In the years since Jack Kerouac first published his all-purpose beatnik manifesto, the idea of life on the road has been romanticized. Images of long rides across open country merge drunkenly with the bittersweet taste of cheap red wine and the far-off ramblings of recited verse and acoustic guitars. Ah, to be young and free in America, to be artists, tortured bearers of song, meandering without care from town to town, ever in search of the next audience. Meanwhile, the crisp wind howls, etc. Or something like that.

Some of those musical artist types live right here in Vermont, where the wind really does howl and the mountain roads are often covered with ice. The bearers of song might be tortured with flat tires, closed gas stations in the middle of the night, brain-dead fatigue and other realities of touring. And so — until graduating to roadies and cushy tour buses — goes the not-so-glamorous life of a band on the road. Never mind if the crowd loves you, fans buy you beer, and you actually get paid for a gig. You still have to get back into that embattled car/van/truck and drive somewhere after the show. And the nights aren’t exactly about revelations, poetic triumph and the unwavering bonds of friendship established on the move.

Sometimes — in New England, anyway — they’re about broken-down cars on freezing cold nights on the outskirts of nowhere.

A few Vermont musicians share their own tales from the road: “It was our first trip and we’d just bought this $400 van with 100,000 miles on it, and we were heading to Gumby’s in Lyndonville,” recalls Chin Ho! vocalist Andrew Smith. “We get past Montpelier, just far enough to be out of civilization, and the van starts coughing and sputtering. “In all his infinite wisdom [former guitarist] Scooter takes a right-hand turn into a very shady snowmobile repair shop.

Instead of pulling to the side of the road and calling for help, he drives into the back of the parking lot in between Novas and Camaros and pulls up beside this dog house, out of which spring two very large Dobermans barking their heads off.

“So we very slowly get out and there’s this circle of locals standing there staring at us and the first words they say are, ‘What do you girls want?’ We just stand there not knowing what to do, silently communicating to each other, ‘Oh, we are sooo fucked.’

Smith recounts that the apparent ringleader of this hostile gang then asked, “So, you guys come here to get dog-raped?” And it seemed, he adds, that it was something these guys had done before. But in an inspired moment Scooter took out a tin of Skoal and put a wad in his mouth, and the guys instantly warmed up. “In the end,” says Smith, “they wound up fixing our van, which took about three hours.” Ah, the brotherhood of man.

If life on the road can bring exposure to new and different cultures, it was a foreign culinary experience which made a lasting impression on Wide Wail guitarist David Rosenstein.

“When we played up in Montreal,” he recalls, “we went to this greasy Italian, scummy restaurant, and ate really quick, cheap food and then went back to the club and were waiting to play. The first band was playing and I proceeded to get ill.”

Rosenstein tells in excruciating detail the gastrointestinal distress that followed, as he hunkered down in the bathroom and dreaded hearing the words, “Coming up next, Wide Wail.” 

Former Snowplow drummer Brad Searles — now with Starlight Conspiracy — attests that the adventure can truly be on the road. This time, it was after a bad show at a New Hampshire club called the Rockpile. 

“Not only were there not a lot of people, but the club owner wouldn’t pay us, so we had to argue forever just to get gas money,” says Searles. “We’re already not in the greatest mood as we head up the Interstate.” At 3 a.m., the band was half way back to Burlington, staring straight ahead into the high beams, when something on the side of the road caught their eyes. “We get closer to it,” Searles relates, “and it’s a guy wearing a white shirt covered with blood and he’s reaching out towards the car.” The band members were traumatized.

“There’s no car, no lights any place, nothing,” says Searles. “We pull over, get out of the car, and before we even move towards the guy we hear these two voices going, ‘Help me, help me.”‘ Turns out the bloody man’s car had gone off the bank and its two passengers had crawled back up to the road to try to flag down help. Snowplow obliged, calling an ambulance and wrapping the victims in blankets until it arrived.

Former Epitaph bassist Kieran Donaghey recalls the quintessential Vermont road experience: It was February, and the band’s car had broken down on the lonely outskirts of Johnson. “The temperature on the bank clock read 35 below zero. I drank a quart and a half of scalding hot chocolate for fear of freezing to death,” Donaghey recalls. 

In a similar episode, all but one member of Slush drove a van with no heat to a gig in Albany last winter. It was 30 below. Vocalist Jeff Howlett — the one who had a heated car that night — remembers his bandmates arriving at the club “about as frozen as you can get and still be moving.”

And yet another evil van tale: Bill Mullins — formerly of The Fortune Tellers and now with Chin Ho! — recalls one occasion of auto woes in Bradford, an area he affectionately dubs “the Bermuda Triangle of Route 7.” With the van in the care of mechanics, the band hitch-hiked to Rutland, rented a U-Haul and drove to Manchester to play the gig. Leaving the stage in the night’s wee hours, the band members savored two hours’ sleep and returned the U-Haul to Rutland by the 6 a.m. deadline. Mullins then recalls hitchhiking back to Bradford and spending the balance of the day reading Weekly World News at a picnic table outside the garage. The tabloid’s exclusive photo of water-skiing squirrels provided the day’s major topic of conversation. That and a beetle slowly making its way across the table. 

And you thought it was glamorous to be a rock star. Start a band and everything comes your way: style, friends, fans, fortune and fame. Well…not exactly. 

At least not in Vermont. Not yet. So the next time you see one of those music types, go easy on him. Buy him some Rolaids, or a warm hat or new pair of gloves. Or better yet — if you’ve got the bucks — a decent van. Jack Kerouac had good stories from the road, but he wasn’t a musician in northern New England. Don’t believe everything you read: Life’s a whole lot stranger — and frequently colder — than fiction. 

This article appears in The Music Issue • 1995.