TOUR VAN DETRITUS

Tour Van Detritus is a collection of digital photographs depicting items left in a band tour van after dozens of trips, and the materials adorning the vehicle itself. The van was a modified full size Chevy cargo van used by independent musical groups—rock bands—from Bloomington, Indiana, for touring in the United States and Canada. Accrued items were routinely claimed and removed, or boxed and stored after each trip—or when too much had piled up. 

The primary bands who used the van routinely were The Impossible Shapes, John Wilkes Booze, The Coke Dares, and Magnolia Electric Co. There was significant member crossover amongst these bands and 2003-2013 represented a heavy-touring era for the groups. On March 16, 2013, Jason Molina, the singer songwriter for Magnolia Electric Co., died after not actively playing for some years. He had a strong influence on the decor of the van and his personality is evident in many of the materials attached to the walls and ceiling. He was notorious in the group for collecting weird trinkets and bits of nature, abandoning just-purchased books, and generally being a packrat. But he wasn't the only one. This collection is the culmination of many individual contributions representing the odd needs and fixations of humans spending most of their time in a van.

 

The bands who used the van over the years are: John Wilkes Booze, Impossible Shapes, The Coke Dares, Magnolia Electric Co., Whippoorwill, Cadmium Orange, The Karaoke Machine, Cinnamon Girls, The Sands, Bowery Boy Blue, Thousand Arrows, Memory Map, Push-Pull, Fat Shadow, Apache Dropout, Thee Tsunamis, Tammar, Early Day Miners, Watson Twins, Moonface, BLK JKS, Dreamers of the Ghetto, The Vallures, Jens Lekman, Neophytes, Throwing Stars, Puppy vs. Dyslexia, Medusa, The Hollows, Open Sex.

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