Only once in my life have I threatened to kill someone.

It started at the Launchpad, a dive bar in downtown Albuquerque, on a midsummer night’s eve. We’d ended up there after almost a month of playing shows across the U.S., with a band that I’ll call “the Record Tree,” to protect the innocent. Four weeks in, the six of us had reached varying levels of hatred for each other brought on by life on the road. Three weeks of highs and lows. Drinking warm beer as the sun came up over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge; fireflies and Bright Eyes on the porch of a rickety Omaha farmhouse; Digital Underground–powered dance parties as the van sped down an East Coast highway.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. One of my band mates—let’s call her “Polly”—decided to quit smoking weed somewhere around Boston. Polly needed weed. Without the green stuff, her OCD tendencies fully flowered. There were near-constant references to her boyfriend back home. Every five minutes it would be, “God, I miss Wayne” or “I wonder what Wayne is doing right now?” or “Have I told you how rad Wayne is?” Yes, yes and yes! I’m fine with people trying to get healthy, but seriously, there’s a reason why some people need a marijuana prescription—and without her drug of choice, well, let’s just say the van felt smaller and smaller every day.

Before the tour, Polly and I had been good friends. I was her biggest defender, until about Texas, when all of us in the van began to harbor a secret desire for her to disappear into an oil field, never to be seen again.

By the time we got to Albuquerque, on the heels of a bust of a show in Denton, we were tired, overheated and sick from subsisting on beer, whiskey, cigarettes and Burger King. Our plan was to get on the road immediately after the sparsely attended show and head toward the Grand Canyon, and then Las Vegas, where we were scheduled to play the following night.

One of the few people who came out to see us at the Launchpad was a friendly fellow named Rodney. He invited us out to drink beer and listen to records after our show. Everyone was down—except for Polly and the bass player Gina, who had formed an alliance, which involved doing their makeup together in the dark light of the bar, and from what I remember, braiding each other’s hair. Suddenly the best of friends, they put up a fuss about going to Rodney’s, but in an act of democracy, they were voted down 4–2.

About an hour into our impromptu party, Polly ran into the house (she and Gina had stayed in the van in protest), freaked out by a shady character hanging out nearby. She insisted that we leave right then. We gathered ourselves up and said goodbye to Rodney, promising to look him up next time we came to New Mexico. As Gina sat in the driver’s seat, and as I sat in the passenger seat with everyone else piled into the back, Polly started haranguing us before the keys even went into the ignition.

“I can’t believe you let us sit out here for that long,” she sneered. “That was fucked up. What’s wrong with you?” Everyone sat silently, taking her abuse. Everyone, except me, because sometimes I don’t know when to keep my mouth zipped. As soon as I said something back, Polly turned her wrath on me.

“Leilani, you are so selfish,” Polly said, fixing me with her intense, slightly popped out eyes. “You’ve been the most selfish person this whole tour. You only think of yourself.”

“Polly, be quiet please,” I said, anger building.

Polly’s little head popped up and down from behind the loft seat, like a cranky little bird, pecking away. At this point, I swear I saw red. The pressure cooker exploded. “Be quiet, be quiet, I’m telling you right now!” I spat out, but she wouldn’t stop, and before I could curb the impulse to injure I flung off my seatbelt and lunged towards Polly’s pointy white face.

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill you!” I roared like the lion in winter. I bolted toward Polly, hands reaching for her neck. Two of my band mates had to hold me back like the beast I’d become.

Polly’s mouth clapped shut. She fell silent. I screamed at Gina to stop the van, and as it slowed, I jumped out and ran down that dark Albuquerque street, trying to get as far away from the van as possible. The roadie and the singer chased me down, finding me in the fetal position on the sidewalk, blubbering, with a broken tree branch in my hand. Not my finest moment.

Dear reader, as you might imagine, the story ends badly. Polly got on her phone, while I unfurled myself and booked the next flight to San Diego. We had to cancel Vegas. We drove Polly to the airport, me in the passenger seat, she in the loft, the Gaza Strip between us. Gina refused to speak to me for the rest of the trip. I spent that long drive down the I-40 weeping as Cat Power’s Moon Pix played over the stereo.

The next day, we stopped at the Grand Canyon, where the drummer bought me a bubblegum ice cream that I ate while staring glumly at the abyss below. Polly and I didn’t speak for months, despite the fact that she lived in the house behind me, and spent the rest of the summer telling people that she didn’t feel safe in my presence.

And I was never asked to go on tour again.

My friend Kevin tells me that Doug Martsch is the nicest guy in rock and roll, and I believe him. Previous casual conversations and email exchanges with the guy have confirmed this to be true. Doug Martsch is a sweetheart.

And a stoner.

Tonight I’m at Slim’s to interview Martsch, Built to Spill’s singer-songwriter-guitar god-beardy leader. I’m also here to see this guy I kind of dated, but by “dated” I mean we’ve rolled around on the shore of a lake and the floor of his apartment a couple times. And by “guy,” I mean he’s at least 30.

Kevin and I descend the stairs to the unventilated backstage where Doug and the rest of the band are engulfed in a thick cloud of some seriously killer Northern California weed—apparently, their show in Arcata proved fruitful. One of the band’s three guitarists goes all Snoop Dogg with the bong rips as Doug smiles, offers me beer and asks if we can do the interview later.

It’s weird to be almost 40 and backstage with Built to Spill. Almost 20 years ago, I listened to them with a slew of indie-loving dishwashers at Copperfield’s Cafe in downtown Santa Rosa; we’d flip the “closed” sign, lock the doors and blast There’s Nothing Wrong with Love while shouting about upcoming road trips and concerts over the rattle of the boombox. I’m much older now. I’m not wearing a miniskirt or fire engine red lipstick or any of the things that I used to wear backstage at concerts, and this is good, because I obviously don’t look like someone who is here to give blowjobs or handjobs or any other kind of “jobs.” Instead, I am a geek with my water bottle, notebook and recording device in hand, in my mom jeans and T-shirt.

At my midlife turning point, I’m not into smoking weed, either. I imagine the whole scene playing out before me—bongs and joints and bottles of whiskey being slowly passed around the small rooms and hallway with scraggly, long-haired dudes plucking at guitars—mirrors that of a low-budget Phish documentary.

“Doug might be too high to do the interview,” says Kevin, his eyes darting around the room as he fidgets with his wristband.

Kevin is naturally antsy (and about a million years sober), and as I look at him, I find myself staring at the collar of his shirt for an extended period of time. He looks kind of funny and I wonder if his chest feels all swirly and orange like mine does. I’m sweating now, and getting that weird stoned feeling I remember from my teens and 20s, a sensation of food woven through my teeth and paranoia that I’ve either started my period or peed myself a little.

Doug suggests we check out the opening band and glides up the stairs, disappearing into a sea of fans who are presumably too high to recognize him behind his fuzzy beard and half-closed eyes. Kevin and I head outside for fresh air, hoping the cool San Francisco evening will help us sober up from our unintended trip down 420 Lane. Suddenly, I remember the thirty-something waiting for me out in the crowd. Built to Spill goes on next and I realize, with the heavy weight of defeat and pot-fueled anxiety, that my interview opportunity has slipped by the wayside.

I find the thirty-something and kind of hope he’ll kiss me, but I’m worried about my cotton mouth and weed breath, even though I didn’t smoke pot on purpose. Everything feels so complicated. I don’t have earplugs and I’m afraid I’ll have permanent hearing loss from standing up here, so close to the stage, with this drunk thirty-something who keeps calling me a rock-‘n’-roll mom. I might be too old to be at a show on a school night, I think to myself. I need to get home and pack my kids’ lunches.

And then Kevin leaves, the thirty-something takes off without kissing me and I stand alone with a Bud Light as the band busts out a Blue Öyster Cult cover. Soon, they’re launching into a rendition of the Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?” that morphs into a 20-minute jam session with the members of one of the opening bands dispersed throughout the room. I never knew how incredible long-ass guitar riffs could be—but then again, I never get as high as all my fellow audience members who, by the looks of things, are having their minds (and eardrums) completely blown. How is the band playing so flawlessly after all of those bong rips?!

Like a true jam-band aficionado, I get super into it, closing my eyes for a few moments in this sea of sweat and hair and bloodshot eyes, forgetting my age, the possibility that I may have peed in my mom jeans and the thirty-something that I’ve let slip away. Nothing matters but this moment. My kids can make their own damn lunches.

And I think, as the swirly chest syndrome takes it all in, Holy shit, holy shit, this is the best fucking concert in the world! And I realize that Built to Spill, after all of these years, have still totally got it. And maybe I’m just high, but fuck, dude,I think that maybe I’ve still got it, too.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Godzilla? No, it’s a radius clause! Everybody run for your lives! Aggghhhh! They’re hideous—shield your eyes!

Though you may not hear these exact screams from North Bay music fans, that doesn’t mean they aren’t still wondering, “Why don’t any big name bands ever play in my town?” The answer isn’t very attractive. Radius clauses, those little devils, have been a controlling aspect of the talent-booking business for years, and are the main reason why most big-name bands performing at larger venues like the Fillmore, the Warfield and the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco don’t make the quick drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to play a show at one of the many worthy venues in our region the next night.

A radius clause is a promoter’s requirement in most booking contracts that a band may not perform geographically closer than 60 miles within a timeframe of 60 days before or after the promoter’s show. For example, when Gwar play the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, the band is contractually barred by Regency promoters Goldenvoice from playing the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma one month before or after their San Francisco show. The goal is to get fans within a 60-mile radius to drive to the show, thus maximizing ticket sales for the San Francisco date.

Talent buyers in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties have had to deal with radius clauses firsthand, and they’ll tell you that, overall, they lose out when it comes to booking big acts. Jim Agius of the Phoenix Theater says that most of the time he doesn’t even realize the business going down behind closed doors. “The majority of the time that it affects us,” he says, “we don’t even know about it, because in a lot of the national bookings that I do, the artists or the representatives are planning a routed tour. They’ll look at the map and be like, ‘All right, let’s go here, let’s go here, let’s go here.’ I believe that because of radius clauses, we just don’t get offered anywhere near what we otherwise would.”

The Phoenix Theater is not alone. Patrick Malone and Aaron Kayce, talent buyers for Sebastopol’s Hopmonk Tavern and Mill Valley’s Sweetwater Music Hall, respectively, have also felt the sting of being turned down as potential venues for big-name bands. For Kayce, radius clauses are simply a matter of business. “There are some artists that you could book 10 nights in the Bay Area, and they’d sell them all out because they’re that kind of artist,” he says. “But there are others that can’t support that. So at the end of the day, while it can be very frustrating for a talent buyer like myself, I do think it’s a necessary evil.”

Malone, though having occasional issues competing against San Francisco, notes that the restrictions affect him when bands play at competing local venues as well. “I generally will be bumped,” he says, “because whoever is booking and promoting that show doesn’t want that band to play within a certain period of time and within a certain mileage because they feel it could compromise and jeopardize their attendance.”

Though it seems as if the big city usually wins out against small-town venues, Malone offers a time-tested strategy in working against other talent buyers to secure big bands: “Be ahead of them and try to be quick, basically. When you have an opportunity, just strike fast and try to confirm and lock in dates as soon as possible.”

Though neither Malone or Kayce discuss specific occasions in which they have had difficulty booking in the past due to radius clauses, Agius offers examples. “We did AFI back in 2010, and they had been booked like a month prior to play Live 105’s ‘Not So Silent Night,'” he says. “We still got the show, but Live 105 organizers freaked out that AFI had this other show at a little 700-person place in Petaluma, and they made us wait until their show went on sale before we could announce our show,” Agius says.

Days after speaking on the phone, Agius received an email from the agent for a Southern California band that cited a radius clause for the band’s upcoming show at the Fillmore that blocks out two months of possible dates in Petaluma.

All three talent buyers understand that even though the restrictions often work against them when trying to book big-name bands at their venues, radius clauses still have their place in the business. But next time you look up at a venue’s marquee listing the acts who play there Friday night, don’t whine to the venue about all the bands you want to see come up from San Francisco. Take up your complaint with the big-city radius-clause profiteers. As they say, it’s the business.

The premise is a little unbelievable: free concerts of big-name bands in a mini amphitheater at a world-class brewery. What’s the catch?

There isn’t one, says Laura Muckenhoupt, music specialist at Lagunitas. Last month saw Les Claypool’s Duo de Twang playing a benefit for a fisherman at Lagunitas, and upcoming shows include the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars, Charlie Musselwhite, Vintage Trouble (pictured) and others.

No, there’s no catch, but we warn you: getting in isn’t always easy. The 325-seat amphitheater fills up so quickly that tickets are required, even for free shows. Lagunitas announces the dates only after the bands themselves do, and tickets are available through the bands’ own websites. All concerts are on Mondays or Tuesdays—unusual nights to see live music, which Muckenhoupt chalks up to Lagunitas not wanting to compete with other local venues. But still, you’ve gotta be quick and in-the-know for a shot at tickets.

A free Del McCoury Band concert in a mini-Greek Theater while drinking normal-priced Lagunitas beers? Yeah, it’s worth it. The Lagunitas Summer Concert Series features a Noise Pop show on Monday, July 29, and the Wheeler Brothers on Tuesday, Aug. 20. Free. See Lagunitas.com for (slightly more) details. 1280 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma. 707.778.8776.&