Crazy cab stories c/o Bay Area band Sic Alps

Weird pop / noise rock musician and veteran taxi driver Mike Donovan shares his Top 5 craziest moments as a San Francisco cabbie. His band Sic Alps play Montreal tonight.


Sic Alps, at Divan Orange tonight

San Francisco noise pop four-piece Sic Alps are in town tonight, headlining a pretty sweet quadruple bill with locals Femminielli and Ultrathin, and Ottawa’s Total Crush. Just ahead of the show, we contacted Sic Alps frontman Mike Donovan, who’s a veteran of many bands and founder of many labels. He’s also a cab driver. —Lorraine Carpenter

Top 5 craziest moments as a cab driver in the Bay Area

 
1. Getting shot…while being robbed. Def a number one. Thirteen pieces of bullet in my right leg, thank you very much.

2. A backseat speed contest between two tweakers, one attempting to make meth in a three-litre Mountain Dew bottle before the other could to take apart and reassemble an iPhone. Phone dude won.

3. Transgendered person attempts suicide by exiting the cab at high speed on the way to the Oakland airport. She had no baggage.

The conversation leading up to her exit was intense, to say the least. Life can be a horrible place.

4. Kittens born in a the backseat. Life can be a wonderful place.

5. Crispin Glover. He was doing a performance at the Castro theatre. I spied him flagging out front, sped up and got him from across the street. When he invited me to check out the second night, I told him I had a band practice, and it killed the conversation all the way to the Hilton. Friendly goodbyes, though, and a solid tipper. ■

See Sic Alps with Femminielli, Ultrathin and Total Crush at Divan Orange (4234 St-Laurent) tonight, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 9 p.m., $12

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