a big clown tour diary: blood, insomnia + the revenge of road nachos

My band, Big Clown, doesn’t get to tour too often. Three of us—Stephen and Jesse on guitars, plus myself on drums—are based in Memphis. Our singer Lucy is based in Jackson, Mississippi. Luckily, we get to do weekend runs when we can. I’ve always wanted to write a tour diary (even though I know this isn’t real touring), so I decided to document our early January run to Carbondale, Illinois and Louisville, Kentucky. The following is a (mostly) true account of events from my perspective about what it’s like to play shows in the United States’ premier clown punk outfit.

before the gigs

I can’t help but notice both flyers for this run are strongly clown themed. This makes sense for the Louisville show, a clown-themed birthday party for Kids Born Wrong’s drummer Chase, but the Carbondale one is a truly Big Clown-inspired piece of art sporting an elderly clown. This happens to us fairly frequently–I’d hazard a guess that 40% of flyers made for our non-Memphis/Jackson shows feature a clown or two on them.

I understand that we’ve brought the clown issue to the proverbial table, but I can’t help but wonder if this kind of thing happens to other bands. Do a solid chunk of Lifeguard flyers feature a guy with sunscreen on his nose sitting in a tall chair? Do Citric Dummies flyers have lemons and limes on them? I’m not complaining, but I think sometimes I forget about the clown theming of our clown band until life throws it back in my face. I don’t personally think it’s the most interesting thing about our band, but sometimes I see pictures of Lucy in full clown makeup climbing a ladder or setting off fireworks mid-song and I’m reminded that, oh, right, it’s weird that a clown with a microphone is yelling at you about her “pubic mound.” 

Rehearsals for this run have been shaky. Big Clown is not a band that gets to practice often due to the Memphis/Jackson split (a three hour difference, for those of you unfamiliar with Southern geography), so the shows are usually either an absolute trainwreck or borderline transcendent, with a very slim amount right in the middle. The bad stuff is pretty bad–the first time we were in Louisville, Lucy threw up in her mouth mid-song and started doing the Pee-wee Herman “Tequila” dance while trying to swallow it. Sometimes people tell us that we’re the best band they’ve ever seen, though, and that’s what keeps the Clown Car rolling. The idea for these shows is to debut new material from our upcoming album I’m With Clown (out on Swimming Faith Records, eventually), an ambitious proposition that feels necessary to get us comfortable with playing the material for other people. 

I suffer from a condition called Being a Huge Bitch About Sleeping Arrangements as a result of my chronic insomnia/anxiety about said insomnia duo diagnosis. I’m better about it these days, but I crashed and burned pretty hard exactly one day into our lone Big Tour and the experience still shades every run we do whether I want it to or not.

We’re doing hotels on this run, which I guess completely shoots our Punk Cred in the proverbial foot, but I think it’s pretty fucking stupid that musicians are expected to sleep on the floor. I get the financial reality of it, but Big Clown, against all odds, has an amount of money in the bank that allows us to not sleep in the punk house next to the litter box. I’ve done my time with that and I’m over it. One time I had to disassemble an oven at 2 a.m. because it wouldn’t stop beeping right next to my head. I’m 32 and I’m not dealing with that shit anymore. I’m sleeping at two Holiday Inn Expresses and it’s gonna kick ass, even if I’m still gonna toss and turn the whole weekend.

January 2, 2025

The average Big Clown drive is soundtracked by two things: Not Punk music and Stephen and Lucy’s snoring. The music bandies about from Faith No More’s “Epic” to Kiss’ wild misfire “Shandi” and Numero Group’s amazing yacht rock compilation Seafaring Strangers. The crew in the backseat stays asleep for all of it. Jesse drives the whole way and puts on the Cantina Band song from Star Wars when he gets bored. It rains and then it doesn’t. The drives for any band that’s been together for almost seven years are largely boring, I assume.

We end up eating at a spot called Chungo’s that’s kind of like if Chipotle actively tried to kill you. The toppings are piled dangerously high and all of it seems to be in that temperature danger zone you’re supposed to avoid if you don’t want to get foodborne illnesses. I get Doritos Nachos (as in nachos crafted with Doritos), a completely unforced error that any tour veteran would slap me for even contemplating. The dish shapes my night; its toppings twist and shimmy inside of me for the next four hours. It's a mistake I know I’m making as I’m making it, but I’m powerless to stop it.

The show tonight is at the Lost Cross House, which I’m told is America’s longest running punk house. Two of Lost Cross’ occupants are in Pet Mosquito, one of the two local bands playing tonight, which makes sense. The scene here seems to revolve around them, so why shouldn’t they live at the hottest venue in town? Lost Cross, according to Evan from Pet Mosquito, has been passed down through the punk generations for 40 years and has been a happening house show venue for a majority of that time.

Lost Cross was recently purchased by an old tenant, who rents it out under two conditions: the tenants keep the spirit alive and they don’t remove any of the flyers that literally wallpaper the house. The flyers extend past the living room and into the kitchen and bathroom; I think I see about three different M.O.T.O. flyers but I can’t really tell if they’re for shows at Lost Cross or not. There’s a Ramones flyer that definitely isn’t. The bathroom, charmingly, is covered in graffiti, my favorite of which is “FUK MOST SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS” emblazoned on the top of the commode. 

Lost Cross’ history precedes it; punks come from far and wide specifically to pay homage to the history and see whatever’s taking place there. Old occupants routinely show up and hang out on the porch to recapture part of the magic. Evan says the house is such an ingrained part of Carbondale’s culture that they’ve only had two noise complaints in the past four years that they’ve lived there. Apparently, Melissa McCarthy’s in-laws live across the street and they’re chill as hell; they don’t think the calls came from them.

I do some people watching for a while from the porch, braving the freezing cold to get a handle on the Carbondale scene. I’m too used to playing shows to aging (and borderline nonexistent) Memphis crowds; the average young punk looks unrecognizable to me. There’s a bizarre mix of styles here: '00s scene, nu-metal, “classic” looking punks with crazy hairdos, a guy in an Adventure Time hat. I think this is (mostly) a positive sign. The punks of yore probably would’ve bullied the absolute shit out of any kid sporting a chain wallet and baggy JNCOs that wandered into the DIY gig. On the flip side, there’s a strange flattening of everything into what the teens are calling “alt” these days, which feels both welcoming and sort of meaningless at the same time.

I think subcultures do need unique aesthetic signifiers to actually be meaningful, but shows like this make me wonder if the modern Young Music Enjoyer even considers that anymore. I remember going to college and having my illusion that everyone in Buddy Holly glasses was interested in indie rock shattered within about 20 minutes of being there. Was I wrong to feel that? Do kids today think that anyone that looks slightly weird shares the same worldview as them? Either way, it’s incredible to see any crowd at all show up to a punk show. Getting people to come out to the average Memphis two-local, one-touring-band show is like pulling teeth sometimes. I’m appreciative of the folks here, even if I don’t understand them.

I make a note that dressing like a clown seems trendy these days, but it hits me that the clown-themed flyer for the clown-themed band has inspired the audience to turn this into a fully clown-themed show. I chat up a couple who moved from New Orleans to Carbondale two days ago, partially due to Lost Cross’ welcoming aura. One of them tells me there’s a lot of “clownfuckers” down in New Orleans now, as in men who are interested in having sex with women dressed like clowns. This unsettles me.

The basement area we’re playing in has two distinct features, one physical (three columns separating the Band Area from the Audience Area) and one sociological (the audience leaves a giant semicircle open in front of the bands so that the inevitable moshers have a place to dance, which pushes everyone else to the back and sides of the room, meaning that it’s impossible for me to really see the other bands). There’s no heat in the basement, but there are enough bodies crammed into it that I stop being able to feel the cold. Sitting on the porch for a while makes my hands lock up in a way that worries me.

Pleasure Petrol is on first. Everett, who also plays in Pet Mosquito, is coming down with something, so I hang in the back of the basement, nursing a horrible physical sensation in my stomach that feels like a bowling ball being thrown down a flight of stairs. Pleasure Petrol plays a lot of songs that sound like not-so-distant cousins of “Have Love Will Travel” smashed together with stonerish riffs. I have a terrible habit of needing to walk around a lot before we play, so I dip in and out and enjoy what I hear. Walking around helps me digest the nachos.

Our set goes fine. The crowd loves us and I feel distrustful of their adulation. It’s nice to play to a group of kids who really fuck with what you’re doing, but there’s a large part of me that thinks this kind of show is propelled by the collective desire of the crowd to have a good time than it is by us whipping them into a frenzy through the power of Rock and Roll Music Played Well. We play Just Fine, blowing a couple of the new ones but not catastrophically so. The fucked up ones are only 45 seconds long anyway, so the energy stays high.

I couldn’t really set the house kit up the way I wanted to, so any song that uses a rack tom (namely the worst song on our new record, “The Shaft”) is a struggle for me. Luckily, it doesn’t really matter. The tall guest MC air guitars right in front of me the whole time and the crowd enjoys doing the Frogman (our proprietary dance craze that everyone in Memphis hates) when Lucy screams at them to do it.

We clean house at the merch table, selling out of tapes entirely and getting down to a slim handful of our split 7” Peacocking In Memphis. We give out Razorcake zines with our interview in them and I see someone roll a joint on a copy later. Rock and roll. A guy tells me he drove in from St. Louis to see specifically us because he’s been a huge fan for years. We tell him we play St. Louis at least once a year and this seems like news to him. A kid with the biggest liberty spikes I’ve ever seen in my life gives me a salute and tells us that it was the best show they’ve seen in their two years of going to DIY gigs. This is easy, I could do this forever.

Pet Mosquito closes the show. I love Pet Mosquito. The set isn’t as weird as their transcendently sweaty Gonerfest show (where Everett ran around the pit on all fours kissing people’s feet) but it’s still great. I wish the term “junk rock” didn’t connote heroin chic, because Pet Mosquito sounds like a bag full of tools and other sundries (screws, nails, etc) being swung around a canvas tote bag. They have a telephone mic, they have a trombone, they have multiple songs where the instrumentalists throw down their gear and sing directly in the crowd. On the rock/rot/rule scale, I’m going full rule here.

The hotel and the McDonald’s outside of it both have a statue of the “Muddy Monster,” Carbondale’s proprietary offbrand sasquatch. The hotel’s statue was created by a local chainsaw artist and it scares the shit out of me when I checked in. He looks kind of like my friend Billups.

I don’t sleep well, as predicted. At around 3 a.m., I open my phone and learn that the United States has illegally extradited the president of Venezuela, the latest in a long line of acts perpetrated by this country that fly in the face of international law. I close my eyes and go back to tossing and turning in the safe arms of my racing thoughts.

January 3, 2025

I start the day by informing Stephen that our country has bombed and kidnapped the head of a sovereign state. Everyone else at breakfast is already aware and nods along solemnly. Stephen reacts to this information in the way everyone does whenever they hear about any of the fucked up things our government does: wide-eyed panic, then a “well, what are ya gonna do” slow settling. We try to remember what the draft age is and learn that it’s a ranked system where you’re deprioritized the older you get. The Big Clown Draft Rankings, by age, are as follows:

1. Lucy
2. Me
3. Jesse
4. Stephen

I’m sure we all have some flat foot or mental illness that prevents us from bravely serving our country, but none of us really want to dive into the particulars over our Holiday Inn Express biscuits and gravy. 

In Louisville that night, we eat at the recently Bib Gourmand-awarded Vietnam Kitchen and, for some reason, discuss how we’d like to be executed if we were to have the ability to choose. Lucy picks firing squad (but only if everyone’s guns are loaded), I pick the guillotine, Jesse picks lethal injection because he likes that if it goes wrong and he just shits himself while slowly writhing, he’s created more work for whoever wanted to kill him in the first place. 

Tonight’s venue, Mag Bar, is already packed by the time we get there about 15 minutes before the show is scheduled to start. It’s another all ages gig, so people actually show up on time because they expect it to start on time. Why is that different for people of drinking age? What is it about consuming beer that makes you accept the great lie of Punk Time? 

Chase’s birthday clown theme is very strong. Tons of folks, including Chase himself, are in full clown makeup and costume. A lot of the clowns have drawn their mouth makeup in a permanent frown, making it seem like they hate the bands even when they’re bobbing their heads. My favorite clown is one in a giant camo bomber jacket and army helmet. They have two airhorns in their pockets and hand one to Chase while he’s playing. Chase asks “how loud is this?” and the clown shrugs. One tiny, incredibly loud honk and Chase throws it off to the side. The clown continues to frown.

Speaking of Kids Born Wrong—great band! They play surf-infused garage rock music about all manner of creepy crawly topics. The PA in Mag Bar actually works, and the sound guy is pretty good at his job, so I can actually make out a track about how great watching Faces of Death on VHS is. Chase is a fucking incredible drummer, alternating between tight rolls and bashing cymbal work with ease. The verb that keeps coming to me is “stomps,” as in, “this band fucking stomps.” 

Mr. Clit and the Pink Cigarettes plays next. I feel inadequate—all four members or the Cigarettes are dressed head to toe in clown regalia and our actual clown band only has one member doing it. They play junk-not-junkie-rock and their drummer has the Gories snare sound down to a T. Jesse tells me that they don’t normally have a keyboard player on stage and, when he’s not playing, he covers their ears and dramatically cowers away from the band. It’s a cool move. I wish I could do that. The highlight of their set is a cover of “Teenage Kicks” that gets the crowd’s fists in the air. 

I think our show is a trainwreck as it’s happening but I’m assured later by the crowd, the other bands, and Jesse that it was actually not. I fuck up a couple of the new ones, Jesse’s amp somehow comes unplugged from the wall, and Lucy stomps directly on the cord for her vocal pedal and demolishes it. We’re constantly slightly out of tune. I can feel the crowd’s bewilderment after “Evil Music,” our short black metal track that ends with bad-on-purpose tremolo picking that I’m not sure is ever bad in the way we intend it to be.

The kids mosh occasionally but I feel like it’s perfunctory. I am a terrible mix of horrible at judging if our shows are actually bad and totally unaware of what a perfect show would even look like. Jesse opts to skip “The Shaft,” a card he only pulls when someone is fucking up egregiously. He tries to communicate with me about why he’s pulling the nuclear option, but I can’t hear him. Turns out that he cut the absolute shit out of his hand and his guitar is covered in blood, but I don’t really grasp that until he sends me a picture of his stained guitar days later. 

We call an audible and end our set with “Thirsty,” a song where we steal the Torche gimmick of tuning the guitars to Drop Z and play an “Endless Nameless” ripoff. At the end of it, I punch a hole in my snare head by ramming two drum sticks through it. I do this sometimes when I feel like the show is going exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly—either one is a spectacle in its own right. I figure that if we fucked everything else up, I can at least send the crowd home happy. I spin the snare around on the drum stick and sling it off to the side, accidentally bouncing it off the backline kit’s floor tom. Whoops. Stephen and Jesse make horrific feedback and Lucy runs out of the back door of the venue. This is our routine, our traveling circus act where we slip on a banana peel right onto a whipped cream pie. 

Kids start storming the stage after, which is new to me. I broke a stick during the set (add it to the list) and threw it out in the crowd and it hit someone in the head, which leads to a bizarre, yet flattering, conversation with her about it. She tells me that she caught my broken stick and threw it back onstage to be helpful, but is now realizing that 1) that is actually not helpful because I’m not going to use a broken stick, and 2) she wishes she kept it. I give her another stick I used during the show and she acts like I handed her a $100 bill. She asks me if drum sticks are expensive and I say no, not really.

Suddenly, two other kids show up and ask if they can have sticks too. I feel like Santa Claus handing sticks out of my bag to these kids in huge pants. One of them has me sign it, and, as soon as the Sharpie comes out, I’m having show flyers shoved in my face to sign. They all tell me it was one of the best shows they’ve ever seen (see more shows!) and one of them tags me in a post on Instagram where they call me “insanely good.” I have a hard time believing them, but it does reassure me that the show was not totally horrific.

I feel embarrassed about the snare destruction tantrum; one of the kids asks me why I did it and I bluntly tell her that I thought the show was going horribly and I wanted to do something dangerous and stupid. She looks at me like I’m an idiot. I’m my own worst critic, I guess. The other bands on the bill tell me that the show was great, that they’d been hearing about us for a while and we lived up to the hype. The scared keyboard player from Mr. Clit notices my bootleg All Japan Pro Wrestling sweatshirt and lifts up his sleeve to reveal a Mitsuharu Misawa tattoo. We chat for a while about how he lived out my dream of seeing a wrestling show in Japan’s legendary Korakuen Hall, and I start to remember that the beer-soaked connection at the merch table is why I make the drive.

Deady close the show and it’s clear that they’re local superstars ready to Level Up at some point soon. They play samples of fake radio DJs, complete with obnoxious sound effects, teeing up their next songs to cover tuning breaks. What a pro move. They have just enough songs with mosh sections to whip the crowd into a frenzy. Their set ends in chaotic fashion—they hand their guitars to different audience members to improvise while they play the last beats of their closing track. Nobody really knows what to do, and I can’t help but notice the kid with the signed drum stick is holding the lead guitar like a rockstar-in-training, grin spread wide over his face. 

We decamp to the hotel and watch Jackass 2 for a while, which I’ve never seen before and don’t think I’ll finish. Tomorrow we’ll get up and silently drive back home, listening to XTC and Cheap Trick. Maybe we’ll get fast food. I hope it’s Culver’s.

Zach Mitchell, aka @jorty_spice, is a member of the bands Big Clown and Missed Dunks at Summer League. He runs Machine Duplication Recordings and the newsletter MDR Observer.

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