Day Off -
Sunny/HOT
Drove through the night. Into Arizona at sun up - I took over driving. I didn't get much sleep at all. Drove the rest of the way to town - 3 hours. Found Impulse club. Parked - walked to nearby Burger King 10:30AM - ate food and drank stuff - killed an hour - wandered back. Drove to a record store near the the University of Arizona. "Road to Moscow" - guy was friendly. Played one side of our disc. Didn't know about show - no ads etc.
This was actually in Phoenix.
Back up the road we thought we might catch Pee Wee Herman's new film. Stopped in at the mall with the theater - $4.50 for tickets - no way. We hang out while Dave R. makes some calls. Guy at Impulse cancels our show - SHIT. Claims the club was trashed the night before. We call Joe in Tucson - Wrex Records - he'll find us a place to stay - we play a party tomorrow night.
We hung out at the mall to keep cool - it was about 112 degrees outside. $4.50 for a movie is cheap by todays standards but we had almost no money by this point. In the mall there was a strange guy dressed in a white suit and sunglasses with a straw hat walking in precise lines and making sharp turns around corners. We had great fun watching him. This photo was taken in the mall parking lot.
Drive to Tucson - 2 hours or so. I "slept" in back of van - real hot. Tucson is cooler than Phoenix temperature wise. Guy at store is cool - we hang out. Lots of people come in and out. Guy at next door pizza joint buys us a pie - cool - we eat. This dude sets us up with a place to stay - we leave and stop at a house - dirty and full of disgusting punks. I hoped this wasn't the place we stay. It wasn't - his girlfriend's parents joint was. We drive there and unload. I get shower - nice two days of smell and grime off. I change and fall asleep on a water bed - neat soothing bed. This is about 10PM.
The grimy place we stopped in was a small white square house - I remember calling it a sugar cube. It was basically one room with almost no light and lots of people hanging out on ratty furniture. There was a ferret or two wandering around. The floor was the litter box and I was not going to sleep there for sure. I was releived when we left for the "the 'parents' house". I slept so soundly that night - amazingly cool and air conditioned. There was a grand piano in the living room. This place was the complete opposite of the dive we had been to earlier in the afternoon.
Posted by Dean at August 10, 1985 06:55 PM
I am the guy that bought the pizza for the band in Tucson. I was working at Pizza Pub - a great local chain next door to Wrex Records that summer after graduating from HS and before starting at Univ. of Arizona. I was 17. I was friends with Joe Furno - then owner of Wrex records next door. I spent all my pizza delivery tips on records. He got Big Lizard in and nobody knew anything about it. I bought it right out of the cardboard box from the distributor based on the cover (and having disposable $$). We listened to it in the store that night and loved it. I played it for all my friends. The next night at the house party I got to sing along with the band with the mic held out to me for parts of virtually every song. I knew all the words and was pretty sure I was the only person in Tucson that had that record, other than maybe KXCI. I just looked through my fliers from that period and sadly didn't find one for that show.
I found this site because a national site reported that Dave committed suicide and am very sad. Dave went out to eat with my brother and I (Taco Bell I think - my treat) before the house show the next day. Every time the band came to Tucson they looked for me. Great memories of a great band and a great time.
