Segarini: The Home Tour Part One

Well, I know it’s been awhile and I apologize for that, but the Holidays are a tough time for me. That 2 week stretch at the end of the year always makes me look over my shoulder at what took place in the previous 12 months, and what, if anything, I had accomplished. The stress comes when I try and determine whether or not I had made my life a little better…or worse. This year, with the exception of the wonderful experience of working with the absolutely stellar group who contribute to this blog, and their dedication, hard work, and well-crafted columns, I seemed to have treaded water, not going forward or backward, even though there were big changes in my life. I got depressed. I don’t like being depressed….

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Segarini: A Story for a Sunday Afternoon – How Charlie Manson Harshed Our Mellow

On July 25th, 1969, Music teacher Gary Hinman is murdered in his Topanga Canyon home. On August 8^th, 1969 Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Sharon Tate and Sharon Tate’s unborn child are murdered in her home on Cielo Drive. On August 9^th, 1969 Leno and Rosemary LaBianca are murdered in their Los Feliz home. 

All the murders are brutal, and horrific.

It is the official end of the innocence…

Segarini: The Fat City Chronicles 2 – Short Stories about Long Ago

I am in awe of how much there is to do in Toronto if you are looking for a reason to get out of the house or forget the work-a-day woes we all carry around with us like humps on the backs of our spirits. If you are honest with yourself you know that the whole ‘adulthood’ period we’re all supposed to embrace is a pack of lies and purposely inflicted on us by people who got older and don’t want us to keep having a good time when we’re able because they were taught the good times have to stop when you get married, or have kids, or get a mortgage or become burdened by responsibility and obligation.

Bullshit.

That’s exactly when you should give in to your inner child and let your hair down once in a while, even if you don’t have much hair left.

Segarini: The Art Of Touring 8 – No wonder there are so many cabs in NYC…

Part 7 can be found here

Artist sketch: A New York Car Thief …or Nacho Libre.

Less than 8 hours in New York, and we’re down a truck, a car, a pantload of expensive gear, and I seem to be missing my Official  Forceps Roach Clip.

Now I’m mad.

Segarini: The Art Of Touring 7 – Dude! Where’s our truck?

Part 6 can be found here

“Say again?” says Frankenheimer.

“Somebody stole the truck”, says Dennis, looking not unlike a deer caught in the headlights of a very angry, red-faced, manager. Bruce, who normally towers over the diminutive Dennis, is doing his best to will himself to the size of a Smurf, turning a sickly shade of blue in the process.

Segarini: The Art Of Touring 6: Hey! There’s where King Kong bought it….

Part 5 can be found here

I don’t care how many times you have seen it, the sheer size and grandeur of the New York skyline from the George Washington Bridge is jaw dropping at the very least. The first time you see it…well, it is pretty much Christmas, Disneyland, and your first non-solo orgasm all rolled into one…with a touch of Impending Doom.

Segarini: The Art Of Touring 5 – Dank? What the hell is dank?

Part 4 can be found here

Team Roxy. From L to R: Jim Morris, John MacDonald, John Haeny, (producer /engineer), with one of his prize winning huskies, Jac Holzman, (President, Elektra Records), Bob Segarini, Randy Bishop, Jim DeCoq, and John The Frankenheimer, (manager).

In retrospect, we shouldn’t have been as elated as we were to see the A-1 Motel come into view as we pulled off I90 and into the parking lot surrounding the ill-named shoebox we were about to seek shelter in.

Segarini: The Art of Touring 3 – I’ll have a bottle of Golden Wedding and a Virginia Ham

Part 2 can be found here

Bruce the Roadie finally calmed down after the hotel gave him another room while they fumigated the one he was staying in next to mine. At breakfast that afternoon, he threatened to kill the rest of us if we ever mentioned the ‘Bowling Ball Incident’ again. I pray he’s not reading this column.

So now it’s Sunday in Toronto. We’ve recovered from Bobby Sherman, Yorkville, and the Matador. It’s a brand new day, and we’re looking for action…There is no action.

Segarini: The Art Of Touring II – The Wrath of Dawn

Part 1 can be found here.

A Night On The Town: Hours after the Bobby Sherman show at the O Keefe, the mob standing outside the rear doors waiting for the already gone Mr. Sherman to come out and sacrifice his shirt to the mostly female cast of The Lord Of The Flies, were finally dragged back to their mother’s station wagons and taken home, clearing a path for us to get to our rented Vista Cruiser, and go back to the Holiday Inn. It was early, around 11:00 o’clock, so being rude boys and Rock Stars, we decided to hit the town to blow off some steam, get faced, and check out the local hip scene. Toronto. At 11:00 on a Saturday night. Who knew…

Segarini: The Art Of Touring Part 1

After years of touring up and down the West Coast in The Family Tree, with forays into Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona, I thought I was a seasoned professional when it came to rock and roll touring.

I knew to take an empty suitcase so I’d have a way to bring all the crap you get on the road home with me. Promotional T-shirts from radio stations, books and comics and magazines you’d buy to read to stave off the road crazies, decks of cards, clothes bought from hippie clothing stores, hand made by beautiful, free-loving girls named Sunflower, Moonchild, and Debbie, hotel and motel towels, unsent postcards, souvenir ashtrays, gig posters and handbills, albums, assorted snacks indigenous to wherever we were, gifts from fans, and once…a big jar of homemade dill pickles.