photos and entries by Yuppies
Catching up on the phone with Yuppies’ singer/guitarist Jack Begley (they call him Boogs) yesterday evening, he tells me the guys are basking in some pre-show downtime, outside in 80 degree weather. The Omaha act is at a little club called Cheer Up Charlie’s in Austin. It’s a vegetarian cuisine restaurant and bar — only the band’s second bar stop on their nine-day Midwest/southern tour with Noah’s Ark Was A Spaceship.
The two bands also toured together in 2008 when they put out a 7-inch split. The old split is still sold at the merch table, as are a few new tracks on CD-Rs (also hosted on MySpace and downloadable at their Bandcamp page). The garage pop-rockers have an album lined up for May/June, afterall.
"Getting Out" and "Sunglasses" by Yuppies
Mid-tour, they’ve played two house shows, two bars and one “DIY-art-gallery-sort-of-place” in St. Louis — their nights in between spent in sleeping bags on the floors of nice people. Nine guys (eight musicians and one roadie), two bands and two vans. This is their day-by-day documentation of their tour, as told by a different person each day. Comic book exaggeration included.
Today, Yuppies and roadie sidekick Crass whiz from state to hotdog-eating state in their trusty tour van, battling snack-stealers and sassy gas station girls. Tune in next week for part two to see if Noah’s Ark and the 5-0 meet again.
We grab gear and food, put it in the van and hit I-80 east to our first tour stop in Iowa City, “THE BIG EASY.” The sun is shining and the grass is brown — I’m homesick.
The concert is at a house named The Birdcage, because it is the home to more birds than humans, which really does a number on their utility bills. The residents of the house play in fantastic rock groups — Solid Attitude, and Wet Hair — who performed after our band. Our band performed to a sedated audience, between 3 and 500 people — the memory has become hazy. Then Wet Hair played — spacey keyboardy, chill, good stuff. Followed by Sic Alps, on tour from San Francisco. They were fantastic — fuzz guitars, banging drums, catchy jamming.
By then it was 4 a.m., and the band we are on tour with played. The guys in that band are rather unfriendly, I do not know any of their names, but their band is called Noah's Ark was a Spacearc, or something. Anyway, earlier that day they stole some of my snacks, so after they set up I detuned all their guitars. Boy did they look foolish when they tried to go into their first number “Sandman” and it sounded like “Kashmir”. Pretty pathetic for a cover band, but the babes seemed to enjoy it. The next morning we got coffee and left for Chicago, “Sin City.” I think Crass fell in love. — BOOG$, aka Jack (vox/guitar)
