Tsunami Tour Torrent Ita
Linda Berens
It started with a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Alaska that sent tsunami waves surging towards Crescent City. In less than five hours, during the early morning hours of March 28th, 1964, three smaller waves pushed into storefronts and businesses causing little damage and a sense of calm in the people trying to clean up. Then the big wave, cresting at nearly 21 feet, slammed into the Downtown, killing eleven people and devastating 29 city blocks.
But many relics and improvements from the 1964 Tsunami remain ready for you to discover on this short historical tsunami walking tour through Downtown Crescent City, also known as Comeback Town, U.S.A.
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Tsunami Adventures is your one stop tour shop. Established 1999 on Caye Caulker. One of the original tour shops on the island with the Rosado Family and Costa Maya Beach Cabanas. Offering a variety of tours for your own group or we join together worldly travelers. We offer snorkeling tours by power boats of different sizes. See our charter tours page for details of our boats. We are an Belize Tourism Board APPROVED LICENSED TOUR OPERATOR. All of our guides are from Caye Caulker and have lived on Caye Caulker all their lives. We have all the super popular tours everyone offers and we have our unique tours exclusive to Tsunami Adventures, like our Croc Cruise and Star Gazing Night island Tour and Bird Watching by boat. Tsunami Adventures can take you to see the amazing marine life of The Belize Barrier Reef. Take you on a unforgettable scenic flight over the Blue Hole and arrange for you to go on day tours to the mainland with our partners Major Tom Greenwood and his amazing family.
Tsunami has always had big ideas to live up to. Their first show was planned in advance of any practice or serious song writing, and this sort of ambition quickly became the standard. Now, over 19 releases, six American tours, three European tours, a Lollapalooza tour, three videos, and nine t-shirt designs later Tsunami is still going strong.
The Beginning: It was the end of 1990 and Kristin and Jenny were living in the same house where they ran Simple Machines. Earlier that summer they had met Andrew Webster when Jenny's band Geek (another Simple Machine band) had done a three-week tour with Superchunk and Seaweed. Andrew and Jenny made fast friends and eventually, he was (con)vinced to come up to Arlington around Thanksgiving 1990 to try to form a band that could play at a New Year's party. After enlisting the support of former housemate John Pamer to play drums, Tsunami was formed. They weren't quite ready for the New Year's party, but within a couple of months they were already packed into Kristin's Trooper in freezing February for their first tour.
1991: Without even a single to their name and only a handful of shows under their belt, Tsunami hopped in the Trooper and high-tailed it across the country in the middle of February to play four shows with Beat Happening. Being as busy as they were, they had only allowed a few hours grace on the journey. So, when they heard the gnashing of gears at 2:00 AM in the middle of Indiana, they knew there may have to be a shift to Plan B. No, it wasn't as simple as low oil or water...it was half the transmission. After two days at the same hotel as a war convention, they had a new transmission and were on their way to Waukesha, WI for the third show. Tsunami rocketed home from their first tour, recorded their first four-track cassette "Cow Arcade", then went into Inner Ear to record the Headringer 7". Later that year they relecorded Genius of Crack for Homestead Records. That summer, they squeezed in the Trooper again and trekked across the country, doing some shows with Scrawl and ending up in Olympia, WA for the K Convention.
In 1992, Tsunami got a lot of recording under their belt and appeared on four 7" singles. First there was the song "Left Behind" released on a Sub Pop Single of the Month split 7" with Velocity Girl, then they contributed "Punk Means Cuddle" to a Teriyaki Asthma compilation 7" for C/Z Records. Later in the year they recorded "Could Have Been Christmas" for the Simple Machines "Seasons Greetings" 7", and finally "Beautiful Arlington" - a 3 song 7" that was released in Australia by IV Recordings.
1993: Tsunami had over 7 releases in 1993 including their acclaimed Diner and Matchbook 7"s, as well as the long awaited full-length debut, Deep End. Although it had been recorded the previous summer, 3 changeovers in manufacturing and an unsuccessful attempt at re-mixing had pushed it back by 10 months. In 1993, Tsunami also got what they thought was a prank call. Some guy named John from Lollapalooza said he wanted Tsunami to play the side stage! It seemed too weird - they thought they were small potatoes but John Rubelli was determined to change the face of Lollapalooza, and Tsunami was excited to help out. Tsunami hooked up with Lollapalooza in New Orleans and headed west, doing six shows with Sebadoh, Free Kitten and Thurston Moore. Late in 1993, in the middle of a 6-week American tour, Tsunami stopped for a week in Chicago to record their second full-length, The Heart's Tremolo.
1994 was Tsunami's big year of touring. Following the release of The Heart's Tremolo, their second full-length, Tsunami did two separate US tours and made two trips to England, one with Eggs and Rodan and the second to play the Phoenix Festival with Shellac, Girls v Boys, Bailter Space and The Raincoats.
1995: Drummer John Pamer - perpetual student - took off another semester of school from UMASS Amherst in the spring of 1995 and Tsunami set out on the road again. In the midst of a long spring tour, Simple Machines released World Tour and Other Destinations, a 22-song compilation of their hard-to-find singles, b-sides and compilation tracks. After a short East Coast tour in July, Tsunami dropped off John in Boston and bid him good luck - he was off to Amherst for one full year of summer school and college to finally finish his undergrad degree. With that, Tsunami was officially on hiatus until John's graduation in May 1996.
1996-97: Well, the end of 1995 and beginning of 1996 flew by with no Tsunami action. As John's graduation approached, Jenny and Kristin kicked into high gear, writing songs like crazy and getting ready to practice again. Unfortunately for Tsunami, John decided to spend the summer in Amherst, making enough money to eventually move to New York City. Knowing John's long-term goal of living in NYC, they weren't surprised about his decision, but what to do? Drummer-less? After talking about commuting, tape swapping, or whatever, Tsunami took a bold step and contacted another drummer in Arlington to work on the new songs - Luther Gray. An ex-mailorder intern, Trip was last seen as the live drummer for Sea Saw in 1996 and played sax on Delta 72's record. He teaches drumming lessons and plays in a bunch of jazz combos and a gospel choir! After 6 months of practice Tsunami headed to Chicago in the spring of 1997 and recorded fourteen songs at Kingsize Soundlabs with Dave Trumfio and Mike Hagler. The result - their fourth record, A Brilliant Mistake, which was released by Simple Machines in August 1997.
1998: After a huge US tour in the fall of 1997 to support A Brilliant Mistake with new members Amy Domingues (bass), Trip Grey (drums) and Bob Massey (guitar & keyboards), Jenny and Kristin returned home with the most momentus task ahead - the Simple Machines Finale party. They bore down on this final project, balancing out party details with fevered Tsunami practices. The Finale was incredible, with hundreds of folks there to see Tsunami's set. After the party Tsunami did a small East Coast tour, finishing up in New York on Easter Sunday.
The Heart's Tremolo is Tsunami's second full-length release, recorded by Brian Paulson during a Chicago pit stop on a 1994 US tour. Ten songs beautifully packaged in metallic silver, and this time lyrics are included! Released by Simple Machines and Southern in 1994.
Review.
A tour CD featuring one song from Tsunami, one from Rodan and one from Eggs. The occasion? A three-band tour of the British Isles in 1994, when all 13 of us shared one van. Fabulous cover art depicting an egg, a tidal wave and a laser-spitting beast attacking London by Archer Prewitt.
With 19 releases, 6 American and 3 European tours, one Lollapalooza tour, 3 videos, and 9 t-shirt designs under their belt, Tsunami brings you a 70-minute, 22-song compilation CD of their hard-to-find singles, b-sides and compilation tracks from 1991-1997. Pretty prolific for a band that squeezed tours and practices between the full-time fun of Simple Machines, day jobs, various side projects and bands, and a drummer finishing his college degree 460 miles away from the hometown of DC.
And then, to make things worse, the reports of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plants started to appear on the news. And every day, just when I thought the news could not get any worse, the reports about the power plants kept getting worse day after day. Eventually, all of the tour members returned home early with our help, and I returned to Kyoto.
After returning to Kyoto, I remember that even though it was the cherry blossom season, there were no tourists. Typically, at that time of the year, Kyoto is packed with western tourists. It was very surreal. (But actually not as surreal as Kyoto last year during the COVID state of emergency.) Otherwise, there were no obvious changes other than all of the convenience stores had no bottles of water or batteries in stock. All of these items had been sent to Tohoku to help the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami, and the evacuees from the area around the power plants.
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