“Uhhhhh Ryan, did you, um, get that blog done yet?”
Ryan:
“I’ll get on it man, i swear, just real busy.”
Jan 25th, 2012.
Kevin:
“Hey, uh, Ryan. Did you by any chance, ummm, get that, uhh, blog done yet there bud?”
Ryan:
“Kevin, yes i’ll get on it. Sorry, just a little busy, working on the Taiwan tour man. Yes, i’ll get it done.”
Today, Jan 30th, 2012.
This is my first blog. Ever. Kinda swore i wouldn’t do it. But here I am, and thankfully here YOU are. Today, amongst tour sponsorship writing, poster design inquiries, video promotional shoot organizing i take a break to write a blog, my first blog about, Kevin. Mostly.
We call him Calvin sometimes. Kevin Tilley Chilli. He made bomb chili on tour once. Bruce Sheldon. Angus and Melvin are also pretty good too. Bass Ventura and of course Kevin Spacey. In summation he’s best known as the Bass Navigator. Gator for short.
Favorite things right off the top of my head about Kevin, without stopping, Go!:
1. He kills a bass with no disgrace
2. Sometimes he puts his sweaty post show underwear in weird compartments in our van
3. He can down a can of fosters or take seven shots of tequila in a row. Like a champ.
4. We yell “WHADDDDDDDYA MEAN” at the top of our lungs a lot these days and he’s awesome for it
5. He slept under a stairwell before a big show once cause he was so nice that he didn’t want to wake us up when he tried to get back into the hotel room after realizing that he didn’t have a key.
6. Kevin’s fancy shirt.
“There’s a little Kevin in all of us”
You know those moments when something so absurdly funny happens that you constantly reference it all the time? Well we were shooting our first music video for ‘Loungin’” at the Elephant and Castle we had decided to do a ‘live music video shoot’. Supposedly trying to pull off the ‘30’s lounge look, people got fancy and showed up and we shot the video. And a pirate showed up as well, of course. After an hour and a half, everyone’s waiting, camera man has got the lights on, people dressed up, music ready to be played, we’re all kind of standing around and waiting. No Kevin. In an attempt to kill time, knowing Kevin would show up at some point we arranged everything, talked about the shoot, got in place, and were basically waiting to roll. Kevin walks down the stairs, lookin’ slick, ready to go. One problem. Kevin looking slightly sheepish for being late and a little stressed he came to the realization that…he forgot to bring his bass guitar. To the live video shoot.
Now. Especially now, we can appreciate the humor of this. Then, well not as much. So we haven’t let him live it down. We as a band take turns ragging on each other, just sometimes, Kevin gives us more excuses to do so than others.
So we thought.
So on NYE 2012 we were proud to have been invited to play at Parade Square in Halifax to ring in the new year with Carleton Stone and The Mellotones. I had just returned from Texas visiting family and apparently they were tuning in and taping the show on CTV.
It’s not often that your green room before the show is the City Hall of Halifax. I mean, we play a lot of shows, green rooms are a rarity, so hanging in city hall eating a rider that has Brothers TNT Pepperoni on a cheese platter is, well out of place. So i’m being stupid, having fun, jumping around, writing set lists, being “Camp Counsellor” (one of my illustrious nicknames) and overall not paying attention.
About 10 minutes before we are to head back stage, I return from hanging with my friend outside and enter City hall. Once back in the green room it hit me. I couldn’t remember bringing my guitars into the room after sound check. Mind races. Heart beat picks up.
It hits me. I left my two guitars and pedal board in the back of the van.
I have no idea where the van is. Our manager Ian had parked it somewhere downtown and he wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Frantically i just started running down the streets of Halifax in the rain on New Years Eve trying to call Ian and hoping to dear god i would see the van, hopefully.
In the end, i found Ian, we almost died running through traffic, found the van. He dropped me off and other than me being incredibly out of breath, no one was the wiser.
Long story short, Karma is real. There’s Kevin in all of us. And we’re all better people for it.
Jan 31st:
I’m just waiting for Kevin to ask if the blog is done before i submit, we’ll see how long this will take.
