[Indi Trehan]

Hello all,

Well, another fantastic gig last night in Minneapolis.  The Quest is a
rather small venue, very narrow main floor area but a good amount of space
upstairs, which actually kept distracting the band during the show
(including when someone from above dropped a diamond watch that nearly hit
Rob when he was up front, prompting Rob to encourage everyone in the front
row to throw their jewelry up on stage, and he and Peter decided it looked
valuable enough to keep). The set list was pretty consistent with earlier
shows, the main highlight being they did play "Put Down That Weapon" and
returned for a second encore of "Read About It" (first encore ended with
"Hercules")...Tom Giffey managed to get a setlist so he can post the exact
order.  A great crowd as well...seemed to attract people who drove long
ways from rural parts of the country that the band isn't visiting, i met
people from South Dakota, Iowa, and workers from rural Wisconsin.  Rants
included topics such as ignoring the morons on your TV (specific mention
of Geraldo), carrying on with life (bakers bake bread, musicians make
music), and a well-received comment about removing the British emblem from
the Australian flag (there were some Aussies in the crowd waving the
flag).

The whole band came out shortly after the show and mingled with anyone and
everyone and signed autographs and posed for pictures and such.  Speaking
with Jim, he says they've got a gig on WXRT (Chicago) on Monday...they
also taped 3 songs for a Minneapolis station yesterday (i believe the
station goes by the name "Cities").  I also asked him about what else they
were planning on doing here since they've got a couple days to kill...he
said he's got some friends in town and was also planning on doing some
touristy stuff, specifically checking out the great Van Gogh/Gaugin
exhibit at the Art Institue (which i would also recommend to any Workers
coming to town for the shows - who knows, you may even run into them
there.)

There were also a lot of record company folks at the gig and the aftershow
mingle...i spoke to the lady that seemed to be organizing the record
company folk and she says she represents their new U.S. label, Liquid 8, a
subsidiary of BMG.  You all remember that the Oils had recently signed
with Pachyderm Records (i think that was the name) - the small outfit in
Minnesota...well, Liquid 8 has apparently taken over for them and they too
are based in Minneapolis.  The Oils are among their first signings (the
other being, as she put it, "the artist formerly known as Vanilla Ice").
She says "Capricornia" will be released in the U.S. on February 19th, and
the "Golden Age" single will be out on January 15 or 22, still to be
decided.  She and her cohort will be at the Chicago gigs as well (at least
tonight) - if you see them, thank them for their role in bringing the band
back to the states and really pushing the upcoming record, she seemed
really appreciative of the feedback from the fans.

Also great was meeting Tom and the other Workers at the show.  I seemed to
have lucked out and caught 2 drumsticks (one with Rob up front and one at
the end of "Read About It").  But the highlight of the night for me
personally was finally getting to meet the infamous Oilman, some 6 years
after first emailing him about a bootleg tape.

Hope to see a lot of you tonight.  I'll be in a Powderworks shirt, tall
and brown and goatee.

reporting from Chicago,
indi


p.s. there are now 4 5-second mpegs on the oils web site - "scenes from
the road", the first of which seems to be the band crossing the bay bridge
leaving san francisco.

p.p.s. and also a relatively length quicktime movie of jim playing piano
for the new song "poets and slaves".