Fri., April 17, Grand Forks, ND, Muddy River's -- This report actually starts at midnight after Thursday when we left Joanna's apartment for the 15-hour trek to Grand Forks. For the geographically challenged, Grand Forks is about 90 miles north of Fargo...you know, the vast desolate land depicted in the movie. Anyway, rather than having to undergo the situation of having to perform immediately after a 15-hour van trip, Joanna opted to get us out early so we could sleep in rotation on the van, and then have a few hours after arriving at the gig to load in, unpack, and sleep. We were going to be staying and performing at the Best Western Hotel. Darnell took first shift driving, and being the young viril man he is, he got us all the way to St. Paul, MN, around 7 a.m. Joanna took over driving duties and managed to last until central Minnesota, where she began slapping herself to stay awake. I was feeling perky, so I kind of insisted I take over. I coffeed up and got us the rest of the way, while Tony and Vic snoozed peacefully. The weather was beautiful, and for all its desolation, I had to remember I was comparing it to Western Oregon, and so appreciated the wide open space... It was about 1 p.m. when we arrived at the hotel to load in. Nice big room and good-sized stage. The club in the hotel was your basic hotel bar situation, but it was adjacent to two large convention-style rooms with high ceilings that they opened up for the infrequent concerts. Infrequent because Grand Forks is just so damn far from everywhere, although there was a bit of grumbling about the trip-miles of the booking. Couldn't we just have put that date on a northern route, where we went from Milwaukee to St. Paul to Grand Forks? Oh well, I'm not in the thick of logistical and tactical planning ably executed by our fine booking agency, so who knows what forces were at work...have faith. We were all starving, having not really eaten a meal since the trip began. We were tipped off to an Italian food buffet nearby, so we trucked over there, only to discover dried spaghetti stuck on the sides of the serving trays, and dried-over eggplant and old sauce. The buffet looked about a week old, so we quickly vacated the place to the chagrin and hopefully embarrassment of restaurant management. Acting on a gas-station tip, we arrived at the Country Buffet at the local mall and voraciously chowed down. Back at the hotel, I stumbled up to my own room that Jo rewarded me with for my valiant driving effort, and fell like a rock asleep for four glorius hours. Another cup of coffee and I was ready for show time. There was a moderate crowd paying eight bucks, but man, they seemed asleep. It was one of those gigs where you play your guts out and the audience could seem to care less. Although, to their credit, most everyone seemed to stick around, but only two people signed up for the mailing list. I began to figure that these people were suffering from S.A.D. from the long, cold winter. We then heard that this was the weekend of the anniversary of the great 500-year flood in Grand Forks. The hotel had been under four feet of water, and it pretty much wiped out the town. I suddenly understood why the called the club "Muddy River's"... Jo said, "Well, no wonder these people are depressed!" Before the last song of the second set, after a three-song segued groove-serious rock down, someone yelled, "Play something with a groove!" That hit Joanna the wrong way. "Fuck you," she retorted, I felt, appropriately. Then, on the last set, there seemed to be an infusion of energy, and by the last 20 minutes everyone was dancing. When we hit the last note, the audience then had the gall to demand an encore. Did they feel bad about the "fuck you" comment, and wanted to make it up to us? Geez, who knows...we burned through a quick version of "Fire."