July 25-27, 2001 — The KrazyFest entry, part one

On Wednesday night, I packed my bags and had my father drive me to Johnston's house. We were leaving for KrazyFest at 6:00 am on Thursday morning, so sleeping over was the only option. I slept quite comfortably on the basement floor, and, by Thursday morning, Adam, Angela, Alex, Dave, Johnston, Matt, Nathan, and I were accounted for and ready to go. Unfortunately, Cory, a late addition to the KrazyFest roster, was nowhere to be found and we were forced to leave without him. (This meant a much more spacious back seat in the van, which in turn meant far fewer complaints from Alex and me.)

Dave brought a Sherlock Holmes journal along to use as our KrazyFest journal. Entries started as soon as we were in the van and kept up for most of the trip (and will be going online soon enough, hopefully). I'll try not to ruin too much of the content of the KrazyFest journal with what I write in this one, but no promises.

The drive to Kentucky

When you know that you'll be driving another twelve hours yet, getting to Toronto from Ottawa seems like a rather insignificant four hours. We crossed the border outside of Sarnia without incident, and a bit of confusion led to us making an unplanned trip through Detroit. We didn't see much of Michigan, but I don't think I'd like to live there -- the sprawling factories that stretched across much of the horizon weren't something that I'd like to live near. I figure it'll be a snap judgement that I'll have little trouble sticking to, anyway.

And then there was Ohio, later dubbed N-ohio in a joke that was funnier at the time. It felt like it took about nine hours to get through Dayton, and it seemed like every single highway was under construction. (A fellow from Makeoutclub who recognised me a couple of days later reported that his friends in bands also found Ohio to be a less than enjoyable experience, giving me more than enough reason to boycott the state.) The only thing Ohio had to offer was the sign in Cincinnati saying that we were entering Kentucky.

Kentucky was a whole other story. Florence's water towers got things off to a good start. (As an aside, I just found the official Florence, KY Web site. Go for the hilarious GIF animation of a jumbo jet flying by [and dwarfed by] the "Florence Y'all" water tower, and stay for the pictures from the Florence Y'all Celebration 2000.) And there were forests and valleys and dark green colours instead of burnt out fields and billboards. After the construction-ridden hell that was Ohio, and, more specifically, after the rift in the space-time continuum that was Dayton, things were looking up. Until the five-oh showed up in our rear-view mirror.

It could have been a kick to our glowing first impressions of Kentucky, but the police officer was incredibly nice to us. We chatted it up about KrazyFest, and he acted insulted when Johnston implied that he wouldn't have heard of anyone that was playing. Johnston listed off the headliners and ignored my hollers of "Pflanz! Pflanz!" from the back seat. (You never know, he might have known a local band. Maybe his kid brother is in Pflanz or something. Stranger things have happened.) After making a nice police officer feel out of the loop as far as "the modern-rock music" is concerned, we were on our way to the campsite.

(Before I go on, a note about Pflanz: 1. We're pretty sure that their name is pronounced "flanz," but we always pronounce the P. This led to jokes along the lines of, "P-flanz? I heard that they're P-fucking awful." 2. Despite our constant jokes about the band, I don't think any of us actually made the effort to listen to their set at KrazyFest. 3. Within a few weeks, this journal entry will undoubtedly be one of the highest-ranked search engine hits for Pflanz. My apologies to members of Pflanz. I guess.)

A couple of hours after our run-in with the fuzz, we arrived at the Otter Creek camp site outside of Lousville. It was actually in Dixie, a couple of miles from Fort Knox. Within a couple of miles in the other direction were two strip clubs (both from the same chain) and a gun shop. The strip clubs were called Thorobreds III and IV. Thorobreds III's sign advertised "GIRLS, POOL, PINBALL," and "GIRLS." They knew that the pinball would get people like me so excited that they'd have to bring us back down to earth by repeating the bit about girls. Smart marketing. The gun shop, meanwhile, was called Biff's Gun World. Dave and I were curious about the waiting time for a handgun in the state of Kentucky. It can't've been more than, what, twenty-five minutes or so? I'm kicking myself for not looking into that. I could be packing by now. And with Richmond as tough as it is, I can't afford not to be...

Anyway. We got to the campground. There was much confusion over where and how to pay given that we arrived at around 11:00 pm. (We must've done something right since no one bothered [or even talked to] us the entire time that we were there.) We picked campsites in the dark and set up tents. Needless to say, we ended up sleeping on several tree stumps, a boulder or two, and the skeletal remains of dozens of the pointiest forest creatures that you can imagine. Imitations of forest rangers with accents saying things along the lines of, "Why, no one's had the nerve to sleep on stony square since 1972" were in no short supply. The ground under the tent was permanently dubbed Stony Square, and we were convinced that it was the worst tent-sized patch of ground in the entire campsite, but we were too lazy to move the tent.

After eighteen hours in a van, though, I fell to sleep quite easily.

Day one

I was the first to wake up. I tried (unsuccessfully) to get back to sleep for awhile. Eventually Nathan woke up and gave me the finger. (It should be noted that Nathan and I had taken to an outright hatred for one another during the course of the van ride to Kentucky. He thinks trying to make fun of me makes him indie-rock cool or something. Fucker.) Outside, it was a nice day. We went to Denny's for breakfast.

For some reason, Denny's restaurants in the US seem universally sketchier than their Canadian equivalents. It's no wonder that a Denny's in Ottawa has the highest number of customers of any Denny's in the world when its competition is as terrible as it seems to be south of the border. White gravy but no white vinegar? What the hell are these people thinking?

The true highlight of the meal, though, occurred when the waiter became flustered while taking our order, saying that he wasn't "used to people being so kind" to him. All because we had been saying please and thank you. It was unbelievably strange. We got a lot of odd looks on the way out. The family sitting behind us saw my t-shirt (which reads, "Keepin' West Virginia 'KLEEN'") on the way out and were overheard saying, "Oh, they're from West Virginia," in a satisfied tone of voice. Somewhere in Kentucky there is a rumour building that West Virginians are a very polite bunch.

KrazyFest didn't begin until 7:00 pm, so the city of Louisville awaited. It was between the Louisville Slugger Museum and the Colonel Sanders Museum. Bats won over fried chicken.

Had you been with us, the first thing you'd notice about the Louisville Slugger Museum is the enormous bat leaning against it. The sort of thing Paul Bunyan would be happy to stumble across if he were keen on, say, batting the shit out of Ohio. The next thing you'd notice is that admission is $6.00 US (God only knows how much that is in Canadian -- tens of dollars, no doubt). And after that you'd notice the threats that Adam was receiving, stating that if he wasn't right about us getting free bats at the end of the tour, we'd be forced to purchase a bat to bludgeon him into unconsciousness with.

Lucky for him, we got free bats at the end. Not to mention quite a tour in between -- from a movie narrated by James Earl Jones that made baseball (or, more specifically, "slugging") sound like the zenith of human civilisation to the tour of the bat factory. Needless to say, I've decided that I want to be a bat maker when I grow up. I bet the happiest people in the world work in bat factories...

Next up was a trip to the local record store. I bought nothing. Then we made the stupid decision of trying to walk to an independent video store that was very, very far away. We never made it, but we walked by a Subway during our walk, so it was all worth it.

While some of us ate at Subway, the rest of us wandered through the strip mall it was part of. Only to stumble upon happiness in as pure a form you'll find in a toy vending machine: Homies. And at only fifty cents each (Canadian or American quarters), bliss has never been so affordable.

(For those not in the know, Homies are tiny figurines that come sealed in those little plastic bubbles that come in vending machines alongside dispensers of shitty metal-coloured rings and bubble gum. Some have apparently been banned in the US for promoting gang lifestyles, so how can you lose? Search eBay if you want to pick up some of your own. And hell, while you're there, you can always see which releases in Master P's prolific collection of 12"s with the word "homies" in the title you're missing -- from "I Miss My Homies" to "Goodbye to My Homies," eBay's got it covered.)

Over the course of the weekend, between the eight of us, we probably pumped around $20 US into that machine. And Homies became the universal reward for anything worth congratulating -- Making girls laugh at KrazyFest? That's Homies. Trading Homies with the cute girl at Subway? You best believe that's Homies.

Anyway. Enough of Homies. (For now.) To KrazyFest.

When we arrived, Pflanz had already taken the stage. The only bands I ended up watching on the first day were Planes Mistaken For Stars, Small Brown Bike, Hot Water Music, and Avail. (Yes, I know there was another band -- I'm not forgetting, I just don't think that it's worth my time to make fun of them.) Planes Mistaken For Stars had bad sound, or so I'm told, and I didn't much like them. I'd never heard anything of theirs before, anyway. Small Brown Bike didn't play many of their best songs, which was upsetting. Hot Water Music's set was fun as hell even if I didn't know many of the words. I was soaked in sweat and my fingers were pruned up by the time Hot Water Music left the stage, but I went to get water and returned for Avail's set. Also lots of fun, even if I didn't know many of their songs, either. Dave yelled out "Connection" right before they played that song, and the lead singer looked at him and nodded. Or so goes the story.

By the end of day one, I'd seen two amazing sets from bands that I didn't know as well as I could have, but it was still an excellent start to the weekend. Check back soon for days two (hardcore/metal) and three (emo-for-lack-of-a-better-word?) and for the drive back. And so on.