In a House With Unlocked Doors… Part Ten
Back to the USA of A
By Sharon Mitchell
By May 2011, I had had my surgery and I was soon on the road to recovery, and we made plans for another holiday in America. This time, we would be there in late September, and for the first time, we had no shows planned whilst we were out there. That changed on the day we arrived. We discovered that Emily’s Army were playing a show at the Oasis Bar, about five miles from our hotel, and we went along.
The show was great. To be honest, I was not expecting much from the band because they were so young, but they were great. Afterwards, Joey was dismantling his drum kit and a set list fell to the floor – and he gave it to me. Outside, whilst they were waiting for their car to pick them up, they posed for photographs and chatted with us.
I was impressed with not only their musicianship, but also how friendly they were, and how very polite.
We spent the rest of the two weeks seeing the sights in the area where the band grew up, sometimes guided by my friend Kerrie, who was actually at school with both Mike and Billie. She showed us such private, precious things as Mike’s entry in his high school year book, and took us for our first trip to Christie Road.
She knew the exact location of the ‘party place‘ because she had been there. She also took us to Fiat Music store, where Billie had his singing lessons when he was five, and where he recorded Look for Love – and Mrs Fiatarone was in the shop! We spent ages talking to her and she seemed so proud of Billie and what he had become. I think I am, too.
When we didn’t have a guide, we explored Berkeley and San Francisco itself, spending a lot of time in the second hand record shops that are legendary in The Bay – Rasputin, Amoeba and 1,2,3,4 – Go!, and I managed to find a couple of bargainsto add to my collection – a Pinhead Gunpowder Fahizah EP, Operation Ivy ‘Hectic’ on vinyl, and a first pressing of 1000 Hours.
Towards the end of the holiday, we found another tour guide. This time, it was a man who still works for the band as security, and has done for many years. We toured Benicia, taking in the places where Green Day played some of their first gigs – the House of Toast, the Camel Barns and the clock tower in Benicia where Pinhead Gunpowder played the benefit concert for the skate park, and saw the Passalacqua Funeral Home which inspired Billie to write Going to Pasalacqua (yes, he spelled it wrong).
We went back to our guide’s home, and after making us coffee, he disappeared, coming back with a piece of paper which he gave to me. I cried when I saw what it was – an original poster from 924, Gilman Street, from 1989 – advertising the Benefit For Fools show on April 1st that year. The second band on the bill was Sweet Children. This has to be one of a kind – how many posters from Gilman have survived that long? This was the very earliest history of the band and now it was mine.
It really is one of the most precious things I own, and I will always be grateful to my friend for being so generous to me.
America had worked its magic again. We met up with my dear friend from the Shoreline afterparty again, ending up at a barbecue at her home, and she and her husband came to dinner with us, too, to celebrate our wedding anniversary at a restaurant overlooking Golden Gate and the Bay. We had so many experiences money can’t buy, and we were already planning our next trip out to California on the flight home to England.
