samiam

"A Brief History of that lame band,
Samiam: Part III"
1998 - 1999
By Sergie Loobkoff.

September 1998
After a few months recuperation from our last tour (a trek that lasted almost 4 months) I was really excited to get out of town. You know, I have friends and love my dog, but sometimes tour is the only ticket out of the mundane times of being a working stiff and girlfriendless. So when Knapsack, my other rock band, decided to go on a 2-week tour of playing bowling alleys, churches and abandoned school houses (for no money), I said hell yeah. It was really fun to go out with those guys and At the Drive In (our tourmates...probably the best new band I've seen in 5 years) but a bit rough. Basically, except for one show opening for Archers of Loaf, we played in front of sparse crowds but enjoyed a lot of 'love'. Thankfully, the kids really like the 'sack' in the areas we played (from Milwaukee to NYC and back) so our tour felt kinda worth while. Thanks alot to all that came and cared. I met a lot of cool people like the Promise Ringers and Compound Reders in Milwaukee, Josiah and Marie, the Melody bar friends, and saw Sean in NYC. Yay for friends.

Anyway, back to Samiam. When Knapsack got home, I had 2 days off, then we (the 'sack) played in SF (with Promise Ring and Jets to Brazil) and flew to Edmonton to start the Samiam tour. The rest of the band had to endure a torturous, show laden drive while I enjoyed the creature comforts of 'coach-class' American Airlines.

The first week of the trip was in Canada with a band called, Greater Than Less Than. A real nice bunch of guys. We played a bunch of shows in the places that we either had never been to or haven't seen since our very first tour in 1990. It was great fun and full of really enthusiastic crowds. It seems that there are people up there that have actually waited a number of years to see us...which we didn't really expect. You know, maybe they had forgotten about us or never really heard of us because we never came...so we were really happy.

Next we popped down to the states and played in Green Bay, always a pleasant experience, and decided to throw down $800 on some fucked up brakes. Aren't we generous? With a rental van we cruised to Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Toledo and back. A bunch of good shows.

One highlight was at the Metro in Chicago, where Jason decided to battle with a faux heckler by bringing him on stage. I can't tell you what happened (there are profanity standards now on the internet, aren't there?) but I have to state for the record: Jason IS married and NOT gay. And for you Chicagians that were there...he definitely did NOT enjoy it.

For alot of these shows, we teamed up with our old friends from Ireland, Blink. If you read my previous entries, you know we love these lads dearly. And, although Blink 182 did open a tour for us once (before they were big), this is not the same Blink. Anyway, back in Green Bay, we exchanged the rental van for our little bus and headed east once more. Unfortunately, after about 5 shows, our vehicle blew up again and it was us on the highway racing to the Troc in Philadelphia in another rental van. We made it in the nick of time and rocked a bit, drank a bit and watched Swervedriver, whom where our tourmates for the last week of shows.

Swervedriver we really great and nice...we've been fans for years. But to be honest, their roadie guy was a jerk. He treated us like a bunch of stooges: not giving us sound checks, trying to boss us around and always trying to make MP set up his drums in front of theirs. Now, they are a great band, but lets be realistic, they aren't very popular. In fact, at some shows, people left after we played. Not to sound competitive or egocentric....that was just the way it was. Anyway, if it was any other band, we would have probably made a scene...but instead we just grinned and bared it. Plus Todd, from their label, Zero Hour, was a roadie a was really cool. Unfortunately, we missed our Buffalo show due to the van problems. Judging from the hate e-mail that I received, many people went to see us and were disappointed...so were we.

Any hoot, our last show was in Worchester, near Boston, and Sean took a train back to NYC while Jason flew home. This left the familiar situation of James, MP and I driving the entire length of the States home (we just did that over the summer at the end of our last tour). It sucked but it was fun at points. If you are wondering, it took us three long days and nights.

After a few weeks rest, the boys reconvened at my house to practice new songs and finally get around to learning a few tunes for compilations we've been putting off. We never practice because Sean lives in New York and MP in LA, so it was really fun. I guess we aren't 'from' the bay area....we definitely aren't a local band. In the last two years, we've played Berlin 3 times, Tokyo 9 times, NYC 6 times but SF only twice...both times unannounced.

Back to the practice. We hammered out the skeletons of eight new songs for the next record (and put them to tape on a 4-track) and learned 2 covers and a 9th song for the aforementioned compilation records. The first being 'search and destroy' by the Stooges for the Blackout! label. They have a series of comps called, 'Punk Rock Jukebox' and we are going to be on the latest in the series. The song came out so well that we are thinking of putting it out as a CD single....but we'll see. Sean played a great bunch of solos (on guitar)and Jason really belted it out....I think people will like it. The next song was 'Here Comes Your Man' for a Pixies tribute album. I personally never bought a tribute cd, but Weezer and the Getup Kids are on it and we all love the Pixies...so we did it. The final song was really fun. It is only 27 seconds long and it the most punk sounding sound we have done since the first record. It's for a Fat Wreck Chords compilation of all songs 30 seconds or under. I work for Fat doing graphics (you might have seen some of my shit: High Standard, Snuff, Tilt, Sick of it All, etc..) so they asked if we could do it...in case you are wondering why Fat would be interested in Samiam. Pretty much every punk band you can think of is on it, so you should check it out when it comes out next year. Thanks to Billie Joe 'cuz he wasted a saturday in his basement studio recording us.

Two days later, I was on a plane to Frankfurt. Even though we go to Europe every year, I was excited...and this tour ended up being probably our best yet. Ordinarily, we tour europe for 6 to 8 weeks, going pretty much everywhere but this time we decided to leave it to 3 weeks. On previous tours we've seen ourselves squander the money we made getting to the farther out areas of the continent....so this time most of the shows were just in Germany. Thanks to Burning Heart and the skillful planing of Philipp this tour was much better in terms of attendance, enthusiastic fans and finances...thanks guys.

The opening acts were a German band called the Donots and NYC's Errortype 11; all really nice guys. All bands and a tour manager/soundman shared a double decker tour bus from hell....it had to be fancy once, maybe 20 years ago, but now smelled of ass. Aw, I'll spare you from complaining, it was o.k.. The shows were consistently good, except for a snowed out show of 70 people and a weird 12-paid gig in a Swiss village, they averaged about 350 people. This meant that the places we were playing were sweaty, smoky and full of people that didn't speak much English. The way I like it.

Errortype 11 are a band on Some records (a label run by Sammy from Civ and Walter from Quicksand) that have a poppier Quicksandish sound. Really neat dual-guitars and melodic vocals. They were immediately considered 'old friends'.

The Donots sound like Hot Water Music mixed with California pop punk. They were really good and will probably be big in Europe soon. Philipp said that they will probably be Viva poster boys (Viva is a German teen magazine that is unlike American magazines in the respect that they have naked 16 year olds and talk about sex and drugs and stuff).

Both bands were excited to meet my friend Geoff (from England) that joined the tour for 4 days. It's funny, I have been with him in Sweden, Belgium, England and America and still, 4 years later, he is totally recognized by strangers on the street as the guy from the 'Real World'. He was on 5 or 6 episodes of the MTV shlock show as a 'friend' of the cast when he lived here in San Francisco. He pretends that it bothers him to stick out, but I think he secretly enjoys it. Ha, ha...

Our friend Paul Drake, who roadied for Knapsack, finished his eurotour with Braid and Burning Airlines and came with us for the last 3 shows. He is a great guy and think though we were not too much of bunch of kooks. He roadies for Jimmy Eat World, so I will see him on January 9th when the 'sack and J.E.W. play in San Francisco.

Anyway the tour was great (and I even met a girl!) but as soon as it started, it was over. Now I am home and am waiting for January when we start practicing again. Hopefully we will record in April or march. Already we have European tour plans in June. We'll see what 1999 has in store....
(qaccording www.samiam.com)
sergie
12/27/98