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Oops, I did it again! I flew to Los Angeles again, for the third time in three months! Granted, the weekend in October wasn’t for Red Elvises (one of my rare non-band trips) but I did end up with more free time than I expected to have and saw quite a few friends of Red Elvises while there. I’d booked the November trip, to see them in San Diego and Huntington Beach, when I thought there’d be no New Year’s show this year. Then when I saw the December 31st date on the schedule I knew I couldn’t miss that (there is nothing more fun on New Year’s Eve than seeing Red Elvises play!), so I started making the arrangements for that trip too. I should be racking up the frequent flyer miles but since I always book the cheapest flights possible I usually end up flying a different airline each time...maybe that’s stupid, but that’s how I do it. So this trip I was flying the friendly skies on U.S. Airways and had the luxury of nonstop flights both ways. As Borat would say, "Verrry Naahce!"
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This time, a friend was joining me in L.A. and sharing a hotel room. Her name is Maya, she’s from Tucson and I met her in Red Chat! See the advantage of coming to the Red Elvises chat room on Tuesday nights? You sometimes meet very cool people who become friends. I met Rebecca from Key West (our current Fan of the Month) in there too, another night, and later met her face-to-face in Tampa. But anyway, I knew it would be fun to have a fan as crazy as I am to run around L.A. with and experience the joy that is Red Elvises at Rusty’s, especially on a special night like New Year’s Eve, so I'm very glad Maya could join me there. We had so much fun! I always say Red Elvises has the best fans in the world, and even more than that, it's great to have a new friend. |
The last time I went to L.A. I stupidly set my alarm clock wrong and missed my flight. This time I had an even earlier flight so I set two alarms, my regular electric one as well as my cell phone’s alarm clock. No way was I going through that anxiety and distress again! I also went to bed much earlier and tried to get some sleep. The morning came, or rather, the wee hours came when I had to get up (I live about an hour from the airport) and I set out on my adventure.
On the way to the airport my car’s “Check Engine” light came on.
Always something! I was hoping and praying all the way, “Just get me to the airport, pleeeeeaaaasssse!” And I was never so grateful to get to Long Term Parking at Charlotte-Douglas Airport! With the engine still in my car, no less. In true Scarlet O’Hara fashion (“I’ll think about it tomorrow!”) I decided I would worry about my car when I got back, took my luggage out and went to catch the shuttle.
Since I had the luck of nonstop flights this time I slept as much as possible and landed uneventfully at LAX some hours later. Baggage claim and car rental accomplished, I went to downtown L.A. to pick Maya up at the Greyhound bus station. This was our first time meeting face-to-face. Maya was everything I’d thought she’d be, warm, friendly, funny, a very sweet girl. We hit it off instantly as we put her things in my rental car and chattered like two old friends. We drove up to North Hollywood and went to lunch with another friend of mine, an L.A. native, and hung out with him for a while that afternoon until time to go to the Venice/Marina del Rey area and check into our hotel. That night, December 30th, we spent mostly socializing, having dinner, drinking a couple of beers and so on. A planned meeting with a friend didn't work out exactly and during dinner at Denny's we met quite a weird guy (I hear L.A. is full of 'em... But other places are too, believe me! What is about me eating at Denny's? See my write up of my trip to Orlando in the Archives - the December Red Pages issue - for another Denny's story...) but we were still really happy to be there... Saving the really big excitement for New Year’s Eve, of course.
The next day we slept late and then had lunch, did a little shopping and did other girly stuff like visit the Venice Beach 99 Cent Store where I bought a pair of socks. I love socks!!. I had brought with me a pair of very high heeled red patent leather shoes similar to the pair Rebecca, our February Fan of the Month, gave Elena (see the Fan of the Month interview for details and a photo of those), except mine had open toes. Mine also proved impossible for me to walk more than three steps in without strongly resembling the Frankenstein monster...clump clump...”Ow, I fell out of my shoe!” Which actually is far better than “Ow, I broke my ankle,” but still... It’s not so attractive to try to walk in shoes that cause Frankenstein-monster-esque clumping and lurching. So I went in search of a more feasible pair and found them...also red and quite similar in basic design, but slightly darker with a sort of faux crocodile look...and, most importantly, a teensy bit less high so I could actually walk around in them, reasonably resemble a human being and not fear for my life (or ankles) at the same time. Shoes are very important to a female, as well as to Red Elvises fans. I figured I could probably wear these for most of the show, at least.
So “nice shoes” in hand, we got dressed in our finest and headed off to Rusty’s Surf Ranch a little after 8:00pm. And a funny thing happened on the way to Rusty's... Based on my experience with the time the guys usually get to Rusty’s for a show and glancing at my watch, I had a hunch and turned down Igor’s street to see if just maybe Oleg was there in the process of picking him, Jamie and Elena up. Timing is everything; as we got close to Igor’s place, Maya said “Oh, look what we have here!” I was right! There was the big red Red Elvises van sitting right where I’d thought it might be at that time! I carefully pulled up next to it and put the passenger side window down to say hello to Oleg. Once he saw and greeted us I checked for traffic behind me (none, yay!) and backed up to get behind the van again. Once everyone at Igor’s was inside they headed off and we happily followed. Even though I knew the way like the back of my hand, going to Rusty’s in style behind Our Favorite Band was fun. We were ready to party!
Photo by Stephane Peters (c)2006.
We got to the Santa Monica Pier and I gave Oleg plenty of room to turn around and maneuver the van so they could unload in front. The Pier hasn’t allowed vans to park in the lot behind Rusty’s in years, so all they can do is unload and then go park the van in the lower parking lot, beach level. Once Oleg got the van turned around I drove on in and parked on the Pier as usual. We went in and greeted the rest of the band and I showed Maya around Rusty’s, which was festively decorated with balloons, even outside on the patios. Even though she used to live in California and saw them in Ventura (and then later in Tucson), this was her first time seeing the band in their home venue and I was so happy she was able to come experience New Year's Eve with them there. Rusty’s isn’t terribly large, so the grand tour was sort of like “here’s the dance floor where there are usually tables and chairs, there’s the bar..." (Actually that, as well as the stage, needed no pointing out, especially when various band members were on the stage setting up). "Here’s where the pool tables are when this area behind the stage isn’t full of tables and people eating, there’s the Ladies Room..." (Good advice: the big stall usually looks like it’s occupied even when it isn’t, so check it when you go in). "Here’s the back patio where smoking is allowed...and up those stairs (by the back door) is where the band goes to change clothes." I’ve never been up there; no one ever goes up there except for bands and Rusty’s staff, as far as I know, and I’ve never had a lot of curiosity about what it looks like up there really. Probably about like any other bar’s “backstage” area, I suppose, except that it's up a lot of stairs.
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While we were out on the back patio admiring the view of the brightly lit rides at the other end of the pier (Pacific Park amusement park), Oleg came out there and said hi to us as he went to sit down at a long table that looked like it had been prepared (several tables put together) for the band. I asked “May we join you?” and he said yes, so we sat there too. Soon other band members, friends and family members (Adam's brother was there and so was Igor's son) came out there and those of us who hadn’t already ordered food did that, as we caught up on the latest news and goings-on of other people we knew.
Here’s the biggest news...and it’s pretty wonderful too... For those of you who’ve enjoyed Red Elvises, in all their various configurations, for a very long time and know or remember Avi Sills, the band’s original drummer: he and his lovely wife are expecting a baby in July! Igor knew this but Oleg hadn’t heard, so I shared that news with him and he immediately whipped out his cell phone to call Avi with congratulations.
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This was a rather unusual New Year’s Eve at Rusty’s because a lot of the “regulars” – people I’ve gotten used to seeing there for Red Elvises shows – were not there. Alex, long time friend of the band, arrived in time to sit with us at dinner, Jamie was in attendance of course and Rhodes Ingerton (along with his pretty female friend) was there, but just about everyone else was a stranger to me. Rusty’s was decorated with balloons inside and out, as mentioned earlier, and there was a small supply of New Year’s Eve hats people could wear, but it seemed somewhat less of a wild party atmosphere than last year. It seemed more like the usual fun frenzy of any Red Elvises Rusty’s show and not as wild and crazy as a New Year’s Eve show. Not that it wasn’t fun, it was amazing! It just didn't quite seem...well, like New Year's Eve. But I always have fun at Rusty’s with the band, so it was still very very good as far as I'm concerned.
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They started playing and people started dancing, drinking and enjoying. I didn’t write down a list of the songs so I actually have no idea of what they started or ended with, even, or what all they played in between but they sounded great! It was a very similar set list to those played on the Fall tour. The lineup with the same as those shows too: Igor, Oleg, Adam and Elena. All other musicians who have played with them and live near or with them had other commitments that night so they had no extra-special guests onstage. I remember “Sad Cowboy Song,” “Lovepipe,” “I Wanna See You Belly Dance,” “Jerry’s Got a Squeeze Box,” “Gypsy Heart,” “My Love is Killing Me” and other old favorites. They also played some of the newer songs, and everyone loved whatever they played. I think those guys could play just about anything and people would raise their glasses and bottles of beer and other libations and shout "Yeah! Woooo!" and so on. The party was on! When “Belly Dance” began some of us got onstage to dance. I started out right in front of the drum kit between Igor and Oleg, trying not to step on anything vital, and then a lot more girls got up there, so Igor moved a bit to the front and kinda motioned with his head, one of his few body parts not otherwise occupied at that moment, for me to go over toward Elena’s side of the stage. So Maya and I moved over there where there was more room. Jamie was over there dancing too. I don’t know how the girls on the other side of the stage managed to move around at all, there were so many of them, but somehow that little stage held the four band members, all the gear and the dozen or more girls moving and shaking. It was glorious and amazing, as always, being “inside” the music like that and it was fun over by Elena, watching her play from that unique vantage point, her fingers flying over the keys making it look so deceptively easy. I hope they always play “Belly Dance” at their shows; I never ever get tired of that song!
A little bit before the end of the first set Igor leaned down from the stage and asked me to sell merchandise (“Can you help us?”) and I agreed to do that (“Yeah, sure!”), so as soon as “Belly Dance” ended I got off the stage and made my way over to the side where the boxes of CDs, DVDs and t-shirts were waiting. I just sat down on the side of the stage with my legs over the keyboard case that was sitting on its side on the floor there and started talking to people... helping them find just the right CD to buy, the one containing the song or songs for which they were looking and preferably more than one CD. After all, who can ever have enough Red Elvises CDs? You can listen to a different one each day of the week and two on each weekend day and still need more time to hear their entire catalog but you’ll never get bored with their music, I think we’d all agree. And of course everyone should have their wonderful 2006 DVD, “Live in Moscow.” So I talked and sold. Someone gave me a glass of champagne that I didn’t take the time to finish drinking until after midnight. Pretty soon I was hearing the New Year’s countdown as the ball dropped on the big TV screen above the stage. “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Woohoo! 2007 had arrived at last! My friend gave me a friendly New Year’s kiss and I kept sitting there selling merchandise, fairly oblivious to any festivities going on elsewhere in the room. I heard someone near me remark “You know, what you’re doing on New Year’s is what you’ll be doing all year!” I looked up and said “Selling merchandise? Hunh...” I’m sure there are worse things a person could do all year. Actually though, I do enjoy selling merchandise, and if I’m to be doing that throughout 2007 then that must mean I’m going to be attending a lot of Red Elvises shows! That sounds like fun to me so yeah, 2007, bring it on!
The second set began at some point after midnight and I think I spent some of it on the side of the stage rather than in front where I’d been the entire first set, if I remember correctly. Red Elvises are great from any angle! I believe I had another beer (or two?). From the sound of the previous sentences I must have had another beer or two, I suppose! I still didn’t write down the songs but I’m sure you can imagine the joy and happiness generated by them. And that was pretty much how the night went, wonderful, warm, fuzzy and red. Another highly successful and incredibly fun Rusty’s show, another year ending with all its regrets and successes, another year beginning, so full of promise. It was great to have a friend there from out of town this time to share it with me and I know she had a good time too.
Afterwards we just kinda hung out for a while, ignoring the Rusty’s staff’s announcements of “Everyone who’s not IN the band has to leave now!” and then went outside with Elena to my rental car where I had a small gift for her (a cute little black backless top I thought would look great on her). So she thanked me and we hugged goodnight. Then Maya and I got in the car and I drove around to the front to enjoy the last few minutes of the night watching the guys finish loading the van. It turned out there was no party at either of their places this year; they were going to a private Russian function, but Igor told me he might be having people over the next afternoon so I should call him around 1:00 or 2:00pm. He told me that twice so I promised I would. So Maya and I were on our own after we all drove off the pier. We went back to the hotel and I believe had another beer (each) as we happily chatted about our evening. And then we slept well, in anticipation of the first day of 2007.
The next day, Monday, January 1st, we slept late and then started slowly getting ready for the day. We each talked on our cell phones to friends, put on makeup, straightened up the room and our stuff...that sort of thing. In the early afternoon I called Igor and got his voicemail so thought maybe he wasn’t awake yet. I’m not sure what we did for the next little while but we did finally make it out of the hotel. I called Oleg and we ended up going over to his place where I raided his garage for merchandise to stock up (to fill online merchandise orders with, part of my most fun job ever...). That was great! I had dreamed of doing that for a while. I even found some of the very first band posters ever produced and brought home a small supply of those, so check the website and act fast if you want one, because there aren’t very many really.
After leaving Oleg’s and probably running some other errand(?), I called Igor again and finally got him on the phone. No one had shown up at his place so they were planning to go eat sushi at a restaurant in Venice. Maya had a friend coming to the hotel to see her, someone she hadn’t seen in years, so she really wanted to stay there and see him, so it worked out well for both of us, since sushi and other “unusual” food is not her thing. Through a series of phone calls I found myself sitting in my car in front of the sushi place Igor had told me about, staring at a sign that said “Closed.” It was New Year’s Day, I kept having to remind myself. Lots of places were closed, even in wild and crazy Venice Beach. So I called Igor again and he already knew it was closed; they were driving around looking for another sushi place and asked me to call him in five minutes. So I started driving too, heading back into Venice proper because at that point I was technically in Santa Monica. I was hoping to spot the van, because it’s so....well...visible and then just follow them. But I didn’t see it. I guess five minutes had passed when my phone rang. It was Igor, telling me the second place was also closed... Now this scenario was eerily familiar! See my write up in the November issue, the part about our efforts to find a barbecue restaurant in Greenville, SC...first place closed, second place closed... I wondered where we’d end up this time! Well, the next thing Igor said was that they were heading to the Promenade (yes, the famous 3rd Street Promenade where Red Elvises got their start playing on the street!) and would be eating at “an Asian restaurant somewhere in the middle.” Those were the only directions I got but it was no problem. The Promenade is a three-block-long shopping corridor closed to vehicular traffic. People walk down the sidewalks, in the street, stop to watch the street performers, sit on the benches and frequent the restaurants and movie theaters there. It's a really cool place and you should definitely visit it if you go to L.A.
So I drove to Santa Monica and parked in the first public parking structure I came to on 4th Street. You can exit from there onto an alley and cut through an enclosed hallway by Borders Books to get to 3rd, which is what I did. I walked in the direction of the middle of the Promenade, watching for Asian restaurants, and went right to the guys like a homing pigeon. No better directions needed! I saw an Asian restaurant sign, heard a few words spoken with a Russian accent and looked to see Oleg, Igor, Nanduh (Igor’s son) and Jamie sitting at a table in front of the restaurant. As I was greeted Igor gave me a gold-foil wrapped package and said it was present from Elena, who had had to leave for the airport to fly back to Russia. He was curious as to what it was and wanted me to open it. “It looks like a sushi plate,” he said. I had to grin because it was a little heavy, flat and curved and did kind of resemble a sushi plate. Elena’s present to me was so great (she’s so sweet!); it was a cool glass curved picture frame, a small tube of liquid moisturizer that I now LOVE and must find more of before I run out of it(!) and a bottle of red glittery nail polish. Thank you so much, Elena, you rock!!
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I ordered a beer and felt a little chilly in the cool Santa Monica air. It was then that I realized I'd left my jacket in the car for some dumb reason so all I can say is thank goodness for heat lamps and I sure was glad there was one over my end of the table. While looking at the menu Igor suggested we each order some kind of sushi and all share. That worked great for me because I had never really eaten sushi before and had little clue as to what was best. I had been to a restaurant where sushi was being eaten, and I had eaten California Rolls and one or two other cooked items, but I hadn’t been adventurous enough to try anything more exotic yet. The first rolls started arriving and they sure were cool looking! I joined in and ate some of whatever didn’t have legs sticking up out of the roll... I wasn’t quite that adventurous just yet. As the time went on we were joined by other people such as Sasha (aka Alex, keyboard player and Oleg’s roommate), Oleg-Schramm, a Russian girl I've seen many times at shows but I don't know her name (sorry) and Janna (very sweet Russian female friend of the guys, mother of two girls, the eldest of whom sang the backup “Where the fuck are you?” vocals on “Juliet”). One highlight of my meal was when Oleg offered me some of his sashimi.
Oleg said to me, “You want to try some sashimi?”
Me: “Okay.”
Oleg: “It’s raw fish.”
Me: “Okay.”
So he gave me a little piece of it. It was smooth and tender and tasted fine. I admit I did sort of try not to think about what it was, exactly, but it was good, I enjoyed it and will probably eat it again sometime. I didn’t want to seem ignorant and constantly ask, about the sushi rolls, “What’s this?” and “What’s that?” and so on, so I ate what seemed familiar and a few rolls that didn’t, because I’m pretty much “food adventurous” (a phrase borrowed from Maya, who informed me in no uncertain terms that she is not “food adventurous”), especially when I’m with Igor and Oleg. I see it as they’ve been all over the world and I’m sure have eaten a huge variety of foods, not all of it meat and potatoes, so to speak, so I trust them to know a lot about what’s good to eat. And so far I’ve had some wonderful culinary experiences and they haven’t steered me wrong. Finally, though, I was so curious about some of the last rolls I shared, which had something on top of them that didn’t look like anything I’d ever eaten and tasted a little bit like chicken, that I had to ask “What is that?” I believe it was Igor who told me “It’s eel.” Okaaay....eel. Everybody I've told this story to has gone "eww!" but really it was very good, don’t let the idea of eel throw you off. Everything I ate there was excellent and the beer, Kirin, was good too. It was a nice, mellow, really fun way to spend New Year’s Day afternoon...good food, good friends and a heat lamp far above keeping me from freezing.
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A while after most of the eating was done, Nanduh, who is 14 now, started building some pretty amazing artistic “sculptures” using bit of folded paper, beer bottles and other objects as supports. Jamie started helping to fold some little bits of paper that were on the table and add to the constructions and soon I joined in with some contributions too. It was very cool, actually, sort of a bit Dr. Seuss, a bit Jenga (a game with little pieces of wood forming a tower and players have to pull out one piece at a time without causing it to topple over) and a bit “The Amazing Machine” (an old computer game where you had to put pieces together to accomplish some action, except the paper bits weren’t mechanical, of course). At one point Igor accidentally hit one of the sculptures with his elbow and sent it tumbling...and apologized profusely. It was pretty funny though.
The meal and the afternoon both lasted a good, satisfyingly long, time. After we finished eating and talking and drinking beer and Oleg took care of the check (thanks again, Oleg, you rock twice!) we headed down the Promenade on the way to the parking garages, stopping to take some pictures (I think they’re on Oleg’s camera) and watch some street performers. The trees lining that part of the Promenade were bare and covered in small white lights. It was a nice late afternoon in Santa Monica in January...not too cold but definitely not warm by L.A. standards. When we got to the end of the street, across from the mall, I told Igor I was parked one block away and we said “See you later” and hugged goodbye. “Later” in this case will be March since there wasn’t really anything going on at Igor’s place later and Oleg was leaving that night on an 11:00pm flight to Thailand. But that’s cool, seeing them again, welcoming the New Year and finally getting to eat sushi with them – on the 3rd Street Promenade, no less! – was all really great and I’m very glad I went!
The rest of my trip, and Maya’s too, was spent mostly quietly. The next day we checked out and went up to Northridge, an area of the San Fernando Valley best known for the 1994 earthquake there, to meet a friend of mine – the girl who first introduced me to Red Elvises, actually - for lunch. Getting to see her again was great...we don’t get to see each other very often any more with me living so far away. Of course even when I lived in So Cal we were both really busy all the time and didn't see each other all that often but at least then there was a chance more often that we might get together. After lunch I talked to Avi on the phone, which was also great. He’s doing well and is very busy so there was no time to meet for a meal or drinks, but it was really good to hear his voice again. Later that afternoon I drove downtown again to take Maya to the Greyhound station. She was on her way back to Tucson and I had a plane to catch later that night, a redeye back to Charlotte. After I saw Maya off and before I made it across town to Santa Monica, Venice and on to LAX, another friend called and so I met her for dinner before going to turn in the rental car and shuttle to the airport.
So my trip went really well and I had a great, fabbo, amazing time! Southern California is the best! Red Elvises are definitely the best of the best!! Happy New Year!!! I can hardly wait to see Our Favorite Band again and actually, yes, I’ve already booked my flights to go to L.A. again in March for Igor’s birthday show (March 24th is the actual birthday of my friend Chris from Florida and he, along with most of his family, is going too! So that promises to be a birthday extravaganza show, March 24th at Rusty’s Surf Ranch on the Santa Monica Pier. Be there if you can, you’ll have a Good Time, Red Elvises will see to that!!!!