Craig Behrhorst joins me on this update from the Handsome Dick Manitoba Tour
I’m lazy so I let AI do the show notes:
An introduction from Oakland sets the stage for a lively discussion about the latest tour. The host shares that this is the earliest podcast recording to date, reflecting on the busy schedule of six or seven shows. A recap of the first show at the Stork Club in Oakland reveals a mix of excitement and nerves, especially with multiple events happening that night. The audience’s positive reception eases the tension, although the host admits to a brief meltdown at the start. The first night of the tour is deemed a success.
Chapters:
00:00:04 – Introduction from San Francisco
00:00:58 – Tour Announcement
00:02:04 – Arrival Story
00:03:30 – Performance Anxiety
00:04:11 – Audience Reception
00:06:06 – Personal Struggles
00:08:35 – Tour Reflection
00:09:32 – Invitation to Fans
00:10:19 – Closing Remarks
Donate on Venmo @Michael-Butler-11
Ralph Miller – $97 Cheap Trick Beer and Cocktails Let’s hope its not for crying in your beer
John Morgan – $50
Kirk Crawford – $50
Dan Gerawan. -$50
Gregg Brofer – $20
Richard Fusey $12
Todd Cunningham – $10
Steven Cohen – $5
Danny Borden – $5
Bruce McMillan – $3
(Venmo donation id is @Michael-Butler-11)
Joe Pawlak – $16.66
Kirk Crawford – $12.77
Patrick Shanahan – $10
Brian Springer – $8?Jon Scott – $8
Michael Street – $7.50
Dave Slusher – $5.55
Robert Harvey – $5
Chiaki Hinohara – $5 MedakiMetal on Instagram
Mike Dixon – $10
Jamie Jefford – $5
Erik Klein – $5
Paul Smith – $5
Justin Lefkowitz – $5
Steve Trice – $5
James Shapiro – $5
Martin Clawley – $5
Nadi Itani – $5
Eric Stowell – $4
Mike Hellyer – 4 pounds
Adrian Boschan – $2
Amelia Bowen – $2
RnR Pleeb – $1.42
3Legs4wheels – $1
Arne Stach – $1
Richard Strom – $20
Dave Franco – $20
Steven Laperriere – $20
William Bealle – $10
Jason Shepherd $10
Bradley Lisko – $10
Ralph Miller – $10
Jeff and Cheri Thieleke – $10
School of Podcasting – $10
Christopher Del Grande – $5
Jayce Lesniewski – $5
Benjamin Mueller – $5
John Ofenloch – $5
Vinent Crimi – $5
Jon Tennis – $
Jon Tennis – $5
Gregg Long – $5
Rachel Rosenberg – $5
Adam Croft – $2
Deborah Dreyfus – $2
Kai Matsuda – $2
Brian Grattidge – $2
William Moffett-$2
Lasse Satvedthagen – $2
Chad Kiffmeyer – $2
Dave Alexander – $2
Hdmwest-1
00:00:05
From San Francisco, California, this is the Rock and Roll Geek Show. This is the story of my rock and roll butler. Welcome to the Rock and Roll Geek Show.
00:00:22
My name is Michael Butler. Thanks a lot for joining me. I really appreciate it.
00:00:25
Today is Sunday, October 4th, 2026 and it is the earliest time I’ve ever done a podcast. I think it’s 11.35 in the morning.
00:00:38
Too early to drink beer so I’m drinking a fine water. I’m here with Craig, guitar player from Manitoba and the Butler’s House. What are you drinking, Craig?
00:00:47
I’m having coffee. There you go. We’re hardcore.
00:00:50
I’ll wait to drink beer after sundown. I drank a little too much last night. It was the first show of our big Manitoba tour.
00:00:59
We’re doing like six or seven shows, something like that. Mmm. Oh, that’s good water.
00:01:07
First one was last night in Oakland, California at a place called the Stork Club. We got there. We went to load in yesterday. It’s in a really good part of Oakland and there was this guy walking down the street
00:01:24
yelling at the air, cursing, wanting to fight anybody that got in his way. We had the guitars in the back. I had Undisclosed Raquel in the car.
00:01:36
This guy was running back and forth, wanting to fight anybody. We’re the … Let’s just say we were a little bit out of place.
00:01:45
We didn’t fit in with the rest of the crowd. There was another big dude saying, come on, come on, let’s go, let’s go around the corner and fight. The guy’s going, I’ll beat your ass, motherfucker, I’ll kill you, but he wouldn’t follow the guy around the corner. We’re waiting for the smoke to clear before we go get our gear out of the car and walk
00:02:03
into the club. We made it in alive. Fairly normal behavior for that area, except it was a little bit elevated because it was crazy from the heat.
00:02:16
It’s abnormally … It’s unseasonably hot here in Oakland. Yesterday was a high of 93, and it gets 93 in Oakland, everybody just like, oh my God.
00:02:25
They’re going crazy. I think that had something to do with it. These two guys, man, one guy was short, but just stocky, built like a brick, man. He had his shirt off, he was pacing back and forth like a panther, and then this other
00:02:42
guy came around the corner. He was huge, man. You would have killed that dude.
00:02:46
Oh, I don’t know, dude. You never know. I know.
00:02:48
The guy could have been holding a gun or something. It would have been a good fight, man, but they were all barking no bite, though. I did not want to … Those are the kind of guys you don’t want to be in their line of
00:02:59
sight because you’re the next target. I was walking down Market Street one time, or not Market Street, Van Ness in San Francisco several years ago, and there was a guy yelling at the air, waving a fucking knife, and he was like five feet away from me. You get in someone like that view, and they swing that knife, and it’s over, friend.
00:03:19
We didn’t want to do that, so we waited until the smoke … We waited until he got down the street cursing at the air, then we got our shit, crossed the street. We played at this place called the Stork Club.
00:03:30
I was a little nervous because there was a lot of shows happening yesterday. There was a big punk show at Mabuhay Gardens with American Heartbreak’s original drummer Eric Lannan. His band was called Touch Me Hooker and a bunch of other bands.
00:03:43
Danny Elfman was doing his punk rock show at the Masonic, which I heard is really good. A lot of people went up to the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, too. That and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass was happening, which is a big free concert in Golden Gate Park. I was worried that nobody was going to be there, and we had a lot of people that were planning on coming, and then we started getting, oh, I’m sorry, I’m not going to make it, and
00:04:07
this and that. So, I’m getting a little bit nervous, and … Good turnout.
00:04:13
Turned out to be a good turnout. The Bondstones, our friends at Bondstones played with us, and this other band called … Fuzz Attack. Fuzz Attack, which had a guy I knew named Thor from Flex Bronco, who we’ve all played
00:04:26
gigs with before, Flex Bronco, staples of the scene out here. Good lineup. Yeah, all three bands were great.
00:04:36
Manitoba, I’ve got to tell you, man, I have never seen … He was in dictator’s form. The last tour we did, the guy could barely walk. I thought the guy was never going to be able to play again, but he came loaded for bear
00:04:53
this time. He had been eating, and he seems to be doing pretty good. Yeah, man, he put in the work, too.
00:04:58
He learned the lyrics to Deluise. We were finally able to play that one, and we got all the way through that. He wanted to open up with a Tom Waits song, kind of do the version that was in his head of a Tom Waits song.
00:05:13
We rocked it up, and we opened up with that. The song’s called Going Out West. Worked out pretty well.
00:05:19
What do you think? I thought it was good. I think it’s a good opener.
00:05:21
I was a little bit worried. We rehearsed it, and I was enjoying the way it was coming out when we were rehearsing it. I think it went over pretty good. It’s good because it has a slow build, and it kind of tells people in the audience, hey,
00:05:34
the band’s coming on. Come out from the other room, and get in here and watch the band. It was a good turnout.
00:05:39
The place was, I’m not going to say packed, but it was full. There’s three rooms in that place, and every room had a lot of people in it, but they all came in to watch Manitoba. They were very enthusiastic.
00:05:51
We saw a lot of Dictator shirts, a lot of girls, which is a good thing. My friend Cheryl was there. Raquel was, undisclosed, Raquel was doing merch, and according to her reports, merch sales were good.
00:06:04
It was a good turnout, and everybody got along so far. I had a little bit of a meltdown at the beginning. Me and Craig, during sound check, had a little bit of a, you know, the nerves get going, and you start being a little bit of an asshole, and I was probably, you know, whatever.
00:06:19
I was nervous about the crowd and other things like that, but I’m working on it, friends. I’m working on it. I’m trying to work out the issue.
00:06:29
Yeah, here we are. Still here. He didn’t throw me out of his house.
00:06:32
Raquel and I are staying with Craig until tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’re driving to Oceanside, which is just outside of San Diego, I think. The second show is on Tuesday, so we’re going to get the van and rent the van and drive to Oceanside.
00:06:49
We’ll be at the Haught Inn in Oceanside, if anybody’s in Oceanside. Come say hi. We’ll have a beer in the hotel room, friends.
00:06:55
Going back to last night, though, it was very much an Oakland crowd. People knew the music, you know, people were into the music, and it got pretty rowdy at the end, man. I mean, when we wanted to kick out the jams and California Sun, people were thrashing about.
00:07:11
Yeah, it was great. It was very Oakland in that sense. Everybody was positive.
00:07:17
Everybody was having a good time. Even the girls were thrashing around in the front, singing along to all the songs. It was a good time.
00:07:26
All the hits were played. Not all of them, but a lot of the hits were played, and like Craig said, some new ones. Manitoba certainly expressed his love for the Oakland Raiders last night.
00:07:37
Fuck LA! They ate the LA Raiders, and fuck Las Vegas! He kept the story short, but towards the end of the set, he started getting a little bit cocky with the stories and going a little long. He was trying to tell long jokes, and some of them didn’t go over, so maybe he’ll realize
00:07:55
that and keep the story short. I’m not going to bug him about it, because that creates tension, so we’re going to let him roll. All in all, I think Manitoba did a great job, and I was really happy with his performance.
00:08:06
You could tell he was happy. After the show, he always comes to the merch booth, and he signs shit. It was a long line, and the line stayed pretty long for a good 30-45 minutes after we finished.
00:08:20
Ralph Miller, a friend of the show, was there last night. Todd Cunningham, a friend of the show and a friend of mine, was there. We had some beers next door at a place called Beer Land. My friend Mick Punk, who I’ve known for a long time, he’s friends with Arturo Vega,
00:08:35
he was there. So it was a good time, a good first night of the tour. Was that Ralph Miller’s first Manitoba show? Yes, he missed it last time, and he didn’t know what to expect because of all the updates
00:08:48
that I’ve been doing on all the tours. Some of them, I’ve been honest, so he didn’t know what to expect, but he was pleasantly surprised, he said. My nickname for you, Ralph, is Concert Goer.
00:08:59
That son of a bitch goes to every show. He went to Padbenatar, next night he goes to Leonard Skinner, next night he goes to see Manitoba. I don’t know where he’s going tonight, but I’m sure he’s going somewhere.
00:09:12
Concert Goer. He’s a rock fan. You’ve got to love Ralph Miller.
00:09:15
Good to see you, Ralph. And thank you for the donation, for the airfare donation, Ralph, I really appreciate it. It was great to see Todd Cunningham, he made the trip by himself.
00:09:24
If you were there, thank you for coming. If you want to come to Oceanside, hit me up, friend, if you’re down there in the San Diego area, I’ll put you on the list. And Wednesday’s Hollywood. At a place called Gold Diggers, and Danny Borden, shitty dude, friend of the show, said
00:09:43
that there’s street walkers that come into that place. Street hookers hang out in that bar. You know what we call them?
00:09:50
Gold Diggers. There you go. There you go, I didn’t even put two and two together.
00:09:54
We’ll see, I’ll give you a street hooker, maybe we’ll get a street hooker onto the show. See if I can get one of those interviews. I’m sure Raquel will love that.
00:10:03
All right, friends, that’s a little update from the first day. Maybe I’ll do one tomorrow, we’ll see, but we’re going to be driving, so I don’t know if I will or not. I’ll get Manitoba on as well.
00:10:15
We’ll see where it takes us, friends. Thank you for listening, I really appreciate it. We’re going to close out with a Tom Waits song, the one we opened with. We’re going to do a Tom Waits version because we never recorded it, so you’ll get an idea
00:10:28
of the song and you’ll have to come out to see how we do it. It’s pretty, pretty good, I think. It’s rockin’.
00:10:35
Pretty, pretty, pretty good. Thank you for listening, friends, rockandrollgeek.com.
00:10:40
Thanks Craig for coming on, I appreciate it. Thanks for letting us crash here, too. My pleasure, Bubba.
00:10:44
He’s been very hospitable. Pam, his wife. How many stars are you going to give this Airbnb?
00:10:50
It’s five. It’s a super host. Super host. And his wife, Pam, made a great cassoulet, and cassoulet is one of my favorite dishes, and I pretty much single-handedly ate the whole thing, so thanks, Pam, for making the great cassoulet, and thanks, Raquel, for tagging along and being the wonderful person that
00:11:12
you are. All right, friends. Thanks for listening.
00:11:14
rockandrollgeek.com is where you can find the show. Handsome Dick Manitoba for the tour dates.
00:11:20
Find us on the Instagram, rockandrollgeek, don’t ask. Craig is… What’s your Instagram, Craig?
00:11:26
My name, Craig Bearhorse. Craig Bearhorse. B-E-H-R-S…
00:11:30
No. Come on, now. B-E-H-R-H-O-R-S-T.
00:11:38
Gold star. There you go, friends. And Raquel…
00:11:43
I’m not going to say her Instagram name. You know her, friends. All right.
00:11:48
I’ll talk to you soon. Here is Tom Waits going out west. Stay frosty.
00:11:55
Where is this? I’ve got to find it here. Here we go.
00:12:58
I ain’t no extra man, I’m a leader man Let my parole officer be proud of me
00:13:10
I ain’t no extra man, I’m a leader man Let my parole officer be proud of me
00:14:07
I ain’t no extra man, I’m a leader man Let my parole officer be proud of me
00:14:23
I ain’t no extra man, I’m a leader man Let my parole officer be proud of me
00:14:42
I ain’t no extra man, I’m a leader man Let my parole officer be proud of me I ain’t no extra man, I’m a leader man Let my parole officer be proud of me
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