A Weekend in the Doghouse
written by: Jacob Robison
Cris Brown, vocalist/guitarist for Lappdog, emailed me one day and invited me to come down to his hometown of Jackson, Tennessee to stay at his place for a weekend. The fellas in Lappdog were putting together a showcase for some music industry people, and he wanted to know if I would come down and cover it for Polluteme.com. There was also a band in the area that wanted to be on the site called Fliptop (they were going to be one of the opening acts). It took a whole minute and a half for me to email him back accepting his invite. The next day I put in a request to have April twentieth through the twenty-second off at work, and made plans to indulge in one of America’s greatest past-times: road tripping. I hit up mapquest.com for directions to Cris’ house and started setting aside money from my paychecks to fund the weekend. That was on the sixth of April. I looked forward to the trip for two long weeks, and when the time finally came around to go I wasted no time. Cris told me that it took them around two and a half hours to make it to Cadiz for the last Metalfest; it took me two hours to make it down there. And the amazing thing was, my car made the drive down there and back with no problems. That’s a miracle in and of itself. What follows is an account of the three days I spent in Jackson’s Doghouse (or at least as much as I can remember).
DAY ONE
2:30 p.m.: I grabbed my bags, a few cds, said goodbye to everyone, and jumped in my car. I headed out of my driveway and towards town to gas up and get some batteries and film from the Dollar Store. Couldn’t wait to get on the road.
2:45 p.m.: Paid for my gas and cigarettes then went down the road to the Dollar Store for some batteries and cheap film for my mom’s camera (seeing as I’m poor, I came up with a way to budget out the fifty dollars I brought with me. Cheap shit is good enough for my broke ass).
3:00 p.m.: Put two of the batteries out of the four-pack (a buck-fifty) into my portable cd player, put Boy Hits Car into the player and hit play. Threw the three-pack of Kodak film (five bucks) into my briefcase (a black mesh backpack), and began the drive down to Jackson.
5:00 p.m.: The drive down was long but uneventful. Well, except for the Deliverance scene in Trimble, TN. I stopped at the gas station there and went in to take a leak and grab something to munch on. I was wearing my brown baggy pants, a blue long-sleeved shirt, a button-up blue, green, and yellow-gold shirt-sleeved shirt, and my black Chuck Taylor shoes (a gift from Charles Irwin from Lowboy). I also have both ears pierced and was wearing my necklace. In other words, I was dressed how I normally dress. I went into the gas station, and there were like five or so really old rednecks. They stared at me the whole damn time I was in there. The cashier looked crazy as hell too. It kinda freaked me out. I expected one of them to get up and tell me how pretty my mouth was or to squeal like a pig.
5:05 p.m.: It took me three passes to find Cris’ driveway. When I finally got it right Cris came outside to meet me. He said something about the noises my car was making, and I assured him that it does that all the damn time. I grabbed my bag and briefcase out of my car and made my way inside. The first room I came in, the living room, had been painted red everywhere (including the ceiling) and the trim was painted blue. The couch and chair were a both a light-tan color. Cris informed me that the couch was going to be my bed for the weekend, and I put my bags down beside the chair. The room was decorated really cool: a couple black-light posters were against the wall behind the couch, and Buddha statues flanked the couch on both sides. The entertainment system included a stereo, television, VCR and Playstation. Two gargoyle statues were placed by the entertainment center, and a beaded curtain hung in the doorway between the living room and the rest of the house. And the room was surprising clean (surprising because three guys live there).
5:15 - 6:15 p.m.: Cris gave me the tour of the rest of the house. The kitchen/dining room was decorated with various Lappdog memorabilia (including everything I’ve ever written on the site about them) and artwork. The hallway (dubbed The Green Mile by the inhabitants) was...you guessed it...painted green. The bathroom was the first door on the left (also surprisingly clean), and their bedrooms were located on the right wall and straight ahead. Cris lives right in between the lines of two phone companies and he can’t get phone service from either one. After running me to a pay phone so I could call and let my parents know that my car didn’t break down (I also got my dad to page my girlfriend and let her know the same thing), Cris and I headed back to his place and shot the shit for a little while. Cris told me that we would have to drive to the American Legion in Jackson in a little while to help set up for the show on the next day. Cris’ brother Terry showed up, and after introductions were made we piled into Terry’s car to make the forty-five minute drive.
7:00 - 8:30 p.m.: We arrived at the American Legion to find most of Lappdog there (Brian Kirk and Jereme Hubble), as well as all of Fliptop. Cris introduced me to Mike, Fliptop’s guitarist, and then Brian, Chris and Terry unloaded their equipment and went inside to check out the situation. Mike introduced me to the other members of the Fliptop family, and I went downstairs to check out their practice room. Their producer was also there. He brought a trailer load of equipment with him. Fliptop and him spent around thirty minutes unloading different shit from the trailer. Kevin, Lappdog’s drummer, showed up so I went up to say hi, then came back downstairs to get out of the way. Cris came down and told me that they were running to get something to eat, so I jumped in the car with them and took off in search of supper. We hit up a McDonald’s for some food, then went back to set up the p.a.
3:00 a.m.: The p.a. gave them fits all night long. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. First they got the mains set but couldn’t get the monitors working. Then they got the monitors working and something else went wrong. It was a nightmare. Throw in the fact that Fliptop’s drummer got a little pissed because he had to set his kit up in front of Scott’s, and the night was one big headache. Everything cooled off, and both kits were set up. After Lappdog ran through their new song twice, they finally got fed up with the p.a. and called it quits for the night. The plan was to meet back up at the American Legion by two o’clock. Everyone went their separate ways, and I left with Cris and Terry.
4:00 a.m.: We made it back to their house safely. After giving me a blanket and a pillow, Cris went to his room to pass out. Terry went to his room and passed out too. I took off my shirt, took out my contacts, and put all the shit that was in my pockets on the floor. I laid down on the couch, rolled over twice and woke up in the morning.
