Gizmos World Tour Diary Friday June 13, 2014 - Indianapolis, Indiana

The gathering of the Gizmos became a major expedition as everyone was collected from their different crash pads. Sleep was elusive for most of us, so we were a little shakey and shaggy, but non-the-less ready to start another rock'n'roll day. Lunch in Bloomington, where Max interviewed me for Italian radio, then off to Indy in Ted's bright yellow Hummer! Headed to sax-man Eric's cool, old house and hung there until time for dinner - where I met up with several member of my family and had a great time catching up - and then off to the club, the Melody Inn.

There was an early show for a Hillbilly Happy Hour with the Cousin Brothers - cats doing modern songs with bluegrass instruments (in a similar fashion to Las Vegas' the All Togethers, although they do mostly originals) - and this was supposed to finish at about 9:00 but actually ended closer to 10:00, so our show ended up running late.

The Melody Inn was a smallish but cool club with an oddly shaped stage (especially for a band of the Gizmos' size) but decent sound and cool employees. Opening our show was the Brothers Gross, a sorta glam/punk/pop trio made up of two brothers, Kyle (on drums and lead vocals) and Timmy (guitar) tonight with a sit-in bassist. They had a somewhat glammy look and a cool pop sound with solid playing (especially Kyle's organized Keith Moon-ish playing - reminding me of the Fuzztones' Mike Czejak). Dug them a lot!

Apache Dropout joined us again and again gave us a great slab of Monks-like primo-primitive beat music and psych-noise. Really superior tunes, including one that continues to remind me of the Velvets "Train Coming "round the Bend". Every night they seemed to sound better and more cohesive and the interaction between Sonny (guitar), Nathan (bass) and Seth (drums) was a pleasure to behold. See them if you can!

Also making another appearance was Deezen, with their terrific modern garage-mixed-with-new-wave sound. A similar set to the night before except with an addition of the Gizmos tune "Gimme Back My Foreskin"! An honor to have cats (and kitten) of this caliber covering one of our tunes and giving it their own twist. Fun stuff!

Then it was our turn again and we went on to a club that was about 3/4 full (as opposed to the solidly jammed gig the night before). But the crowd was with us right from the start and gave us great response. We made a few mistakes - as the Gizmos should - and since I had a few drinks in me, I was a little more obnoxious and boisterous than I might have been otherwise. A rockin' set, with an appropriately noisy and jammy "Black to Comm" followed by a closer of "Kiss of the Rat" - done three times in a row! Ted brought up Glucher-man Bob "Bear" Richert, the man responsible for the Gizmos records and much craziness ensued.

More socializing with friends and family into the early hours of the night and eventually we headed back to Eric's for an early morning (3:30 or so) crash. Another totally fun evening!