The Deli’s Dh Wright on tour with Deep Machine
The ride to Chattanooga was under way, and I had the feeling we were on the crest of something progressive that was neither good nor evil, but maybe a little of both, in search for reason behind the madness so many bands before them had done and failed to do; taking to the road without a label footing the bill. It was too late to get back home and write the entire idea of going along on tour as a pipe dream with the arching theme of “those who can’t do teach, and those who can’t teach write about it.” We were on our way south.
No one was at the venue when the band began to unload the equipment, but I suspected that people were hiding in the shadows getting their head leveled. We had extra coolant and oil in the van if anyone was interested, but there were no takers. This was the first tour Deep Machine had been on since reforming early this year with Bowden behind the bass. I ask DM what caused the split with their last bass player in the time before the set. “There were a lot of reasons,” Walsh says. “Things are just going to work better this way.” It seems, like all relationships, bands are no different, capable of discovering the worst and best in each other quickly and without mercy, and if the positives are not reiterated, the negatives creep up and have trouble ever going away.
It has only taken Zack a week to learn the complicated time changes, rhythm relapses, hyper metal dance beat mix ups and the color wheel of changes that make up the bands set list. “We can get fucked up when we are jamming, but I’ll wait til after the show,” Walsh says, and Bowden agrees. Starting to get worried about who will attend, “Shows don’t get started here til later,” says Crannel, who had spent the past year living in Chattanooga while Deep Machine had been on hiatus.
It is 10:30 p.m. and the opening song filters through JJ’s Bohemia. Tribal women in the front row move their feet with piercing screams. I think of what Walsh said when I asked him what he thought of having fans that are considered stereotypical hippies, whatever that word means. He says he thinks having fans, whoever they are, is great. “Hippies know how to have a good time. They dance, they are always in a good mood. They are awesome.” It did not hurt that Walsh forgot his black boots and went with sandals instead, as most of the crowd moved about in sandals and t-shirts.
Earlier that day we arrived in town at a diner where the band waited for to-go orders and we looked at the local newspaper already on the table, trying to avoid the full plates of leftovers gone uneaten by a family of food mongers on the adjacent table. I wondered why they didn’t take the rest home. Reading the front page of the local bi-weekly rag, I felt like the band was doing something special and that their story would be on the front page of this magazine or one like it soon. And while I saw the idea of touring as an attempt to define one’s own future on chosen terms, I began to wonder why anyone would care. And if anyone would see this endeavor of low budget touring as anything besides roaming from city to city like carefree gypsies with music and good booze on their side. – Dh Wright