‘My favorite shows are a climax from song one. Let’s give them their five dollars worth in the first five songs.”
Patrick Fleming is talking with the other members of Poison Control Center in a dressing room beneath the stage of The Englert Theatre in Iowa City. This is the band’s first show in more than a month, and former drummer Donald Curtis is subbing in for regular bassist Joe Terry, who is on his honeymoon.
Because of those two factors, something rare is happening in the moments before PCC takes the stage: They’re crafting a set list. Or, more accurately, trying to. It’s 35 minutes until the start of the show, and Fleming and the guys can’t decide on the proper order of songs. Frank taps his pen on the counter, looking down at their options.
“This is what happens when everyone has input,” he says, pointing to a list of crossed out and rearranged songs. With 10 minutes to go, they’re still perfecting the set list.
After more than a year on the road, playing 264 shows in support of two albums, “Sad Sour Future” and “Stranger Ballet,” Fleming, Terry, drummer David Olson and guitarist Devin Frank grew comfortable enough with each other to just, essentially, wing it at the shows. But not tonight, on the first stop of a mini- tour that has them playing four shows in three days in Iowa and Minnesota.
The seemingly never-ending tour ended in August, and members of PCC returned to their homes, jobs or school after spending more than a year supporting themselves on money made from music. On the tour, PCC shared the stage with more than 500 bands, including Titus Andronic us, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and other indie heavy hitters. PCC’s latest album, “Stranger Ballet,” earned a 7.6 (out of 10) from the notoriously stingy Pitchfork and an A- grade from The Onion’s A.V. Club. They are, as Fleming puts it, “professi onal musicians.”
“The amount of people who know about Poison Control Center now versus a year ago has probably quadrupled,” Fleming says. “This is really the only way a band our size can sell records and make a living playing music. People don’t buy that many CDs in stores, but if you put us in front of 15 people or 200, we have a better chance of selling a CD than a little album cover on iTunes.
“I could have probably had better jobs or what ever, but I chose to have jobs where I could put PCC first if need be. When the stars aligned for all (of) us for this long tour, we said, ‘If we’re going to do this, let’s do it.’ ”
ROAD WARRIORS
The Englert isn’t a typical Poison Control Center concert venue. This is a historic theater, celebrating its 99th birthday with an “Intimate at the Englert Series.” Tonight the 50-some audience members are joining the band with (rarely used) folding chairs on the stage.
Not every band tours as relentlessly or puts out albums at the pace with which PCC records. Fleming, Terry and Frank all write songs, providing a wealth of material to record. Recording gives them a reason to tour in support of new albums. Touring lets the members of the band get reacquain ted with their many friends and fans in other cities, as well as each other. The four permanent members of PCC are spread across four cities in three states.
“Being off the road has been kind of depressing, so tonight makes me feel good,” Fleming, frontman and the energetic force of the band, tells the audie nce as they dance around him.
The sentiment matches something Fleming said on the drive from Des Moines to Iowa City earlier that afternoon: “I guess if I had my way we’d still be on tour.” (“It was an awesome year, and I might never have another year like it,” he later says.)
There are staples of a Poison Control Center show. Fleming will do the splits. Frank will play the guitar while balanced upside down on his shoulders. And the band will interact heavily with the crowd. Tonight they’re playing a rare acoustic set, sans microphones, with an energetic crowd gathered around them.
During an intermission, the band makes its way to the refreshment table for a few beers. A fan approa ches Fleming with a request: “Could you play a Pavement song?” PCC doesn’t do covers, but they do break into a bit of “Gold Soundz” for the fan a few minutes later.
Pavement is a band the members of PCC greatly admire, and the feeling is mutual with at least one member of the indie rock legend. The night before this tour, Bob Nastanovich of Pavement offered up a bit of praise.
“My bandmates had never heard of them, and Mark (Ibold) and Stephen (Malkmus) are pretty difficult critics,” Nastanovich, who now lives in Des Moines, says, “and they said they were the best band that opened for us the whole year. They were so fired up to be playing for 2,200 people. They need to be doing that.”
Crowds in the thousa nds are rare for Poison Control Center, but the ones they play for are usually enthusiastic, dancing and singing along to every song. After the set, the audience gathers around the merch table, buying shirts, CDs and posters. One person brings up a box of sugar cookies, decorated with “We (Heart) PCC.”
AMES CONNECTION
The next night, a Friday, Poison Control Center performs in St. Paul, Minn., then drives through the night to arrive in Cedar Rapids at 5:30 a.m. They check into a hotel room provided by Coe College and crash until noon. That day, PCC kicks off Coefest at the college, before driving to Ames for a night show. Curtis is a professor of computer science at Coe, and this will be his first time performing in front of students. It’s also Olson’s first show in his hometown.
The concert starts at 3 p.m., and turns out to be the polar opposite of the intimate stage setting in Iowa City. The band sets up on the patio area of the Pub building on campus, with a waist-high brick wall separating them from the crowd, spread out over about an acre of space on the green. At the same time as PCC’s set, Coe’s football team is taking on Luther College.
The wall in front of the band means Fleming’s splits and Frank’s upside-down playing are mostly hidden from view. So Fleming balances himself on the wall to perform some splits, looming large over the crowd.
“Out back, all the kids smoked pot. But not us, we drank scotch,” Fleming, Frank and Curtis sing in harmony during the song “Monument.” “That song was by a professor here at Coe, you’ll probably want to hang out with him after the show,” Fleming tells the crowd.
A few hours later, the band is unloading its equipment from the van on Main Street in Ames. “Ames is the weirdest town to come back to,” Frank says. “So much changes, but it always feels the same.”
Olsen is the only member to still call Ames home, but the band’s strong connection to the city remains. Fleming was a part of the influential band Pookey Bleum in college and co-founded Bi-Fi Records, the one-time home of acts that helped set the tone of Ames music for the last decade, like The Envy Corps, Keepers of the Carpet and PCC itself.
“The funny thing about Bi-Fi is that of all the groups on Bi-Fi, Poison Control Center was never intended to be a band,” Curtis says at DG’s Tap House bar. “It was just Patrick getting his friends together to play.” (In its early stages, PCC featured up to a dozen or more members on stage, often dressed in green, playing an array of instruments that some times included a saw.)
The spirit of Bi-Fi and its acts lives on in PCC fans like Chris Ford, Nate Logsdon and Chris Lyng of the bands Christopher the Conquered and Mumf ord’s. Ford and Logsdon founded the Maximum Ames record label (which will release PCC’s 10-year-old unfinished rock opera in December), and Logsdon and Lyng started the Maximum Ames Music Festival last month. All three are front and center for this show, dancing wildly during PCC’s set.
When talking about his festival, Logsdon is full of praise for Poison Control Center’s influence on the Ames scene.
“PCC is a huge inspiration on our lives. We’ve all been going to their shows since we were kids,” Logsdon says. “Everything they’ve done for Iowa rock is unparall eled. So much of the scene is inspired by them.”
THE TOUR ENDS
Hanging out in front of DG’s, Frank lets a hard-to- believe detail about Fleming slip: He’s a germaphobe. Before, during and after shows, the frenetic Fleming is all handshakes, hugs and high-fives, like some sort of rock ’n’ roll candidate canvassing for votes.
“It’s funny, because he’ll be rolling around on the floor of dirty bars during shows, then afterwards he’s in the car cleaning up with hand wipes,” Frank says.
For the last show of this tour, Fleming’s rock star persona is in full effect. He jumps into the audie nce, the crowd lifting him up as he continues to play. At one point, he passiona tely embraces a woman and plants a long kiss on her. (She, as it turns out, is his wife, Ashley.)
The band leaves the stage, only to be called back for an encore, which Fleming says is a “Poison Control Center Guinness Record” after the same thing happened in St. Paul the night before. They launch into one more song, “Thrill,” before calling it quits for the night and this mini-tour.
The band doesn’t disappear from its fans into some backstage abyss. They’re their own roadies, and begin hauling off equipment while stopping to chat. Just moments after presenting a larger-than-life band persona to the room, they’re back to being four guys who used to live on this street.
Loading the last bit of gear into the van, the members of Poison Control Center save their final hugs for each other. Olson will return to his home in Ames, Frank has the drive to Missouri still ahead of him. Curtis will head back to Iowa City, and Fleming and his wife are set to return to down town Des Moines.
Compared to the barrage of sound inside DG’s, outside on Main St. the quiet is deafening.
“This is the point on tour when we would all ride off in the van together, but we all drove on our own to Ames,” Fleming says. “So now we just split up and not see each other until the next time we do it.”
Meet the band
Patrick Fleming
Age: 31
Role in band: Vocalist, guitarist, songwriter
Member since: 1999 (first performance in 2000)
Former guitarist for the Ames band Pookey Bleum, Fleming started recording PCC songs while still in that group. He recently started a gig with Rock in Prevention, touring the country warning kids against the dangers of drugs through rock music.
David Olson
David Olson
Age: 24
Role in band: Drummer
Member since: 2010
The band’s newest member, who joined before their “never-ending tour “and recorded on “Stranger Ballet.” Olson has drummed for Nuclear Rodeo and The Wheelers, and is also a member of Mantis Pincers.
Devin Frank
Devin Frank
Age: 28
Member since: 2001
Role in band: Vocalist, guitarist, songwriter
Frank is currently living in Columbia, Mo., pursuing a graduate degree in philosophy at the University of Missouri. This summer Frank started a new side project, Mantis Pincers.
Donald Curtis
Donald Curtis
Age: 31
Member since: 2001
Role in band: Temporary bassist, former drummer and songwriter
A longtime member of the band, Curtis left in 2010 to take a job at Coe College. On the mini-tour he filled in for bassist Joe Terry, who is on his honeymoon. Curtis will also be playing Saturday’s shows.
