Chicago
So last night, I got forced to drive. I drove for four or five hours while I was about to fall asleep, doing about 85 when there was roughly four inches of visibility. We were meeting with our friends at a Holiday Inn so we could shower for free. We pulled up at a hotel. Not THE hotel. You see, even though Dave knew exactly where I was supposed to be going, he did not let me know. We were outside the hotel for about 30 minutes when Dave said “they’re probably not coming down because we were supposed to take 1-80 to exit 148B.” THANKS DICK. THANKS A LOT. WHY WOULD YOU NOT TELL ME THIS. sigh….
Anyway, we got to the hotel eventually (Math bought an oar… that’s of note?) and I drank some beer and fell asleep. I woke up and it was around 1:00 so I went over to the Warped Tour where everyone had already checked in. Chicago Warped Tour was ridiculously fucking crowded, it was practically impossible to get around and say our final hellos to our friends who we won’t see for a little bit. A girl ate an entire container of mayonnaise at the Subway tent (ugh)… its all silly.
We played at the Beret/Backseat Productions tent today which was fun. Keith from the Mad Caddies watched us and agreed to play with us when we’re back on the tour. Chris Candy played the last of the trumpet that he will play for a little bit. Mike and I joined Middagh Goodwin’s noise rock band Novacain which was odd and fun. There were actually requests for songs and people who already knew us. Today was pretty cool.
Later on in the night, JT, Bove and I got killed for the new Backseat Productions (ex-Troma) movie that takes place at the Warped Tour. After we got killed, Doug from Backseat took a fire extinguisher of blood and planned to spray it all over Sum 41 as they were headlining. But he took too much time spraying it at the audience and we ran out of blood before we made it to the front of the stage.
We went out looking for food at the “Always Open” but the “Always Open” was closed. I’m supposed to mention that Joe found grape soda on tap at White Castle, but I’m too tired. To everyone we met on the Warped Tour, we’ll see you soon! To anyone in Canada, if you’re at the Warped Tour go see Destruction Made Simple and find them after their set and call them pussies for us (damn Californians!)
6.30.2003
Wisconsin, but it counts as Minneapolis
Last night was a pretty long drive. We dropped Sean off at a desolate and entirely way to empty O’Hare Airport and started the drive towards Wisconsin, where since it is very close to Minnesota people have fucking awesome accents. I want to live there and talk like them.
Today was your average get out of the van right as you wake up and load out your shit so you can play the biggest fucking show for the 9th night in a row. Today was a pretty big deal for us. For the first time ever we were actually printed on the schedule. Well kind of. Kevin Lyman printed us as “Idiot Sons of Bitches”. Funny. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it so far but this tour has been great because no one will refer to us as ASOB. Everyone called us The Arrogant Sons of Bitches. It is great. I say “ASOB” they say “what?” I say “thanks”. Someone from AOL approached us about doing an interview because they think its cool that we snuck onto the Warped Tour.
Today was had our friend Jack, the sound guy at the Kevin Says stage kick off the set with a 1 2 3 4… it was awesome. Everyone over there has been treating us really well and really pulling for us with the people at productions and it’s a very strange feeling to have people standing in your corner and fighting along with ya. We’ve never had that before and now that we do I feel like with a year’s worth of people fighting for us we could take TRL and blow it up and ‘cause MTV to get off tha air.
When people fight in our corner and we fight as well there is nothing that works out better. We drew about 250 kids today, once again the biggest draw at the stage or so people have been telling me, and they were awesome. This is the first time I’ve seen a real pit since New York and it made me fucking happy to see dancing. I blew a fuse on my amp at the show and there was a band that was nice enough to lend me there’s, but I wasn’t nice enough to remember their name. Fuck me.
Anyway, Wisconsin was full of gorgeous girls with awesome accents. That’s all that I really paid attention to all day. I sat merch for a couple of hours, tried to fix my amplifier with Bove then I had to cancel our second set at the hip hop tent because it started raining and we had nowhere to put our equipment. Total bummer. There were kids who wanted to see us again.
Cheese Curds, motherfuckers. Wisconsin cheese is that good, and cheese curds are like a combination between Mozzarella sticks and zeppoles. Sound awesome? Yeah, because it fucking is awesome. We started saying some goodbyes today… it was weird. Don’t forget us! We’re coming back during the California days!
Tomorrow’s our last day on Warped for a week… we’re… fuck… its just crazy. This has been a dream and it doesn’t look like it is going to be ending any time soon… Right now I’m in the van on our way to Chicago to meet up with our friends Meg and Liz who have a hotel room that we are going to shower in and feel good in. Then I am going to Chicago and hopefully fuck some shit the fuck up.
By the way, our video is out, check it up on our website. So far I have been in 35 states, and I think that all we’re gonna get this summer. By the way, I’ve been telling people that we’re canceling all our New England dates but there is a slight possibility that we’ll be doing the show on the 5th so stay tuned for that. Later.
Last night was a pretty long drive. We dropped Sean off at a desolate and entirely way to empty O’Hare Airport and started the drive towards Wisconsin, where since it is very close to Minnesota people have fucking awesome accents. I want to live there and talk like them.
Today was your average get out of the van right as you wake up and load out your shit so you can play the biggest fucking show for the 9th night in a row. Today was a pretty big deal for us. For the first time ever we were actually printed on the schedule. Well kind of. Kevin Lyman printed us as “Idiot Sons of Bitches”. Funny. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it so far but this tour has been great because no one will refer to us as ASOB. Everyone called us The Arrogant Sons of Bitches. It is great. I say “ASOB” they say “what?” I say “thanks”. Someone from AOL approached us about doing an interview because they think its cool that we snuck onto the Warped Tour.
Today was had our friend Jack, the sound guy at the Kevin Says stage kick off the set with a 1 2 3 4… it was awesome. Everyone over there has been treating us really well and really pulling for us with the people at productions and it’s a very strange feeling to have people standing in your corner and fighting along with ya. We’ve never had that before and now that we do I feel like with a year’s worth of people fighting for us we could take TRL and blow it up and ‘cause MTV to get off tha air.
When people fight in our corner and we fight as well there is nothing that works out better. We drew about 250 kids today, once again the biggest draw at the stage or so people have been telling me, and they were awesome. This is the first time I’ve seen a real pit since New York and it made me fucking happy to see dancing. I blew a fuse on my amp at the show and there was a band that was nice enough to lend me there’s, but I wasn’t nice enough to remember their name. Fuck me.
Anyway, Wisconsin was full of gorgeous girls with awesome accents. That’s all that I really paid attention to all day. I sat merch for a couple of hours, tried to fix my amplifier with Bove then I had to cancel our second set at the hip hop tent because it started raining and we had nowhere to put our equipment. Total bummer. There were kids who wanted to see us again.
Cheese Curds, motherfuckers. Wisconsin cheese is that good, and cheese curds are like a combination between Mozzarella sticks and zeppoles. Sound awesome? Yeah, because it fucking is awesome. We started saying some goodbyes today… it was weird. Don’t forget us! We’re coming back during the California days!
Tomorrow’s our last day on Warped for a week… we’re… fuck… its just crazy. This has been a dream and it doesn’t look like it is going to be ending any time soon… Right now I’m in the van on our way to Chicago to meet up with our friends Meg and Liz who have a hotel room that we are going to shower in and feel good in. Then I am going to Chicago and hopefully fuck some shit the fuck up.
By the way, our video is out, check it up on our website. So far I have been in 35 states, and I think that all we’re gonna get this summer. By the way, I’ve been telling people that we’re canceling all our New England dates but there is a slight possibility that we’ll be doing the show on the 5th so stay tuned for that. Later.
6.28.2003
Indiana
Sean’s last show of the tour and he didn’t do anything but SLEEP ALL DAY! ITS TRUE! WOW! This morning we got told that Kevin Lyman wanted to speak with us. I ran around and found everyone I knew, because this means we would be added to the entire Warped Tour on the stage we get alone with and wanted to be on. Jack and Mike, the stage managers are nice and have been pulling for us. Arielle has been pulling for us. Word has been getting around that we are good.
This morning we got told that Kevin Lyman wanted to speak with us. By Dickerman. This means that we waited for about an hour listening to Middagh tell stories until I said “Kevin’s meeting us here?” and Dave said “Yeah, I think he said that.” So that means that no one had any idea what was going on. Still, he knows who we are? We got asked to play that stage again. Later on we were told that we would be ADDED TO THE OFFICIAL SCHEDULE. We were no longer a band sneaking on… they knew who we were.
To our dismay, we weren’t ever really put on the schedule today, but we got to play on the stage again… and we got invited back to play every day. We got added to the tour. Somewhat officially. We made some copies, ran into Chris Candy and Middagh at Kinko’s for some odd reason, then got back to watch some music and play a set. But my fucking guitar was missing.
I was pissed. I loaded out everyone’s shit and nobody loaded out my shit. I was cursing, screaming, kicking, blah blah blahing. Dustin from Letterkills was nice enough to lend me his set up, but I didn’t want to hurt his guitar, so our first official day on the Warped Tour and Sean’s last day on tour we pretty much sucked. The horns were good, Chris Candy was insane, but me and JT sucked because I was using someone else’s shit and JT felt like his lung was collapsing from lack of real sleep and rest.
Once again I spent the after show sulking, which I realize I usually do because I am incapable of having a good time/enjoying myself… we said our goodbyes to Sean, went to Burger King and found a newspaper that said “Gay Sex Ban Lifted”. Underneath the front page headline is a picture of two lesbians manhandling a screaming child. We are on the way to O’Hare now. Bove spilled mustard on me and I’m fucking pissed cause I HATE MUSTARD. I’m actually really confused because we have just been added to the 2003 Warped Tour. That doesn’t make sense. Let’s all say goodbye to Sean as we continue for, what… two more months? This is longer than I thought it would be… we have had good luck and a lot of help. Thanks to everyone who has helped us out on this tour.
Sean’s last show of the tour and he didn’t do anything but SLEEP ALL DAY! ITS TRUE! WOW! This morning we got told that Kevin Lyman wanted to speak with us. I ran around and found everyone I knew, because this means we would be added to the entire Warped Tour on the stage we get alone with and wanted to be on. Jack and Mike, the stage managers are nice and have been pulling for us. Arielle has been pulling for us. Word has been getting around that we are good.
This morning we got told that Kevin Lyman wanted to speak with us. By Dickerman. This means that we waited for about an hour listening to Middagh tell stories until I said “Kevin’s meeting us here?” and Dave said “Yeah, I think he said that.” So that means that no one had any idea what was going on. Still, he knows who we are? We got asked to play that stage again. Later on we were told that we would be ADDED TO THE OFFICIAL SCHEDULE. We were no longer a band sneaking on… they knew who we were.
To our dismay, we weren’t ever really put on the schedule today, but we got to play on the stage again… and we got invited back to play every day. We got added to the tour. Somewhat officially. We made some copies, ran into Chris Candy and Middagh at Kinko’s for some odd reason, then got back to watch some music and play a set. But my fucking guitar was missing.
I was pissed. I loaded out everyone’s shit and nobody loaded out my shit. I was cursing, screaming, kicking, blah blah blahing. Dustin from Letterkills was nice enough to lend me his set up, but I didn’t want to hurt his guitar, so our first official day on the Warped Tour and Sean’s last day on tour we pretty much sucked. The horns were good, Chris Candy was insane, but me and JT sucked because I was using someone else’s shit and JT felt like his lung was collapsing from lack of real sleep and rest.
Once again I spent the after show sulking, which I realize I usually do because I am incapable of having a good time/enjoying myself… we said our goodbyes to Sean, went to Burger King and found a newspaper that said “Gay Sex Ban Lifted”. Underneath the front page headline is a picture of two lesbians manhandling a screaming child. We are on the way to O’Hare now. Bove spilled mustard on me and I’m fucking pissed cause I HATE MUSTARD. I’m actually really confused because we have just been added to the 2003 Warped Tour. That doesn’t make sense. Let’s all say goodbye to Sean as we continue for, what… two more months? This is longer than I thought it would be… we have had good luck and a lot of help. Thanks to everyone who has helped us out on this tour.
Ohio
Sean and I woke up in a pool of our own sweat, literally. It was about 130 degrees in the van because someone left the windows all closed and the air conditioner off while I was trying to catch up on last night’s missed sleep and Sean was trying to go for the new sleeping record. Of course I got woken up with simultaneously great and bad news.
Someone (I was sleeping, fuck off): Wake up, load the shit in now. We’re playing the Kevin Says stage.
A STAGE. Not only a stage, but the stage that sits next to the Hopeline tent, where my good friend Arielle works, where I have been volunteering my time sporadically, the stage I wanted to play the day I got there. We got it. We got the goal. We brought in a bunch of shit, borrowed both Plea For Peace AND AFI’s dolly/handtruck(s) and ran up the stairs as fast as we could so we could get there on time.
Math put on the banana suit for 10 minutes and all of a sudden, there were about 100 people at the stage. By the time we were done there were around 400. This show was fucking awesome. Everyone loved it. I was tired as shit, but fuckin’ hell… apparently this was AWESOME. We sold around 100 CDs. A HUNDRED. We don’t even do that well per show at HOME. We pissed our pants with joy and signed autographs like we owned Cincinnati.
To celebrate (5 hours later), Sean Math and I went to the water park that was adjacent to the Warped Tour parking lot. It wasn’t a water park though, it was a POOL. And we didn’t even get in for free like our friend Middagh said we would. Fuckity. So we went on one of the big slides for the big kids and there was so much uncalled for 11-year-old bikini action that you couldn’t look in any direction without seeing something entirely inappropriate for prepubescent girls to wear. It was DISGUSTING.
The slide was not much fun because I got stopped in the middle because the water pressure was so bad. We went swimming but really just peed in the pool. I went for about 2 minutes literally… then it started to rain. Where’s Plea For Peace’s dolly?
We ran around looking for the missing dolly (which we found out later on got placed on their truck). They had to carry their shit out in the rain and I helped as much as I could. It was real bad, and we all ended this show feeling terrible because we fucked up our connections with
1) the stagehands at Kevin says stage (we didn’t move our equipment soon enough)
2) plea for peace (we borrowed their shit and lost it)
We agreed on waking up early the next day and buying one. We then drove, got a motel and slept slept slept slept slept. It was glorious. Tomorrow would be Indianapolis.
Sean and I woke up in a pool of our own sweat, literally. It was about 130 degrees in the van because someone left the windows all closed and the air conditioner off while I was trying to catch up on last night’s missed sleep and Sean was trying to go for the new sleeping record. Of course I got woken up with simultaneously great and bad news.
Someone (I was sleeping, fuck off): Wake up, load the shit in now. We’re playing the Kevin Says stage.
A STAGE. Not only a stage, but the stage that sits next to the Hopeline tent, where my good friend Arielle works, where I have been volunteering my time sporadically, the stage I wanted to play the day I got there. We got it. We got the goal. We brought in a bunch of shit, borrowed both Plea For Peace AND AFI’s dolly/handtruck(s) and ran up the stairs as fast as we could so we could get there on time.
Math put on the banana suit for 10 minutes and all of a sudden, there were about 100 people at the stage. By the time we were done there were around 400. This show was fucking awesome. Everyone loved it. I was tired as shit, but fuckin’ hell… apparently this was AWESOME. We sold around 100 CDs. A HUNDRED. We don’t even do that well per show at HOME. We pissed our pants with joy and signed autographs like we owned Cincinnati.
To celebrate (5 hours later), Sean Math and I went to the water park that was adjacent to the Warped Tour parking lot. It wasn’t a water park though, it was a POOL. And we didn’t even get in for free like our friend Middagh said we would. Fuckity. So we went on one of the big slides for the big kids and there was so much uncalled for 11-year-old bikini action that you couldn’t look in any direction without seeing something entirely inappropriate for prepubescent girls to wear. It was DISGUSTING.
The slide was not much fun because I got stopped in the middle because the water pressure was so bad. We went swimming but really just peed in the pool. I went for about 2 minutes literally… then it started to rain. Where’s Plea For Peace’s dolly?
We ran around looking for the missing dolly (which we found out later on got placed on their truck). They had to carry their shit out in the rain and I helped as much as I could. It was real bad, and we all ended this show feeling terrible because we fucked up our connections with
1) the stagehands at Kevin says stage (we didn’t move our equipment soon enough)
2) plea for peace (we borrowed their shit and lost it)
We agreed on waking up early the next day and buying one. We then drove, got a motel and slept slept slept slept slept. It was glorious. Tomorrow would be Indianapolis.
Missouri
I don’t know what happened this day either. We kind of sat around exhausted all morning and decided since we didn’t have anywhere to play and had a blown up P.A. so we couldn’t use the generator. We drove around for about a billion hours because we didn’t have anywhere really to go… our plans fell through. I called my old friend Julie Terbrock who lives in St. Louis and she was kind enough, as was her family to feed us, give us showers and laundry time.
As we were doing the laundry, Seandavejoemike and math.went to a club. Julie warned them that it was all 40 year old yuppie types, but they didn’t listen. They got very drunk and apparently it was totally lame. Sean got into a fight with a bouncer who said he was underage… he had a fake ID but kept saying all the information on it in a really sarcastic voice. He went to the bar and got some free shots for telling the bartender how much of an asshole the bouncer was for trying to stop an underage kid from drinking. The bartender gave him free shots once Sean drunkenly mentioned that he worked with handicapped kids. The bouncer even came over and apologized to Sean, and Sean yelled at him.
Mike did a dance I like to call the lasso. What a loser.
So yeah, Julie came along with us for the trip to Cincinnati so JT and Bove slept in her car to keep her company. I had to stay awake in shotgun position even though I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours the past few days. Nothing interesting about this drive except that sunflower seeds will keep your ass awake because eating them isn’t so much eating as it is an intense activity. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned on this tour diary that it states on the packages that sunflower seeds are a “snacktivity” (in bold writing). Well, it does. Eventually I got to sleep for a few hours until I woke up choking.
I don’t know what happened this day either. We kind of sat around exhausted all morning and decided since we didn’t have anywhere to play and had a blown up P.A. so we couldn’t use the generator. We drove around for about a billion hours because we didn’t have anywhere really to go… our plans fell through. I called my old friend Julie Terbrock who lives in St. Louis and she was kind enough, as was her family to feed us, give us showers and laundry time.
As we were doing the laundry, Seandavejoemike and math.went to a club. Julie warned them that it was all 40 year old yuppie types, but they didn’t listen. They got very drunk and apparently it was totally lame. Sean got into a fight with a bouncer who said he was underage… he had a fake ID but kept saying all the information on it in a really sarcastic voice. He went to the bar and got some free shots for telling the bartender how much of an asshole the bouncer was for trying to stop an underage kid from drinking. The bartender gave him free shots once Sean drunkenly mentioned that he worked with handicapped kids. The bouncer even came over and apologized to Sean, and Sean yelled at him.
Mike did a dance I like to call the lasso. What a loser.
So yeah, Julie came along with us for the trip to Cincinnati so JT and Bove slept in her car to keep her company. I had to stay awake in shotgun position even though I hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours the past few days. Nothing interesting about this drive except that sunflower seeds will keep your ass awake because eating them isn’t so much eating as it is an intense activity. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned on this tour diary that it states on the packages that sunflower seeds are a “snacktivity” (in bold writing). Well, it does. Eventually I got to sleep for a few hours until I woke up choking.
Kansas City, Kansas… not Missouri
Alright… so we had a not so long drive that I slept through, although it was still quite a confusing drive. Is Kansas City in Kansas? Is Kansas City in Missouri? We apparently drove to the Kansas City that was in Missouri. Shitty. This was a tired tired day, especially for me, in fact I don’t really remember what I did today aside from walk around in a daze, trying to sleep in the Hopeline tent and then… I don’t know man… I completely fucking forget. I might have watched some Awful Truth… yeah… let’s stick with that. It was about 1,000 fucking degrees outside and there was NO WATER ANYWHERE. None of our tents had it. Nobody had any free water. All there was were fucking energy drinks…
For those of you who haven’t made it to the Warped Tour yet there are two Monster beverages. Monster Tour Water and Monster Energy Drink… they have the exact same can… I think they both might even say Energy on them. Anyways, we just walked around and checked everywhere and all there was were fucking green tabs on top of the can… they warn not to drink 2 of these cans… they dehydrate you. They are the opposite of water.
So we all just sat around and were thirsty all day. We played the night shift at the Beret/Backseat Conceptions Productions tent. We set up our generator.
Bove: Is the generator full of gas?
Dave: Yes.
Well, needless to say, the people who watched us were treated to one song and then all of our equipment shut off cause the generator ran out of gas. Unfortunately, when the PA went out we blew a fuse. We thanked the people who watched us and they said “play instrumentals.” So we tried to do that and it wasn’t that bad. I span around a lot and finally got to just play guitar and JT walked around the crowd and whispered words in their ears. All the kids sang “everything is always falling apart” with us and that was really really cool. So it went kinda bad, but we didn’t do shit all day because we were exhausted.
We hung out at the barbecue for a while and there was still no water. I got to eat a Gardenburger before Davey Havok did and that made me happy. Dave, Joe and I went onto the Bowling For Soup bus to show them our new video. They loved it and so did David from…
Here’s what’s funny. He was just introduced as a guy with a funny accent to me. He said what’s your name, what band are you in? We told him, asked him and he said “My name is David.” Maybe these are things that we are supposed to know.when a band is huge, on MTV, et cetera. So this guy is talking for a while and for some reason mentions Reset, a band I saw about 3 years ago on Warped… I actually have been comparing Reset to us because they played to not that many people, but the people dug them, and I always wondered what happens to bands like those. Why they don’t go to main stage, what we can do to do that.
Jeff: Ah, man, you used to be in Reset?
David: Yeah.
Jeff: Whatever happened to you guys?
David: We broke up.
Jeff: What band are you in right now?
David: Simple Plan.
Damn. So, I guess I’m a dick because I don’t recognize famous people. We proceeded to talk about Reset for a very long time… funny, right? The guy from Simple Plan.
We delivered a whole bunch of water to the barbecue as a thanks for them being so nice to us. The guys in Destruction Made Simple are smart, kind and awesome. They threw the barbecue tonight because it is down home good fun cookin’. Then we left for St. Louis? Went to a Flying J and said “yeah, we’re on the Warped Tour… yeah, we’d like some free showers.” Some trucker even bought our showers for us because we’re on Warped. Awesome.
Alright… so we had a not so long drive that I slept through, although it was still quite a confusing drive. Is Kansas City in Kansas? Is Kansas City in Missouri? We apparently drove to the Kansas City that was in Missouri. Shitty. This was a tired tired day, especially for me, in fact I don’t really remember what I did today aside from walk around in a daze, trying to sleep in the Hopeline tent and then… I don’t know man… I completely fucking forget. I might have watched some Awful Truth… yeah… let’s stick with that. It was about 1,000 fucking degrees outside and there was NO WATER ANYWHERE. None of our tents had it. Nobody had any free water. All there was were fucking energy drinks…
For those of you who haven’t made it to the Warped Tour yet there are two Monster beverages. Monster Tour Water and Monster Energy Drink… they have the exact same can… I think they both might even say Energy on them. Anyways, we just walked around and checked everywhere and all there was were fucking green tabs on top of the can… they warn not to drink 2 of these cans… they dehydrate you. They are the opposite of water.
So we all just sat around and were thirsty all day. We played the night shift at the Beret/Backseat Conceptions Productions tent. We set up our generator.
Bove: Is the generator full of gas?
Dave: Yes.
Well, needless to say, the people who watched us were treated to one song and then all of our equipment shut off cause the generator ran out of gas. Unfortunately, when the PA went out we blew a fuse. We thanked the people who watched us and they said “play instrumentals.” So we tried to do that and it wasn’t that bad. I span around a lot and finally got to just play guitar and JT walked around the crowd and whispered words in their ears. All the kids sang “everything is always falling apart” with us and that was really really cool. So it went kinda bad, but we didn’t do shit all day because we were exhausted.
We hung out at the barbecue for a while and there was still no water. I got to eat a Gardenburger before Davey Havok did and that made me happy. Dave, Joe and I went onto the Bowling For Soup bus to show them our new video. They loved it and so did David from…
Here’s what’s funny. He was just introduced as a guy with a funny accent to me. He said what’s your name, what band are you in? We told him, asked him and he said “My name is David.” Maybe these are things that we are supposed to know.when a band is huge, on MTV, et cetera. So this guy is talking for a while and for some reason mentions Reset, a band I saw about 3 years ago on Warped… I actually have been comparing Reset to us because they played to not that many people, but the people dug them, and I always wondered what happens to bands like those. Why they don’t go to main stage, what we can do to do that.
Jeff: Ah, man, you used to be in Reset?
David: Yeah.
Jeff: Whatever happened to you guys?
David: We broke up.
Jeff: What band are you in right now?
David: Simple Plan.
Damn. So, I guess I’m a dick because I don’t recognize famous people. We proceeded to talk about Reset for a very long time… funny, right? The guy from Simple Plan.
We delivered a whole bunch of water to the barbecue as a thanks for them being so nice to us. The guys in Destruction Made Simple are smart, kind and awesome. They threw the barbecue tonight because it is down home good fun cookin’. Then we left for St. Louis? Went to a Flying J and said “yeah, we’re on the Warped Tour… yeah, we’d like some free showers.” Some trucker even bought our showers for us because we’re on Warped. Awesome.
6.27.2003
Wichita, Kansas
Two Kansas dates. I’ve never even heard of Kansas. I woke up out of a dead sleep overhearing pieces of the phrase “yep, we’re playing three times today.” I was pissed. Repeating basically the same set list every day was a little irritating, as I was driving to Kansas all I could think about was how badly I wanted to play “Last on my List” and now I wasn’t going to be able to.
I pouted because I had only had about 2 hours of sleep before I was woken up (I drive a lot) and, fuck, man, we had to play the same 4 songs 3 times. Then we realized that, shit, this is the fucking Warped Tour. And we don’t really need to do anything.
Try and follow me. Code of the Cutz (hip-hop tent) had a lot of open slots this day, except instead of playing one long set we would have to cut it into 15/20 minute sets because the Kevin Says stage was facing it right on. We decided after the first set that we would just play whatever songs came into our head and then continue that list of songs at the second set, hoping for repeat customers.
The first set went fucking well. We made money and I lost about $80 for an uncomfortably long period of time (until load out time). There was wind blowing our banner off the tent, but there were kids there who wanted to cool out and relax. We weren’t having any of that.
Eventually, neither were they. We got to play three sets, all of which turned out excellently… our best day on Warped so far in every way. One person told me that “Piss Off” was a catharsis of sorts because his ex-grilfriend was standing right in the audience and he was screaming at her. It sounded like he had an almost religious experience because of our words. That made me feel like it was all worth it… every shitty stop on the way to get to Wichita… WICHITA? Who knew how hard they rocked? Not me before this show. We had repeat customers from the first set who blew $30 to see ASOB three times, and get this… THEY KNEW THE WORDS TO OUR SONGS. As I said it was incredible.
Celebration was mandatory. The Code of the Cutz girls came over and congratulated us and we hung out with them for a little bit. I heard that the barbecue was on on on so I traveled over to the other side of the parking lot, cut a whole bunch of famous bands on line and met up with Arielle, Sean and Dave (Sean was already double fisting).
HERE IS WHERE WE DROP THE NAMES.
JT at some point during the night asked Tim if he could play keyboards in Rancid for the ska songs, going over Lars’s head. Tim said “hey, you play keyboards? You should record with me.” Long story short, Tim invited JT on his bus to check out his recording studio and to listen to the stuff that he’s been doing. He checked out Tim’s keyboard and said “I’m not a knob-twiddler.” Damn. So Tim invited JT to record with him in his recording studio on the Rancid bus the next night. Insane, right? Right? Right.
Sean likes to drink so he made his way over to the Dropkick Murphys and pretty much hung out with them the whole night, got invited back to their tent to drink more some other time and hey, now Sean is friends with the other Irish people on tour.
Mike, Bove and Joe were hanging out with people all night. Don’t know who that was with.
Me, Math and Dave met up with the Glassjaw, and talked about good old Long Island hardcore for a little bit. Then a bunch of us saw Bowling For Soup’s bus which I’m telling you could be a fucking episode of cribs. Nice TV. Bunks. A clock. A TV/media center. It was insane. All the buses are insane. Bands with buses. Wacky. We saw their new video. It’s funny. Chris Bernie is pretty damn big.
So, everyone’s talking to all these famous people, getting way drunk and I run into Sean. Sean runs the Easy Mac tent. Today his workers didn’t know how to make Easy Mac. I literally talked to this dude for about 40 minutes about macaroni and cheese and how easy it is to make it and how could somebody possibly fuck up Easy Mac because I’d really like to know. 40 minutes. Eventually I said “Sean, I’ve been talking about macaroni and cheese for far too long. I’m going to save us both from talking about it all night.” I then bumped into Dave talking to some pretty townies and started talking about macaroni and cheese. Yep.
So we didn’t have a van call today and everybody started yelling at everyone else. He’s hooking up with who I was trying to hook up with. Blah blah blah. No one came to the van on time really. Where is Mike? He’s over there. Okay, let’s find Math. Ok, we found Math. Where’s Joe? Okay, now we lost Mike. This went on for about TWO HOURS. I was pissed because I didn’t sleep the night before because I drove all night so everyone else could rest.
Our friend Kevin got us a NICE hotel. Sheraton. Insane. Nice pillows. A TV that you could play pay-per-view video games (a controller sticks out of the TV and you order games). We got to stay there for not that long because everyone fucking stayed at the barbecue too late. I was very pissed. Math was supposed to do the laundry because he held us up at the barbecue. He put one load in and fell asleep in the laundry room. Joe and Mike stayed up and did their laundry but no one else’s. To this day, the laundry has yet to be done. I think that’s it. I’m gonna post all this shit now even though its almost a week later.
We love you.
Two Kansas dates. I’ve never even heard of Kansas. I woke up out of a dead sleep overhearing pieces of the phrase “yep, we’re playing three times today.” I was pissed. Repeating basically the same set list every day was a little irritating, as I was driving to Kansas all I could think about was how badly I wanted to play “Last on my List” and now I wasn’t going to be able to.
I pouted because I had only had about 2 hours of sleep before I was woken up (I drive a lot) and, fuck, man, we had to play the same 4 songs 3 times. Then we realized that, shit, this is the fucking Warped Tour. And we don’t really need to do anything.
Try and follow me. Code of the Cutz (hip-hop tent) had a lot of open slots this day, except instead of playing one long set we would have to cut it into 15/20 minute sets because the Kevin Says stage was facing it right on. We decided after the first set that we would just play whatever songs came into our head and then continue that list of songs at the second set, hoping for repeat customers.
The first set went fucking well. We made money and I lost about $80 for an uncomfortably long period of time (until load out time). There was wind blowing our banner off the tent, but there were kids there who wanted to cool out and relax. We weren’t having any of that.
Eventually, neither were they. We got to play three sets, all of which turned out excellently… our best day on Warped so far in every way. One person told me that “Piss Off” was a catharsis of sorts because his ex-grilfriend was standing right in the audience and he was screaming at her. It sounded like he had an almost religious experience because of our words. That made me feel like it was all worth it… every shitty stop on the way to get to Wichita… WICHITA? Who knew how hard they rocked? Not me before this show. We had repeat customers from the first set who blew $30 to see ASOB three times, and get this… THEY KNEW THE WORDS TO OUR SONGS. As I said it was incredible.
Celebration was mandatory. The Code of the Cutz girls came over and congratulated us and we hung out with them for a little bit. I heard that the barbecue was on on on so I traveled over to the other side of the parking lot, cut a whole bunch of famous bands on line and met up with Arielle, Sean and Dave (Sean was already double fisting).
HERE IS WHERE WE DROP THE NAMES.
JT at some point during the night asked Tim if he could play keyboards in Rancid for the ska songs, going over Lars’s head. Tim said “hey, you play keyboards? You should record with me.” Long story short, Tim invited JT on his bus to check out his recording studio and to listen to the stuff that he’s been doing. He checked out Tim’s keyboard and said “I’m not a knob-twiddler.” Damn. So Tim invited JT to record with him in his recording studio on the Rancid bus the next night. Insane, right? Right? Right.
Sean likes to drink so he made his way over to the Dropkick Murphys and pretty much hung out with them the whole night, got invited back to their tent to drink more some other time and hey, now Sean is friends with the other Irish people on tour.
Mike, Bove and Joe were hanging out with people all night. Don’t know who that was with.
Me, Math and Dave met up with the Glassjaw, and talked about good old Long Island hardcore for a little bit. Then a bunch of us saw Bowling For Soup’s bus which I’m telling you could be a fucking episode of cribs. Nice TV. Bunks. A clock. A TV/media center. It was insane. All the buses are insane. Bands with buses. Wacky. We saw their new video. It’s funny. Chris Bernie is pretty damn big.
So, everyone’s talking to all these famous people, getting way drunk and I run into Sean. Sean runs the Easy Mac tent. Today his workers didn’t know how to make Easy Mac. I literally talked to this dude for about 40 minutes about macaroni and cheese and how easy it is to make it and how could somebody possibly fuck up Easy Mac because I’d really like to know. 40 minutes. Eventually I said “Sean, I’ve been talking about macaroni and cheese for far too long. I’m going to save us both from talking about it all night.” I then bumped into Dave talking to some pretty townies and started talking about macaroni and cheese. Yep.
So we didn’t have a van call today and everybody started yelling at everyone else. He’s hooking up with who I was trying to hook up with. Blah blah blah. No one came to the van on time really. Where is Mike? He’s over there. Okay, let’s find Math. Ok, we found Math. Where’s Joe? Okay, now we lost Mike. This went on for about TWO HOURS. I was pissed because I didn’t sleep the night before because I drove all night so everyone else could rest.
Our friend Kevin got us a NICE hotel. Sheraton. Insane. Nice pillows. A TV that you could play pay-per-view video games (a controller sticks out of the TV and you order games). We got to stay there for not that long because everyone fucking stayed at the barbecue too late. I was very pissed. Math was supposed to do the laundry because he held us up at the barbecue. He put one load in and fell asleep in the laundry room. Joe and Mike stayed up and did their laundry but no one else’s. To this day, the laundry has yet to be done. I think that’s it. I’m gonna post all this shit now even though its almost a week later.
We love you.
Colorado
I wake up and we are outside Mile High Stadium. We’re playing a fucking stadium show in a sense. A STADIUM SHOW. I am probably the worst one to write this diary and I refuse to let anyone else do it. We hung out at the Subway tent and forced people to buy our CD under one pretense: if enough Asbestos Records are sold… I will shave myself a Mohawk. We sold like 40 in the first five minutes. Fuck. My hair is going. I took off my hat so I can enjoy my hair for the last day that I will have it.
I got to see Glassjaw for the first time in 7 years and they got a lot bigger if any of you Long Island Hardcore fans have noticed.
We played the hip-hop tent again and it was a lot of fun. Then I got my hair shaved the fuck off. In Mile High stadium. This was a day when I just called everyone I knew and said “holy fuck… look at what I’m fucking doing.”
Today was also the day that we found out that Math was really good at harassing people and convincing them to buy stuff. He sold around 200 compilations just because he has no shame. I’ll be honest… I don’t know what day of the week it is right now, and I don’t remember all that much about Colorado. All I remember is that it was the day before the barbecue.
I wake up and we are outside Mile High Stadium. We’re playing a fucking stadium show in a sense. A STADIUM SHOW. I am probably the worst one to write this diary and I refuse to let anyone else do it. We hung out at the Subway tent and forced people to buy our CD under one pretense: if enough Asbestos Records are sold… I will shave myself a Mohawk. We sold like 40 in the first five minutes. Fuck. My hair is going. I took off my hat so I can enjoy my hair for the last day that I will have it.
I got to see Glassjaw for the first time in 7 years and they got a lot bigger if any of you Long Island Hardcore fans have noticed.
We played the hip-hop tent again and it was a lot of fun. Then I got my hair shaved the fuck off. In Mile High stadium. This was a day when I just called everyone I knew and said “holy fuck… look at what I’m fucking doing.”
Today was also the day that we found out that Math was really good at harassing people and convincing them to buy stuff. He sold around 200 compilations just because he has no shame. I’ll be honest… I don’t know what day of the week it is right now, and I don’t remember all that much about Colorado. All I remember is that it was the day before the barbecue.
Utah
Jaime and Pooja from the Code of tha Cutz tent invited us back to play every day. We’re on the fucking Warped Tour, even though we’re not invited whatsoever. Alright… we meet up with some other Long Island friends who used to work for Troma and now run Backseat Conceptions and participate in the band Beret… New York’s only French Hardcore band. They have a bus and their own power and at this point we’re still afraid that Code of tha Cutz hates us for fucking up their tent. So we decide to set up our P.A. combined with their P.A. to make a super P.A. and play a show outside.
Problem. Beret breaks LOTS OF EQUIPMENT. It wasn’t really a problem. We’re on the fucking Warped Tour and having a blast. Fuck equipment failure. It happens. Here’s what else happens.
We park next to Less Than Jake’s bus. I took the long drive home and walked up to Roger thinking he was a driver that I waved hello to in a gas station and said “hey, didn’t I see you at the gas station last night?” and he says “no, I was in a wal-mart” and I say “oh, musta been someone else, I’m jeff”, “I’m roger”, oh fuck. The Less Than Jake guy. No worries though. Later on that morning, Chris from Less Than Jake sees JT’s broken trumpet (“Tyrone”) and asks JT to play it on stage with them. ASKS him to play it. Not the other way around.
So we had some sound problems. Whatever. We had a fun ass set and a lot of people were enjoying what we do and that makes me a happy guy. Chris Candy from the Plea for Peace booth has been playing trumpet with us for the Warped Tour, Arielle Bilelak (sp?) from the Hopeline comes down to watch us and see how we’re doing, we see Middagh Goodwin every morning and see how his presidential campaign is going, we hang with Flood and Scotty and the Subway guys every day as well as the Beret guys and the Code of tha Cutz girls and fucking A its like a family out here. We have a posse. It’s rad. When you drive on the interstate at 4 in the morning, you see all the buses of all the other bands and you pass them and smile the drivers smile back at you. Its as if you’re the only vehicles on the road… the interstate is made for the people with the Warped Tour.
I watched JT dance around like an idiot with LTJ and as we’re loading out we pass by the Used, the Suicide Machines and Bowling For Soup… this is the point where you realize “holy shit, I’m on the fuckin’ Warped Tour. I’m not supposed to be here. I snuck in and got lucky.” It’s like sneaking backstage at a conversation every day and getting to play there. We drive to another Subway or a fucking Flying J or something and we get free stuff for saying “we’re with the Warped Tour” because we ARE with the Warped Tour. If you want free stuff, say you’re with the Warped Tour next time they come around. This is what I remember about Utah.
Jaime and Pooja from the Code of tha Cutz tent invited us back to play every day. We’re on the fucking Warped Tour, even though we’re not invited whatsoever. Alright… we meet up with some other Long Island friends who used to work for Troma and now run Backseat Conceptions and participate in the band Beret… New York’s only French Hardcore band. They have a bus and their own power and at this point we’re still afraid that Code of tha Cutz hates us for fucking up their tent. So we decide to set up our P.A. combined with their P.A. to make a super P.A. and play a show outside.
Problem. Beret breaks LOTS OF EQUIPMENT. It wasn’t really a problem. We’re on the fucking Warped Tour and having a blast. Fuck equipment failure. It happens. Here’s what else happens.
We park next to Less Than Jake’s bus. I took the long drive home and walked up to Roger thinking he was a driver that I waved hello to in a gas station and said “hey, didn’t I see you at the gas station last night?” and he says “no, I was in a wal-mart” and I say “oh, musta been someone else, I’m jeff”, “I’m roger”, oh fuck. The Less Than Jake guy. No worries though. Later on that morning, Chris from Less Than Jake sees JT’s broken trumpet (“Tyrone”) and asks JT to play it on stage with them. ASKS him to play it. Not the other way around.
So we had some sound problems. Whatever. We had a fun ass set and a lot of people were enjoying what we do and that makes me a happy guy. Chris Candy from the Plea for Peace booth has been playing trumpet with us for the Warped Tour, Arielle Bilelak (sp?) from the Hopeline comes down to watch us and see how we’re doing, we see Middagh Goodwin every morning and see how his presidential campaign is going, we hang with Flood and Scotty and the Subway guys every day as well as the Beret guys and the Code of tha Cutz girls and fucking A its like a family out here. We have a posse. It’s rad. When you drive on the interstate at 4 in the morning, you see all the buses of all the other bands and you pass them and smile the drivers smile back at you. Its as if you’re the only vehicles on the road… the interstate is made for the people with the Warped Tour.
I watched JT dance around like an idiot with LTJ and as we’re loading out we pass by the Used, the Suicide Machines and Bowling For Soup… this is the point where you realize “holy shit, I’m on the fuckin’ Warped Tour. I’m not supposed to be here. I snuck in and got lucky.” It’s like sneaking backstage at a conversation every day and getting to play there. We drive to another Subway or a fucking Flying J or something and we get free stuff for saying “we’re with the Warped Tour” because we ARE with the Warped Tour. If you want free stuff, say you’re with the Warped Tour next time they come around. This is what I remember about Utah.
Montana
Don’t really remember the drive to Montana all that much. I just kinda woke up and we were in the parking lot… I’m not sure, it was a few days ago. On the Warped Tour it all seems like the same day except the tents are rearranged… its like waking up in your house but someone moved all of your shit around. You wake up and step out of your bedroom (our van) and FUCK somebody moved the kitchen and the bathroom is in its place! What the fuck?
So the day before Flood invited us to play his tent plugged in. Subway gave our friend of a friend Flood a chance to sell some of his compilations by promoting SUBWAY SANDWICHES! Weird, right? We show up and they say we can’t plug in and play too loud because that would apparently not help to sell sandwiches. We walked around and asked some people that we thought could help us. Take Action Stage? No. fuck. No openings anywhere. Kevin Lyman probably doesn’t want us bugging him all day.
Bottom line, there is a hip-hop tent where people spin and freestyle as well as a few local artists. We went up to Jaime because Flood hooked them up with free sandwiches earlier in the day and asked her if there were any open spots. There were and we kind of reticent about letting them know anything other than “we’re a rock band looking for a place to play.” Once again it rains during our set once again… rains all fucking day. One minute we’re outside spraypainting our banner and the next there is a pouring rain storm. Damn.
FAMOUS PEOPLE STORIES:
Daryl (glassjaw): Where are you from?
Dave: Long Island.
Daryl: What the fuck are you doing HERE?
JT: I know you guys don’t have a keyboard player and I wanna know if I can play keyboards with you.
Lars (Rancid): No.
[Sean McCabe spills cash box]
Lars (Rancid) [helping clean up the cash box]: Don’t let it ruin your day.
So it rains a little less while we’re playing and… well, we learned something from a band called Never Heard Of It. Go around with CD players and your CD. FUCKING PROMOTE YOUR SHIT. Some of us walked around in banana suits and CD players and played “So Let’s Go Nowhere”. You like it? Come see us at the hip-hop tent right across from Subway. Yeah. The hip-hop tent. No, we’re not hip-hop, didn’t you listen to the CD?
So we set up all of our stuff and I’m nervous that we’re gonna get thrown out of the tent and no one will watch us because our time slot got switched and no one expects to see punk rock at a hip-hop tent. Things go well. Fucking well if I do say so myself. You can’t hear the vocals, but Montana still new how to rock. Fuckin’ Montana? What?
We go to the Subway booth for autograph signings after the show… yeah, that’s what we have to call it so we can sell our CDs. And they’re going like CRAZY. Much better than the hard sell at the 21+ scene. When the post-show scene dies down… one of the Subway guys… hold on, let me just say this really quick that we had extended conversations with the man who invented the Subway logo… they start trying to give away $5 gift certificates with our CDs. So we think… HEY, LETS JUST SELL THEM $5 GIFT CERTIFICATES TO SUBWAY AND GIVE AWAY FREE CDs… also, if you buy a cookie with it, you get $4 cash BACK. Incredible. So we sell a whole fucking bunch. The woman who was working asked if we will record the theme music at the commercial.
Afterwards we go to subway because we have all sorts of coupons and we can essentially eat for free. Especially when I mention that we ARE SPONSORED BY SUBWAY. We walk in like we fucking own the place and people hear that we’re touring with the warped tour and they love it. They buy CDs, ask for autographs… I take a fucking dump and it felt glorious. I don’t believe there was any blood in it this day, but I can’t remember specifically because I’ve shit in a lot of Subways the past few days.
Don’t really remember the drive to Montana all that much. I just kinda woke up and we were in the parking lot… I’m not sure, it was a few days ago. On the Warped Tour it all seems like the same day except the tents are rearranged… its like waking up in your house but someone moved all of your shit around. You wake up and step out of your bedroom (our van) and FUCK somebody moved the kitchen and the bathroom is in its place! What the fuck?
So the day before Flood invited us to play his tent plugged in. Subway gave our friend of a friend Flood a chance to sell some of his compilations by promoting SUBWAY SANDWICHES! Weird, right? We show up and they say we can’t plug in and play too loud because that would apparently not help to sell sandwiches. We walked around and asked some people that we thought could help us. Take Action Stage? No. fuck. No openings anywhere. Kevin Lyman probably doesn’t want us bugging him all day.
Bottom line, there is a hip-hop tent where people spin and freestyle as well as a few local artists. We went up to Jaime because Flood hooked them up with free sandwiches earlier in the day and asked her if there were any open spots. There were and we kind of reticent about letting them know anything other than “we’re a rock band looking for a place to play.” Once again it rains during our set once again… rains all fucking day. One minute we’re outside spraypainting our banner and the next there is a pouring rain storm. Damn.
FAMOUS PEOPLE STORIES:
Daryl (glassjaw): Where are you from?
Dave: Long Island.
Daryl: What the fuck are you doing HERE?
JT: I know you guys don’t have a keyboard player and I wanna know if I can play keyboards with you.
Lars (Rancid): No.
[Sean McCabe spills cash box]
Lars (Rancid) [helping clean up the cash box]: Don’t let it ruin your day.
So it rains a little less while we’re playing and… well, we learned something from a band called Never Heard Of It. Go around with CD players and your CD. FUCKING PROMOTE YOUR SHIT. Some of us walked around in banana suits and CD players and played “So Let’s Go Nowhere”. You like it? Come see us at the hip-hop tent right across from Subway. Yeah. The hip-hop tent. No, we’re not hip-hop, didn’t you listen to the CD?
So we set up all of our stuff and I’m nervous that we’re gonna get thrown out of the tent and no one will watch us because our time slot got switched and no one expects to see punk rock at a hip-hop tent. Things go well. Fucking well if I do say so myself. You can’t hear the vocals, but Montana still new how to rock. Fuckin’ Montana? What?
We go to the Subway booth for autograph signings after the show… yeah, that’s what we have to call it so we can sell our CDs. And they’re going like CRAZY. Much better than the hard sell at the 21+ scene. When the post-show scene dies down… one of the Subway guys… hold on, let me just say this really quick that we had extended conversations with the man who invented the Subway logo… they start trying to give away $5 gift certificates with our CDs. So we think… HEY, LETS JUST SELL THEM $5 GIFT CERTIFICATES TO SUBWAY AND GIVE AWAY FREE CDs… also, if you buy a cookie with it, you get $4 cash BACK. Incredible. So we sell a whole fucking bunch. The woman who was working asked if we will record the theme music at the commercial.
Afterwards we go to subway because we have all sorts of coupons and we can essentially eat for free. Especially when I mention that we ARE SPONSORED BY SUBWAY. We walk in like we fucking own the place and people hear that we’re touring with the warped tour and they love it. They buy CDs, ask for autographs… I take a fucking dump and it felt glorious. I don’t believe there was any blood in it this day, but I can’t remember specifically because I’ve shit in a lot of Subways the past few days.
6.22.2003
Idaho
Idaho? That’s right kids. Idaho. Long fucking drive from Oakland, California… we left the game and eventually at around 7 o clock I started driving and brought us into the parking lot of the Warped Tour where we all ran out, grabbed acoustic guitars and a banana suit and started playing acoustically for the line. The line was already diminishing quickly, so we didn’t really get to sell much. However, we met up with Scotty from Asbestos and he said he might be able to help us out a little. God damn. JT and I gave Arielle from Hopeline a call and volunteered some of our time that day while schmoozing with a few of the key people at the Warped Tour. During the day, the rest of the guys ran errands. We made flyers (because we have no stickers), we bought a CD burner to make free sample (and the CD burner doesn’t work), we bought a sheet and spraypaint to make a banner, and we just hung out. Working the 1-800-SUICIDE booth was a lot of fun.
ANYWAY… SHOW TIME…
We finally reconvene inside the Warped Tour after flashing our passes that look like Warped Tour passes. I use some paper and make a giant sign that says:
“ITS STILL TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL. THE ARROGANT SONS OF BITCHES unOFFICIAL POST-SHOW PARKING LOT DANCE PARTY.” That’s right kids, playing parking lots on our national tour. As we’re promoting there is a giant cloud starts coming our way. Fuck me.
We run outside during AFI, grab our van and our generator and set everything up as soon as possible. A little drizzle. Not a big deal. We start Kill The President and hell comes from the sky. GUSTING WINDS, dare I say, GALES. Starts blowing over all of our stuff. People come from all around to watch and we continue to rock out. The Dropkick Murphy’s are taken off the stage due to weather. We continue to play. All the microphones fall and my shit falls over. I stand on some cement platform and just spin my guitar and scream. Mike plays his drums as they’re falling into him. Bove’s bass rig starts blowing away. Math can barely hold up the tent. Sean plays trombone while trying to stop his hat from flying away. It was without a doubt the most kamikaze and awesome show we’ve ever done. Three songs were all we could do… we packed up our stuff in record time. JT grabbed a bar of soap and started showering in the rain, which after our performance, turned from monsoon to sunshower. Thanks, God.
The rest of us showered at a Flying J. We told them we were with the Warped Tour. They gave us a group discount. AWESOME? AWESOME. Lots of driving gets done. I don’t even know what day of the week it is. Anyway, we took forever at the Flying J and we REAL nervous about making it to the Warped Tour on time the next day? What happened the next day… coming soon… in the next installment of Holy Shit We’re On The Famous Punk Rock Tour.
Idaho? That’s right kids. Idaho. Long fucking drive from Oakland, California… we left the game and eventually at around 7 o clock I started driving and brought us into the parking lot of the Warped Tour where we all ran out, grabbed acoustic guitars and a banana suit and started playing acoustically for the line. The line was already diminishing quickly, so we didn’t really get to sell much. However, we met up with Scotty from Asbestos and he said he might be able to help us out a little. God damn. JT and I gave Arielle from Hopeline a call and volunteered some of our time that day while schmoozing with a few of the key people at the Warped Tour. During the day, the rest of the guys ran errands. We made flyers (because we have no stickers), we bought a CD burner to make free sample (and the CD burner doesn’t work), we bought a sheet and spraypaint to make a banner, and we just hung out. Working the 1-800-SUICIDE booth was a lot of fun.
ANYWAY… SHOW TIME…
We finally reconvene inside the Warped Tour after flashing our passes that look like Warped Tour passes. I use some paper and make a giant sign that says:
“ITS STILL TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL. THE ARROGANT SONS OF BITCHES unOFFICIAL POST-SHOW PARKING LOT DANCE PARTY.” That’s right kids, playing parking lots on our national tour. As we’re promoting there is a giant cloud starts coming our way. Fuck me.
We run outside during AFI, grab our van and our generator and set everything up as soon as possible. A little drizzle. Not a big deal. We start Kill The President and hell comes from the sky. GUSTING WINDS, dare I say, GALES. Starts blowing over all of our stuff. People come from all around to watch and we continue to rock out. The Dropkick Murphy’s are taken off the stage due to weather. We continue to play. All the microphones fall and my shit falls over. I stand on some cement platform and just spin my guitar and scream. Mike plays his drums as they’re falling into him. Bove’s bass rig starts blowing away. Math can barely hold up the tent. Sean plays trombone while trying to stop his hat from flying away. It was without a doubt the most kamikaze and awesome show we’ve ever done. Three songs were all we could do… we packed up our stuff in record time. JT grabbed a bar of soap and started showering in the rain, which after our performance, turned from monsoon to sunshower. Thanks, God.
The rest of us showered at a Flying J. We told them we were with the Warped Tour. They gave us a group discount. AWESOME? AWESOME. Lots of driving gets done. I don’t even know what day of the week it is. Anyway, we took forever at the Flying J and we REAL nervous about making it to the Warped Tour on time the next day? What happened the next day… coming soon… in the next installment of Holy Shit We’re On The Famous Punk Rock Tour.
6.19.2003
California 5: The End of Fucking California
So we're done. We drove 300 miles back in the opposite direction to Oakland to see a baseball game with Mike Park and now we're driving 600 miles to play in the parking lot of the Warped Tour.
Last night we pulled off the road to a Motel 6 that was outside Cowschwitz... the slaughtering field for cows... the place where cows go to die and cover the earth in cow shit before they die. We got a very cheap room and never stopped to wonder why because it was obviously due to the disgusting rancid smell outside. Anyway, we slept, we woke up, i didn't get to go see the price is right and if you know me you know that not seeing the price is right is the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. its been a dream for my entire life. my dreams. gone. gone. gone. gone. then we started the massive drive.
when you have a massive drive, you also need to fill up your tank with gasoline. we pulled over at the gas station and said "five minutes everyone" because i wasn't going to be late to oakland because of laziness because i COULD HAVE been late because i was busy winning prizes on the price is right. so we all go in, do our shit, pump our shit, but do we all leave? Apparently not. We got a phone call from the lady at Exxon about 15 minutes down the road
- Hi, you left Joe here.
- No, he's driving
- Joe is here and said you left him here
- WE LEFT BOVE! OH MY GOD!
:::inside jokes
usually we scream "kevin" to make sure that everybody is in the van, like in home alone, remember mr. culkin. anyway, today we decided that the home alone joke was getting old, tiresome and not funny at all. so we didn't do the kevin check. and go figure, for the first time ever, WE LEFT SOMEONE BEHIND! BOVE! It was really funny. Apparently he saw us pulling away and threw a soda at the van. After he saw us keep driving he thought it was a joke, ha ha leaving bove at the gas station. But then he saw us get on the interstate. And start driving quickly away from him. Then he tried calling people but almost all of our cell phones were dead. He planned on taking a plane home if we didn't come back by 5:00 and having Math play bass for the rest of the tour as punishment for us being stupid.
Today was an interesting day. We've been travelling around to eat for the past couple of days. Today we went to the Asian Man Records Oakland A's game/barbecue. Wow. What a lot of fun. We hung out with Mike Park, the Asian Man Records people, a bunch of really nice people and ate for free. We gaff taped a microphone to the inside of the car speaker and hooked up our PA system outside of the van so we could crank some rock and roll. Eventually we cranked some ASOB songs and some people heard it and liked it. Then we watched the game and there was some kid who kept screaming like a velociraptor. It was awesome.
When we went on tour, watching a baseball game with one of the people who inspired me to keep playing music never was what i thought one of the stops would be. Was that sentence gramatically correct? Probably not. Now its time to go go go go to the warped tour and starve some more. Awesome, huh? Not quite.
So we're done. We drove 300 miles back in the opposite direction to Oakland to see a baseball game with Mike Park and now we're driving 600 miles to play in the parking lot of the Warped Tour.
Last night we pulled off the road to a Motel 6 that was outside Cowschwitz... the slaughtering field for cows... the place where cows go to die and cover the earth in cow shit before they die. We got a very cheap room and never stopped to wonder why because it was obviously due to the disgusting rancid smell outside. Anyway, we slept, we woke up, i didn't get to go see the price is right and if you know me you know that not seeing the price is right is the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. its been a dream for my entire life. my dreams. gone. gone. gone. gone. then we started the massive drive.
when you have a massive drive, you also need to fill up your tank with gasoline. we pulled over at the gas station and said "five minutes everyone" because i wasn't going to be late to oakland because of laziness because i COULD HAVE been late because i was busy winning prizes on the price is right. so we all go in, do our shit, pump our shit, but do we all leave? Apparently not. We got a phone call from the lady at Exxon about 15 minutes down the road
- Hi, you left Joe here.
- No, he's driving
- Joe is here and said you left him here
- WE LEFT BOVE! OH MY GOD!
:::inside jokes
usually we scream "kevin" to make sure that everybody is in the van, like in home alone, remember mr. culkin. anyway, today we decided that the home alone joke was getting old, tiresome and not funny at all. so we didn't do the kevin check. and go figure, for the first time ever, WE LEFT SOMEONE BEHIND! BOVE! It was really funny. Apparently he saw us pulling away and threw a soda at the van. After he saw us keep driving he thought it was a joke, ha ha leaving bove at the gas station. But then he saw us get on the interstate. And start driving quickly away from him. Then he tried calling people but almost all of our cell phones were dead. He planned on taking a plane home if we didn't come back by 5:00 and having Math play bass for the rest of the tour as punishment for us being stupid.
Today was an interesting day. We've been travelling around to eat for the past couple of days. Today we went to the Asian Man Records Oakland A's game/barbecue. Wow. What a lot of fun. We hung out with Mike Park, the Asian Man Records people, a bunch of really nice people and ate for free. We gaff taped a microphone to the inside of the car speaker and hooked up our PA system outside of the van so we could crank some rock and roll. Eventually we cranked some ASOB songs and some people heard it and liked it. Then we watched the game and there was some kid who kept screaming like a velociraptor. It was awesome.
When we went on tour, watching a baseball game with one of the people who inspired me to keep playing music never was what i thought one of the stops would be. Was that sentence gramatically correct? Probably not. Now its time to go go go go to the warped tour and starve some more. Awesome, huh? Not quite.
6.18.2003
California 4: the emo diaries
I don’t know much about rock and roll, because according to me and my band and my record label and the band credit card rock and roll means driving from Northern California to Southern California (about 10 hours) to get to a show where none of the bands showed up and eat pizza for free then get told “I wouldn’t bother playing, no one’s really here” given about a 3% of the gas money that we had spent to get down there and then DRIVE BACK TO WHERE WE CAME FROM.
Today was a fucking depresser. For the first time on this tour I was riddled with headaches and my wonderful stomach problems came back to kick me in the ass. At some point JT came to the club and said “hey! My friend’s on tour with Jonah’s Onelinedrawing”….
HOLD ON. THIS WAS JT’S HOOKUP. HIS EGO IS SO GIANT THAT HE INTERRUPTED MY TIRADE TO SAY LET….
OK. He said he was sorry. Its alright now. He’s a nice guy.
Alright… now he’s gonna hold it against me for the next couple of days. JT, if you read this a few weeks from now, this is why I try to write alone while no one is looking.Tough love, eh?
Anyway, JT comes back from fucking nowhere and is just like “yeah, my friend is roadying (how does one spell this correctly? They don’t) for onelinedrawing.” Um… what? We sit around for a few hours before the promoter tells us that there really isn’t much point in playing…
Ok… at this point JT wants to destroy the laptop that I’m typing on because I’m talking shit about him. Jesus, JT. Lighten up!
So we’re just dicking around and JT I’m pretty sure said “lets play outside the show in the parking lot.” Little do ANY of us know that jonah was planning to play acoustically after the show ended and do a Q & A for his DVD. By the way, our DVD is not happening. So we start playing and the onelinedrawing parking lot and the show hasn’t ended yet AND another band has started playing in the place next door. Solution?
I saw flashes behind the giant piece of paper which was made up of four smaller pieces of paper with bold writing on it.
WAIT HERE. ROCK AND ROLL IS COMING SOON
I sat down on a broken merch bin with Joe sitting next to me with an acoustic guitar holding this in front of my face as kids left the show. If kids asked me anything I’d say “you know rock and roll? Its coming here soon.” Of course, like most cool ideas, it got old after a while and it looked like some weird artistic statement as people were leaving. So yeah, some people got some photos, and a bunch of people left because it took so long for us to actually start.
The band at the Attic finishes.
Jeff: “ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! 1-2-34”
Wow. I couldn’t believe how many people were enjoying themselves. They were most likely just waiting for jonah from onelinedrawing to come out and play some songs, but fucking, WOW. Didn’t expect that at all today after the shit that happened.
So yeah, kids. We opened for an “emo” superstar today in a parking lot. Jonah was a really nice guy and so were the people at that club. Not a total loss of a day. It all felt great. So, JT covers our asses once again.
I’m at the point in typing where my body is shutting down. My eyes are fucking drifting off… every word is starting to look like its spelled wrong. They’re all blending together. The only thing that is keeping me awake is reciting petty arguments verbatim for the world to see. I’d take it all out if I could but I can’t find the up arrow. Anyway, who knew that we’d be opening for hot emo acts, or even more oddly and Jonah said it, he opened for US. What a bizarre day. Time for more motels and driving.
I don’t know much about rock and roll, because according to me and my band and my record label and the band credit card rock and roll means driving from Northern California to Southern California (about 10 hours) to get to a show where none of the bands showed up and eat pizza for free then get told “I wouldn’t bother playing, no one’s really here” given about a 3% of the gas money that we had spent to get down there and then DRIVE BACK TO WHERE WE CAME FROM.
Today was a fucking depresser. For the first time on this tour I was riddled with headaches and my wonderful stomach problems came back to kick me in the ass. At some point JT came to the club and said “hey! My friend’s on tour with Jonah’s Onelinedrawing”….
HOLD ON. THIS WAS JT’S HOOKUP. HIS EGO IS SO GIANT THAT HE INTERRUPTED MY TIRADE TO SAY LET….
OK. He said he was sorry. Its alright now. He’s a nice guy.
Alright… now he’s gonna hold it against me for the next couple of days. JT, if you read this a few weeks from now, this is why I try to write alone while no one is looking.Tough love, eh?
Anyway, JT comes back from fucking nowhere and is just like “yeah, my friend is roadying (how does one spell this correctly? They don’t) for onelinedrawing.” Um… what? We sit around for a few hours before the promoter tells us that there really isn’t much point in playing…
Ok… at this point JT wants to destroy the laptop that I’m typing on because I’m talking shit about him. Jesus, JT. Lighten up!
So we’re just dicking around and JT I’m pretty sure said “lets play outside the show in the parking lot.” Little do ANY of us know that jonah was planning to play acoustically after the show ended and do a Q & A for his DVD. By the way, our DVD is not happening. So we start playing and the onelinedrawing parking lot and the show hasn’t ended yet AND another band has started playing in the place next door. Solution?
I saw flashes behind the giant piece of paper which was made up of four smaller pieces of paper with bold writing on it.
WAIT HERE. ROCK AND ROLL IS COMING SOON
I sat down on a broken merch bin with Joe sitting next to me with an acoustic guitar holding this in front of my face as kids left the show. If kids asked me anything I’d say “you know rock and roll? Its coming here soon.” Of course, like most cool ideas, it got old after a while and it looked like some weird artistic statement as people were leaving. So yeah, some people got some photos, and a bunch of people left because it took so long for us to actually start.
The band at the Attic finishes.
Jeff: “ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! 1-2-34”
Wow. I couldn’t believe how many people were enjoying themselves. They were most likely just waiting for jonah from onelinedrawing to come out and play some songs, but fucking, WOW. Didn’t expect that at all today after the shit that happened.
So yeah, kids. We opened for an “emo” superstar today in a parking lot. Jonah was a really nice guy and so were the people at that club. Not a total loss of a day. It all felt great. So, JT covers our asses once again.
I’m at the point in typing where my body is shutting down. My eyes are fucking drifting off… every word is starting to look like its spelled wrong. They’re all blending together. The only thing that is keeping me awake is reciting petty arguments verbatim for the world to see. I’d take it all out if I could but I can’t find the up arrow. Anyway, who knew that we’d be opening for hot emo acts, or even more oddly and Jonah said it, he opened for US. What a bizarre day. Time for more motels and driving.
6.17.2003
California 3
I don't really remember this morning very well. It's becoming kind of the same thing over and over again at certain points. You ask for the wake up call. You wake up for a couple of seconds then realize you showered the night before. Eventually everyone is mid-bagpacking and you wake up to find out that check out time is in like 10 minutes. You scramble to find what you'll probably forget in the room, you grab all the pillows from the Motel 6 and then you get out and start driving towards somewhere that you will either arrive at way too early or way too late. Today we went into San Francisco, grabbed a cheap breakfast and stopped by Amoeba Music which was the worst thing we could have done. The following will be updated tomorrow once I get confirmation on what was purchased.
JEFF: The Who - Tommy (vinyl)
Adolescents - S/T (vinyl)
Wire - Pink Flag
Big Black - Songs About Fucking
Blue Meanies - Full Throttle
Squeeze - don't remmeber the album title (vinyl)
Radiohead - OK Computer (vinyl)
Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO
JT: Two Pansy Division records
BOVE: Cursive - The Ugly Organ (vinyl)
Neutral Milk Hotel - The Aeroplane Over The Sea (vinyl)
Don't really remember the rest, especially other buys, but I know we wasted too much money. Then we started driving to get JT and Dave fixed up. As you know if you've been reading, Dave has been sick in the throat and JT lost his hearing in one ear. Apparently Dave's uncle is a doctor and they decided to go up and get some free medical attention.
We had no idea where we were driving towards though for like an hour or so. Eventually I pulled off the road so we could play mini-golf and kill time... we ended up just not playing mini golf. I watched people take Dance Dance Revolution was too seriously.
We got to Dave's family's house which is three hours out of the way and up the windiest roads I've seen in my entire life. I'll be honest. Once again I'm tired and other people want to use this computer time. Maybe we'll have some shows soon... they all seem to be getting cancelled. Just kidding music industry types, we're very professional.
It was great pulling up to the house and being welcome with a blinking flashlight, a screaming dog, the most giant incredible stars I've seen in my entire life. Dave's family lives on the coast... in the "sticks" as they said repeatedly, and it was great... a fireplace, a warm meal of pasta and salad and beer.
JT got his ear irrigated... which means that Dave's aunt injected hydrogen peroxide into to his ear and ripped out chunks of wax... JT can hear again out of the other ear and he is sitting in the living room playing Kill The President on the piano singing like Johnny Cash... our family and friends have been so incredible to us in letting us stay in their places and feeding us. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go breathe some fresh air and look at stars until I fall asleep.
I don't really remember this morning very well. It's becoming kind of the same thing over and over again at certain points. You ask for the wake up call. You wake up for a couple of seconds then realize you showered the night before. Eventually everyone is mid-bagpacking and you wake up to find out that check out time is in like 10 minutes. You scramble to find what you'll probably forget in the room, you grab all the pillows from the Motel 6 and then you get out and start driving towards somewhere that you will either arrive at way too early or way too late. Today we went into San Francisco, grabbed a cheap breakfast and stopped by Amoeba Music which was the worst thing we could have done. The following will be updated tomorrow once I get confirmation on what was purchased.
JEFF: The Who - Tommy (vinyl)
Adolescents - S/T (vinyl)
Wire - Pink Flag
Big Black - Songs About Fucking
Blue Meanies - Full Throttle
Squeeze - don't remmeber the album title (vinyl)
Radiohead - OK Computer (vinyl)
Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO
JT: Two Pansy Division records
BOVE: Cursive - The Ugly Organ (vinyl)
Neutral Milk Hotel - The Aeroplane Over The Sea (vinyl)
Don't really remember the rest, especially other buys, but I know we wasted too much money. Then we started driving to get JT and Dave fixed up. As you know if you've been reading, Dave has been sick in the throat and JT lost his hearing in one ear. Apparently Dave's uncle is a doctor and they decided to go up and get some free medical attention.
We had no idea where we were driving towards though for like an hour or so. Eventually I pulled off the road so we could play mini-golf and kill time... we ended up just not playing mini golf. I watched people take Dance Dance Revolution was too seriously.
We got to Dave's family's house which is three hours out of the way and up the windiest roads I've seen in my entire life. I'll be honest. Once again I'm tired and other people want to use this computer time. Maybe we'll have some shows soon... they all seem to be getting cancelled. Just kidding music industry types, we're very professional.
It was great pulling up to the house and being welcome with a blinking flashlight, a screaming dog, the most giant incredible stars I've seen in my entire life. Dave's family lives on the coast... in the "sticks" as they said repeatedly, and it was great... a fireplace, a warm meal of pasta and salad and beer.
JT got his ear irrigated... which means that Dave's aunt injected hydrogen peroxide into to his ear and ripped out chunks of wax... JT can hear again out of the other ear and he is sitting in the living room playing Kill The President on the piano singing like Johnny Cash... our family and friends have been so incredible to us in letting us stay in their places and feeding us. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go breathe some fresh air and look at stars until I fall asleep.
6.16.2003
California 1 + 2
Driving up to Stockton totally sucked. You figure, hey, driving through California, lots of fun, lots of interesting stuff to see, yeah yeah yeah yeah. No. You drive on the freeway, and you see nothing. You see exits with no numbers. No milemarkers. No way to determine where the hell you are on your fucking 500 600 700 800 mile trip. Just exit names. And no scenery. Just plains. Grass. Nothing interesting. Nothing beautiful. Just the same shit you’ve been seeing for hours and hours and hours.
Ok. Some things are interesting. We drove through a giant windmill area where we encountered about 10,000 giant windmills around each turn. It was scary as shit. They snuck up on you. Or maybe I was just sleep deprived. Later on when Dave was driving we passed through what is known as Cowschwitz, the land of the most cows I’ve ever seen, the smell was pungent enough to wake me up out of a dead sleep.
Interesting? Well. That’s California for ya. Not too interesting to look at from the windows of a speeding van on the freeway. We pulled up at the venue and the people running the show were probably the nicest that we’ve met so far. One gave me deodorant and one gave us endless stories about life on the road with real bands. Wait, we’re a real band. I keep forgetting.
Our first all ages show in a really long time… and for some reason we do not get as good a reaction as we get at the 21 and over crowd. Stupid, huh? Crazy kids. Anyway, we played our set then got ready for our day off.
We drove to meet up with Lila, and old friend of JT, and Mike, her boyfriend. In San Francisco we had a few problems when we were supposed to stay at Mike’s house. As we were trying to find a place to stay, we realized we were in a bad area when we were accosted for heroin purchasing and not left alone until a cop started to comb the area. So, hmmmm, do we park the van with a cash box full of cash, a TV in plain view, a massive DVD collection, a playstation and a computer in a place where it is certain that it will be burglarized? No. JT, Bove and I stay in San Francisco and the rest of the crew went to a Motel 6 an hour outside of town. We plan to meet up in the morning
rougly 6:00 am
- what?
- Hey, Jeff, its Dave. We’re getting the motel the next day because we can check in at 5:30.
- What about us?
- We all need to sleep, we’ll be in there when we wake up.
- Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
- We need to sleep, dude.
- You’re fucking leaving us here. Fuck you. Fuck you.
- Well, I don’t…
- Go fuck yourself. (click)
Apparently there were problems with the Motel 6 chain. Liars. Thieves. Et cetera. Maybe that’s why we’re stealing money from them as we speak. Or as I speak. Whatever.
Fuck the tour diary today. It was a great day for me in San Francisco… we ate burritos, went to record stores and just hung out for a while. Cleared my head, man.
Funny story, a dog ate JT’s burrito while we were there. Unfunny story, the entire ride back to the motel Math was talking about eating ass.
I suggest that if anyone has the chance, go to fucking San Francisco ‘cause its really nice there. Alright I’m done for today.
Driving up to Stockton totally sucked. You figure, hey, driving through California, lots of fun, lots of interesting stuff to see, yeah yeah yeah yeah. No. You drive on the freeway, and you see nothing. You see exits with no numbers. No milemarkers. No way to determine where the hell you are on your fucking 500 600 700 800 mile trip. Just exit names. And no scenery. Just plains. Grass. Nothing interesting. Nothing beautiful. Just the same shit you’ve been seeing for hours and hours and hours.
Ok. Some things are interesting. We drove through a giant windmill area where we encountered about 10,000 giant windmills around each turn. It was scary as shit. They snuck up on you. Or maybe I was just sleep deprived. Later on when Dave was driving we passed through what is known as Cowschwitz, the land of the most cows I’ve ever seen, the smell was pungent enough to wake me up out of a dead sleep.
Interesting? Well. That’s California for ya. Not too interesting to look at from the windows of a speeding van on the freeway. We pulled up at the venue and the people running the show were probably the nicest that we’ve met so far. One gave me deodorant and one gave us endless stories about life on the road with real bands. Wait, we’re a real band. I keep forgetting.
Our first all ages show in a really long time… and for some reason we do not get as good a reaction as we get at the 21 and over crowd. Stupid, huh? Crazy kids. Anyway, we played our set then got ready for our day off.
We drove to meet up with Lila, and old friend of JT, and Mike, her boyfriend. In San Francisco we had a few problems when we were supposed to stay at Mike’s house. As we were trying to find a place to stay, we realized we were in a bad area when we were accosted for heroin purchasing and not left alone until a cop started to comb the area. So, hmmmm, do we park the van with a cash box full of cash, a TV in plain view, a massive DVD collection, a playstation and a computer in a place where it is certain that it will be burglarized? No. JT, Bove and I stay in San Francisco and the rest of the crew went to a Motel 6 an hour outside of town. We plan to meet up in the morning
rougly 6:00 am
- what?
- Hey, Jeff, its Dave. We’re getting the motel the next day because we can check in at 5:30.
- What about us?
- We all need to sleep, we’ll be in there when we wake up.
- Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
- We need to sleep, dude.
- You’re fucking leaving us here. Fuck you. Fuck you.
- Well, I don’t…
- Go fuck yourself. (click)
Apparently there were problems with the Motel 6 chain. Liars. Thieves. Et cetera. Maybe that’s why we’re stealing money from them as we speak. Or as I speak. Whatever.
Fuck the tour diary today. It was a great day for me in San Francisco… we ate burritos, went to record stores and just hung out for a while. Cleared my head, man.
Funny story, a dog ate JT’s burrito while we were there. Unfunny story, the entire ride back to the motel Math was talking about eating ass.
I suggest that if anyone has the chance, go to fucking San Francisco ‘cause its really nice there. Alright I’m done for today.
6.15.2003
Arizona
We rolled into Alicia [I don’t know her family’s last name so I will just replace it with the last name of summer movie blockbuster Matrix 2 megstar, Keanu Reeves] Reeves’ house and it was 100 something degrees outside… they say all this bullshit about dry heat, but fuck that. Heat is heat is heat is heat is heat is heat. The Reeves were extremely nice to us, Alicia’s parents made us some food, let us swim in their pool and drink their soda. We watched Old School on TV.
Alicia, Bove, Lisa and I went to the guitar shop in the middle of the day to fix my telecaster and saw a gem of a guitar… Danelectro U2 199something reissue with lipstick pickups for $150. I love cheap guitars, I love Danelectros so I told the guy at the store I would be back later with my credit card when I come to pick up my guitar. We ate some more peanut butter and jelly and then we went back to the guitar store to pick up my broken guitar and my new backup guitar. And the fucker fucking sold it. In like less than two hours. I think the guy didn’t like the cut of my gib. So I was pretty depressed and we ended up waiting like two or three hours for this guy to fix my guitar because I guess he was too busy selling guitars that I was reserving to fix it during the day.
Load in was at 7:30 I think? We got to Alicia’s house at around some time, I forget, but it was late. We sat down to eat pasta and Sean McCabe called me.
- Yes?
- Um… Alicia and Lisa can’t go to the show tonight. They’re ID’ing everyone… including band members.
- What?
- Math can’t get in.
- So what are we supposed to do?
- Well, Dave thinks you should pick up some colored pencils and I’ll chalk your ID.
- No.
- Well, you and Bove can come in for when we play but you have to leave immediately after that.
- Bummer.
Ridiculous, right? THEY WOULDN’T LET THE BAND IN THE CLUB. Once we played it was a really fun night. I decided that since there was a parking lot scene at this bar that I would play acoustically outside after our set for the kids who couldn’t get in and for our friends from Arizona who couldn’t get in and because I had to exit the bar immediately after playing. Once again, this went over terribly… not as terribly as last time, but come on. Doesn’t this sound like a really good idea all the time? Free acoustic show? Here’s the gist… no one is ever around the performance, so it just looks like me being an idiot playing songs to myself.
At this point I would just like to mention that we were extremely rude house guests. I won’t explain why, but we were and I’m sorry to the Sanchez family (Bove just gave me their last name) for causing any trouble. Anyone else who’s house we’re staying at… um… we’re nice friendly people. We just fuck up some times.
Anyway, after returning to the house at 5:00 AM when we planned to leave at 3:00 AM and the family was waiting up for us, and after I had to deny breakfast because we had to hit the road immediately, we left. Short story of it. I decided to take the giant drive to California because I’m an idiot. I start falling asleep, drank a giant cup of coffee and whoa… all of a sudden all the brown dusty mountains turned into green palm trees as we passed the state line to California. Then it turned back to brown dusty mountains after about 30 seconds.
By the way, JT stuck a Q-Tip in his ear too deep and he has lost his hearing entirely in his left ear since. Isn’t that shitty for him?
hey fellas... this is LONG overdue.
We did the overnight drive assuming that there would be something to do in New Mexico when we arrived in the morning. You know… take in the culture of another state, try to sell some CDs at local record stores, walk around not knowing where we are. Well, there was a trophy store and a Billy the Kid gift shop… and that was pretty much it. The man at the Billy the Kid gift shop said that Masilla is probably one of the most dead corners of the United States.
So we walked around and saw all the sites. The Billy the Kid gift shop. The trophy store. The gazebo. We all eventually reconvened at the van where I replaced my contact lenses, Sean read an entire book and JT poured water into an empty bottle of iced tea and used it to take a shower and shave and brush his teeth.
I woke up at some point and it was hot and sweaty outside. Math, Sean and Bove were at a restaurant called El Posta.
sean vs. the working class
sean: where is a restaurant?
Woman at store: well, there’s two restaurants… there’s [insert name here] and el posta.
Sean: well, which one’s good?
Woman: the food at [insert name here] is much better
Sean: I want a restaurant that will give us the true essence of New Mexico
Woman: that’s el Posta.
Math: Where’s the head shop?
The food was real good and pretty cheap. JT got diarrhea from it I believe, and I think some of us others had stomach problems too… whatever. There was a talking parrot in the restaurant. I said “Balls”, Sean giggles, then the parrot laughed. We were creeped out. The parrot said “Come here!” which was cool, but then it kept saying “come here” for about 5 minutes. We were scared it would eat us.
Show time. We met Sam from Liquid Cheese who was the nicest person ever, and his band was the greatest bunch of guys ever. I CAN NOT SAY ENOUGH ABOUT LIQUID CHEESE. They were totally nice and really really good. I broke the second guitar of the tour which sucks a whole lot. Sean and Dave proved once again tonight that they cannot spend one night without drinking and we have dubbed them the 80 proof horns because they’re alcoholics. Good to know.
Sean and Dave both bought shots for girls and demanded their money back to band members who those girls went off with… Sean at one point poured a cup of water on somebody’s head and then threw ice… damn alcoholics. Bottom line: New Mexico was a lot of fun, there were old people skanking and stuff which was cool. Liquid Cheese gave us more shout outs from stage than any band in the history of the world, and they rocked really hard and there were lots of hot girls and someone might have gotten head from one of them. Who could it be?
Joe was on driving patrol since the rest of us were either ready to pass out or inebriated and useless behind the wheel. We all did pass out and Joe was running extremely low on gas. Of course, we were in the middle of bumbleshitville New Mexico so… no gas stations. Eventually Joe managed to pull of into a gas station on a dirt road that was self serve… no attendants whatsoever, no lights just a gas pump, a credit card swipe and BATS? As Joe was trying to make a giant u-turn on this dirt road, there were a whole fuckload of orange cones blocking off the exit. He stepped out of the van and just starting throwing orange cones all over the place afraid that the bats which were circling overhead were going to attack him. All of this while everyone was asleep. Is he lying about the bats and the cones? I don’t know. JT and I were buried under all the pillows and blankets in the van.
At about 4:30 I said “are we stopping to eat?”. The response? “Yes.” What I heard? “Joe and Dave are already eating.” So I took my sleeping pills so I can go to bed. Turns out we were pulling in at Denny’s that very second. I was hungry so I stayed awake as long as I could so I could eat some greezy food. Bove, Dave, Joe and I were all sitting at the table saying that none of us could drive. Of course we all eventually agreed on Dave driving (he was sober at this point or at least it was reasonable to assume so) and after 25 hard core minutes of driving, he pulled into an Arby’s parking lot to take a nap for an hour. At 8:30 AM, Bove woke up and said “fuck it, I’ll drive.” So right now, it is about three hours earlier than it is at home because we are in Pacific Standard Time and we’re on our way to Arizona in the van. Yeeeeeyah.
We did the overnight drive assuming that there would be something to do in New Mexico when we arrived in the morning. You know… take in the culture of another state, try to sell some CDs at local record stores, walk around not knowing where we are. Well, there was a trophy store and a Billy the Kid gift shop… and that was pretty much it. The man at the Billy the Kid gift shop said that Masilla is probably one of the most dead corners of the United States.
So we walked around and saw all the sites. The Billy the Kid gift shop. The trophy store. The gazebo. We all eventually reconvened at the van where I replaced my contact lenses, Sean read an entire book and JT poured water into an empty bottle of iced tea and used it to take a shower and shave and brush his teeth.
I woke up at some point and it was hot and sweaty outside. Math, Sean and Bove were at a restaurant called El Posta.
sean vs. the working class
sean: where is a restaurant?
Woman at store: well, there’s two restaurants… there’s [insert name here] and el posta.
Sean: well, which one’s good?
Woman: the food at [insert name here] is much better
Sean: I want a restaurant that will give us the true essence of New Mexico
Woman: that’s el Posta.
Math: Where’s the head shop?
The food was real good and pretty cheap. JT got diarrhea from it I believe, and I think some of us others had stomach problems too… whatever. There was a talking parrot in the restaurant. I said “Balls”, Sean giggles, then the parrot laughed. We were creeped out. The parrot said “Come here!” which was cool, but then it kept saying “come here” for about 5 minutes. We were scared it would eat us.
Show time. We met Sam from Liquid Cheese who was the nicest person ever, and his band was the greatest bunch of guys ever. I CAN NOT SAY ENOUGH ABOUT LIQUID CHEESE. They were totally nice and really really good. I broke the second guitar of the tour which sucks a whole lot. Sean and Dave proved once again tonight that they cannot spend one night without drinking and we have dubbed them the 80 proof horns because they’re alcoholics. Good to know.
Sean and Dave both bought shots for girls and demanded their money back to band members who those girls went off with… Sean at one point poured a cup of water on somebody’s head and then threw ice… damn alcoholics. Bottom line: New Mexico was a lot of fun, there were old people skanking and stuff which was cool. Liquid Cheese gave us more shout outs from stage than any band in the history of the world, and they rocked really hard and there were lots of hot girls and someone might have gotten head from one of them. Who could it be?
Joe was on driving patrol since the rest of us were either ready to pass out or inebriated and useless behind the wheel. We all did pass out and Joe was running extremely low on gas. Of course, we were in the middle of bumbleshitville New Mexico so… no gas stations. Eventually Joe managed to pull of into a gas station on a dirt road that was self serve… no attendants whatsoever, no lights just a gas pump, a credit card swipe and BATS? As Joe was trying to make a giant u-turn on this dirt road, there were a whole fuckload of orange cones blocking off the exit. He stepped out of the van and just starting throwing orange cones all over the place afraid that the bats which were circling overhead were going to attack him. All of this while everyone was asleep. Is he lying about the bats and the cones? I don’t know. JT and I were buried under all the pillows and blankets in the van.
At about 4:30 I said “are we stopping to eat?”. The response? “Yes.” What I heard? “Joe and Dave are already eating.” So I took my sleeping pills so I can go to bed. Turns out we were pulling in at Denny’s that very second. I was hungry so I stayed awake as long as I could so I could eat some greezy food. Bove, Dave, Joe and I were all sitting at the table saying that none of us could drive. Of course we all eventually agreed on Dave driving (he was sober at this point or at least it was reasonable to assume so) and after 25 hard core minutes of driving, he pulled into an Arby’s parking lot to take a nap for an hour. At 8:30 AM, Bove woke up and said “fuck it, I’ll drive.” So right now, it is about three hours earlier than it is at home because we are in Pacific Standard Time and we’re on our way to Arizona in the van. Yeeeeeyah.
Texas… all of it
We woke up in the Motel 6, or at least I did around half past noon. Apparently since early on enough in the morning, people had been running back and forth from the bathroom throwing up. Math was taking 6 mile journeys on foot to the Ford dealer and back because he’s afraid to hitchhike.
Not much happened during the ride over. We finally found the Super Way but it wasn’t the superway. Make sense? No. Do you ever get the feeling that these tour diary entries are just the same old bullshit repeated over and over again with different words? Has everyone stopped reading by now? Especially the parents of Sean McCabe?
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Sean McCabe fell in love at the show last night. IN LOVE. He fell in love so hard that he jumped up on top of some guardrail outside of the bar and started singing songs from Moulin Rouge, replacing the word “hero” with “beero” and proceeded to fall really hard, gash him arm open and fuck up his back hardcore. He refused to wipe up the blood for a while because “he wanted to impress the guys”.
The show was not great tonight… afterwards a lot of people were showing love but we got a pretty bad time slot (following up a white rap trio called skitlecrew), nobody thought we were going to be good until after we were done playing (then they said ‘wow, I came here for los skacarnes, I didn’t expect for you guys to blow me away). But that didn’t make much of a difference… the day was about 75% driving/eating and we lost lots and lots of money. So, that was the night. We met some really cool people at the bar and I’m sure it was just our night that was a bummer. I think it was Wednesday or something.
We had another billion hour drive that night… everyone passed out as I drove. Eventually I decided I wanted to listen to the new Radiohead again: bad idea for anyone who is driving and is tired. Needless to say we pulled over and I wrote most of this.
6.11.2003
Louisiana
So last night was the start of mass alcoholism and the beginning of the imposition of drinking rules and limits. There was sex, vomiting, fist fights, yelling fights, too much money spent, public disturbances, public urination and more vomiting. Who did what? What did who? That’s none of your fucking business. When you start talking about other people’s lives as if they’re your own you don’t have a life anymore.
Anyway, we show up to the show after a day of swimming, sleeping and Pulp Fiction at the motel and there aren’t too many people there. Turns out that there’s a Saliva show going on down the road. So we’re up against Saliva… if I could think of any of their singles I’d say the “______” guys, but I can’t. They sang that Spiderman song I think.
Looking for cigarettes we met up with a guy named Eric who repeatedly said that he was “THE last punk in Louisiana.” He was a nice guy, he introduced us to Boone’s Farm and encouraged all of us to drink as much as possible which I’m not sure if it was a good idea or not… well yeah, I am sure it was not.
The show was fanfanfantastic. There’s nothing to say about it except that we had a great time playing and everyone seemed to be having a good time as well. Will the promoter lent me his megaphone at the end of the set for a 15-minute long Piss Off rant. I just wanted to drop Will’s name. I broke my backup guitar pretty fucking bad… during “People Pops and Fudgesicles for the Hit Factory” one string snapped, then another string, then the neck went the other way and then I took it and started slamming it into the ground. Bove said he might be able to fix it.
Sets over. Enter the mass drinking I spoke of earlier, enter the fist fights, sex and vomiting. Et cetera. Et cetera.
Eventually we ended up back at the Motel 6. I sat by the pool alone for a while in the pouring rain just thinking about how cool it is that we’re in Louisiana and how much it sucks that I’m incapable of having a good time because I’m always making sure I don’t drink toooo much. Then I smoked a bible blunt, and called it a night. Finally smoked the bible blunt. Finally. Off to Houston.
So last night was the start of mass alcoholism and the beginning of the imposition of drinking rules and limits. There was sex, vomiting, fist fights, yelling fights, too much money spent, public disturbances, public urination and more vomiting. Who did what? What did who? That’s none of your fucking business. When you start talking about other people’s lives as if they’re your own you don’t have a life anymore.
Anyway, we show up to the show after a day of swimming, sleeping and Pulp Fiction at the motel and there aren’t too many people there. Turns out that there’s a Saliva show going on down the road. So we’re up against Saliva… if I could think of any of their singles I’d say the “______” guys, but I can’t. They sang that Spiderman song I think.
Looking for cigarettes we met up with a guy named Eric who repeatedly said that he was “THE last punk in Louisiana.” He was a nice guy, he introduced us to Boone’s Farm and encouraged all of us to drink as much as possible which I’m not sure if it was a good idea or not… well yeah, I am sure it was not.
The show was fanfanfantastic. There’s nothing to say about it except that we had a great time playing and everyone seemed to be having a good time as well. Will the promoter lent me his megaphone at the end of the set for a 15-minute long Piss Off rant. I just wanted to drop Will’s name. I broke my backup guitar pretty fucking bad… during “People Pops and Fudgesicles for the Hit Factory” one string snapped, then another string, then the neck went the other way and then I took it and started slamming it into the ground. Bove said he might be able to fix it.
Sets over. Enter the mass drinking I spoke of earlier, enter the fist fights, sex and vomiting. Et cetera. Et cetera.
Eventually we ended up back at the Motel 6. I sat by the pool alone for a while in the pouring rain just thinking about how cool it is that we’re in Louisiana and how much it sucks that I’m incapable of having a good time because I’m always making sure I don’t drink toooo much. Then I smoked a bible blunt, and called it a night. Finally smoked the bible blunt. Finally. Off to Houston.
6.10.2003
Tampa, Florida + 13 Hour Drive
Good morning? It was another allll niiiight and alllll afternooner. I don’t really even remember how the day started, but I believe it was with Franken Berry cereal. The night before Math dumped all of Dave’s laundry on top of him and eventually Dave’s laundry fell onto the floor where there was cat hair, Dave’s allergic to cat hair blah blah blah blah I slept through just about the rest of it except I kept hearing “I got pig knuckled!” all morning.
We were late today, but not THAT late to pick up Sean McCabe at the airport. The trailer has been “searched” twice in Florida if searched means
- What do you have in there?
- Instruments
- Oh. Carry on.
We got a call saying that the show at the bar that night, um, we were dropped off of it. Last minute kind of thing. Band travels from New York, fuck them, they’re not playing because we only want locals to play while people are boxing. We stopped by the (ugh) mall, to avoid rush hour traffic and to try and cell a few CDs to mall punks. We didn’t find any mall punks but we found some people who did buy our CD so we would leave them alone. “Somebody Wrote This Song Already” was blasting in a cigar shop in the mall. Awesome.
Some people went to go get cigars while Bove and I attempted to buy the new Radiohead before it actually came out. The guy at Sam Goody was really scared at selling it to us because… apparently record labels pay people who look like us to walk into stores and buy albums hours before they’re released and then fire the employees that sell those albums. The guy was cool though, he had just recently seen X somewhere and he told us about a hip record shop called Vinyl Fever which was about 10 minutes away.
We went to Vinyl Fever hoping to consign stuff. Nope, we live too far away. We wanted to do an in-store maybe. Nope, store closes in 45 minutes. Can I at least have the new Radiohead record? Yeah, sure. Special edition? Right on. We decided to do an acoustic performance outside the record store so people can see us, like us, and buy the CD. It was a good idea right? In lieu of a show not happening this is a good way to make up for it, right? No one gave a f-f-fuck. But it was fun playing.
Mitchell from Fang Shooey eventually showed up and invited us to his practice studio to hang out and play for a bunch of people. No people ever showed up, so we hung out, smoked, drank, went to Exxon, took a shit there, and then up and left.
We drove for a little bit and then stopped off at a Waffle House where Math and Sean’s pre-twenties powers combined made us look like the biggest New York assholes. Everyone was telling all sorts of rude jokes, making rude remarks, stealing waffles, hitting on our forty year old waitress. Dave at one point said to the waitress (about me) “he’s not saying anything funny tonight, usually he’s just as bad.” I replied “that’s because I have anal beads in my butt.” We also saw a TRUCK STOP WHORE who was totally fucking some trucker in the cab as we were leaving. That was awesome.
Then we went to Speedway. Ashley Associate was working. I believe she was extremely harassed by the delirious New Yorkers, but she was having fun with it. WE MADE A NEW FRIEND! We hung out speaking through a little hole in the window for about 20 minutes, buying cigarettes without identification. We tried paying for food in condoms. Ashley put her breast up to the window. She didn’t want to buy a CD, but we shared a moment through the little thing where you pass the money through, I held her hand and apologized for my behavior. Then I busted in her face.
THEN WE DROVE. So fucking far. After hundreds and hundreds of miles we were running low on gas. No problems, there are EXITS on the interstate, right? Bove and I waited 50 miles and all the rest stops had no gas stations or the gas stations were just not open. What the fuck? What the fuuuuck? We were very close to staying in a broken down van all night but then finally found a gas station that was open. There were bugs up the ass, like crazy amounts of bugs, but we got gas and bug spray and tried to sell a CD to the gas station attendant. At this point we have crossed time zones. Right now it is 1:52 central time. Cool, right?
As a test of willpower, I stayed awake through all of Sandinista! And made it all the way to Alabama. Driving across the ENTIRE panhandle. We switched over in Alabama and then sleeping seemed like a good idea to me. Things that they saw while they were driving: a chain gang, New Orleans and they drove through Mississippi.
When we got back here and I started writing this Dave started giving me shit because “I leave stuff out because I’m not awake when it happens.” Oh well, fuck that. I will say again, and for the last time, this is MY tour diary, what happens to me. I don’t care about anyone else in my band. I’m the singer. I’m the most important. Oh yeah, I’m in Louisiana. Wow. By the way, for all the mothers of the band reading this, I can attest that your son is passed out in a gutter right now with an STD. Sorry.
Good morning? It was another allll niiiight and alllll afternooner. I don’t really even remember how the day started, but I believe it was with Franken Berry cereal. The night before Math dumped all of Dave’s laundry on top of him and eventually Dave’s laundry fell onto the floor where there was cat hair, Dave’s allergic to cat hair blah blah blah blah I slept through just about the rest of it except I kept hearing “I got pig knuckled!” all morning.
We were late today, but not THAT late to pick up Sean McCabe at the airport. The trailer has been “searched” twice in Florida if searched means
- What do you have in there?
- Instruments
- Oh. Carry on.
We got a call saying that the show at the bar that night, um, we were dropped off of it. Last minute kind of thing. Band travels from New York, fuck them, they’re not playing because we only want locals to play while people are boxing. We stopped by the (ugh) mall, to avoid rush hour traffic and to try and cell a few CDs to mall punks. We didn’t find any mall punks but we found some people who did buy our CD so we would leave them alone. “Somebody Wrote This Song Already” was blasting in a cigar shop in the mall. Awesome.
Some people went to go get cigars while Bove and I attempted to buy the new Radiohead before it actually came out. The guy at Sam Goody was really scared at selling it to us because… apparently record labels pay people who look like us to walk into stores and buy albums hours before they’re released and then fire the employees that sell those albums. The guy was cool though, he had just recently seen X somewhere and he told us about a hip record shop called Vinyl Fever which was about 10 minutes away.
We went to Vinyl Fever hoping to consign stuff. Nope, we live too far away. We wanted to do an in-store maybe. Nope, store closes in 45 minutes. Can I at least have the new Radiohead record? Yeah, sure. Special edition? Right on. We decided to do an acoustic performance outside the record store so people can see us, like us, and buy the CD. It was a good idea right? In lieu of a show not happening this is a good way to make up for it, right? No one gave a f-f-fuck. But it was fun playing.
Mitchell from Fang Shooey eventually showed up and invited us to his practice studio to hang out and play for a bunch of people. No people ever showed up, so we hung out, smoked, drank, went to Exxon, took a shit there, and then up and left.
We drove for a little bit and then stopped off at a Waffle House where Math and Sean’s pre-twenties powers combined made us look like the biggest New York assholes. Everyone was telling all sorts of rude jokes, making rude remarks, stealing waffles, hitting on our forty year old waitress. Dave at one point said to the waitress (about me) “he’s not saying anything funny tonight, usually he’s just as bad.” I replied “that’s because I have anal beads in my butt.” We also saw a TRUCK STOP WHORE who was totally fucking some trucker in the cab as we were leaving. That was awesome.
Then we went to Speedway. Ashley Associate was working. I believe she was extremely harassed by the delirious New Yorkers, but she was having fun with it. WE MADE A NEW FRIEND! We hung out speaking through a little hole in the window for about 20 minutes, buying cigarettes without identification. We tried paying for food in condoms. Ashley put her breast up to the window. She didn’t want to buy a CD, but we shared a moment through the little thing where you pass the money through, I held her hand and apologized for my behavior. Then I busted in her face.
THEN WE DROVE. So fucking far. After hundreds and hundreds of miles we were running low on gas. No problems, there are EXITS on the interstate, right? Bove and I waited 50 miles and all the rest stops had no gas stations or the gas stations were just not open. What the fuck? What the fuuuuck? We were very close to staying in a broken down van all night but then finally found a gas station that was open. There were bugs up the ass, like crazy amounts of bugs, but we got gas and bug spray and tried to sell a CD to the gas station attendant. At this point we have crossed time zones. Right now it is 1:52 central time. Cool, right?
As a test of willpower, I stayed awake through all of Sandinista! And made it all the way to Alabama. Driving across the ENTIRE panhandle. We switched over in Alabama and then sleeping seemed like a good idea to me. Things that they saw while they were driving: a chain gang, New Orleans and they drove through Mississippi.
When we got back here and I started writing this Dave started giving me shit because “I leave stuff out because I’m not awake when it happens.” Oh well, fuck that. I will say again, and for the last time, this is MY tour diary, what happens to me. I don’t care about anyone else in my band. I’m the singer. I’m the most important. Oh yeah, I’m in Louisiana. Wow. By the way, for all the mothers of the band reading this, I can attest that your son is passed out in a gutter right now with an STD. Sorry.
6.09.2003
Naples, Florida
If I have one suggestion for bands that are planning to tour: do not involve hardcore video gaming. Since the playstation installation and the stay at Adam Geller's fine house where we can play video games on a huge TV there have been more fights than the last week altogether. No one wants to sit in the front of the van, no one wants to sleep, no one wants to leave, everyone wants to get back early to play more video games. So don't fucking bring them.
We got out relatively less late then usual, the exit was delayed by video games. We drove to the show down this long road called Alligator Alley. I've never heard of it before but its like 80 miles of just one straight road that has no exits... no nothin'. Just water on both sides, kind of a swamp, apparently alligators used to crawl in the middle of the road and you'd drive over them.
We played at a skate park today and it was totally fucking awesome. We weren't allowed to curse so we did our best not too even though I dropped one or two around the time of "Piss Off"... Naples was just really great to us today. We mastered the art of cheap eating as I bought both dinner and breakfast for tomorrow for less than two dollars. Its fuckin' 4:30, we gotta get up early tomorrow. Nothing to talk about today except for a show that was fuckin' great. Thanks to anyone who came down to it today, the guys in 33 West and Keepsake and the local band (i forgot your name, I'm very sorry) were all extremely nice and fun to be around. I also tried to buy the skate shop owner's daughter's longboard off of her for like five bucks. I think the woman there got very angry with me. I think JT is trying to die on stage every night. Isn't that punk?
Oh yeah, it was really hot today. Abnormally hot. SO hot. I thought I missed the heat but today I remembered how shitty hot weather can be. REALLY shitty. Anyway, its off to bed. Talk to you tomorrow, perhaps it'll be slightly more interesting.
6.08.2003
Florida
You know the day isn't going to be the best day of your life when you wake up around 7:30 in the morning in a full body sweat to the first song on that Midtown album. Yknow? God I wish I could hate you for the rest of my et cetera. I opened my eyes, we were at Denny's and Dave was running around screaming and eventually vomiting. Thanks, No Doz.
I took over the driving and landed us in Coral Springs, Florida, the home of Adam Geller, a friend of ours who moved to Coral Springs a few years ago. He said that he did not expect us to show up just like the last tour when we said "can i stay at your place in florida?" and he worked his whole week around it, tried to find us a show and we just didn't show up.
We all decided to go swimming because Adam has a pool. In fact, we really didn't do shit today except for swimming. We arrived in Florida too late to try and hop on the show that we wanted to get on, we were too tired to go walk around... funny fact is that we drove 40 minutes to go to a place that was the equivalent of White Castle in Florida. Nice to know that even out of state we are still scumbags.
JT got some cords for his 4-track and we decided that we would finally accomplish our dream concept album: based on the plot of the movie Speed. The demos from these sessions will be recorded during tour and a live show with the Wildcat Players should ensue shortly after. We swam, played video games, took a nice day off after a looooong drrrrrive. Yeah, we're pretty useless but tomorrow we play with the Unsung Zeroes. All I can say is that its beautiful out here and if Ethan and Dan read this tour journal, please give me a fucking call on my cell phone you stupid record label.
6.07.2003
More Georgia
Why more Georgia? Why not Gainseville Florida where we should have been.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we procrastinated for an UNPRECEDENTED 12 HOURS TODAY. 12 FUCKING HOURS. We sat around my aunt's house and were like "lets grab a quick shower and eat cereal then get going.... ok, let's look at some toys.... ok lets play some basketball.... wanna smoke a cigarette?.... ok lets play with the kids some more.... ok im kind of hungry, i guess i'll have a pop tart... there's bread? i guess i'll make a sandwich.... ok we should watch the scene in the sopranos where puss gets whacked on the big screen again.... ok, lets leave jt alone so he can book more tour dates.... ok.... lets do all those things all over again.... twice.... lets go pick up mike.... lets wait for his aunt to get back from dropping her kid off at baseball.... its raining.... lets go to walmart.... lets go to taco bell.... lets go to kfc.... it stopped raining, we can drive.... lets install the playstation and television... math has a headache lets get some children's tylenol.... oh he doesn't have a headache anymore?.... we're already at walmart, lets go back in..... lets watch the speed DVD with the commentary.... lets go to a gas station and fill up.... lets go 40 minutes in the wrong direction because my 14.4 modem isn't fast enough to get good directions from mapquest... ok.... its about 12:00 AM, we were supposed to leave at 12:30 PM... bummer."
Let's have a tally of what we've done so far on this tour.
1 time Jeff lost his keys
3 overnight drives
1 terrible show
2 swimming days
ok... this tally is a bad idea. there was a payoff to this tally which i forget what it was once i started putting all the filler in the tally. that was pretty much a joke gone wrong. notice how i'm talking a lot? that's cause i'm in the back of the van wide awake and everyone else is playing playstation or listening to dr. dre. once we stop touring i'll tell you some of the scams that we have been pulling so we have a better time, but as for now, any venue that looks at this, we're stand up people who will not fuck your daughter.
6.06.2003
South Carolina/Georgia
So I’ve been awake from a really really long time. This is going to be a haphazard attempt to recall the events of the past 48 hours. This is my life as an adult. This is my life as an adult.
So we’re super late to the fucking show because we can never get up get up come on come on let’s go soon enough. We’re driving and we’re driving and we’re hours late then all of a sudden we cross over into South Carolina. First exit? South of the Border.
For those of you whole don’t know, South of the Border is like Mexico for tourists who are too afraid to go to Mexico. They had fireworks, a roller coaster, hats around the world, American flags, lots of t-shirt stores, mexi-fries, chili cheese dogs.
We were planning on spending 30 minutes there and ended up spending over an hour. Come on, they had bathrooms too. We bought lots of fireworks that would later be used to blow things up and smoked indoors because it is still really cool to us that there is no problem doing that.
I drive the rest of the way to the show. We pull up at the same exact time as Bum Ruckus, and that’s how we met. We’re now pals, apparently one of them masturbates constantly, they’re the only band that can possibly outsmoke us cigarette wise and I believe their road manager used to manage New Found Glory. Damn.
South Carolina, man. Wow. When we got there we met the Curbside Vendors who were also pretty nice. However, about 8 people were there. We went and got food, and our promotion for this show was telling the waitress (Cory) and her friend (Chris(tina)) that we were playing a show two doors over and she should stop by. They did stop by and bought a CD as did one or two other people as we take the south by storm.
Instead of taking the drive to Marietta the next day, we decided that we can’t afford a motel so we might as well try and find something to do. We hung out Puff from Curbside Vendors’s house for a little bit taking care of some stickers and booking stuff and then went over to Chris(tina)’s house to hang out until it was late enough that we would arrive in Georgia after the sun came up. THIS NIGHT WAS DEFINITELY NOT CRAZY.
We left at about 6:00 and I drove down to Georgia with Bove sitting shot. Since everyone else is asleep we get to put on music that WE like in the van, so after Neutral Milk Hotel and the second Harvey Danger record, what could we listen to other than The Streets? After not getting any sleep, The Streets’ album is all the more crazy. I feel it had to do with The Streets being played on the radio, but shortly after we broke 30,000 on the new van a billboard popped up that said “Adult Diner”.
What is an adult diner you ask? Well let me tell ya… it is a diner where your waitress is not wearing a top, is wearing a thong, there are strippers past 11:00 AM (we went a little to early), there is a porno shop on the side, and, well… the waitresses are pretty much naked. Me Bove and JT were amongst the ones who were not sleeping and spent about an hour and a half marveling at the fact that we were being served breakfast by a practically naked woman. We later had a nice conversation with her and I wondered this last time we were in a strip club, but are you allowed to stare at the breasts of someone while you’re having a conversation with them if they’re right out there? That’s her job, right?
Anyway, Dave sat on Math in the van once we got out. We drove into Marietta as I was falling asleep pretty much and got into my Aunt Caroline’s house. It is probably the biggest house I’ve ever been in… it seven beds for all of us to sleep in. SEVEN FREAKING BEDS.
So I slept. This is after I bled from my anus for some reason. We woke up, ate some pizza and went to the Georgia show which reminded me a lot of one of our Long Island shows… not too many people there, couldn’t hear anything on stage, but a lot of people hanging out outside. We made quick friends with the Bum Ruckus guys and we got to see our friends Treephort… this is the first time since we’ve been out that we’ve seen people that we know so it was nice even though the turnout wasn’t that great. At the end of the set I got tackled by Bove the wrong way and I fucked up my leg again in the same place as the Easton Teen Center show. Bum Ruckus’s road manager helped us out by giving us a book full of contacts and that was real nice of him.
Too much stuff has been happening to put here… I am fucking tired as all shit, I’ve been up for two days pretty much and I’m most likely not going to end up posting this crap until tomorrow. One thing that sucks about the tour diary is that my wireless modem is only free from 9:00 PM until 6:00 AM and that is usually the time that we are busy or sleeping, so it kind of takes a while for all this shit to hit ya. Whatever. Fuck it. I never said it was in real time.
I read some things on our message board that says people are nervous after reading our tour diary. I just want to say, there is no bullshit in this thing… its basically what happened to me and my band for the next bunch of weeks. I’m sorry if anyone on LI misses us right now, but this is both the greatest and scariest thing we’ve ever really done, so thanks for giving us the opportunity to accomplish this dream, even if I am a cynical typical twenty-something fuck about it.
I should be around tomorrow to post a little more about Georgia. I will not post this tonight because it’s too late. Disregard the date and time. Its like 4:00 AM… and I am hella tired. If anyone who is reading this has been to the shows on this tour, thanks for the interest, but I need to sleep right now so we’ll have to pick this up some other time.
6.04.2003
North Carolina
We slept a lot since we last spoke. A whole lot. Some of us snored really loudly. Some of us tried to watch the Clash documentary but were upset when it was 7:00 and time to go to the show which was, hey, five minutes away from the hotel. Sweet.
By the way, JT’s sunburn is ridiculously horrible. On the JT tip still, I honestly promise that he was playing catch in the Motel 6 parking lot with Math for about 4 hours while the rest of us were sleeping. He also didn’t like that MY tour diary is mainly focused on MY point of view, and it doesn’t talk about me enough. He scaled a wall in Jersey. Ya happy, JT?
So we get to the show and it’s at a pretty cool bar that reminded Dave of Coney Island High, the old venue in New York that was totally awesome. My keys have been missing for a while. That’s not important. What we found out as we got to the show was that the owners of Bessie’s found out that they were being shut down that day, and it was their last night. Every bottle of liquor must go. Therefore all drinks were a dollars. All shots, beers, every brand (I still drank Pabst and then OBX, the worst beer ever)... yeah. I recorded some prepared piano parts on a haunted piano with a cellular telephone that should be used on the new album.
There was some point when I was trying to argue about $100 not being enough to get paid because the other band wanted more money. Dumb.
So everyone’s trashed, I have no idea what time it is, but we are soon told that we will be playing for an hour and a half. That is 90 MINUTES. I have no idea what to do as my only pick, my shirt, my tie and my keys to the van and cash box are missing so we start thinking of ideas. Off the cuff we covered
- Blitzkrieg Bop
- Barroom Heroes
- El Scorcho
- A couple more that I don’t remember.
Some drunk guy kept giving bass fingers to Bove while he was playing. Dave was so drunk it was ridiculous. We’re all soaked in sweat and one of the guys in the other band of the day came to the side of the stage. I screamed with glee “is it 2:00?!?!?”. No. It was only 1:32. We still had a half hour left and we were out of ideas to entertain this drunken crowd.
I’d say the highlight of the night was when we wrote a reggae song ON THE SPOT while we were on stage and the entire crowd was singing along. It made me feel very wanted. I felt very wanted until someone came up during our cover of Creep and started pulling the wires out of the microphones. We were thrown off stage. The last song ever played at this bar was our cover of Creep after ten fucking years. Lame. Anyway, being pissed I started yelling “fuck you” or “fuck your mom” or some shit into the crowd, turned my amp up to 10 and faced my guitar up to it.
Later on we stole some cool stuff from the walls including a sick Marlboro clock that doesn’t work but we will fix. Right now everyone is in the motel room and I just keep hearing “we’re all naked.” You can’t imagine how much I do not want to go in.
6.03.2003
Virginia sort of
Right now its about 4:30 and I’m in a Motel 6 in North Carolina. It’s a lot harder to remember to update this shit when you’re fast asleep in a crowded van driving across state lines because the motels that claim they have vacancy are entirely full of shit and those people who offered you a place to stay… well… you’re just stupid and you didn’t feel like having a place to stay for free. You took your chance with the motel and you got fucked.
I got a call at 10:00 AM yesterday morning stating “hey, Jeff, I’m still packing. Its all good.” Sincerely, Dave Dickerman (who is now snoring largely in a bed adjacent to me). I get a call at 10:08 with Dave yelling “I can’t do everything by myself.”
“Well, what can’t you do, maybe I can help.”
“I need you to get the insurance paid.
“I need you to get the oil changed on the van
“I need you to pick up everyone in the van
“I need you to do everything I was supposed to do.”
Bummer. Needless to say we got on the road very late, for the biggest part of our international tour… the part where you don’t come home for a month… the part where you cram your twin sized mattress in between two seats of your van in an effort to fashion some sort of a bed.
We knew we were very late after rush hour traffic had hit because we were still in Jersey just crossing over into Delaware. We needed to be the show in about two hours. We were all pretty hungry because we woke up early to sit around and do nothing all morning except for wait for shit to get done, but most importantly at 5:30 in the afternoon Bove has to urinate. So he wakes up to urinate and Dave refuses to stop. JT and I have to go really bad so eventually, Dave pulls over at the Delaware Tobacco Outlet or something. Those of us who chose eating over buying cigarettes lost out. Those of us who chose buying cigarettes over getting a bladder infection or basking in malnutrition for seconds longer were treating to a nice surprise. Marlboro Blend No. 27 cartons for $12. I kid you not. Twelve to the motherfucking to the dollars.
We got back in the van, Dave drove some more, for some reason JT put Aerosmith’s Get A Grip on the stereo and I know when we were kids we all thought that album was the shit, but it is totally fucking lame when you hear it now. Bove and I set up the laptop so we can have high speed internet access (14.4 kbps, yeah, that’s right) and video games (Nintendo, super Nintendo, genesis, arcade, Atari, yeah, that’s right). Played some video games, slept a little, played some more video games.
We crossed the longest bridge in America. 18 miles. Think about how big that fucking bridge is. Yeah.
Get out the strawberry condoms, because it’s a 21 and up show and everyone’s gonna try to get laid! We get to the show and its at this fucking pizza place/bar and its awesome. Everyone’s having a good time, the guys in Jackmove are extremely nice (less on that later, I’ll just cover it now, Jackmove are fucking great, one of the better ska bands I’ve heard in a while, check them out when you get a chance), and we get inside to set up our equipment in an area that is about 3 Dave Dickermans wide and 2 Dave Dickermans long. Bummer.
During the first two minutes of our set JT lost his AC adapter and my guitar strap broke. Another bummer. Jackmove gave me a telecaster to go on with and we had a pretty fucking good time. Some girl hit me in the head with a glass of beer and I didn’t really feel it then, but the day after it looked kind of bad. During “Piss Off” my rant involved me walking into the audience and drinking other people’s drinks. Everyone fell in love with Dave.
We sold some CDs. Ate some pizza. Watched an excellent Jackmove set. Drank some more. Hung out with some cool girls. Eventually it was time to go which brings us up to the now. For some reason, popular opinion was that it isn’t better to stay somewhere for free, its better to stay at a Motel that’s an hour awake but is kind of on the way (which it wasn’t either of those). We get there and try to park Big D’s trailer for a half an hour. NOTHING. I slightly miss the drunk guy outside of Chichos in Virginia Beach screaming at the top of his lungs and breaking bottles over his face. Joe offers to just drive to North Carolina for the show today where we can get a motel and relax all day. I say okay, do a little panic attack, take some few pills and fall asleep next to JT on the aforementioned shitbed.
I wake up to “I can’t believe the size of the shit I just took on the side of the road.”
I later wake up to “blah blah blah…. Waffle house…. Blah blah”
Waffle HOUSE? We get out and eat some good ass breakfast for pretty cheap and then make way to the Motel 6 we’re at right now who will soon lack pillows. SWIMMING POOL. Hell yeah. We jumped in even though it was freezing. JT laid out in the sun for about 4 hours and got burnt. Me, Joe and Dave went into town, got some Taco Bell and I finally found a store that sold Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. I could have bought some food with that money, but fuck it.
6.02.2003
6.01.2003
Jersey
OK, its kind of hard to realize if anything funny is going on when you're buried in the back of the van under a blanket, two pillows, a sweatshirt, a jacket and 300 shrink wrapped CDs trying to ignore the emo and read Reefer Madness. So this update is going to suck.
Show was great. Stumpy and Tri-State Punk were great. The kids were great. The Superspecs were great. Everyone else was great. It was a great fucking show. We showed up on time. We got fed. We played songs. I gave the greatest Piss Off speech of my life.
Oh yeah, the door guy there was probably the most sour person I've met in my entire life. He was yelling at me and Math for leaving through the back door. We said 'we're sorry" and he said "NO! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT'S OK? HUH? WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?" I think he wanted to fight me. Earlier in the day I apologized for possibly being asshole and he just kept saying "relax, ok? just relax." Jesus, man. Lighten up! The sound guy lightened up towards the end of the day, but I thought he was gonna punch me in the face after our set.
We did another interview where I sounded like an asshole.
I learned that Bove urinates only once a day. Dave also tried to inhale a cigarette without putting his lips on it and he looked like Kirby. YEAH, isn't it fun to recap a day where you slept, drove, did an interview, played a show, ate, tried to sleep, drove home? Just think how many more of these we have coming up. I assure you these will be better very soon.
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