my feet in some horrible bear-trap accident.

At last, like the Donner Party, we made it back got our stuff in, and were on our way back home to Boston.(A pleasant -3 degrees!) Our drummer was lying down in the back of the van when he noticed that the blankets and pillows we had all had huge bites taken out of them. Underneath the makeshift bed was something hard. Throwing back the blankets revealed a large rat. Frozen solid. Needless to say nobody slept on that trip home.

I caught the first subway back to my place at 5:00 in the morning. Still not having eaten, I rummaged through the fridge, the cabinets, even under the table, and found a bag of Chips Ahoy. It was empty.

The taxi and the impound yard got all of our money we made at the show, but we wound up getting another gig 2 weeks later.

In Buffalo.