Transcript
Speaker: I'm Steve Brown and I'm Mark McBride and welcome to season two of the Yo-Yo Player podcast where we grab some friends and reminisce about the 1999 Fiend Magazine Yo-Yo Tour.
Speaker: In this episode, oh Canada! You know, because you were so much younger than the rest of us, um you know, Mark and I were like, man, we gotta show this kid a good time. We gotta like really like,
Speaker: You know, like I remember us having these conversations where it was just like, just is Jason having fun? Like, i don't know. He's kind of awkward. Like, is he, yes he looked like he's having a good time here. Like we gotta, to we gotta to do something for him. And like, and that was like, I mean, we talked about that for like a couple of weeks. Like there was just this kind of, we should do something for him. And we had no idea what that was going to be. And of course it it culminated in like sneaking you into a strip club in Vancouver. Which worked, you know, yeah I mean, i know when we were in Vancouver um and I don't know, it could just be an artifact of like, you know, our limited, my limited at life experience and just the types of, you know, ah you know, places where I had seen prostitutes prior to that. Right. It had only been like l L.A., Honolulu.
Speaker: boom But I remember that was one of the stories I you know didn't tell forever, but in the immediate aftermath of the tour, it was a talking point with people of like, you know, the prostitutes in Vancouver, or British Columbia are like really hot. They all look like models.
Speaker: They're all like really good looking. They look like, you know, really high grade prostitutes up there in but Vancouver. And I remember people pointing them out to me. It was like, really? Really? you sure she's not a model? You know? and ah So anyways, that was that another piece of my, my, my learnings in Vancouver.
Speaker: One of the guys, one of the guys on our bus, I think he's one of the fans guys. Like we went to a strip club and he went up to a, he went to a fucking brothel.
Speaker: like Yeah. i I can't remember. i can't remember. I'm embarrassed. I remember his face, but not his name. And I remember it was one of those things where we're like, we're going to a strip club. And he's like, we're at fucking Vancouver. Shit's legal. I'm going to the real thing. And they were like, ooh, that's more than I got in me, my friend. Because we were all like, yeah, you know we're going to go have a few beers. And like you know some girl's going to dance around with shirt off. what you know and it was like For us, it was like.
Speaker: it was i don't know like 10 sexy 90 hilarious you know and so like we had that that mentality where it was just like this will be a funny thing to do and then he was like yeah i'm just gonna go uh i'm just gonna get a prostitute and get laid we're all like whoa whoa where you are buddy jesus dude um It's just, we were all like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. misread the room here, Fred. We're just looking for hijinks and a good story. That's too extreme for us. Like, we're StreamYoyo but we're...
Speaker: I wasn't invited. wasn't invited. It sounds right. i would ah I wouldn't have said no. I wouldn't have said no at the time. I'm pretty sure we took him to his first strip club on Warped Tour. and Now um this is I'm piecing this all together. It was in Canada. Oh, really? and And the stripper took off his glasses and took him off.
Speaker: On her nipple. She had her nipples were very long and she hung his glasses off her and we were all. You know, yeah how do i I remember that now. was just like, just like this the tiny little like memory bites. Holy shit.
Speaker: And one of the things I remember was you guys needing to sneak me into the strip club in Vancouver because in Canada, right? Like in the United States, I was old enough to go to a strip club, but in Canada, you got to be 19.
Speaker: So you guys had to kind of, I had to do the thing where i was like in the middle of the group and then just walked in with the pack of people into the strip club in Vancouver. We were hoping I wouldn't get busted or get caught.
Speaker: Yeah. Because we were talking about that as far as like, we remembered we remember the stripper hanging your glasses on her nipple. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That was awesome. good Yeah. Stripper with my glasses. Oh, yeah. I got a little special attention because I was the young kid. Amazing. Yeah. Well, you motherfuckers, I better be in Toronto because i had a friend in Toronto, so I was not hanging out Toronto night. If it was in Vancouver or Montreal, I'm a little pissed I wasn't invited, but it must have been in Toronto. It must have been in Toronto. It was funny.
Speaker: We were doing, I mean, it was a real Three Musketeers shit. Like where one went, we all went, you know? Yeah, exactly. Well, it must have been Toronto. What's funny about that is I visited a friend of mine from Tallahassee that wass in Toronto at the time, and we went to a strip club called the Brass Rail, so it's kind of ironic, you know, if that's what happened.
Speaker: But I remember being at that strip club and I've been to some raunchy, I don't go to strip clubs a lot. I think I'm like setting myself up here for looking like a you know a compulsive strip club guy. But but ah but I've been to some a raunchy strip clubs in Florida. And so we go up there and it's like just topless, no touch lap dances. I'm like, okay, these girls are goingnna pretty, these girls are a little high classp maybe don' no high class for my taste.
Speaker: ah i mean that was like It's one of those things I kind of look back and and i you know I have a not a a ton, but I have a good number of like hilarious strip club stories, but at some point I realized it's all like they're all within like a five-year period. and and it was ah It was just that exact age where like strip clubs were fun. 21 to 26. They were fun, and they were funny, and they were hilarious. and You could always... like i mean nobody None of us ever went to a strip club like by ourselves. You always went 10 I hope not. Right. And it was just like a ridiculous, like it was either like the first thing you did at the beginning of a long, crazy night, or it was the last thing you did at the end of a long, crazy night. It was always just like one stop, you know, on the way to the mayhem. The only reason to go to a strip club by yourself, by the way, is for brunch.
Speaker: say you to say I'm just going to say that's the most Florida motherfucking thing said on this podcast. let's Just say for and for any of you yeah younger listeners that, you know, are coming into AIDS, just so you know, only for brunch.
Speaker: Water bottles were the weapon of choice at the, uh, The Warped Tour, man. Because there were so many of them floating around. Everybody had to buy water constantly through the day. So empty water bottles were the projectile weapon of choice.
Speaker: So I remember we were in Montreal. this okay first off, real quick. Stop.
Speaker: By the way, Mark is a putz.
Speaker: Water bottle. this actually just started saying St. Louis, I was backed by catering towards the end. Now, there's two areas. um Okay. badness I was backed by catering. They had the stage set up, obviously in front, and there was a hill next to the stage. So you had the stage, the area in front the stage was the pavement, and then you had this hillside. Now, usually, they like us said, you give anything to the fan they throw it you give anything to the crowd, they throw so But what happened was, some reason, like Blink-182 was supposed to go on, but they weren't on yet.
Speaker: And the crowd started throwing bottles. but said it Like the stage, they started throwing each other. Like the hill threw them at the pavement, and the pavement threw him back at the hill.
Speaker: So there's this huge rainbow of bottles flying back and forth. I'm back by catering. A couple of the girls are catering and go, hey, look, check it out, you know. Start looking. All I can see over this fence is this arc of bottles.
Speaker: I'm like, what? It's the funniest freaking thing. Then later, we're in Montreal, and somebody goes, yeah, so today should be a pretty short day. of the Vans girls says today should be a short, well, might hopefully be a short day.
Speaker: I said, well, you know, last year they started pulling up sod and throwing it. So we closed up shop early. I said, oh my God. So we're doing crazy Canadians.
Speaker: So, oh, the guys that came out in Montreal, they were freaking insane. But anyway, so we're hanging out. ah We're hanging out. And all sudden I see all these bottles in the air.
Speaker: I've run over. And there's like a 50-yard circle. of people. It looked like they knocked over a few garbage cans of bottles. Just take a bottle and chuck them into the air. Just throw them in the air.
Speaker: They throw them at other, throw them in the air. There's this huge column of bottles flying through the air. It was so funny. It was great. And then after a little while, somebody grabbed a box of programs and started throwing those into the air. So you had bottles of programs flying the but the programs didn't last very long.
Speaker: So eventually, so then they started pulling up sod. again. And they throw in sod, and there's bottles of sod flying through the air. It was so surreal. And I went back to, and I was laughing.
Speaker: And later, Les and Jake showed up. They had had seven-dust and suicidal tendencies. They trouble getting across the border for, like, whatever reasons. And I'm talking with Darren, and he said, and I'm like, oh, you missed it. You know, they had this huge bottle fight earlier. He's like, oh, yeah, they did that, you know, the the last year that we were on the tour.
Speaker: I've seen it. I've been there. So apparently it's pretty regular thing. it's There's thought definitely something to be said when you actually get to a point your career where seeing you know several thousand people throwing water bottles at each other is a perfectly commonplace event. You know, you just don't even phase it.
Speaker: Dude, so a veil was Avail a band that I regret getting into after Warped Tour. like you and a few of the other guys I remember being into Veil and like I knew a lot of people that liked this band, Veil.
Speaker: and And then again, flash forward to a year or two after i was like, fuck, a Veil is really good band. You know? like if if it was like If it was a little bit out of order, Veil would have been one of those bands that I would have been at every one of their sets. But at the time, I really wasn't. And I remember like you, other guys, everyone was excited when Avail got on the tour because they were, they kind of came in late and everyone was like, dude, a like Avail joined the tour. Whoa. And I was like, dude, everyone seems to like this Avail band.
Speaker: Avail was like, Avail was the most popular band on the tour. I mean, hands down. Everybody. Every single band on the tour made it a point to stop and go see Avail. And I can see why, because they're incredible live bands. They're incredible. And I'm sitting around like eating lunch in St. Louis.
Speaker: Bo. Just kicking around and like talking with Flanagan and this other guy, Tim. There was a guy, one of the guys on our bus and it was, what was his last name? Flanagan? fergu it Like he was one of the other guys that like, he went by his last name. was an Irish last name.
Speaker: And Was he that really tall dude that worked with them? yeah Yeah, that was him. And I remember sitting at lunch with him that day.
Speaker: or like, you know, we said like he was at the lunch, they would have all the tables set up for catering, and you'd hit their lunch, and he was already and he was already there and he's sitting with this guy that I didn't know kind of thing.
Speaker: It was like, it would, you know, somehow it'd come up that he just joined the tour and was like, oh man, he's like, he's like, yeah, I'm with i'm with Vail. And I'm like, oh, cool. You know, was like, cause he introduced himself as Tim, you know, i was like, okay, so you're with your Vail of thing. was like, oh, so what do what do you do with Vail? He's like, well, I'm the singer. I'm like, oh, reveal who doesn't know anything about a Vail.
Speaker: Good to meet you. Bo is like the the evil cheerleader for a bale. He doesn't actually play an instrument. he doesn't actually sing or anything. He's just this scary tattoo guy, head to toe tattoos.
Speaker: He's got like this little scraggly mohawk. He's got a goatee that's about a foot long. And he just gets up on stage and goes nuts. That's all he does. That's his only purpose. He just gets up on stage and goes nuts. and And it's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah. Oh, fuck. Do you remember veil in Canada when they got stuck at the border? Yeah. And they were late showing up. I don't remember that. What's that story? they They got stuck at the border and they were late showing up.
Speaker: um And they got there and it was like a throw and go. Like, got to get them on stage. And security, I want to say this was in, must have been Toronto.
Speaker: There was only three candidate dates. It was Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Might have been Montreal.
Speaker: And security were being assholes. And Bo was being Bo, you know, um into the crowd, out of the crowd, over the barricade. on the And security was like, they kept fucking with him.
Speaker: And I remember me and one of the security guys almost got into it because I was like, he's in the fucking band. And the guy was like, I don't care what he can do that. And I was like, and like me and the security guy were like fucking like this, you know, like, and I was like, he's in the fucking band. He can do what he wants.
Speaker: um But yeah, but they were late getting there because they were having issues at the border for some reason. Yeah. Well, a lot i remember a lot of bands had to like ditch their merch at the border.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there was something about that. like And I remember it was one of those things that like somebody, like some bands took initiative and they they what they did is they like left their fucking trailer and their merch dude on the US side and were like, everybody just put all your shit in our trailer. They unloaded all their fucking gear, threw it on the fucking bus.
Speaker: And then everybody just like dogpiled all their fucking merch into this trailer. And then this like one dude is just like, he's fucking, I'll be here tomorrow. like like Hung out with the trailer and waited for everybody to come back and get him. Oh man.
Speaker: had such like We had such a great moment with Avail at one show, and I don't remember which one it was, but they had put ah they had put our booth like stupidly close to the bus stage that day, to the point where like you know we could like if if there was a band playing, like we had to just stop what we were doing entirely. like It was impossible to hear anything. um And I remember Avail was on stage, and they were...
Speaker: Tim was talking about something and I remember I don't I i think it was i think it was you Mark you hopped on our PA and was like quit talking and get to playing you hillbilly and then Tim was just like what is that are those yo-yo guys fucking yelling at us? And we were like, yeah, go play more music, you jackass. And then we were just yelling back and forth at them for like solid minute, minute and a half. And the audience is just like, what is going on here? And and it was just, it was one of those like perfect, beautiful, hilarious, random punk rock show moments.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember um there was one tour date. I think it was... It might've been Toronto or or were we in Montreal ever? Both of them. Yeah. It was one of those. we all We're the three candidates. That's right. That's right. And so I remember, i remember you guys can help me with this. There was one where our stage was, the the whole venue was very concentrated and our stage was kind of out in the open and it, it certainly was impacted by the, the sound from the main stages. And was that Toronto or mont Montreal?
Speaker: I think, I don't remember. I know my, I remember, i remember we had an eye shot in Montreal. We could definitely see the stage in Montreal. At least I don't remember Toronto.
Speaker: Montreal is what what I, but you know, I mean, and there was, there was some of these venues, like, like it was, might've been Ashbury park, New Jersey. We're like, we, you couldn't even set up because it was just so tight. um But, but what I remember about Montreal um is it was so loud and,
Speaker: like you couldn't hear any of us over the PAs. And so, you know, we would, we would kind of have our thing where we would, we would do the demonstrations. We'd try to, ah interact with the crowd, you know, have some, some participation and engagement.
Speaker: And in most stops, like we were, we, we kind of had a stage and and a location where where you could do that, where it it could be interactive and, and, you know, we could, we could do our thing. And we kind of, kind of all gotten to gotten to, um gotten to kind of a consistent practice of doing this on most of the dates. But I remember Montreal, like it was just too, too loud. And it was, you know, the, the, the crowd flow just was, was weird in terms of where our setup was, but that was also the location that, that Jim Henry decided to, to pop in on.
Speaker: And so, so he came and he, you know, like it was sometime like, like after lunch where he's like, Hey, ah Hey, I'm, I'm Jim Henry. You know, we talked over the phone and i was like, oh, hey, I didn't know you were coming. He's like, well, you know, was just kind of ah popping in just to kind of see how things were.
Speaker: And i was like, well, what do you think? And he's like, he's like well, he's like, you guys you guys are doing your thing and you guys are you know on on your stage and you know doing your demos. He's like, but he's like, I'm not sure how effective this is because nobody can hear anything. And it's just it's just too damn loud.
Speaker: And yeah so i brought him, I was like, let's let's go back to the bus. So we went to the bus and we kind of talked through it. And I'm like, look, I'm like, I'm like, this one might be challenging just in terms of the the venue set up and how things, um how things sound from where where were where we are. But, you know the reality is I feel like, like most of them, we have, we had a great opportunity to get the brands out, to demo, to to get people to see kind of what we were doing and why it's interesting. And and frankly, like why we should be in the conversation. with skateboarders and and BMX riders and and and you know motocross guys. like Like, I think we did a good job of kind of bringing skateboarding to the to the masses, or sorry, bringing yo-yoing to the masses in that way. um But he didn't have an opportunity to see it just because the setup was so horrible at that particular venue.
Speaker: Rolling into Montreal, everybody, because this is the whole time, again, like we were green. And we' so we'd always be like, oh, what do we wish should we expect if we talked to anybody who would give us any like hints or clues or advice?
Speaker: And going into Montreal, I remember people being like, oh, Montreal, full of thieves. Like, thieves, like, what? And then went to somebody else and went the other, like, whether this oh, yeah, no.
Speaker: Like, Montreal, thieves, buckle your shit down.
Speaker: And then that was the that was actually of what the the two places – that we had shit stolen were Cleveland and Montreal. No shit. And Cleveland was the dumbest of them.
Speaker: Cleveland was the dumbest because it was it was three guys. And the thing that made worse is they were actually friends of my cousin. Like they friends of my cousin and came out. It was an inside job. It was an inside job. And these guys, they were these, you know, late high school crust punks who thought they were cool.
Speaker: And So we were getting people, we like, you know, the shtick was that we would get people up, do it, like put a yo-yo on their hand and make them do some dumb content, like some dumb tricks. And then at the end, just load them up with yo-yos and swag and anything else, just as an excuse to like yeah give them the stuff.
Speaker: And so these three fuckers get up there and we're like, all right, try this one up and down kind of thing. And then they up and down and then they look and they kind of whisper and snicker amongst themselves. And then they run off with the yo-yos.
Speaker: Like they were stealing our yo-yos. And I'm like, dude, you guys just got, you guys just took like the three $1 yo-yos and we were about to give you about 50 bucks worth of yo-yos each.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. ah stole the shittiest yeah they They stole the the garbage gimme yo-yos that we used for the contests and ran off before we could give them each the good ones.
Speaker: amazing it was so good it was so like it was one of those things that we watched it unfold and we were like that might be the fucking most hilarious thing that's happened yet on this tour so dumb but in montreal i remember shit walked i don't remember the details but i remember just being like getting at the end of the day and being like dude motherfucking thieves yep
