Sludgeworth's Losers Of The Year

I only hint at it in this Jughead's Basement Episode, but I booked the one and only Sludgeworth tour.  By this time in Chicago punk history, I was booking all the Screeching Weasel tours across the country, and don't get the wrong idea, it was NOT easy.  Through most of the career of the active Screeching Weasel we did not have it easy as a touring band.  We were forging a new path along with The Queers and other bands from Lookout. (This is not to say that our predecessors, bands like AOD, Black Flag, and Angry Samoans, hadn't made it easier for us, but at the time it felt we were on a different track, and the work that these bands had forged dissipated and did not seem to help our hunt to book shows from the midwest to the coasts.)  This was before Sludgeworth was on Lookout, and they trusted me to book a tour for them.  It was hard, and at the end of the day, I hated the idea of booking shows for other bands.  I wasn't able to be there to make sure that everything was Ok.  I did not have the passion I would have had if it were my own band.  And even more so, I didn't have the hunger for making cash off of bands, that is needed to be successful.  I had always thought I had failed them, I had failed one of my favorite bands.  It took me to when I finally conducted these interviews, over 25 years later, to realize that they not only understood that they were an unknown band, but that they also had some good times.  Good times that they still remember to this very day.  I did not get to put all of this into the podcast, but when I presented the question about the tour, about my humility as a failed booking agent, they eschewed this take and dwelt more on the nostalgia of their youth, and they were thankful for the opportunity to see the country, and to tour with their best friends.  I think because of that, this podcast will over time, and when I accumulate at least a hundred of them, it will still be at the top of my list of completed podcasts.  My passion for telling these bands stories helps in some way.  It makes me happy.  And I hope it makes you happy too.