"Wanted: Freaks, musicians, clowns, dancers, truck owners, jugglers, crazy people. Come join the MadCaPs traveling circus."
It's no wonder I had to steal the flier; I was intrigued. I must find out who's behind this madness, I thought to myself. And that's precisely what I did.
The culprit? Anthropology senior John Logan. Maybe you don't know Logan, or his band, The MadCaPs, but if you keep your eyes and ears open, they won't be hard to miss.
Traveling around in a pick-up truck, rocking out (compliments of a generator hooked up to two amps and a P.A. system), Logan and his band mates, Christina Nunez and Claire Griese, bring the venue to you.
Taking it one step further, these rockers are looking for a traveling circus to complete their caravan of fun, hence red and black signs you may have seen plastered around campus.
Logan met SPM in front of the MU last week to dish about the sign, the circus and taking requests from cops. Long, wavy brown hair, a bright green cardigan, some sneaks and a multi-colored striped backpack make Logan hard to miss.
SPM: Don't I know you?
Logan: I'm John Logan, with The MadCaPs.
SPM: So, what's with the circus, dude?
Logan: It's The MadCaPs' Rolling Circus. We'll have three trucks. The sign is just a general call for freaks or whatever you can do. We've got go-go girls and a local hot rod club helps with the trucks. We'll have fire-eaters [and] just get people to go around as a troupe.
SPM: So you travel around and play? I've heard about you guys. Don't you play at First Fridays?
Logan: Yeah. We're best known for doing the guerilla band thing. We shop up in the back of a truck. We've done it at Gammage when Beck was there last year, at the Mesa Amphitheatre and at First Fridays.
SPM: Yup, you're the ones. Who came up with that idea? Pretty creative.
The MadCaPs with High Strung at the Paper Heart Gallery, 750 NW Grand Ave., Phoenix. 10 p.m. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tonight. $5. Web site.
Logan: That would be me; I'm the conspirator there. It kind of seemed like a no-brainer. I'm sure everyone's thought about doing it.
SPM: So how long has this been going on?
Logan: We started it in October of 2002, but we stopped doing it last May. We kind of expected everybody else to start doing it, but no one did.
SPM: So you're back?
Logan: Yeah, a lot of people don't even know our name. It's always, "You're the band who does the truck thing."
SPM: Why the truck thing to begin with?
Logan: It cuts the venue out of it all. No promoters. No booking manager. You create your own venue. Sometimes we'll play for 1,000 people between all of the stops we make.
SPM: I can't imagine all of the cops being OK with this.
Logan: The Tempe cops are the only ones who care. They gave us a boom-box ordinance ticket or something.
SPM: Meaning...?
Logan: You can't have music playing that can be heard 50 feet from your car or something. The girl driving got cited. We would definitely do it in Tempe more often. We'd play Mill all of the time if we could. It's just hard to find someone who's like, "Sure, I'll get a ticket tonight."
SPM: Bummer. Major bummer. But the other cops are cool with it?
Logan: Mesa Police pulled us over and just told us we had to stop at [10 p.m.] because of noise ordinances. Phoenix police were cool; ASU police have been cool too. One time we got pulled over, and the cops were just like, "Well, carry on I guess." Then they asked if we take requests.
SPM: No way. Do you?
Logan: They wanted us to play "I shot the Sheriff," so I broke into a reggae version of it. God, if we only had a video camera.
SPM: So what other havoc have you wreaked?
Logan: Last year at the New Time's showcase, we just kind of crashed it.
SPM: Did that pay off?
Logan: Well, they must have liked it because I think we're nominated this year for best indie band or something like that. If not, we'll just go anyways-make one pass and take off so we don't get arrested.
SPM: You daredevil you. How much does a "boom-box" ticket run you around here?
Logan: It costs $65, which is a drag because it comes out of the band fund, or what band fund there is anyway.
SPM: So no raking in the big bucks yet?
Logan: At first we didn't think about getting tips for playing. But people started throwing dough our way. It was cool to see the occasional $20 bill in there. It's like, wow, that meant that much to them.
SPM: Well isn't that sweet. I'm sure we'll all be seeing you guys around, whether we want to or not. We won't forget to tip either.
Reach the reporter at erika.wurst@asu.edu.
