(Inside the World of a Rock Roadie Page 2 of 6)
When I arrived in Seattle for the first show on the Costello tour, the production manager, a gargantuan New Yorker called Wookie, handed me an all-access laminate, a copy of the tour itinerary, and a key to the bus. He introduced me to the rest of the crew--Itchy, Squinty, Flavor Flav Dave, and the others--then rattled off the crew bus rules in a monotonous drone, much like a flight attendant giving an in-flight safety presentation. "No smoking and no drugs in the front lounge," he said. It was standard first-day rhetoric. But then he added, "And never ever fall asleep in the back lounge." I wasn't sure what he meant, so I just nodded and smiled.
The first day of a rock tour is a lot like the first day of school. The crew, generally ten to 12 guys, gathers on the bus, swapping handshakes, quietly scrutinizing each other, and trying to discern three things: Who is the lazy guy, who is the asshole (anyone who refers to himself as a "technician" is immediately suspect), and who can get the drugs. Some of the guys may know each other from previous gigs ("Hey man, weren't you the LD on Slipknot?"), but generally each new tour is a gathering of strangers. I use the same tactic I used as a child when moving to a new neighborhood: I try to impress them with my toys. As I've gotten older, my Hungry Hippo, Slip N' Slide, and life-size Chewbacca punching bag have given way to a dizzying collection of DVDs, X-Box games, and German dungeon porn.
There is a definite and immutable hierarchy among roadies, which goes like this: production manager, front-of-house mixer, monitor tech, instrument techs, lighting director, rigger, bus and truck drivers, and at the very bottom, me . I'm the tour merchandiser, in charge of band swag: T-shirts, sweatshirts, ball caps, and other overpriced souvenirs. The merchandiser goes by many nicknames, including "Swaggy," "The Swag Man," "Cotton Boy," and "Merch Guy. On a typical day, while the other roadies are pushing cases, flying speakers, laying cable, and rigging lights--all potentially dangerous activities--I am busy folding T-shirts and arranging the sizes into neat little piles. It's like working at the Gap, with the added incentive of illegal narcotics and genital herpes.
Although rock merchandising does not involve the physical risks associated with other crew jobs, it is not without challenges. One of the more frustrating aspects is trudging the bureaucratic quagmire of International Customs--specifically, bringing merchandise from the United States into Canada to sell at Canadian concert dates. In 1998, I landed a job on the Celine Dion tour at the peak of her Titanic success. Our most popular souvenir was a small stuffed frog wearing a tiny Celine T-shirt. Celine Dion loves frogs. People send her toy frogs from all over the world, and before each concert she has them playfully arranged in her dressing room. Fortunately, kids love them too, and the frogs were a huge seller. As a result, I found myself declaring a payload of 9,000 toy frogs to a humorless Canadian customs official, who informed me that the frogs themselves could enter Canada, but the tiny T-shirts they were wearing could not--something about trade sanctions with the country that manufactured them. So there, at the Canadian border, in the middle of a blinding, testicle-retracting snowstorm, I carefully undressed 9,000 frogs.