Hello from the road. The following are sporadic accounts of the life of a member of an unknown traveling rock band. Literary masterpieces they are not, but for those of you who are bored out of your minds (and no longer have access to the free porn sites on the internet) we thought this might offer a little more insight into days in the life of Angry Salad.

This page contains the latest entries in Bob's Road Journal. To read previous entries from the journal archives, choose a month from the drop-down menu below and click "Go."

September 16
College of Wooster
Wooster, Ohio
W/Blessid Union of Souls

Welcome to Wooster.. Spent a blissful afternoon watching the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team beat the Purdue Boilermakers - blissful for me anyway. Embarrassing for the other guys as they had to drag me out of a sports bar as I yelled "Say goodbye to your Heisman trophy". You have to follow college football to understand some of that - the part about the trophy anyway. Understanding when someone is behaving like the village idiot requires no prior football knowledge. Gotta support the team.

Show was set up in a giant tent. Brian started to get all nostalgic about growing up in the circus which was a bit of a distraction. Explains his small hands and that cabbage cologne he insists on wearing.

Soundcheck was a nightmare. Seems somebody was trying to pull a fast one on us but Mr Furious unleashed his boundless rage and they managed to turn the "suck" knob down a little bit and we went on according to schedule. Can I just say, our finest Ohio outing ever. Great group of folks here for this one. They were singing along even to some of the new songs which was very cool. Signed a number of things after the show and hightailed it outta Wooster.

Did I mention we saw a sign for a "Daddy Daughter Dance"? Where's Ohio in relation to West Virginia?


September 23
St George's School
Middletown, RI

Our friends at St. Georges Sweet. Have left for a five week tour today and I wash my right contact down the drain in the dressing room here. As fate would have it, I had packed three contact lens cases but for some God forsaken reason I find that each one is loaded with only a left contact. A subconscious tribute perhaps to my hero Left Eye from the all girl group TLC (with whom we obviously have so much in common). I resign myself to looking cross-eyed at everyone we meet on this tour. As if that wasn't bad enough, Notre Dame lost. I knew I shouldn't have made that crack about West Virginia.

Show here rocked. Played in the dining hall with the portraits of previous headmasters looking down in horror at the long hairs on the stage. The crowd made the night - dancing their asses off from the get go. The band always plays better when the crowd gets into it and they got into it big time here.

Maybe my losing streak is over.


September 24
Northampton, MA
W/Sonic Youth, Ben Harper, Juliana Hatfield etc.

Nope. Losing streak continues in a huge way. Welcome to our worst nightmare.

On paper this looked like a great show. When we arrived we saw Juliana Hatfield on the main stage and we saw the second stage right next to it we thought to ourselves, not a bad set up. Looking forward to bringing some of our particular brand of rock and roll to Northampton.

Things went south quickly when Alex motioned me in the direction of a group of portable toilets, far, far away from the crowd and the two main stages. Never a good sign. Nothing over here could be good. I hope he's not gonna show me another stage, I hope he's not gonna show me another stage. Doh!

Sure enough, behind a barn on the other end of this giant airport or race track or whatever the hell it was lay a rickety stage with a PA system no bigger than a car stereo. Welcome to the kids table.

Quite possibly the worst show we've ever been involved with. As if it wasn't bad enough that the wind blew over the PA system just before we began playing, when it was finally up and running it didn't even matter because the band on the main stage was simply overpowering us. So, there we were in front of twenty people who just happened to stumble out of the outhouses onto the "Developing Artist Stage" only to find us essentially miming some of our songs while the delightful, atonal strains of the group Sleater Kinney blasted us off the stage. It probably looked like one of those poorly dubbed Japanese Godzilla movies. Can't get outta this town fast enough. We probably weren't cool enough for this show anyway.


Bob & Alex hanging out by the Rock The Vote tour bus
Southern / Rock The Vote Tour
October 2000

How much have I sucked with keeping up with the road journal - let me count the ways.. Too numerous to mention. To be honest, lately I haven't been able to eat or sleep - tossing and turning every night trying to figure out who did in fact let the dogs out?

Tour has been going well. Had fun in New Orleans at Tulane - good show, terrible gambling experience at Harrah's that night (for me anyway - Hale won some money and everyone else stayed about even).

Everybody on the Rock the Vote tour has been very cool to us though they can't seem to remember our names and call us all Chris. A nice change from our rather dull everyday names I suppose.

Had some transporation difficulty in sweet home Alabama. Our tour manager Jim spent some time getting a rental car so we could tool around the Montgomery on our days off. The gentleman at the desk said, "We'll bring a Taurus around for you". Jim said okay and walked out the front door just as a guy was pulling up in a late model brown Taurus (complete with a Jesus fish on the back of the car and some allergy pills on the front seat).

The friendly southern gentleman walks pas Jim saying, "Have a good day" to which Jim responded "Alrighty then, thanks a lot." The guy then walked into the dealership and Jim got in the car and drove off. An hour later we get phone call saying that Jim has driven off with someone's personal vehicle and might he return it immediately. Whoops.

Played a new song in Montgomery called "If There's a God" for the first time. Went pretty well. Show there was a lot of fun. We have some very good friends in Montgomery, Alabama and they take ridiculously good care of us. Thanks y'all.

Nice shades Hale, Jim, Brian and I all went to Disneyworld while Alex and Mr. Furious stayed at the hotel. Highlights included the safari ride in the Animal Kingdom, the teacups and the sighting of three full moons over "It's a Small World" (not part of the normal attraction). See attached photo that I took under protest of Hale, Jim and Brian.

Celebrated our soundman Mr Furious's birthday last night in Orlando. Something about the warm weather I suppose and everybody got in the pool without their bathing suits. There are no attached photos for this one 'cause no one had any pockets to keep a camera in.

Jim finally found his real parents at Animal Kingdom. The people in front of us had no clue.



Wednesday, October 18th
The Saint
Asbury Park, NJ

Fun show here in the Garden State. Sketchy neighborhood however. Every guy in the band was stopped at least once by someone offering to sell them a beeper from someone who did not seem to be an authorized beeper dealer. Difficult to get any details about what kind of service plan was available. In the end, we all decided against the beeper. Was refresing to hear the word "honky". Hadn't heard that one in quite awhile.


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