Every Great Event in history has a way of shaping one's view of the Universe, as is so in the not so distant history of Sonicide. One very memorable, albeit tragic, event was the week of august 17/03 and the Trailer of Tears.
Life as a musician is a struggle, as most musicians
know, and money is never long in hand. Cramming all of our crap in the
back of our mini van (an art unto itself) gets to be a real bitch.
Like a squaw delegated to the back of the cart, my place to sit was a claustrophobic’s
nightmare, a tiny 2 1/2' hole next to the sliding side door, under the
guitar cases. At the end of the week in question, we had a show at Birch
Hill Concert Hall. It was a pretty big venue and we needed to haul road
crew as well as equipment. So like brave warriors we set out on a hunt
for a trailer. Not having a couple thousand dollars to dish out, Jim dug
up an old open trailer which looked suspiciously like the bottom half of
a pop up camper. I still clearley recall in my minds eye its rusty metal,
it dirty white siding. Even then I felt a strange sense of foreboding,
but sadly had not the sense to heed my own instincts. So after 200 or so
bucks for some wood and supplies, we began the long torturous journey that
lay ahead. Our first step was to build the enclosure, which sounded simple
enough. Till shit started to not measure up right. Well we just trimmed
a little here and trimmed a little there. So far so good, the trailer ahead
looked smooth. Then I noticed the axle. The supports holding the wheels
on had twisted and broken away.
Err. There should have been a sign reading 'falling
rocks' because I was just about to send some flying.
Jim says he and his buddy Skip can straighten it and weld it back
on. But there is another obstacle; this wagon is missing a wheel.
Damn. "Its around here some where" Skip tells Jim. Another detour
is taken as the gallant braves hunt for their elusive prey.
The day of the show draws ever near and our goal of having a working trailer looms over us like some rock precipice in need of scaling. Pressing ever onward, Jim and Skip manage to find the wheel and get it retired, as well as giving the trailer a lovely shade of sky blue war paint (hey the paint was free, ok?). Yet we still have the wiring and the welding of the axle to do. Jacks in hand we block up the trailer and Jim and I crawl beneath it with our trusty wrenches. Comes as no surprise to me that the bolts holding the axle on are rusted tighter than Custer’s asshole. With wood and hammers we knock the damn thing loose and our noble braves tote the carcass down to the welder. I wait and pace outside the yard like a hungry coyote as I glimpse sparks through the stockade fencing of the shopyard.
Daylight is burning away as we get the axle back to the trailer and prepare to bolt it back on. Damn these things are heavy. We hitch it up on blocks and attempt to position it for rebolting. After being in the fires of the welder’s forge it’s not only still quite toasty, but it doesn’t quiet match up and we struggle and fight to tame this new beast. We enlist the help of another valiant warrior and like some twisted clip from the Three Stooges, Jim Skip and now Mike are all under this damn trailer battling with the axle, their only light now being a portable flood. While they are under there they notice a sticker indicating the trailer’s German origin; no doubt it was assembled from salvaged nazi tank parts.
With the axle bolted on and this stage of our arduous
trek complete, we turn to the wiring.
After careful examination we determine that the plug on the trailer
doesn’t match the one on the van. So we leave it till the next morning,
the day of the show, to rest our weary bones.
Morning comes and we examine the wiring. While doing this we discover that the other tire on the trailer, the left one, is now flat. Damn. It was also a brand new tire. Well mabee it just didn’t seat on the rim properly. So we tried pumping it up. It’s holding air and we pray to the spirit of rolling things to keep it doing so.
So off we go to search for a plug. And after scouting
all over hell we also discover that no one has it due to the fact that
its meant for a tractor trailer rig. So we buy some cotter pins and rig
our own. Funny thing is, it wasn’t funny at the time, Jim discovered that
the plug we needed was in the shopyard the whole time. Go figure. A few
checks and the lighting works. We let out a triumphant war whoop and head
on our way to pack up our gear.
We pull into drive at our studio and give the trailer a once over and see the tire again flat. Bad medicine. Very bad medicine. So we pull the wheel off the trailer. Again. It’s the eleventh hour and Jim is soaping up the wheel to try and find the leak while I haul all the gear up from the basement. Turns out the problem was the rim was so rusty that the rubber valve wasn’t making a seal. So a little grinding with a Dremel and the tire’s back on. We proceed to load up the rest of the gear and are on our merry way. Well almost. Skip and Jim had hung the door from the top instead of the side. We discovered it was too heavy and low to prop open so we had to pull it off and rehang it before we could get the gear in. That and there were huge bolts that were used to hold the thing together that had to be cut off and covered before stuff could be put in so the gear wouldn’t get ruined. Not that some of it didn’t, for instance, the handle to my Peavey cab. After all this then we went on our not so damn merry way.
The gig goes well and we all breathe a sigh of relief.
But little did we know that the roughest part of our journey was yet to
come….