Internet access is sparse. Sleep is deficient. Hygiene – don’t even think about it.
After a sold out blowout at the El Rey in Los Angeles, our first national tour is officially over, and now we’re driving straight across the country to Cleveland, OH to pick up another mini-tour with We Are the Fury and Rookie of the Year.
For the LA show, Under The Influence of Giants were back on the bill and the show was completely sold out. The El Rey was the largest and nicest venue on the tour with a capacity of about 800, a fresh remodeling job, and a top of the line sound system. It was a little disconcerting, actually. During this tour we got really comfortable rocking out those smaller clubs, and it was a little surreal to step out on that huge stage. The show was great though, and afterwards we said our goodbyes to Young Love, Play Radio Play, and UTIOG. We’d only been together for a month, but we saw those degenerates everyday. We’ll miss them terribly.
After the El Rey show, we played a second show at The Echo for our friend Heather Peggs’s birthday. We started late at 1:15, but we turned it into a wasted dance and make out party by last call. It ruled. After an unsuccessful attempt at taking the van and trailer through a drive through – horrible idea - we returned to our hotel at 4:30, thoroughly burned out but satisfied.
The label folk took us out to a nice lunch, gave us some energy drinks, and sent us on our way the next day. Getting out of LA was tough with all the Memorial Day traffic, but we made it to the Grand Canyon and got a hotel. The next day we did some responsible tourism, and then had a 24 hour straight drive to Kansas City. It sucked.
A quick recap of the latter half of the tour:
ATL / Florida –
We had a smashing good time in ATL, and met some of the finest people of our entire road experience. We’re still in regular contact with them via the internet. Florida however, was largely a bust. Without Play Radio Play or Young Love, we played for about 10 people at the 550 capacity Beta Bar in Tallahassee. The sound guy was great and gave us an epic light show, and we had a really nice time with the few audience members. Our Jacksonville show was cancelled due to wildfires and other factors, unfortunately we didn’t find out until we’d already driven there. We left Florida more broke than ever.
Texas –
Home turf for Young Love and PRP, the Dallas, Austin, and Houston shows were very satisfying - packed houses and great afterpartying. In Dallas we shared a venue with the Deftones, and everyone got to check out the show from backstage and meet everyone. Dallas seems like a nice place to live, and it was nice to explore a bit. In Houston we stayed at our very hospitable friends’ gorgeous mansion and had a relaxing day at the pool. In Austin we played a huge show at The Parish on 6th Street, then partied at the Beauty Bar with the Trail of Dead guys and Cedric from Mars Volta. Late night we tried to throw a 4am hotel pool party with the ladies and band members of Austin. This was naturally a bad idea. Though we kept it pretty quiet, it led to the ejection of every band member from the hotel by the police and an irate shirtless hotel owner.
AZ –
Another brutal 22 hour all night drive from Houston to Phoenix. Largely our own fault, for dawdling in luxury at our Houston mansion. The highlight of the drive was our stop at the border patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, TX, about an hour from El Paso. My brother is a border patrol agent who was working there at the time, and we were greeted with federally demure fanfare. Thank god no one set off the drug dogs with some residue from nights past – second hand, of course. It was an exciting day to stop there, as they had just intercepted 1.2 million dollars of weed coming across the border. It was sitting there in a huge pile of black duffel bags on the sidewalk, protected by the national guard. We took pictures in front of it as if it were the Eiffel Tower. The AZ show was fun too, and we met a troupe of lesbian bondage and fetish dancers. Wicked.
Vegas –
With all the Young Love party boys egging us on every night, we knew this was going to be bad news. Exploring the city during the day was nice. We had a 10 dollar steak dinner and I lost 50 bucks in blackjack. The show was an 21 + outdoor party at the Beauty Bar. Good drinks, fun people, real Vegas residents and not tourists. Where else can you rock out with Cirque du Soleil acrobats? The night ended at 6 am. Larkin had to sleep in the car because we were too passed out to open the hotel door. I left my camera at the black jack table at 5:30am, only to wake up, panic, and recover it four hours later from the same casino staff at 9:30. Feeling lucky, I lost another 40 bucks. We also met the band The Higher, who we’ll see again in NYC. On this night, Young Love showed up with an arsenal of cheap airsoft guns that would terrorize the rest of the tour, especially poor Eric.
California –
All the Cali shows ruled. In San Diego we played with two great locals – War Stories and The White Apple Tree – and the show was a great big dance party with lots of enthusiastic screamers. Loved it. Later we hung out on the beach with our high school friend Dave, then drove to Santa Barbara to crash with our friend Kevin.
San Francisco was a packed show at Bottom of the Hill, where we encountered many of our upwardly mobile professional friends in the most eastern of the west coast cities. Britt Daniel from Spoon showed up to see Young Love, and yet again we partied late into the evening with some fine ladies and gentlemen. However – I had never seen so many forward homeless dudes and prostitutes in one neighborhood in my entire life. We drove through the night to LA, and couldn’t check into our hotel until 2pm, only two hours before load in. I hadn’t slept, and took a little power nap. We had a double header that day.
The rest you know. More updates soon, and check out the photo blog for our pics. And we’re getting a wireless card for the van. Booyah.
Updated celebrity encounters: James Valentine from Maroon 5, Cedric from Mars Volta and At the Drive In, Jason and Conrad from Trail of Dead, Britt Daniel from Spoon
Matt
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Nashville Boxing After Dark
As is quite often the case, we have let a week expire without updating our blog. However, while we understand this can be frustrating for all those who are disappointed daily by our lack of content, one must admit that it is precisely our failure to supply new blogs that allows for the entries that do see the light of day to be packed to the brim with rock n’ roll hilarity and heartbreak. And I assure you, this past week suffers little in comparison to weeks past.
When last you heard from us, I believe Matt explained to you the unfortunate experience of attempting to sleep in our van in Tallahassee, only to barely catch a wink of sleep due to the intense humidity the lovely state of Florida gifted us. So, sweaty and sleepless, we emerged from our “beds” and prepared for the show, one which we looked forward to with great anticipation, for not only were Young Love and the Giants not on the bill, but Playradioplay had a show elsewhere that night, thereby bequeathing unto us the coveted headliner slot on the bill. Now, while this may normally be considered an honor and a privilege, having never played before in Tallahassee, we were uncertain as to how the show would turn out. And, as it happened, despite only playing for a crowd of 10-15 people (and this is perhaps an inflated exaggeration), we had a great time, sold a couple t-shirts, and ate KFC Bowls, an act which was categorically regretted almost immediately after. Go Seminoles.
Up and out, we make the move to Jacksonville, which, if you have been keeping up with your CNN, was not an uneventful drive thanks to the Florida wildfires which helped light our way on our midnight drive to the coast. And yet, it was all for naught, as we discovered soon after arriving at our destination that the show had been canceled. Flustered, we hopped back on the road and trekked it to Nashville, once again blazing through the Floridian fires, smoke clouds, and Wafflehouses. We have the pictures to prove it.
Hence forth it gets interesting, as it was in the great city of Nashville where Young Love joined back up on the tour. Fresh faced with freshly purchased t-shirts, the boys put on a great show, happy to be back on the road, and we were equally happy to have them back. Reunions and rock and roll aside, it was AFTER the show in the parking lot where the action really happened.
And away we go….
Upon exiting the club, it was brought to our attention that a nice young girl named Renee had unfortunately locked her keys in her car. Being the gentlemanly good Samaritans that we are, and not wanting to leave her stranded in the dark of the Nashville night, we decided to set up shop in the parking lot to wait for AAA to come unlock her car for her. It was this act of selflessness that served as the powder keg for the most ridiculous display of ridiculousness we had yet to encounter. In short, after we had been waiting only 5-10 minutes, two eager gentleman approached us, both about 30-35 years old, and both dressed moderately better than your average bum. We conversed with both a bit, and one of our two new friends wished to play us a song on one of my guitars. After much deliberating, I finally consented and allowed him to do so. Here is where the trouble starts. As he was playing (and he wasn’t half bad), his friend started accusing him of ripping off other songs, claiming that he had heard the song before on the radio. Not wanting to piss him off while holding my guitar, I berated his friend for being such a jake (which is Liam and Me speak for jerk), and collected my guitar before disaster struck. Yet, things didn’t end there, and the two started arguing again over the 33 cents that McKenzie had given them. Then it turned ugly. The singer of songs, now fed up with his critical companion, took a swing and cold clocked his opponent with a rock a had strategically had hidden in his back pocket. They then proceeded to brawl before our eyes, with articles of clothing flying off in every direction, including at one point a pair of trousers, temporarily leaving the undiscovered songster in quite the embarrassing predicament. Now, not wanting to see anyone get killed, O’Dowd and myself, both apparently blessed with a momentary surge of courage, as well as a complete lapse of common sense, ripped the street fighters apart from one another, forcing them to opposite ends of the lot as they now searched for planks of wood and rocks to throw at each other. With much force, and the help of a nice middle aged man who emerged from left field and convinced one of the two men to go with him in search of all the vices Nashville has to offer, we managed to diffuse the situation, hop in our van and hightail it out of there.
Needing a breather following this debacle, we swung into a gas station for a cup o’ coffee and perhaps a greasy meal. And, as fate would have it, upon our exit from the mini mart, the Krispy Kreme delivery man pulled up in his truck. Our magnificent merch man Mikey, never one to be shy, introduced himself and asked if the guy could help out a starving band on the road by bestowing upon us his good graces, which happened to be in this case delicious glazed doughnuts. In a surprise move, he consented and dropped into our eager hands 5 full boxes free of charge. We considered it monies owed by the gods of karma. Things are now squared.
In closing I realize this has been a long blog, and even though we have the entire state of Texas to discuss, I feel as if I should save it for later, and give y’all a rest. We will try and stay a tad more diligent, but to be honest, I don’t really see it happening. Time will tell.
-Dan
When last you heard from us, I believe Matt explained to you the unfortunate experience of attempting to sleep in our van in Tallahassee, only to barely catch a wink of sleep due to the intense humidity the lovely state of Florida gifted us. So, sweaty and sleepless, we emerged from our “beds” and prepared for the show, one which we looked forward to with great anticipation, for not only were Young Love and the Giants not on the bill, but Playradioplay had a show elsewhere that night, thereby bequeathing unto us the coveted headliner slot on the bill. Now, while this may normally be considered an honor and a privilege, having never played before in Tallahassee, we were uncertain as to how the show would turn out. And, as it happened, despite only playing for a crowd of 10-15 people (and this is perhaps an inflated exaggeration), we had a great time, sold a couple t-shirts, and ate KFC Bowls, an act which was categorically regretted almost immediately after. Go Seminoles.
Up and out, we make the move to Jacksonville, which, if you have been keeping up with your CNN, was not an uneventful drive thanks to the Florida wildfires which helped light our way on our midnight drive to the coast. And yet, it was all for naught, as we discovered soon after arriving at our destination that the show had been canceled. Flustered, we hopped back on the road and trekked it to Nashville, once again blazing through the Floridian fires, smoke clouds, and Wafflehouses. We have the pictures to prove it.
Hence forth it gets interesting, as it was in the great city of Nashville where Young Love joined back up on the tour. Fresh faced with freshly purchased t-shirts, the boys put on a great show, happy to be back on the road, and we were equally happy to have them back. Reunions and rock and roll aside, it was AFTER the show in the parking lot where the action really happened.
And away we go….
Upon exiting the club, it was brought to our attention that a nice young girl named Renee had unfortunately locked her keys in her car. Being the gentlemanly good Samaritans that we are, and not wanting to leave her stranded in the dark of the Nashville night, we decided to set up shop in the parking lot to wait for AAA to come unlock her car for her. It was this act of selflessness that served as the powder keg for the most ridiculous display of ridiculousness we had yet to encounter. In short, after we had been waiting only 5-10 minutes, two eager gentleman approached us, both about 30-35 years old, and both dressed moderately better than your average bum. We conversed with both a bit, and one of our two new friends wished to play us a song on one of my guitars. After much deliberating, I finally consented and allowed him to do so. Here is where the trouble starts. As he was playing (and he wasn’t half bad), his friend started accusing him of ripping off other songs, claiming that he had heard the song before on the radio. Not wanting to piss him off while holding my guitar, I berated his friend for being such a jake (which is Liam and Me speak for jerk), and collected my guitar before disaster struck. Yet, things didn’t end there, and the two started arguing again over the 33 cents that McKenzie had given them. Then it turned ugly. The singer of songs, now fed up with his critical companion, took a swing and cold clocked his opponent with a rock a had strategically had hidden in his back pocket. They then proceeded to brawl before our eyes, with articles of clothing flying off in every direction, including at one point a pair of trousers, temporarily leaving the undiscovered songster in quite the embarrassing predicament. Now, not wanting to see anyone get killed, O’Dowd and myself, both apparently blessed with a momentary surge of courage, as well as a complete lapse of common sense, ripped the street fighters apart from one another, forcing them to opposite ends of the lot as they now searched for planks of wood and rocks to throw at each other. With much force, and the help of a nice middle aged man who emerged from left field and convinced one of the two men to go with him in search of all the vices Nashville has to offer, we managed to diffuse the situation, hop in our van and hightail it out of there.
Needing a breather following this debacle, we swung into a gas station for a cup o’ coffee and perhaps a greasy meal. And, as fate would have it, upon our exit from the mini mart, the Krispy Kreme delivery man pulled up in his truck. Our magnificent merch man Mikey, never one to be shy, introduced himself and asked if the guy could help out a starving band on the road by bestowing upon us his good graces, which happened to be in this case delicious glazed doughnuts. In a surprise move, he consented and dropped into our eager hands 5 full boxes free of charge. We considered it monies owed by the gods of karma. Things are now squared.
In closing I realize this has been a long blog, and even though we have the entire state of Texas to discuss, I feel as if I should save it for later, and give y’all a rest. We will try and stay a tad more diligent, but to be honest, I don’t really see it happening. Time will tell.
-Dan
Saturday, May 12, 2007
UTIOG Tour - Detroit to Florida
Lately I feel like all of these entries are beginning with my standard apology – sorry for the infrequent updates. Things have been hectic but fun on tour. This is our first legitimate national touring experience, and god damn are we getting an education.
The northeastern dates were an absolute blast – Detroit, Lansing, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, Philly. We were opening for Under the Influence of Giants and Young Love, with occasional appearances by Play Radio Play who we joined up with later full time. Not the most gargantuan shows we’ve ever played, but great venues and great audiences of music lovers. We’re meeting lots of people and getting out in some cities that we’ve never seen.
The bands are great, and sonically right up our alley. It’s the next level of professionalism and killer stage shows. I enjoyed rocking out every night to Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love. And they like to party. It can be tough keeping up with their tour bus with our zigzag tour routing, they drive through the night and we do our best to keep up but we made it work and still had time to bond.
Then things got complicated.
After an awesome Boston show, the Giants had to pull off the tour for an undetermined amount of time due to a family emergency, and Young Love had to do the same. That left only us and Play Radio Play for the rest of the tour.
We had a few days off in Philly to take care of some business, which was nice. I caught up on some backing vocals, and we traded in our Ford Expedition and trailer for a sweet new van. Despite the lack of headliners, our Philly show was amazing. We were so thrilled by the great turnout and want to thank everyone for schlepping out to the North Star to rock out with us. We had such a great time, and played our first real, unplanned encore. We were completely unprepared, but it made us feel like rockstars. Thanks again to everyone from Philly / NJ / DE for making it out! We’ll remember it forever.
The next day, our van wasn’t ready until 3pm and we had to leave for Boston late. Leaving with the trailer, we realized the van didn’t have the proper hitch height and had to turn back, reacquire the Expedition, reattach the trailer, and run like hell for Boston. We barely made it, but the show was great. We saw a bunch of our D.C. friends and got loaded with some hot moms in the parking lot. We didn’t make the Virginia Beach show, unfortunately, because corrective work on the van took too long. We made it to the venue on time to play, but the club didn’t want to have us load in late despite PRP’s accommodating offer to let us share all their stuff. Oh well.
In the Southeast, we’re driving a lot, and sleeping little. But the crowds have been awesome. Charlotte and the ATL were amazing shows where we met many fine Americans. Play Radio Play cleans up around there, and put on a great show.
So now we’re in Florida by ourselves, as PRP are at the Cornerstone festival. Mikey Hynes is keeping us in very high spirits. Its tough finding space and privacy to do the backing vocals, but here and there we’re able to set up in weird places – our new friend Aaron’s bedroom, our van in a parking lot, 20 minutes in a hotel room. Trying to save money, we tried sleeping in the car today between 7am and noon in Florida heat. It was generally unsatisfying. And sticky. If we do that we’ll have to do it at night.
So there’s the update. We’ll try to be on top of it in the future.
See you soon,
Matt
The northeastern dates were an absolute blast – Detroit, Lansing, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, Philly. We were opening for Under the Influence of Giants and Young Love, with occasional appearances by Play Radio Play who we joined up with later full time. Not the most gargantuan shows we’ve ever played, but great venues and great audiences of music lovers. We’re meeting lots of people and getting out in some cities that we’ve never seen.
The bands are great, and sonically right up our alley. It’s the next level of professionalism and killer stage shows. I enjoyed rocking out every night to Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love. And they like to party. It can be tough keeping up with their tour bus with our zigzag tour routing, they drive through the night and we do our best to keep up but we made it work and still had time to bond.
Then things got complicated.
After an awesome Boston show, the Giants had to pull off the tour for an undetermined amount of time due to a family emergency, and Young Love had to do the same. That left only us and Play Radio Play for the rest of the tour.
We had a few days off in Philly to take care of some business, which was nice. I caught up on some backing vocals, and we traded in our Ford Expedition and trailer for a sweet new van. Despite the lack of headliners, our Philly show was amazing. We were so thrilled by the great turnout and want to thank everyone for schlepping out to the North Star to rock out with us. We had such a great time, and played our first real, unplanned encore. We were completely unprepared, but it made us feel like rockstars. Thanks again to everyone from Philly / NJ / DE for making it out! We’ll remember it forever.
The next day, our van wasn’t ready until 3pm and we had to leave for Boston late. Leaving with the trailer, we realized the van didn’t have the proper hitch height and had to turn back, reacquire the Expedition, reattach the trailer, and run like hell for Boston. We barely made it, but the show was great. We saw a bunch of our D.C. friends and got loaded with some hot moms in the parking lot. We didn’t make the Virginia Beach show, unfortunately, because corrective work on the van took too long. We made it to the venue on time to play, but the club didn’t want to have us load in late despite PRP’s accommodating offer to let us share all their stuff. Oh well.
In the Southeast, we’re driving a lot, and sleeping little. But the crowds have been awesome. Charlotte and the ATL were amazing shows where we met many fine Americans. Play Radio Play cleans up around there, and put on a great show.
So now we’re in Florida by ourselves, as PRP are at the Cornerstone festival. Mikey Hynes is keeping us in very high spirits. Its tough finding space and privacy to do the backing vocals, but here and there we’re able to set up in weird places – our new friend Aaron’s bedroom, our van in a parking lot, 20 minutes in a hotel room. Trying to save money, we tried sleeping in the car today between 7am and noon in Florida heat. It was generally unsatisfying. And sticky. If we do that we’ll have to do it at night.
So there’s the update. We’ll try to be on top of it in the future.
See you soon,
Matt
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Recording Ends - Tour Begins
Dear all:
Recording is unofficially over, and thus begins the tour blog. I had a grueling week of vocals with mixer Christopher James, getting through all the leads and the vast majority of backing vocals. Everything sounds great, and without the rest of the band I was able to eat at Taco Bell every single night. Delicious. However, we completely ran out of time without finishing six backing vocal tracks. Not wanting to cancel or delay the tour, I will do backing vocals for the remaining tracks on my own in Philly.
In my downtime I had some nice lunches with Peter Torres and manager John Davis. Our friend Jeremy Levy was in town on business and pleasure, and I got to hang out with him on occasion as well. It was during this time that I was pulled over for the worst traffic stop clusterfuck of all time:
1: I pulled into the wrong driveway of a hotel by accident. In attempting to back out of the driveway and onto the street, I was stopped for making an illegal U-Turn (which I wasn’t actually doing)
2: Our rental car had two of three brake lights out, which I am theoretically liable for.
3: I was not carrying my insurance card as again, I was in a rental car. Apparently this does not matter to the state of California.
All told this may add up to $500 + dollars in fines and points on my license. Hopefully the judge will be understanding at my court date.
I also missed Dan Brown’s bachelor party in Vegas, which was disappointing. Rumor has it there was wall to wall gambling and drinking with very little sleep.
But all inconvenience aside, we started our tour on Saturday, which is fucking awesome. I left the studio at 1:30 am Saturday morning, packed my bags, and was picked up to go to LAX at 4am. McKenzie and I met up at the Detroit airport and cabbed it to the venue there. Larkin and Briks, having spent the week at home preparing and gathering supplies for the tour, had driven from Philly the night before.
Its great to be playing live again. We’re on tour with Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love, two IDJ bands who are right up are alley stylistically. Later we’ll be joined by PlayRadioPlay! from Philly back to LA.
I’ll give you a more complete update on the first leg of the tour after the Philly show…
See you soon.
Matt
Recording is unofficially over, and thus begins the tour blog. I had a grueling week of vocals with mixer Christopher James, getting through all the leads and the vast majority of backing vocals. Everything sounds great, and without the rest of the band I was able to eat at Taco Bell every single night. Delicious. However, we completely ran out of time without finishing six backing vocal tracks. Not wanting to cancel or delay the tour, I will do backing vocals for the remaining tracks on my own in Philly.
In my downtime I had some nice lunches with Peter Torres and manager John Davis. Our friend Jeremy Levy was in town on business and pleasure, and I got to hang out with him on occasion as well. It was during this time that I was pulled over for the worst traffic stop clusterfuck of all time:
1: I pulled into the wrong driveway of a hotel by accident. In attempting to back out of the driveway and onto the street, I was stopped for making an illegal U-Turn (which I wasn’t actually doing)
2: Our rental car had two of three brake lights out, which I am theoretically liable for.
3: I was not carrying my insurance card as again, I was in a rental car. Apparently this does not matter to the state of California.
All told this may add up to $500 + dollars in fines and points on my license. Hopefully the judge will be understanding at my court date.
I also missed Dan Brown’s bachelor party in Vegas, which was disappointing. Rumor has it there was wall to wall gambling and drinking with very little sleep.
But all inconvenience aside, we started our tour on Saturday, which is fucking awesome. I left the studio at 1:30 am Saturday morning, packed my bags, and was picked up to go to LAX at 4am. McKenzie and I met up at the Detroit airport and cabbed it to the venue there. Larkin and Briks, having spent the week at home preparing and gathering supplies for the tour, had driven from Philly the night before.
Its great to be playing live again. We’re on tour with Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love, two IDJ bands who are right up are alley stylistically. Later we’ll be joined by PlayRadioPlay! from Philly back to LA.
I’ll give you a more complete update on the first leg of the tour after the Philly show…
See you soon.
Matt
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