At 9 the next morning Peter’s face was peering into the living room where we were all camped out. I got up to watch him with Will stumbling in a zig-zag crossing back and forth across the street. They came back two hours later with iced coffee and big smiles.
In the daylight it was obvious that a lot of work had been done to the neighborhood to fix it back up. There were dumpsters lining the street filled with debris and at least a quarter of the houses on the block were swarming with construction workers whacking away at floorboards.
The house we slept in belonged to Matt, a friend of Park the Van, and he sat out on the porch with us for the rest of the morning until everyone was recovered enough to make the 5 hour drive to Shreeveport. Since Sean left for home the night before, I climbed up for my first day riding the Teeth van.
Jonas set himself up a bookshelf under Aaron’s seat to house his books on chess and economics. Aaron turned as we pulled away to tell me, “Jonas was an orphan when we found him. He was panhandling, swindling a rich guy. I went up to him and said, ‘I like your stye, kid.’”
New Orleans was the first time I really saw the Teeth and National Eye mix with each other, and it was the first night they spent in the same place. They even ate a lunch of catfish, meat biscuits and something called “debris” together at a themey cajun diner called Mother’s. At the next table the mayor of New Orleans was sitting with his family, positioned in exactly the right spot at the table so that he could be seen from the door. Will elected himself mayor of our table and appointed Jeff as head of his secret service. Jeff saved Will from assassination by shoving his head under the table.
On the road to Shreveport I asked The Teeth to pick a genre for their music.
“Rock n’ Roll Delight.” - Aaron
“Self-styled rock, because we styled it ourselves.” - Jonas
I suggested “Zesty Pizzaz Rock” and they concurred.
The first thing everyone noticed at Lil’ Joe’s was the marquee. The second was another band’s van in the parking lot. “Don’t worry guys,” Peter said soberly, “ours is longer.
Shreveport was the gig that the Teeth had been looking forward to the most because of the friends they had there from a previous tour. Lil’ Joes gave both bands huge free porkchop dinners.
The Teeth were like celebrities in Shreveport. They had an autographed T-Shirt pinned to the ceiling, and when they walked into the venue girls screamed and a drummer named Chadwick from a local band called The Big Positive who opened for the Teeth on their summer tour completely lost it, hugging Peter. The Teeth played this venue twice before, and they say this kind of reception is why they probably always will.
Will asked idly what kind of band The Big Positive were, and we all replied at the same time, “Pizzaz Rock.”
Everyone was in a giddy mood. National Eye made up a song at sound check that had Jeff and Doug singing, “This is the sound check!” in huge operatic baritone voices. During the Teeth set the fans crowded the stage and Chadwick came up to the micropohone so that Peter could sing “I Love You” right into his face.
Chadwick left the bands a present under the merch table (a bottle of Knob Creek), and then provided the most pillows I’d ever seen in one place to make the hardwood floors in his apartment more comfortable.
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