Wed., Nov. 26, 1997, San Francisco, CA, Biscuits & Blues -- We ended up heading out of Portland around 2:30 p.m., which was just fine by me. I had to finish my wash, and was attempting to finish my internet access transaction with TRI, and getting my e-mail. Dede came up with a bunch of clothes she was through wearing, and gave them to Joanna who was happy to get them. It was nice non-form-fitting stuff she could wear for preggy clothes. After ardent goodbyes, and in good spirits we all headed down the roaderoo. We made it to Grants Pass, OR, for the night, and in the morning it was dark and very rainy. The rain continued all the way to San Francisco with only occasional breaks, and I pitched in on the driving for a couple of hours. We got to the club finally after negotiating the tortutous streets of San Francisco without a map and only an address, and Joanna's "gut feeling" as to where the damn club was. We loaded in around 4 p.m. under a barrage of bums and beggars and then holed up at a shabby Travelodge. Tony and I watched the Heat beat the shit out of the Magic, and then headed down to the club for dinner. The club had a special band menu, and I ordered the braised chicken. It was weird with strange creole-wannabe seasoning, and it was undercooked with blood still weeping through it--I'm pretty sure even I could have done a better job, especially at 10 bucks...However, to the club's credit and its namesake, the biscuits were very good. It was a double Blind Pig recording artist bill with Joanna and Tommy Castro. Castro was featured much more prominently, which was kind of a slap in the face, since Joanna has been with the lable for twice as long, and has sold five times more records, but then, San Fran is Tommy's home town. The crowd obviously came to see Tommy, and seemed a bit impatient with our set through a wimpy sound system. We did our 70 minutes to a lukewarm crowd. There were some Joanna fans, but it was really a Castro show. I met the bass player, drummer, and the sax guy, and they seemed really nice, and were very complimentary. We loaded out as Tommy started playing, and headed back to our rooms, discussing traditional blues vs. progressive blues, and that the white traditional blues thang is really a recent phenomena, whereas the most famous bluesmen were black and very progressive. We concluded that our band was actually truer to the tradition of blues than the "traditional" blues band, such as Castro's, although they are very good at what they do.