WATTS vs Brazil Pt. II

Following is the second in correspondent Callous French’s chronicling of WATTS’s two-week pratfall across Brazil. When we last saw our heroes, they were dragging ass off the last in a grueling series of flights and into the loving arms of their sponsor, Fabricio Nobre, in the city of Goiania.

“Mayn,” said Fabricio laughing, kind of. “What happened?”

He was referring, of course, to why we hadn’t gotten off the first plane he’d arrived to greet that day, six hours earlier. We had accidentally disembarked that flight at a layover, costing us six extra hours, and there had been no way to notify Fabricio.

Naturally, we all started answering at once, simultaneously inquiring about whether the guitars had arrived while lighting cigarettes, excited to be in yet another airport where we could smoke. I could see in the eyes of Fabricio Nobre that he wasn’t hearing anything we were saying, rather that he was caught up in wondering exactly what he’d gotten himself into here. He’d been working his ass off for six months putting this trip together—hounding advertisers, booking venues & hotels, negotiating at every turn. He was familiar with the Mono Men-- of course-- and Estrus & (king of America) Dave Crider. But this WATTS monster was a relatively unknown entity. He liked the record enough to release it in Brazil, but it was three years old by now. The band hadn’t toured extensively. For all he knew, he could have brought down DustBlair, and with the way he’d had to promote this thing in advance, a poor showing could easily cost him his reputation, if not his life. I watched as Fabricio Nobre contemplated this.

We were, after all, a collective fucking mess-- excited to be here, finally, but very wrinkled & greasy, three-quarters drunk and otherwise rummy from 40 hours with only the fleeting travel nap.

Fabricio seemed to be in control of this situation like he would for the duration of the trip. Tall & plump (“I am a vatt bastard!”) and in his 20s, he was dressed in jeans and a tight red t-shirt baring the name of his own band, MQN. It had been easy to identify him as we’d stepped off the plane, because he was the first rock ‘n’ roller we’d seen in any of the several Brazilian airports we’d been in thus far. He was accompanied by Marco, the monkey-like leader of Thee Butcher’s Orchestra, another band with whom we would play often and bond perpetually. We followed our guides to the TAM Airlines office, smoking and asking for the name of the cow, to claim our luggage.

It was obvious from the first moments in the hotel that They were expecting us. Goiania is 800 miles to the interior of Brazil, 800 miles from the attractions of Rio or Sao Paulo, and it’s not every day that Van Halen comes through town. The event in Goiania was the annual three-day festival of La Bananada, which Fabricio had coordinated. Most of the bands were staying at the hotel, and WATTS was the only non-Brazilian band on the bill. It is true, in fact, that we would not see another American for the entirety of our stay in the country, but rolling into the Villa Rica Hotel at 10 o’clock Friday night, we did not expect to be such a novelty.

Lounging in the lobby were all manner of Brazilian hipsters, and it didn’t take Dog & fuckin’Braimes.com long to strike up a crippled conversation with a few and hail a cab to the site of the festival. As tempting as my own twin bed and game3 of the  Kings/Mavericks series was (major American sporting events via ESPN were common, but SportsCenter was generally pre-empted by soccer), I jumped in the taxi.

The festival was being held in an old reservoir which had two beautiful, round, contemporary theatres on-site. While one band performed in one theater, the next would soundcheck, and the kids would race back-and-forth in between. Others lingered in the treed concrete courtyard eating & drinking or shopping for CDs & merchandise from the dozens of vendors set up around the grounds. The weather was warm and the atmosphere was quite pleasant.

Again, it was obvious They were expecting us. The crowd didn’t look all that ‘Brazilian’ to us, but it was clear that we appeared very American to them. Many spoke English and were eager to approach us and interpret for their non-English speaking friends. As the evening wore on, handshakes gave way to hugs, souvenier photos were snapped, CDs autographed and beers poured over heads. Any language barrier that may have existed was crushed underfoot like a retarded neighbor.

But perhaps the most important discovery of the night was Pinga. American culture has no equivalent to Pinga. The closest thing is probably Kentucky bourbon, but Pinga is far more central to Brazilian culture than even that. If you’d told me that we would see fewer than a half-dozen bottles of Jim Beam during our entire tour of Brazil, I don’t think I’d have gone. But the fact that Pinga is available everywhere helps with the loneliness. We measured the Pinga—a sugarcane derivative not unlike agave-less tequila-- heavily that first night and left the grounds at 4am with a girl named Camelia in her Hyundai, playing the first Violent Femmes record as loud as her stereo would play it.     

Man cannot exist on cigarettes and alcohol alone. Seven hour’s sleep while actually lying down did wonders for our composition, and in the early afternoon we checked out of the Villa Rica after more embracing and high-fiving with the loitering Brazilian counter culture, piling in a van bound for our first show in the capitol of Brasilia, 300 kilometers away. El Morto had been up early, hunkered down at the hotel internet station doing Thinkatron business and checking Mariners scores. He informed us on the way out of Goiania as the road deteriorated into a 20-foot wide swath of concrete winding through green fields dotted with brushfires, that we had taken two from the Blue Jays and one from Boston since leaving the northwest. Badgering El Morto for news from home would be a prevailing theme for the tour, as technology is this man’s vice. Often, while many of the entourage were off tinkering with their comas, El Morto could be found linked to the civilized world via the internet or photoshopping the day’s digital images on his 17” laptop screen. Evening slide shows of the day’s events would become a ritual, and it was always nice to know what was going on in the world of Major League Baseball.

By the time we reached Brasilia, we’d been in South America for over 24 hours, and the band was definitely ready for 45 minute’s rocking. The Pinga was flowing at the over-sold Gates Pub, a dark & narrow nightclub with impossibly small doorways and landings. The stage, too, was tiny & crowded, and by the time WATTS hit it after 2am, it seemed even smaller, like a plastic wading pool at the bottom a hundred-foot-high diving platform. WATTS climbed the ladder and the crowd roared. The show really was amazing-- better than any I’ve seen at home. Working without a setlist, the band tore through most of the record plus a few favored covers, delivering a performance that was crisp & violent. Crider reeled off a rousing rendition of the “Cold Gin” rap from KISS Alive! and shotglasses exploded against the brick wall adjacent to the stage. Good evening, Brazil…

After more sub-verbal bonding with Thee Butcher’s Orchestra (who had since re-dressed after their underpants-only set) and Sao Paulo punk rockers The Forgotten Boys (with whom Braimes had performed “Chinese Rocks”), the party moved across town to what appeared to be Don Johnson’s house-- a sprawling salmon-colored villa with a wide stone staircase and swimming pool gracing the park-like grounds. “The host’s parents are in Bali,” explained Marco, leading us past a bouncer and through the ornate iron gates. A beer table was set up on the patio and the garage had been turned into a visquine  discotheque. The house itself was off-limits, though King of America tried at several junctures to gain access.  Furious drinking and smoking carried on until the early morning, when Dog & Braimes got cooled in the pool, fully clothed.

The next night, back in Goiania, was equally riotous. Along with the Butchers, Forgotten Boys and MQN, WATTS closed down the 28-band La Bananada to a most enthusiastic & appreciative crowd of one thousand. MTV Brazil was there with cameras and microphones and the band was draped in beads. Penises were photographed and bass guitars mercilessly detuned. Braimes got up with the Forgotten Boys for a rousing version of “Jumping Jack Flash” and Chris Watts lost his fool mind such that he actually sustained a pogoing injury. And Fabricio Nobre, spent & sweaty from his own set, smiled broadly, relieved that his personal future again seemed bright.

Next month: Sao Paulo—population 16,999,997

Watts vs. Brazil

Don’t ask them how, but WATTS recently did a ten-day tour of Brazil, and What’sup’s very own Callous French dragged along with the band through South America’s biggest country, to document the madness. Here is the first in a three-part epic of sickness.

I could draw worse assignments.

It’s not every loud, clumsy rock band that gets a chance to tour Brazil, and not every aging “journalist” that gets an opportunity to accompany them. So when WATTS invited me along on their conquest of the 3rd world, I scribbled out a quick will and started brushing up on my Spanish.

The Spanish didn’t turn out to be too helpful, as the national language in Brazil is Portuguese. But I was comforted on several occasions by the fact that my signed will was folded neatly on my desk at home. As it turns out, Brazil is in South America, about fifty thousand miles from Bellingham, Washington. And there were definitely a couple of times when I thought I was going to have to use my feet to get home.

The trip was sponsored by the mysterious head of Monstro Discos, Fabricio Nobre, an Estrus fanatic who wanted the Mono Men but settled for WATTS. In addition to re-releasing the band’s 1999 album, booking the tour and arranging for “sponsors” to cover travel expenses, F would serve as an invaluable interpreter/babysitter/drinkingbuddy throughout the tour. We would test him perpetually, starting with not getting off the plane in Goiania.

We’d known it was going be a hellish trip-- almost 30 hours door-to-door including the crippling layovers-- but we hadn’t counted on the Bonehead de la Americana move we would execute in Belo Horizonte, where we accidentally disembarked when we were supposed to have remained on the plane. All six of us. Without ever considering for one moment that we were dangerously separating ourselves from all our checked baggage & guitars, all of which proceeded stoically to Goiania without us.

In retrospect, we should probably have been more intimate with our itinerary, which, upon reexamination later clearly showed that we were to remain on the aircraft. But this revelation came sorrowfully late, and we were left to lie upon the floor of Belo Horizonte International while Nicole, the only English-speaking attendant at the TAM Airlines counter, diligently booked a series of alternate flights and a taxi to take us 50 kilometers across town to the domestic airport, basically a bus station w/ airplanes.

This cabride was to be our first time on non-airport Brazilian soil, and appropriately, the driver spoke no English. This did not deter (King of America) Dave Crider.

“What are they building?” he asked in a raised voice that was already starting to take on the hint of a Latin accent. “What is the name of the cow?”

The cabby would only shrug, making the rest of us very uncomfortable, as there was no spare room in the tiny KIA for shrugging, with 7 of us plus carry-ons. Immediately upon leaving the airport property, the slick asphalt road had dissolved into a leopard print of pits and pots. Our driver sped directly down the middle of the 2-lane road, which wound up-and-down, side-to-side through green fields, the occasional spray-painted cinder block village popping up like images in a shooting gallery.

Now, we needed a half-hour cramped taxi ride at this moment like we needed hepatitis. We were midway through our second day without sleep already, and at least A.Dog, me & fuckin’Braimes.com were reeling pretty good from closing down the flight from Miami the night before.

“There is no more wine,” had said Leona, using most of the English she knew.

“How about a scotch & soda, then?”

“I am sorry,” she’d said, smiling, making her way back to the attendant’s cabin where the rest of the flight crew was sleeping. Christ, everyone else on the flight was sleeping except us three and maybe the pilot. We’d been playing liar’s poker, and Dog had a huge pile of dollar bills on his fold-down tray. We beat the service button like a drum.

“Johnny Walker?”

Eventually they stopped answering the buzzer altogether, and Dog retired to the lavatory to stretch out for the last two hours of the flight. They were happy to be rid of our rummy American asses when the plane mercifully touched down in Sau Paulo at 6 a.m., Brazilian time.  

Customs can be a pressure cooker, but usually only when returning to the States. Lily-white American contraband generally is not of great interest to the balance of the world unless there is money to be made from the confiscation of it. Drug traffic is obviously heavier going north, but if you come swishing through with a box of 45s, priced, they’re going to want their cut. The entourage cleared customs without episode—all except for fuckin’Braimes, who hadn’t even reached customs before dude was screaming at him in Portuguese. There was a form distributed on the flight that was supposed to be filled out and presented prior to customs, and Braimes, in his drunkenness, thought it was an all-star ballot. So he wrote in Daryl Strawberry and returned it to the stewardess, who was probably all-too-happy to dispose of it for him, knowing what showing up to the counter without it would mean. It took 20 minutes for an English-speaking airport employee to be summoned to hold the confused singer’s hand through this first gauntlet and to customs, where he had considerably less trouble.

Dig, we were en-route to a foreign land. Being naïve Americans, we assumed everyone in Brazil would speak English. We could not have been more wrong. The fact is that most Brazilians speak no English. Some speak some, and a few speak English very well. Had we known this, we might have drilled on some Portuguese, but as it turned out, only Chris Watts had bothered to download and rehearse any phrases that seemed useful. “I have broken my glasses,” “my gums are bleeding,” and “what do you have in an egg dish” were a few that he practiced in the airports, rolling his R’s like a Fred Flintstone strike in a pre-historic Brazilian bowling alley.

At first blush, the only sane one in the group appeared to be the enigmatic El Morto. I would find out otherwise very soon. I should have had an idea as to the depths of his depravity when he got in the van in Bellingham with a dufflebag of disposable outfits, individually wrapped & labeled w/ the date he intended to wear them. When he got up in the morning, he simply unwrapped the day’s package and dressed, not looking to the side where yesterday’s clothing was concerned. El Morto would leave a trail of once-worn shirts & shorts strewn across the enormous country of Brazil. By the time he arrived home, he would have only the clothes on his back and ass.

It would be 38 hours before we eventually stopped moving-- eight airports, seven planes, two taxis, and a whole lot of drinking & giggling. I felt as though I had already toured the world on the handlebars of a dirt bike, and we were only just now crouching into the starting blocks.

Next month: tage ov you are panz!