Jared Mees: I’m at the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Ashland, OR and Northern CA)-- Local Cut

Jared Mees: I’m at the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Ashland, OR and Northern CA)

June 30th, 2009 [11:37AM] Posted by: Jared Mees | 1 COMMENT

“I’m at the pizza hut, I’m at the taco bell. I’m at the combination pizza hut and taco bell.”

So I am a severe allergy sufferer. Most of my last 4 tours (as well as the majority of the intervening time in PDX) have been spent sneezing and sniffling and gargling saltwater in a vain attempt to not go hoarse for the next show. We don’t have health insurance so I’ve never actually gone to the doctor for it.

But 5 days ago I realized I would have to sing 21 shows, or about 200 songs, with a sub par voicebox if I didn’t do something about it right then.

Fast forward to Alex’s restaurant in Ashland, Oregon on 6-28. I’ve been informed by Brianne that I may not speak for ten full minutes as I have talked constantly and somewhat abrasively for the last 6 hours in James Brown. You see I feel amazing! No sniffles, no hoarseness, no sneezing! The prednosone, allegra and sudafed (the real stuff) have worked their magic. The doctor told me other side effects include irritability and the jitters. Consequently I’ve lost my ability to sleep, and it seems my ability to censor myself. I feel fabulous but apparently I’m not the sensitive dude of old. As a result, I think I might be fulfilling many of the over-controlling egomaniac lead singer style stereotypes that I have always prided myself on bucking…
I find myself ordering people around constantly (with very little effect) and I don’t say please or thank you. I am always talking very loudly about my concerns about equipment, the van , the way we played this or that song last night, etc. I am annoying myself.

But for 5 minutes last night I was plucked ever so gently out of that id-fueled cycle by the amazing Y La Bamba. Suddenly I felt at peace with myself and my sinuses and the chemicals. I don’t know the name of the song but it was wispy and full of light and air. In it Luz and Ben use at least 10 syllables to sing the words “weeping willows.” I feel suddenly as if I’m in a grainy black and white film set in 1920s Spain. A boy and girl are holding hands on a ferris wheel ovelooking a quaint but bustling seaside promenade and…

The song ends. The crowd claps. I glance at my phone for some reason and see a text from our booker about Sacramento being canceled. And I am back in my body…

It was the first shh.

Our set was so fun. Everyone danced and a fair number even sang along. Alex put us up in a hotel and wined and dined us. A picture perfect first tour stop. We were even encored into playing a new song.

Lucky for myself and my patient bandmates I only have two more days on the drugs.

- Jared Mees
Reporting for Grown Children from the James Brown tour vessel from the middle of the sweltering Northern California valley 119 miles north of Sacramento. Temp: 107.5