Transcript
Speaker: I'm Mark McBride. And I'm Steve Brown. Welcome to season two of the Yo-Yo Player Podcast, where two dusty old gray beards grab their friends and reminisce about 1999 Fiend Magazine Yo-Yo Tour.
Speaker: This episode, Timmy Chunks. Chunks-a.
Speaker: Do you have any good stories from that year? Like when you think of like Warped Tour 99, like what? What are the stories that that pop into your head? All the fucking yo-yos I got. um yeah That is for sure.
Speaker: i mean, I just saw you last time I was out in l a when we were filming it at rec at right Rev. and And you've still got some of the fucking yo-yos we gave you on that tour, like in your fucking truck.
Speaker: I still have all of them.
Speaker: Yeah, I loved... So Timmy Chunks is like a fucking mensch, right? Like, Timmy Chunks is one of the best human beings I've ever met. Like, ah use I used to sometimes i tell people, I'd be like, do you know who this man is? This is the former lead singer of Token Entry.
Speaker: fans walked to her so So how did you... The one thing that we were trying to figure out that we can't is at what point... At what point did you, you discovered us. like You became our roadie.
Speaker: Yeah, you adopted us. Yeah. You guys needed it. Oh yeah, fully. We had no idea what the fuck we were doing, but we would show up in the morning we'd like, all right, let's go find our booth. And it would just be you hanging out. You'd already set everything up.
Speaker: Yeah. And you were just like rifling through the boxes. Like, is this yo-yo any good? Yeah.
Speaker: So how did how did you how did you how did you discover us? How did you find us? i don't it It was definitely within the first week of the tour. I know that. um And I don't know if it was it was either one of you or it might have been Chase and Tracy.
Speaker: Like, i we struck up a conversation.
Speaker: But, um, and Sammy was just awesome because he's this, you know, like... old, you know, like seasoned old punk dude had been around and knew everybody.
Speaker: he was like doing the Warped Tour for fun. His like day job was being the guitar tech for Green Day and Billy Joel, ah ah Billy Joe, not Billy Joel. um And he was, it was like he just had fun doing it because his wife was doing craft services.
Speaker: So, and okay. So you, so you grew up in New York early, early part of like New York hardcore scene. Yeah. You were in a band called Token Entry. I was in a band called Token Entry. Yes, this is true.
Speaker: yeah We released a couple few records. um
Speaker: We officially, like the last time we broke up, I should say, I think we broke up three times. um Last time we broke up was...
Speaker: 1991, the first Gulf War, right? Yeah. um We were literally supposed to go to Europe for our first time. And two days before we were supposed to fly, the Gulf War started.
Speaker: And ah Matt Citarella and Mike c Citarella, brothers playing bass and guitar respectfully, um literally called me and said, we're not going.
Speaker: And I was like, what are you talking about? They're like, we're scared terrorists. They're scared there's going to And I was like, it's the war is nowhere near Germany. in And they're like, we're not going.
Speaker: And so I called Ernie and me and Ernie were just like, forget it. We we can't keep trying to, you know, force this. So, so we broke up in 91. i was working as an electrician in New York and the union in New York. And I was miserable.
Speaker: My band broke up, you know, girl I was dating, we had broken up, I was lonely, just um living in a basement apartment in Masspeth, Queens that had that got no sunlight whatsoever. yeah so Soul sucking. I would go to work and come home and I'd lay on my futon on the floor or in my little studio apartment and I would just be like, great, and I'd eat a bag of potato chips, a thing of donuts and go to sleep, wake up, do it again, lather, rinse, repeat. And um
Speaker: That was when... ah So Black Train Jack started. um And they were playing with Quicksand at the Wetlands in New York. And I... Ernie talked me into going and I was like, I gotta do something. I gotta get out of the fucking house. You know?
Speaker: And so I went to the show and actually knew the guys from the Bouncing Souls already. um Because Token Entry and Bouncing Souls had put those shows together. So...
Speaker: They were at the show and I don't even think I went inside for Black Train Jack. And I think we missed probably half of quicksand because we were just hanging out out front talking, having a great time. Nice.
Speaker: And then a couple of weeks later they were like, oh, we're having a party. You should come. And that was the party at 174. And so I went to the party and literally never left.
Speaker: know If you've ever seen if you've ever seen like the the Bouncing Souls documentary, they have so much great like home footage of oh god yeah the legend that was – they just had this house, this party house. yeah And one seventy three partsal have and every time they like were short on rent or something like that, they had a wall said with phone numbers.
Speaker: And they would just call it and just tell everyone that they're having a fucking party. Pass the hat. They make rent. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what it was. So, yeah. So I went to the party and I never left, like literally never left.
Speaker: Um, ended up quitting the union in New York, moving in with those guys. Um, fast forward, uh, they were going on tour. I was supposed to go with them.
Speaker: Their first U S tour. I was supposed to go with them as their, you know, tour manager. And, uh,
Speaker: like was talking with my mom and i was like, I'm going on tour. Me and my friends, we're to go, we're going travel the country. going great. She's like, and my mom was like, uh, your grandma's real sick. I don't think you should go. So I was like, damn. Okay.
Speaker: So I stayed home. Um, a few weeks go by and, uh, talking with my mom and she's like, grandma's doing a lot better. And I was like, ah cool. Great. Um,
Speaker: I'm glad to hear it. how in the and In the interim, after quitting the union and moving in with the souls, I was stage managing at a club called City Gardens in Trenton, New Jersey, um where it was it was far and away the biggest club in in New Jersey at the time. like Everybody played there. Ramones, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Rollins,
Speaker: you know twenty four seven like every big band played I love that you slotted Ned's Atomic Dustbin in between the Ramones and Henry Rollins.
Speaker: Full spectrum, baby. Full spectrum. Ned's Atomic Dustbin was the, that that show was actually the first time I ever ate ah spinach lasagna.
Speaker: I know. It's weird, right? It's like, here's the thing, right? So i I'm like, not a vegetarian. I'm like, Mind you, I'm living in a punk house with a bunch of dudes. and I got no fucking money.
Speaker: And I go down there. I'm down there for loading. And I'm just like, what do they got? Oh, and, you know, that's Atomic Dustbin played. They were a bigger band. They drew but a bigger crowd. So they had a rider.
Speaker: On their rider was spinach lasagna. And I was like, I was fucking starving. And I was like, oh, God, I guess I'll eat the spinach lasagna. Yeah. First time ever. And I was like, wow, that was really good. I'll have a second server.
Speaker: So anyway, souls are on tour. I'm we'd since moved from the house on commercial lab to an apartment on ah to an apartment in New Brunswick, a different apartment on.
Speaker: So anyway, talking with my mom, I get a phone call. From my friend Jim Norton who says, hey, do you know how to tune drums? And I was like, yeah. And ah so he's like, Monster Magnet and Raging Slab need a drum tech.
Speaker: So I'm like, shit, when's it leave? He's like, in three days. it Nice. You know, I call my mom. I'm like, I got the another opportunity. And she's like, yeah, I think you should take it. Go for it.
Speaker: So, and that was it. And that started and then fucking that snowballed into, you know, close to 20 years of working for bands and being on tour. Nice. So then in 1999, you went on the fans warp tour with bouncing souls with the bouncing souls. I was their driver.
Speaker: were You were their driver. Yeah. I w I was not teching for them. I was not tour managing for them. I was their driver. Now I feel so much worse about how much you hung out with us during the day because you should have been fucking sleeping. oh I absolutely should have been sleeping. But it does explain how he was able to like like be the first man at the booth.
Speaker: But, however... Sherry, my ex, was the caterer that. Yeah. yeah Yeah. I remember that. The food was fantastic. Sleeping was not an issue, right? Because I would literally, i would get there.
Speaker: She'd be up already starting to make breakfast and everything. I could just go on her bus because she had a bus. So like sleeping was never an issue, right? So um I was absolutely able to just hang out and be like, oh, I'm going to go take a nap for a few hours, you know, throughout the day or whenever.
Speaker: Got it. Nice. Yeah. So 1999 Vans Warped Tour. Yeah. Timmy, he was just, I don't know my recollection anyways, and maybe the impression's wrong, but he was just doing Warped Tour for fun. His wife was working.
Speaker: he needed to do something anyways. And his buddies, the Bouncing Souls were on tour. So he was driving them around and He was like early, you know, he's a fisherman, you know, so he's an early riser by nature.
Speaker: And so he was always getting up and like helping us set up our tent. We were always fucking dead tired. It was such a grind, like trying to set up the tent and get the boxes out and do all that stuff. And Timmy was like always there lending a hand. It was like amazing. and Sometimes like we'd get up in the morning to go out to set up the tent. He already had the fucking tent set up for us.
Speaker: It's true. know you all You know, you weren't here, but I was here. So I just set up the tent for you. And it's like, man, thank you. So again, like, I don't remember how it actually began.
Speaker: um Like as far as what the the conversation was. And it was like, oh, hey, i'm I'm Tim. I'm Steve. You know, I'm Mark. I like i don't remember exactly how that happened. But within the first two weeks, since I was the driver for the Soul's,
Speaker: I was there before, you know, everybody was up. Everybody. Yeah. I was there before everybody was up. Um, so I would kind of be wandering around cause I'm not tired, right? Like I just finished whatever.
Speaker: eight hour drive, nine hour drive. And like, I'm wired. I'm whatever. You're wired from the drive. You're looking to take that first shit of the day and the cleanest port-a-potty you'll ever see. Yeah. All of those things. Right. So I'm just kind of like, what do?
Speaker: And I was like, Oh, there's the Yo-Yo Guys booth. I guess I'll set it up. ah pop but Like, cause you know, at that time it wasn't a free for all.
Speaker: It was like, you were assigned a spot and right someone from the warp tour couldn't tell you who, would put the tents where they go. Like, here's, boom, here's the yo-yo spot. Here's whatever. Here's, you know, this band's merch spot and whatever. So someone would lay this stuff out and I would just be like, oh, there's the yo-yo stuff. I'll set that up.
Speaker: And so like, I just started setting it up and, you know, being like, like you said, is this any good? Hey, yeah what's the deal with this yo-yo? yeah No, it was great. I mean, we would every morning we'd show up and then we'd have, you know, our morning breakfast with Timmy Chunk's time. And ah because funny and great I knew nothing about yo-yos.
Speaker: Yeah. i'm I mean, like nothing. Right. I was the guy who, you know, like had a Dunkin' Imperial and a Dunkin' Butterfly when I was younger. And that's what I knew about yo-yos. And if I waxed the string, I could make it sleep longer.
Speaker: it all That was it. That was all I knew. because i remember you I remember definitely you hanging out. remember you starting to hang out and we were buddies with Timmy. And then at some point we're like, wait, Timmy's like beating us to our own booth at this point. You know?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's because like I would get there so early, right? And again, always there. And like I said, like you're saying, right? You're wired from the drive. It's like I'm not –
Speaker: um'm I'm lucky that I can sleep anytime, anywhere. Yeah. Right. That is such a great like tour skill to have. I'm going to sleep for two hours right now and go. Yeah, exactly. um So I get there and I'd be like, I don't want to sleep yet.
Speaker: You know, I'm going to go say hello to my wife, you know, and be like, whatever. it was like, cool. She's going to feed me and and whatever. And then it was like, all right.
Speaker: i'm I'm awake. I don't want to go to sleep yet. I want to wait for all of my friends to wake up who are in all of the bands. You know, it's like, I want wait for all my friends to wake up and say, hey, what's going on? What are we doing? know. I mean, beyond, I think there was, you know, there was seven of us on the tour and then you added Lester that was eight.
Speaker: I'd have to say Chunks was number nine. doubt yeah
Speaker: Personally, I love the Warped Tour. now Now, here's my question. is Is that because of just the general vibe of the tour? Are there things that Lyman did differently than like other packaged tours or anything? like what was the like what What were the bands seeing that we weren't necessarily? Well, I mean...
Speaker: the Everybody knows, um you know, if you're on the Warped Tour, you don't know what time you're playing. Right. You don't know what time you're playing. Me, as as a tech, as a roadie, that's fantastic.
Speaker: Because everybody plays 30 minutes. So it doesn't matter what time I'm playing. I wake up early anyway. So I'm going to be ready to go.
Speaker: I have my shit ready to go. 30 minute set, boom. And I'm done. It's like, this is fantastic. I have 12 more hours of my day that I can just do whatever the fuck I want.
Speaker: I can walk around. I can see my friends. I can go watch all these other bands. I know that we're on now. Today we're on at one o'clock. Okay, cool. That means I get the rest of the day to do whatever whatever the hell I want. I i personally love the Warped Tour.
Speaker: Yeah. I love doing it. love doing it on a band side. I would, I don't think I would ever do it on the production side. All right. That's fair. Okay.
Speaker: I don't know who was, you know Brian Bishop, I think was one of the stage managers that year. Great deal might've been, um but like I would never do it on that side.
Speaker: Yeah. That doesn't seem, that seems stressful. Not only stressful, but it's a, it's a day of nonstop work. Right. Non-stop. Like you wake up in the morning, you're setting up, you're setting your stage, dumping gear, and it just does not stop.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, so much so that like stage managers rarely went to catering. Like catering would deliver food to the guys on stage. God damn. You know? um So yeah, I would never want to do it on, in that aspect, but I would do, I would i would have done the Warped Tour every year.
Speaker: if um If a band was like, hey, you want to do it I'd be like, absolutely. i was like, i love this tour. And it is also the whole like summer camp thing where it's like, again, you know
Speaker: being old and and being around for a while, I knew a lot of the bands. So it's like every summer... whether I worked the Warped Tour or not, I went to every Warped Tour.
Speaker: Right. Because i knew everybody. And it was like, it literally was a summer camp where it's like, I know I'm go to see A, B, C, D, you know, I know I'm going to see all these people and it's going to awesome. And, and from you like touring with bands enough, you also probably knew like a shitload of the crew.
Speaker: So you knew like. I, I knew, I knew the crew before the Warped Tour even started. Right. Because i knew the crew from working locally in L.A.
Speaker: essentially, you know, being a stagehand in LA. Gotcha. And for golden voice, almost, ah almost all of the original crew people on Warped Tour were golden voice stagehands.
Speaker: Oh, okay. You know, so Westie, uh, Greg Teal, Brian Bishop, um,
Speaker: Brian Dale, uh, Mike De La Cruz.
Speaker: Just trying to think of
Speaker: Brian Koontz was San Diego-based, but he...
Speaker: was like in with all of all of those people we were it was all like a small group of people i guess you're like i mean and that was like that was always the joke among like the us yo-yo guys is we were like dude timmy chunks is like the fucking mayor of warp tour like he knows everybody on the fucking tour everybody on the fucking tour is like hey timmy what's up that's what got me the job with with the avenge sevenfold really i I had.
Speaker: So I was. Oh, you know, those yo-yo guys. Yeah, you're good. You should come. It's obviously the yo-yo guys got it. Got you the job. yeah you guys They were still talking about it six years later.
Speaker: So it's and it's interesting because like you and I have both we've we've we've been around the block a few dozen times now. Like we understand this. But we still also get caught up in it when we look back at things like this sometimes yeah where we forget, you know, like, like, I mean, honestly, until we like really started immersing ourselves in this for this season two of the podcast, like I forgot how a lot of this felt.
Speaker: Like I remembered a couple of the stories, you know, the, what the, the, the ones that I always trot out. Yeah. And, and I remember, you know, I've, I've got really good friends that I still have to this day. I mean, you know, Timmy chunks, you know, were talking about Timmy chunks. This is when we met him and I was just talking to him yesterday to call, i called him to wish him a happy birthday yesterday. And we hung out and chatted on the phone for like 45 minutes. yeah So like, you know, I mean, these are like, these are our friends that, you know, we, we carried forward from this and that's, you know, that's 26 years
