THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IS A TRAIN

From an interview with Unwound's Justin Trosper regarding what he considered to be the most miserable show in the band's touring history.

The first national tour was in the fall of 91. Maybe the most weirdest show was in Naperville, Ill (next to Aurora, home of Wayne's World). I knew from setting it up that it was potentially dodgy from the slurred rambling phone interactions I had. We met the guy who set up the show (I cant even use the term "promoter" loosely here) at a convenience store parking lot so they could get some beer, then proceeded to the place of the show ("venue"), which was a rambler-style house in a cul-de-sac. So far everything is fine. Then we loaded the equipment into the basement which was a smelly carpeted disgusting punk rock hovel. We began to worry that no one would come after the guy started to call his friends to tell them about the show. He was pretty sure some of them were coming, but if not, it would be cool to just jam out and drink beer. Immediately I began to think of anybody I might know in Chicago that could save us. I asked if I could use the phone and ventured upstairs to a chorus of yapping vicious chihuahuas and his strung out pregnant sister. I couldn't get a hold of anyone. We gathered downstairs on one couch while the guy and a couple of his friends sat on another. He warned us "Oh yeah, probably don't sit there cuz that's where Dougie puked." Then added, "Do you guys want a bong hit?" I couldn't decide if it was scarier to stay in the basement or go back upstairs to use the phone. His band was called Pen and they were set to play first. I don't recall what they sounded like but could confidently guess that it fell under the category of "shit-punk." Although we knew they wouldn't care for us much we also sensed that they would be polite enough to not beat us up afterwards so we played our hearts out. We really won them over after playing Flipper and Black Flag covers. They bought tons of merchandise and we probably made more money there than some of the other shows even though there were only four or five guys in attendance. I finally got a hold of somebody in Chicago so that we could go stay somewhere other than Naperville. I think they were a little lonely, "Are you sure you don't want to stay here? There's plenty of room here in the basement, and I can fix you some SHIT up in the morning!"