We don’t do drugs in the van, is practically the first thing Kelly Ogden tells me after her and her band, The Dollyrots, kidnap me. But, if you want, I’m sure we could stop somewhere and find something for you. Those who work entry level jobs in Denver aren’t supposed to skip town in the night after consuming ten beers at the local dive. I was supposed to be in bed, resting for another day of the office grind.  Instead, I was forgoing every possible responsibility for several days to travel halfway across the country with a rock band.



Yes, it’s just like that movie.


When I have free time, I listen to everything I can think of and try to enjoy what I hear.  But lately, it hasn’t been much. Clear Channel and radio personalities destroyed any concept of a quality DJ, MTV has focused itself more with asinine culture than it has with actual music. Even revolutionary internet applications like Pandora and Last FM failed me when, no matter how finely I thought I had tuned a station, the programs would find a reason to stuff Nirvana into every single mix. Clearly there was something wrong with rock and roll. The music world spins awkwardly when not even pop music has any pizzazz left.


Which is why I tried to justify my kidnapping by The Dollyrots a godsend.


Even in the recording I listened to ahead of time, I could tell the Dollyrots weren’t quite the punch my ticket needed, but it was a hell of a good start. On a Monday night the Dollyrots (from herein ‘The Dollies’, or, depending on the context I wish to apply, ‘The Rots’) at Bender’s Tavern in the heart of Downtown Denver. I could only imagine the kind of young, supple crowd a girl like Kelly Ogden (lead vocals, bass) could draw to this 21 and up venue.


The Dollies appeared a little fragile against the other Denver punk bands that performed that night (for the most part they were all male quartets talented in the art of mercilessly pounding away on their instruments). But they brought along an energy and a dynamic that I can say, for certain, most bands can never even dream of bringing to the spotlight.


One thing The Dollies couldn’t bring to the stage, however, were the slew of beautiful women and potential girlfriends that I was counting on. Instead, most of the audience that night was made up of the usual Denver selection of cock-rockers and a clan of overweight, balding men who lack enough teeth to make a smile who tried, without success to take a picture of what was up Kelly’s dress. After their set, Kelly was approached aggressively, hugs and all, by the very same crew of shameless men. She took it all with a smile and her trademark squeaky voice. This crowd was her bread and butter, and she was really laying it on thick with them.


A drink later I learn The Dollies are next driving to Fresno California  - 1,100 miles away - and they could use another driver to help them out. I was seven beers in.  Any man, after seven beers, is more than willing to do just about anything a pretty woman asks of them.


We pull through the Eisenhower tunnel around two thirty in the morning and the alcohol starts to fade. I’m told that the band’s next show is in Fresno at a small stage at the Warped Tour. I’m sharing the middle bench of the van with Fuzzy, the band’s merchandise manager, while talking with Kelly, who has since changed into pajamas and is piled in with a fortress of pillows and blankets in the back seat.


Everyone’s grandma lives in Florida, grandmas and racists, is the next gem Kelly lays on me. The gravity of my situation sets in. I start to fabricate excuses to get out of my nine-to-five (dead uncle, family estate, super messy) and wonder if I even have enough cash to buy a ticket back to Denver, and whether or not I will even have a job to return to.


I’m not actually a murderer, but I did play one on TV, at this hour, Fuzzy is asleep and I’m having a hell of a time keeping up with the conversation as the last few beers really start to take their toll. All I know is that I am sheltered in a dark van with people who were strangers all of three hours ago, one of them talking about racists and murder. And I can’t help but thinking there is a story here.


Kelly started the Dollyrots around five years ago with band mate Luis Cabezas. They met in their teenage years and shared the college experience in Florida (oh! I get it, Grandma! Racists!). After W. stole the election in 2000 they decided the world was coming to as much of an end as anyone would see, and that a rock band was a better idea than a practical job. It was only after the stereotypical run of drummers that the band finally settled on Chris Black, and the latest generation of The Dollies was formed.


This was the generation that DIDN’T do drugs in the van.


The band struck it big after their gig at the 2006 Warped Tour. They passed off a copy of their CD to Joan Jett. A love affair ensued between Jett and the band and the band released Because I’m Awesome with her label, Blackheart Records. The title track to the CD went on to be featured in a Khols commercial. Kelly did a cameo on an episode of CSI: New York to be accused of murder. The Dollies are also featured on the soundtrack of the upcoming summer flick Endless Bummer for their cover of Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation.


It is now ten in the morning and we are at a gas station in Utah. This is the kind of gas station where the dust and grit from the desert runs right up to the foot of the pumps and you can only imagine what kind of crap is being put into your tank. I’m still wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt from the night before and the desert sun is roasting me. There is a message on my phone from my boss, telling me that I’m forty minutes late for work.


You haven’t slept? Luis calls from the van.


Nope. We ready? It’s true; I hadn’t slept the night before. Sitting up right and watching Luis and Chris trade driving responsibilities didn’t exactly spell relaxation. Luis had even pulled off the highway at dawn and parked in a city park. The early morning sprinklers came on and every five minutes, like clockwork, a loud rap of water landed on the roof of the van. If sleep was had, it was in those five minutes.


Back in the van I’m now riding shotgun with Luis behind the wheel. The first thing to remember is to take it out of overdrive, he tells me as he hits a button on the end of the shifter. He points out other things I should know speed, turning, mirrors. He pauses occasionally to push a length of gnarly dark hair back out of his face. We continue across the desolate landscape that has proven so unwelcoming that no developer dared to touch it.


The highway stretches out in front of us, there is the desert out either side. As so many dozens of movies have portrayed before, the road is a dangerous place to be. The middle of nowhere tends to be where city slickers get murdered by transients and gangsters. Slowly, the hangover sets in.


The combination of male and female vocals on a recording always makes a much more powerful statement, Luis explains everything, even when I don’t ask. His dark wardrobe and mane of inky hair give him the mysterious guitar player guise, but he tops it off with quick smiles that tell me he still loves a good dick-and-fart joke. Every once in a while his voice cuts through the hum of the engine with an observation about the road, the band, or whatever he happens to be thinking at that particular moment. For as many thoughts that Luis regales me with, very few of them are actually applicable with other thoughts.


To save fuel, the going is slow. Luis keeps the van barreling across the Utah landscape at a steady sixty miles an hour. Apparently this had been the driving speed all night, but the slow rolling was less excruciating in the dark when I couldn’t see out the window. After an hour of slow progression I start to grow impatient and feared that the coast would never appear before me. I could only imagine what the band, now on their 6th week of touring, must have felt. Staring at nothing was starting to make me a little angry; it must have been the heat, the heat of the west and the downright retarded ugliness of the Utah desert.


The west is a place that has always served as a refuge through history for so many outlaws and rebels and other scums of society.  A century ago across this same landscape there was little use for rules and vigilantism dominated this realm at the cusp of the law. I find it beyond coincidence that I am traveling to Warped Tour, what has been heralded through the years as a Mecca for the modern outlaws who take form as the punks and misfits who gather to watch iconic groups such as NOFX, The Offspring and The Misfits perform. As the alternative rock was slowly swallowed up by modern punk and pop-punk, Warped Tour became the new Lollapalooza. But I would soon learn that just as Lollapalooza had destroyed itself by adding Metallica to bring in revenue, the Warped Tour has been on a downward slide almost since it began. And to be taking this journey with modern day vagrants and minstrels only ads to the thrill of the ride all 60 miles per hour of it.


 


Fresno’s Warped Tour takes place within a fenced in portion of the Saver’s Center a dilapidated looking events center in the heart of town. We arrive early and the band sets up the merchandise table underneath a Blackheart Records tent. I assist Luis in jotting down the band’s performance time and place on sixty bright pink posters featuring an aged picture of the trio. All around the venue, fences and lamp posts and portable toilets were already covered in hundreds of glossy posters advertising other bands that would play that day. We tack up The Dolly’s posters over them and wait for 1:45, the advertised stage time.


At 11 the gates opened and the lot floods with a slew of teenage kids in spandex, denim and elaborate hairstyles. Even though the temperature promised to climb well over 100 degrees that day, fans insisted on dressing in all black. Vendor tables sold enormous watches encrusted with fake gemstones and florescent sunglasses that only Max Headroom should be wearing. Instantly I feel my age double I feel like I’m the chaperone at a high school event.


Reel Big Fish opened things up with a relatively mellow performance. Their age shows, but Chris Black will tell you age doesn’t matter in this business.