razorcake issue #16

the acoustic version of “March 22.” It got recorded,though. That’s the bottom line. It didn’t comeout too bad, I guess.Sean: What’s the drinking song for Davey Quinn(lead singer of Tiltwheel, founder of the TV seriesCop Boat) about?Russ: It’s just about drinking and playing records.In South Dakota, I think it was – somewhere ontour, anyway – Davey had these chords that heshowed us. He was like, “I have this song. I wantwords for this.” So he showed them to me. I don’teven think I got them right. I played it for himlater, and he said, “Oh, you made it better.”Which means we fucked it up. But, we wrote it acouple of months after tour. We put some wordsto it.Shawn: If there’s anyone who needs their owndrinking song, it’s probably Davey.Sean: Is it true that Wesley Willis (a schitzophrenic,Alternative Tentacles recording artist)wrote a song about you guys?Mike: He did it when we played with him inChicago. The song was something like [Shawnsings the keyboard parts; Mike sings the song],“This a test song. This a test song: TheTimVersion. The TimVersion. All right. All right.We whip a mule’s ass with they belt.”Shawn: “They rock. They rock like Dokken.”That’s a Wesley Willis quote.Mike: Then we took him home and carried hiskeyboard upstairs. It was surreal. He said hisaddress like sixty-five times.Shawn: We said, “Wesley, where do you live?”And he was like, “All right, you go left here. Yougo right here.” We drove all around Chicago, circlingin on his house. It was like going into a vortex.He showed us pictures of his artwork andeverything. He told me that he was gonna come toTampa on tour and he needed a place to stay so Igave him my phone number. He said he wasgonna stay with me for [in a bold, Wesley Willisvoice] “Three weeks.”Scott: He had a nice apartment. We went upstairsand we heard a woman’s voice say, “Wesley, yougot some friends with you? How was your show?”[Also in a Wesley Willis voice] “There were athousand people there. I rocked.” And there werelike thirty people there. It was awesome.Sean: Who is OMS?Russ: That was Old Man Scotty. He goes byScroty now.Sean: Why was he written about in a Tampanewspaper as being “your biggest fan”?Russ: Because we opened for Fear at the BrassMug. It’s a shitty dive bar in Tampa. And this girlfrom University of South Florida newspaper... Hewas kinda fucking with her. He was like, “If youwrite about them, you have to put me in the article.I’m their biggest fan.” He was just joking, butshe put that in her article. He’s been around forever.He was at our first show in Gainesville, andhe’s been at almost every one since. He’s got kidsnow, though, so it’s kinda hard for him to get outand about.Sean: Mike, when was the last time you stole beerfrom a frat house?Mike: Son of a bitch. Where’d you get all thisinformation? Dave Disorder?Sean: Russ wrote about you in ADD.Mike: Bastard. We were in50Cincinnati, Ohio. We played our show,then went to a house where we werestaying. The people there told us thatthey were going to a party. Russ and Iwere running late. They all went to theparty and we figured, we’ll find it. It’sgotta be up the street somewhere. So wewalked up the road and saw this buildingwith lights on and doors open.There was an entire bar downstairs. Ithad a bunch of empty liquor bottles. Wewere thinking, this is weird. We heardsome people upstairs, so we went upthere and passed a couple of people onthe stairs. There was an apartment witha door open. Russ and I walked in andthere were four frat dudes playing videogames. I was like, “Hey. What’s goingon?” They were like, “Nothing.” Theylooked at us like we were crazy. Wejust said, “All right. See you later,”because, obviously, we weren’t in theright place. We went back downstairs.We were drunk and out of beer, so wedecided to look behind the bar and seeif there was anything we could salvage.There was just a bottle of grenadine.Then, Russ cracked open the fridge andsaid, “Oh shit. There’s Natty Lights inhere.” So we took it and took off. Goodtimes.Sean: Russ, when was the last time youpassed out on stage?Scott: Why is everything about alcoholwith us?Sean: I have questions about music.We’ll get to those later.Shawn: Fuck music. Let’s talk aboutRuss being an idiot.Russ: We played a New Year’s Eveshow – we don’t play holidays anymore;it’s a band policy – but we playedon New Year’s Eve at the old ADDhouse. I don’t know why, but I was like,I’m gonna get a bottle of gin. So I got abottle of gin from the liquor store. Istarted mixing drinks. I was makingthem pretty strong. They were so good.I was like, “Ummmm, delicious.”Shawn: You gotta skip all that shit andShawn: One of our friends drove off with theguitar duct taped to the front of his van. Itlooked like a unicorn. It was very majestic.Mike: It was a big van boner.