TapWater goes to the Grocery Store

FIELDTRIP to Trader Joes!

We love TJ's. It's the best. Great food, organic choices, good prices. Imagine the entire band heading into the grocery store. We pretty much take the entire place over. The last time we went shopping there we were in Eugene, OR. Anne pushed around the cart with her little grocery list. The band had agreed upon the list prior to the trip, now a customary practice. It's really the easiest, most equal way to shop for the 7 of us: Steve, Wes, Marc, Tim, Ravi, Crystal, and Anne. We all get in there, and spread out like a SWAT team. Crystal goes to grab the bread and tortillas. Steve grabs the cheese and chips and decides to pound down a juice while he's wandering the store. Marc is over looking at the hamburgers and chicken and Wes is buying his carrot juice (not a band purchase -- we are WAY too poor to afford carrot juice). Where is Ravi? Ravi, where are you?! Oh, he's in the beer section, of course, with Tim right next to him.

Anne continues down her list, picking up this and that. She is taking a little while, looking for the best prices on things: pasta, sauce, fresh organic produce, jam, juice. She is taking a while and suddenly she hears a commotion. She looks up to find three or four band members devouring the free samples! "Aye caramba" she mutters and shakes her head with a laugh. "We have to get out of here."

Soon, every so often a band member comes to the cart "I want this", "I want that". "Okay, that's cool" or "No way, it's too expensive. We're on a budget here!" It's pure hilarity to watch. The staff is starting to look at us and chuckle.

Finally, we make it to the check out line. Crystal, Anne, Steve, and Wes load up the conveyor belt with a full cart of stuff. We are all yammering a mile a minute, talking with the checkout clerk. "Yeah, we're a band. We're called TapWater -- check out our web site and listen to our music for free." The young kid is interested and enjoys talking with us. The cashier at the next ailse over, a grayhaired pleasant guy, asks "What kind of music you play?" "American jam rock" answers Anne, "rock, funk, Latin jazz, blues, bluegrass, pop." "We are playing the OregonState Fair at the end of August," chimes in Steve. All the customers are looking at us, unsure of what to think. We continue laughing and talking.

Finally, the bill totals up: $99.01. Anne hands over a stack of ones. The young guy lets out a belly laugh. "ALL ONES!!" The customers start chuckling and Anne says a little sheepishly "Well, we work for tips, you know." He counts the bills and comments "Exactly 100." Anne smiles. "Thanks!" and the raucous band of 7 heads out the door toward iRVin.

Too funny.

Update on iRVin

Hey everyone,
We are currently in Seattle. As it turns out, iRVin has been ill. He fell sick with transmissionitis. Eeeee! We could go into alot of detail but the short of the long of it is that we had it resealed and replaced the pump as well as replaced the torque converter. This is exciting stuff! We actually found an honest mechanic to help us. The whole deal cost $1233.86. Ouch. Then, of course, the smog pump was whining so Wes put on his little jumpsuit and dove in. He found the faulty part, extracted it, chased the part down, and replaced it. The part cost $328.54. And THEN we did an oil change, replaced the wiper blades, and the burnt out headlight: $135.66 total. All in all, Seattle has been an expensive stop over. Lucky for us, we had Dona Laird who opened her home to us, lent us her car, and baked us the best chocolate chip cookies (with walnuts, love the walnuts) in the world!

Pray for iRVin.
love
TapWater

Sausage Factory

TapWater is pulling into Eugene OR and decides to stop at a swimming hole Anne found out about through her friend John. Crystal and Anne change into their suits and head down to the river. Marc isn't far behind. The rest of the band hangs in the RV and makes some lunch. Crystal is a few paces ahead of Anne. She makes it to the river, immediately turns around and comes back, almost bumping into Anne. "What's wrong?"Anne asks. "Duuuude," Crystal says. "That guy is naked in the river. He's stroking himself." "What the hell are you talking about" says Anne somewhat alarmed and definitely amused. She goes to check it out only to find a green haired forty year old man's wrinkly butt staring back at her. "Oh my God!" she whispers. "What is going on here?" The other guy on the path is wearing clothes and there is no one else around. Crystal and Anne decide to check it out a little further -- that was probably just a weird incident.

The,y walk in the river a while and come across a couple skinny dipping. Okay, this is definitely a nude swimming hole. Crystal and Anne look around and notice that around the deep part of the river there are older men hanging out -- literally -- in the paths. They are old and they are nude. There are too many old men's penises for any girl to stand. Crystal and Anne's skins suddenly begins to crawl, and like antelope from a lion's den they high tail it out of there.

Marc, meanwhile, is looking for Crystal and Anne. He sensed something was a little funny and wanted to make sure the girls were okay. He walked around the corner and BAM! -- he almost ran right into a naked guy. "Hi, my name is Robert," the guy grinned. Marc took one look at him, turned around and started walking the other way -- a little faster this time.

Crystal and Anne made it to the river bank to head up the trail. As soon as they walked onto the path, some 58 year old naked man happened to be walking down. Do you know what happens when you are walking up a trail when a naked man is walking down the trail? Yep, you come face to face with his penis! And what it penis it was. He was proud not only to show off his nice smooth beer belly but also his shiny silver c-and-b ring. How lovely! Crystal somehow managed a "Hello" and Anne dropped her gaze to the dirt and moved quickly passed in silence. At that point, the girls ran into Marc at the crossroads and they all agreed -- let's get out of here!!! They practically broke into a run when they came across Ravi and Steve finally heading down to the river. All three cried and pushed them back in the direction from which they came: "No! You don't want to go down there!" cry Crystal and Anne. "Why not?" They ask. And to sum it up as only one can, Marc says "It's a sausage factory." Steer clear of the sausage factory!!

Four-legged Ravi

"No, there is no tab, the band can have as many drinks as they would like," says Debbie, the owner of Kelly O'Briens Pub in Eureka. Anne tries to hide her horror with a pleasant "Oh, thank you." She contemplates telling the band they only get two rounds free. In the end she knows that it's pointless to try to trick them -- they are going to end up totally drunk.

By the end of the show, Anne can't even stand next to Steve he reeks so bad. Ravi is stumbling and Tim is making funny faces at people. The band loads the gear out into the alley. Anne stands back and watches them try to load the trailer in their sorry state. Ravi, the designated pack master, is standing in the trailer yelling at the band "Bring me the amp I SAID!!" "I told you guys not to put stuff behind the doors!! I need to see EVERYTHING!!" "Hurry up!!" The venue owners Debbie and Richard are watching the whole scene in awe. Finally, 45 minutes later, the trailer doors close and Richard says "Okay, tequila on me!" Anne just looks at him, chuckles, and and heads into the RV. "Oh no."

Thirty minutes later the band stumbles out of the bar. Ravi boards iRVin, goes into the back bedroom to look for something he can't remember and begins barking at the ceiling for no reason. Anne serves Ravi a bowl of pasta and Trader Giotto's red sauce. He takes about 4 bites, stops, and says, "Seriously, you guys, I'm not feeling that good." Everyone looks at each other for a moment, then bursts into laughter. "Stop fighting it, Ravi," says Anne. "Just go outside and get it over with. You'll feel better." "No, I don't want to," he cries. "I don't want to." Crystal takes him by the hand and leads him outside. Five minutes later, Crystal comes back to get a paper towel and some water. "Well, he was sitting on the stairs with his head hanging down for a while. Then after a second, he leapt onto his hands and knees and let it go." Puked. Hurled. Vomited. Wretched. She disappears for another minute and this time returns with Ravi. Ravi walks up the stairs, he hair in a ponytail on the top of his head, and the bags under his eyes down to his socks. He looked absolutely terrible. He teetered toward the back, fell on the bed, and passed out.

Tim on the other hand, was still hungry. He grabbed Ravi's leftover bowl and said "I don't think he's going to eat this." And he ate it down.

BUSTED at Safeway

The other night we went grocery shopping at Safeway. While some of the band was cooking dinner, Steve, Ravi, and anne decided to have shopping cart races. We walked over to the line of carts, each one of us carefully selecting our race vehicle. Is the alignment good? Do the wheels turn freely? Is it smooth? After we picked out our carts, we walked up to the top of the hilly parking lot. Ravi filled us in on the rules: essentially run as fast as you can up to that black line, then jump on and let it ride! The one who gets to the end of the parking lot first wins. You can put your feet down to steer but no extra running after the black line. The three of us line up to take a test run. Ravi counts off the start "one, two, THREE!" All of us take off running and jump onto the cart. We fly past iRVin, past the three cars in the lot, all the way to the end. It was a tie between Ravi and anne, although anne could have possibly been cited for cheating -- it was questionable whether she put her feet down to steer or to get a little extra speed. We walked back up to the top of the lot for the real race. We line up, catch our breath, and Ravi counts it off. "One...." We all crouch down. "Two...." Our arms tense. "THREE!!!" We start running as fast as we can. anne is dead last at the start but right before the black line she gives a hard push jumps on with just enough force to catch right up. All three of us are neck and neck. Steve's cart has a pesky alignment problem that starts taking him south. Ravi and anne are about to bump carts when Ravi slows down to give anne the lead. Steve straightens out and pushes again. All three are again neck and neck. As we get to the end of the parking lot, anne jumps down to steer and gives an extra push. Ravi tries to catch up by bending down for aerodynamics but to no avail. Steve is right behind anne but his cart again turns to the left. The finish line closes in and yes! anne wins it!!! Ravi and Steve jump off their carts, turn around and start running back to the start line for another round. We look up and see a short little Safeway woman walking toward us like she is going to scold her three children. When she reaches us Steve says "Want to ride?" Ravi and anne stifle their chuckles. The air changes as she says stonefaced "Can I have those please?" We hand them over like little kids turning over their Halloween candy to their parents. To make up for our wrongdoing, Steve asks "Do you want us to bring them back up?" Her cold demeanor cracks and she says "No, I got it." The three of us head back to iRVin for dinner. We sure worked up an appetite.

The Blow Out!

How many of you out there have seen TapWater's tour vehicle, iRVin? We have a 1994 34-foot Fleetwood Bounder. Anyway, last night, after playing our show at the Owl Club in Roseville, we ate some pasta and rolled out. We pulled into Truckee in North Lake Tahoe area around 4 am. Finally there, we were exhausted and excited to be pulling aside to rest. As we turned into the parking lot we heard a loud POP!!! We all bolted upright and looked at each other -- what the hell was that? We stopped the RV to check it out. Sure enough, we blew the inside tire of our back right dually. Poor iRVin!!! He had a long day yesterday: a radio show in South Tahoe, back to Concord to pick up our CDs, then a show in Roseville, and back to North Tahoe. Ouch. We called the Tire Doctor this morning and had him all fixed up within an hour. One tire, $130. Aye caramba!!!

TapWater Breaking the Law

TapWater left for tour on July 1. Since then, we have been making friends with police all over the state of California. They absolutely love us! "Can you move your RV? You are not authorized to park here." "Excuse me, do you have a permit to perform on this corner?" "You are not allowed to amplify your music in the street." "Panhandling is against the law. You'd better close up shop now or I'm going to have to give you ticket."

No. No. No.....and NO!!!
How about a donation?

Welcome!

Welcome to the TapWater Blog! Please check back as we begin to update with news from the road.