In celebration of our third birthday, we invited a bunch of musicians to detail their experiences of the number three. We asked them to pen a story about how Third Time Lucky, the Rule of Threes or Three’s A Crowd has applied at some time in their life, whether it’s personal, musical or anything else!
Now, sit back, grab a drink (or three) and enjoy our series of Third Time Around. You can tweet us your birthday wishes here, or send us a birthday e-card here.
Sam Porter of Chicago band The Howl gives us the lowdown on why three is an important number when it comes to tour vans.
The third tour that my band went on was a three-week trip down the west coast to Florida and back up. While the saying goes that “Good things come in threes” and “Third time’s the charm”, I would insist that knowledge and clarity can usually be gathered by doing something three times or more, and I guess that is a good thing. The first time teaches you what you like, the second what you don’t. The third time time around you can usually narrow down your goals, knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I think this applies to art and relationships, creating things in general. You have to sharpen two side of a blade to hone in its potential edge; after all, knowing what you don’t want is possibly more important than what you do.
So we started this terrific journey in our very FIRST ever rock and roll tour van, named “VANessa” (hehe). She was black, tiny and very old. We were touring in the middle of winter, the van didn’t have heat and I remember having to hair-dry our feet at the first show because they were so frozen. Frostbite aside, the tour was going swimmingly. We were making really good money and playing some pretty packed rooms. I remember us counting out gas money at a stop and not being able to believe how well we were doing. Of course, it all had to come to rusty, screeching end. After playing a not-so-good show at Strange Matter in Richmond, Virginia, a stranger offered to put us up for the night. As I parallel parked in front of their apartment, I felt a large clunk and the whole van lowered. The entire 14-year-old American-made rusty chassis of the van had snapped in half, leaving Vanessa unrepairable and stranded on the campus of Richmond, Virginia.
We weighed our options quietly inside. We could cancel the tour, and fly home, shipping the gear and throwing all of our hard work away. Another option was to rent a van and continue the tour that way. But of these options seemed like a hassle and were much more expensive than we were willing for. We found a junker van on Craigslist that was hideous and beautiful and giant and blue. The very next morning we went to check it out. Test drive was a success and so we handed over the grand to the owner. When I went out to the parking lot to drive back in our new van, the engine wouldn’t even turn over. I had just signed the title and given the guy $1000, who had locked the door and vanished. We managed to find a mechanic who came and got us going again, but it was not a great start. We collected the crew and christened the new whip “SaVANnah” and we were off to Georgia after two days down and a cancelled show.
Things were going really well the next couple of dates. We had more room in the van then ever, and there was a sweet hole in the floor that we could dump pee out of. (Punk rock is supposed to be taking the shitty things and celebrating them, eh?) But was the tour was on its last leg, we ran into trouble again. We couldn’t seem to get the van going over 40mph on the highway. We stopped in to have it looked at and the mechanic practically laughed at us. He said, “So, you have an eight-cylinder engine,” and held up four fingers on each hand, “only four of your cylinders actually work,” he concluded, taking two fingers on each hand away, a peace sign on either side of his fuzzy chin.
Our options were to either have them continue the diagnoses, which would mean if they found other problems they wouldn’t be legally allowed to let us leave or cash in right then and there and leave with “four tyres and the radio” as our mechanic friend put it. The last couple of tour dates were exhausting because the drives were so painfully long and slow, and during all of them we had to deal with this strange smell coming from the engine. The very last drive home, it was about 10 degrees, and we had the heat blasting to take some of the heat off of the engine, the windows were down and everyone was so tired. When we got home, I immediately sold the van (honestly and fair) to a woman whose car had died on her and needed to get home to Indiana. I have never been so happy to get rid of something ever.
So, happy third birthday, Soot! I know that this little anecdote doesn’t procure any type of moral conclusion or lesson to be learned, nor does it really have a ton to do with your third year, but I hope it was a good read. Humankind has a pretty huge obsession with this number – I was reading through the Wikipedia page for it before typing this out. Anyways, I hope that this year brings you all the laughter, friendship and glamour that your heart can hold. Thanks for letting us be a part of it.
P.S. another group of threes.
Here are the three vans that we’ve owned:
- VANessa – Black 2000 Dodge Ram Van – DECEASED (Keys were ceremonially thrown into the Atlantic Ocean.)
- SaVANnah – Blue 1999 Dodge Ram Van – HOPEFULLY VERY DECEASED BY NOW
- DonoVAN – Grey 2001 Ford E-150 – Hopefully she’ll take us around the States a few more times, fingers crossed!
The Howl East Coast Tour Poster, 2014.
