10.30.2004: 7:47 PM, Kansas City, MO
These things get worse and worse as I continuosly forget to update them. so let's do it kinda right.
COVINGTON, KY: A very weird show. We showed up and we had heard the night before through our message board that the Rebels weren't playing. After getting out of extended area I heard that Rylan had left me a message a few days earlier citing van trouble as the reason they would be missing the shows. After a phone call and angry message, Rylan quickly called back and explained their side of the story and that they were sorry and so on and so forth and he really meant it and we all decided that we don't want to be pissed at each other and shit happens and whatever we heard from whoever we heard it from or whatever... people misunderstand things. Shit happens. The Rebels would be posting something within the coming days and things would be fine. Great. Cool.
But, fuck! We still had the show at hand in Cincinatti where kids would be expecting the Rebels. I was a tad worried, but we had played Radio Down a bunch of times. Our friend Jeff was supposed to take us out on the town in Cincinatti and get us trashed, but he had left his ID at home. Thankfully though, there were drink tickets available for us.
And that's where our mistake began. You see, last time we were there, our friend Jeff had bought me a pitcher right before we played and I was in a bad mood so I downed in and it was one of our best shows ever. This time, there were like 20 kids there when we started drinking so we were a little depressed about the turn out. But then, lo and behold, there were fucking TONS of kids there. I guess we got too caught up in our alcohol to notice it. By the time we went on, we was DRIZZUNK and didn't know what was going on. After a few songs we caught on, but, boy that was scary as shit. We played almost every song we know how to play now, so it was a blast.
Jeff took us out on the town later on that night and we went to a bar that was full of people shouting "get her done" so I made my way to the Shell station to take a shit and then to the van to catch up on some writing. When everyone came out they were shouting crazy things like "YOU DON'T GOT NO LEGS" and "MY TIRE'S FLAT" [pantomime blowjob]. It was my night to drive so sober as sober people are I made my way out to Iowa.
We hit 100,000 miles on our van during this trip. We celebrated by cracking a bottle of whiskey on the side of the interstate. I love whiskey.
IOWA: Who would have known that there was anything to do in Iowa? Not us. Today was our laundry day and if any of you guys can even picture what a small vehicle would smell and look like with trash and dirty clothes from six messy individuals then you'll know that this was a fuckin' process and a half. We hung out in Iowa City for many hours in total disbelief that Iowa actually has a population that is about three.
Enough about laundry... we eventually ended up in Des Moines Iowa where we were greeted with a smile and such friendliness that we were surprised that three hours later we all had about five rounds in us that we didn't pay for. Iowa was such a great town and it was such a shock to us that there were actually kids there. And since the River City Rebels couldn't play they got a band called the Round City Rivals. Or something like that. I was drunk so I forgot.
MISSOURI: James Lynch drove through the night to the Ozarks in Eldon, MO to meet up with our close friend James Brown who is the singer of Lynch's band Beret!. Brown showed us the greatest time of our lives in the Lake of the Ozarks at about 9:00 in the morning... a time which we usually describe as not the greatest time of our lives. He gave us a boat and two jet-skiis from his dad's marina and just threw us out in the lake. Jet-skiing is so much fun and it's way easy to hurt yourself so it's EXTREME TOO!!!!! We had water-skiis and kneeboards too which JT used to show everyone his real skill, watersports. Unfortunately towards the end of the day, Mike's jet-ski stalled and he got stuck way out in this lake and we had to tow him back. Good-bye fun, hello KANSAS CITY!
We have yet to play here yet but the venue is called the stray cat because it is FULL OF CATS! AND THE CATS PEE EVERYWHERE. This is what rock and roll is.
9.30.2004
9.27.2004
9.27.2004 - Peoria, IL 6:31 PM
Yesterday was our last gig with the I Voted For Kodos band in Madison, Wisconsin and we're definitely gonna miss those dudes. It was a great show at the campus of UW where we were given all the amenities. Wireless internet. Location of stamps. Cupcakes. And one of the best ska bands I've ever seen.
In the middle of booking shows for the rest of this tour, I walked into the main room where the bands were playing and the Debonaires were on. Tight horn section, incredible singer, just fucking grooving all night long and unfortunately a lot of kids didn't go in for it. For those who did, it was a treat. I suggest you guys check this band out.
Our set was a lot of fun because kids were definitely enjoying themselves with these songs that they had never heard before. We had members of Taj Motel Trio and Debonaires up with us during a couple of songs and the guys from I Voted For Kodos attacked us at the end of their set with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. We retaliated with broken up Oriental flavored Ramen during their set which worked out great because they were so sweaty and wet that the seasoning stuck to them and they all smelled like soup for the remainder of the night. There was also the two girls who kept attempting to touch my penis while we played which was kinda weird, so I handed the cock-handling off to James at that point.
Soaked in sweat and soup, we bid our farewells to the Debonaires and the Taj Motel Trio (who are also a really good band) and went to this bar called the Stadium and there weren't too many people there, and this was genereally the theme of the night. I ordered cheese curds [note: if you ever go to wisconsin and you don't eat the cheese curds, kill yourself because you already missed out on life.] which i thought were $3.50 but were actually $6. I even ordered two 'cause i thought they were so cheap. Let's do the math:
I WANT CHEESE CURDS - $3.50 THAT'S NOT BAD!
JAMES WANTS CHEESE CURDS TOO, I SAY I'LL SPOT HIM - $7.00 PLUS TIP... UH-OH. This is getting a tad pricy, but whatever, i won't be back in wisconsin for a while
I MISREAD THE CHEESE CURDS PRICE - $6.00 X 2 = $12.00 PLUS TIP!!! OH FUCK! I just blew all my money.
SOLUTION = Leave without paying the tab for the curds.
This was also the first time we ordered like way too many pitchers at last call, so we all had to down a couple of pints before stumbling over to somewhere on State Street to drink again. Dave put on some Otis Redding so the bartender cranked it. Then told us we had five more minutes and James, being the only real drinker apparently amongst those of us who were there, drank 5 beers way less than an hour. We were trashed and had to break back into Troy from IV4K's place. For some reason there is this cat at Troy's place and I still don't understand the background story, but cats love to go out of their way to piss me off. This cat was jumping all over my computer while I was in the bathroom, the only place I was getting service. Then when I moved back into the main room, he started climbing on my face and hands, et cetera. After I managed to get it to go away, it came back while I was sleeping and meowed in my ears for about an hour. To a drunk/hungover guy, that's no fun. We were woken up early in the morning by the dude who used to live there. He threw us out early and we had to get out before any of us had time to shower. Then he asked us to help him move out as long as we were awake. Worst.
The drive to Peoria, IL was full of dead corn and cows. When cows lay down does that mean they are dead? Because I've seen a lot of lying down cows that a couple of cows seemed to be playing with on the drive down today, which is pretty boring if you're reading it, but pretty exciting if all you've been doing is looking at green patch after green patch after brown patch after green patch. There are also a lot of seemingly man-made lakes in Illinois, I guess you put those in on a farm instead of a pool.
So we just got to the venue and there's wi-fi which means we all get to avoid everyone else which is the exact antithesis of the point of touring, but fuck it. We're all about the computers. The coffeehouse we are playing tonight is tiny tiny tiny and there are seats and tables, so I'm not really sure what we're gonna do. Probably rock those tables to the ground.
Yesterday was our last gig with the I Voted For Kodos band in Madison, Wisconsin and we're definitely gonna miss those dudes. It was a great show at the campus of UW where we were given all the amenities. Wireless internet. Location of stamps. Cupcakes. And one of the best ska bands I've ever seen.
In the middle of booking shows for the rest of this tour, I walked into the main room where the bands were playing and the Debonaires were on. Tight horn section, incredible singer, just fucking grooving all night long and unfortunately a lot of kids didn't go in for it. For those who did, it was a treat. I suggest you guys check this band out.
Our set was a lot of fun because kids were definitely enjoying themselves with these songs that they had never heard before. We had members of Taj Motel Trio and Debonaires up with us during a couple of songs and the guys from I Voted For Kodos attacked us at the end of their set with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. We retaliated with broken up Oriental flavored Ramen during their set which worked out great because they were so sweaty and wet that the seasoning stuck to them and they all smelled like soup for the remainder of the night. There was also the two girls who kept attempting to touch my penis while we played which was kinda weird, so I handed the cock-handling off to James at that point.
Soaked in sweat and soup, we bid our farewells to the Debonaires and the Taj Motel Trio (who are also a really good band) and went to this bar called the Stadium and there weren't too many people there, and this was genereally the theme of the night. I ordered cheese curds [note: if you ever go to wisconsin and you don't eat the cheese curds, kill yourself because you already missed out on life.] which i thought were $3.50 but were actually $6. I even ordered two 'cause i thought they were so cheap. Let's do the math:
I WANT CHEESE CURDS - $3.50 THAT'S NOT BAD!
JAMES WANTS CHEESE CURDS TOO, I SAY I'LL SPOT HIM - $7.00 PLUS TIP... UH-OH. This is getting a tad pricy, but whatever, i won't be back in wisconsin for a while
I MISREAD THE CHEESE CURDS PRICE - $6.00 X 2 = $12.00 PLUS TIP!!! OH FUCK! I just blew all my money.
SOLUTION = Leave without paying the tab for the curds.
This was also the first time we ordered like way too many pitchers at last call, so we all had to down a couple of pints before stumbling over to somewhere on State Street to drink again. Dave put on some Otis Redding so the bartender cranked it. Then told us we had five more minutes and James, being the only real drinker apparently amongst those of us who were there, drank 5 beers way less than an hour. We were trashed and had to break back into Troy from IV4K's place. For some reason there is this cat at Troy's place and I still don't understand the background story, but cats love to go out of their way to piss me off. This cat was jumping all over my computer while I was in the bathroom, the only place I was getting service. Then when I moved back into the main room, he started climbing on my face and hands, et cetera. After I managed to get it to go away, it came back while I was sleeping and meowed in my ears for about an hour. To a drunk/hungover guy, that's no fun. We were woken up early in the morning by the dude who used to live there. He threw us out early and we had to get out before any of us had time to shower. Then he asked us to help him move out as long as we were awake. Worst.
The drive to Peoria, IL was full of dead corn and cows. When cows lay down does that mean they are dead? Because I've seen a lot of lying down cows that a couple of cows seemed to be playing with on the drive down today, which is pretty boring if you're reading it, but pretty exciting if all you've been doing is looking at green patch after green patch after brown patch after green patch. There are also a lot of seemingly man-made lakes in Illinois, I guess you put those in on a farm instead of a pool.
So we just got to the venue and there's wi-fi which means we all get to avoid everyone else which is the exact antithesis of the point of touring, but fuck it. We're all about the computers. The coffeehouse we are playing tonight is tiny tiny tiny and there are seats and tables, so I'm not really sure what we're gonna do. Probably rock those tables to the ground.
9.26.2004
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI - 6:37 PM
Wow... what a strange past couple of days. This can't really get too long because I have to play in about an hour so here's what has happened.
- Troy from IV4K is easily nicer than anyone we have ever met. He let us stay in his house, took us out to bars and gave me his 7-layer burrito to name a couple of the wonderful things he's done!
- Indiana marked our first GOOD show!!! People came, the promoters were nice and we met this really awesome chick Michelle who let us stay at her house and fed us and IV4K pizza hut in the morning! She also cut my hair into a mohawk!
- We are all getting really sick! Sean with his stomach and me with my throat! Uh-oh!
- Some huge dude in a Dead Kennedys shirt at the show in Indiana wanted to fight me! Oh no!
- Sean was told by Music-Go-Round that he could sell his amplifier and later on they changed their minds! Shit!
- I've been sober for two days! Awesome!
- The show in Ann Arbor, MI was awesome because it was sold out AND people knew the words to our songs! Totally rad!
- Stu Parnes of Ninjas/KnowHow/ASOBTUBA fame took us out after the show to find and crash parties. James Lynch broke an empty 40 at one of them! WHOOPS!!!
That's all i can think of right now. That and my being afraid of freight trains.
Wow... what a strange past couple of days. This can't really get too long because I have to play in about an hour so here's what has happened.
- Troy from IV4K is easily nicer than anyone we have ever met. He let us stay in his house, took us out to bars and gave me his 7-layer burrito to name a couple of the wonderful things he's done!
- Indiana marked our first GOOD show!!! People came, the promoters were nice and we met this really awesome chick Michelle who let us stay at her house and fed us and IV4K pizza hut in the morning! She also cut my hair into a mohawk!
- We are all getting really sick! Sean with his stomach and me with my throat! Uh-oh!
- Some huge dude in a Dead Kennedys shirt at the show in Indiana wanted to fight me! Oh no!
- Sean was told by Music-Go-Round that he could sell his amplifier and later on they changed their minds! Shit!
- I've been sober for two days! Awesome!
- The show in Ann Arbor, MI was awesome because it was sold out AND people knew the words to our songs! Totally rad!
- Stu Parnes of Ninjas/KnowHow/ASOBTUBA fame took us out after the show to find and crash parties. James Lynch broke an empty 40 at one of them! WHOOPS!!!
That's all i can think of right now. That and my being afraid of freight trains.
9.24.2004
9.23.2004
9.22.04 – 6:24 PM Toledo, OH.
Akron, akron, akron.
Where do we begin with this Akron show.
I woke up and that dog Hobason was pissing on the wall. We had a few errands to run which I don’t remember too well. These errands must have consisted of playing a baritone guitar for way too long. We were totally psyched to play Akron again logically:
- the last show did quite well
- we know the owner of the venue
- someone Imed me for the past three weeks letting me know we had a place to crash
So all the factors were in there for a kickass show, plus the dudes from Six Plus One were playing and we hadn’t seen them in a while. We showed up and immediately Chris from Orange Street starts talking politics with me. Who are you voting for? I’m not voting for president! What’s the problem? What’s the solution? KERRYBUSHKERRYKERRYNADERBUSHKERRY. Eventually we somehow ended another seemingly interminable conversation, as most election-themed conversations are these days and we made our way to CVS to buy some beer and then play a show.
What didn’t we factor into our psyched logic?
- It’s a weeknight during the school year
- There were only four bands playing
- Why play last when you’ve only played there once?
By the time we hit the stage I counted around 5 non-band members/girlfriends of band members. We still played our asses off, going into “American Idiot” by Green Day while checking our instruments which, well, we really don’t know it but three chords are easy enough. My problem was the hole in the stage directly behind me and the pole directly in front of me on the stage. That and several Taco Bell meals were starting to make us sick. The sickness continued for me well after the show when I passed out in a booth and the Eat ‘n Park when we were hanging out with Chris after the show. This was the start of me getting actually sick, something that kept me passed out in the van just about until noon the next day. I know that when we showed up to Chris’s jernt there was a huge barking dog that scared the shit out of me. I tried to make some phone calls outside but there was no service in Ohio.
At 8:00 in the morning Chris woke all of us up and kicked us off of his lawn where we were sleeping in our van in fear of dogs. We had to be at the Toledo show at 5:00 for load-in and I made it my bet that even though we would be arriving in Toledo at 11:00 AM we would still find a way to procrastinate enough to be late to the show itself. After 4 rest stops on a three hour drive I knew I should have bet money on this.
Our first stop in Toledo was at a Rite-Aid to get directions to a record store to buy the new Green Day and to a Starbucks so we could get some wireless internet and do some booking. The best we could do was a Barnes and Noble/Starbucks Café and a Circuit City. I thought that this was cool because I had left a book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime at home and I got a chance to read basically the whole thing for free while we waiting to go to the show. Then we had to go to a record store to consign CDs, stop by a music store to see if Sean could buy a Fender Bassman and go to a Western Union to get money wired to James. After getting lost several times in all directions for many miles, we managed to get to the venue around 5:30. CHECK TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT INSTALLLLMENT!!!
9.23.04 – 2:34 PM, Madison, WI
We showed up at the venue and it turned out it didn’t matter that we were late to this Toleldo Show. The band Kickstand had cancelled because the AKAs were playing with them on Saturday and their drummer couldn’t get off work for both shows. Here is a template for things you should not do if you are booking two bands from out of town if you would like to continue being a good promoter even though your band cancelled.
- Do not tell the bands playing “Yeah, there were going to be people here but now I’m not so sure… our band dropped off the show, so we told our friends that we aren’t playing so they won’t be coming.”
- Do not put a giant sign at the door that says “Kick-stand will NOT be playing!”
- Do not put a pile of flyers next to the sign that advertises your upcoming show with a more famous band.
- When people come to the show do not say “Hey, Kickstand aren’t playing. They’re playing Saturday instead.”
- Do not follow that by handing them a flyer.
- Do not describe the show as “yeah, I mean two touring bands are playing, so I don’t know” as an attendee is handing you money for the show.
- If a band had been in town a few months before with a big tour that had hundreds of people, maybe mention that.
- Please fuck off.
So, surprise surprise… not too many people were at the show… there was this cool chick, Katie Ferguson who showed up to the show. We met her at the Barnes and Nobles earlier and like people had done before, she promised to go to the show. Yeeeeah. Surrrre. But, no shit, she was there. There were like ten to fifteen other people there and we didn’t play very well. Dave and I were both sick and towards the end of the set we were choking down our coffee-taco lunches from earlier on.
As we were loading out sick as hell, we realized that JT had left the light on in the back of the van, so the van would not start. I Voted For Kodos tried to jump us but it would not work for a while. To top it all off, we received word at the beginning of the day that our Cleveland show the next day was totally cancelled. This warrants another list:
1) The promoters of the show do not want people to go to the show.
2) Our show in Cleveland is cancelled
3) Dave and I are sick.
4) The van is dead.
The I Voted For Kodos guys and us both agreed that we needed a day to just hang out and end the shit luck of the first couple of days of our tour/last couple of days of theirs. So after Rick made a couple of the most dangerous two-hundred seventy degree turns I’ve ever seen, we followed them to Madison, WI where there was no vegetarian food en route other than fries and a wonderfully bare house of IV4K’s drummer to sleep in. We just woke up this morning and we’re about to head out to the streets of Madison to try to get laid, flyer, but mostly try to get laid.
Akron, akron, akron.
Where do we begin with this Akron show.
I woke up and that dog Hobason was pissing on the wall. We had a few errands to run which I don’t remember too well. These errands must have consisted of playing a baritone guitar for way too long. We were totally psyched to play Akron again logically:
- the last show did quite well
- we know the owner of the venue
- someone Imed me for the past three weeks letting me know we had a place to crash
So all the factors were in there for a kickass show, plus the dudes from Six Plus One were playing and we hadn’t seen them in a while. We showed up and immediately Chris from Orange Street starts talking politics with me. Who are you voting for? I’m not voting for president! What’s the problem? What’s the solution? KERRYBUSHKERRYKERRYNADERBUSHKERRY. Eventually we somehow ended another seemingly interminable conversation, as most election-themed conversations are these days and we made our way to CVS to buy some beer and then play a show.
What didn’t we factor into our psyched logic?
- It’s a weeknight during the school year
- There were only four bands playing
- Why play last when you’ve only played there once?
By the time we hit the stage I counted around 5 non-band members/girlfriends of band members. We still played our asses off, going into “American Idiot” by Green Day while checking our instruments which, well, we really don’t know it but three chords are easy enough. My problem was the hole in the stage directly behind me and the pole directly in front of me on the stage. That and several Taco Bell meals were starting to make us sick. The sickness continued for me well after the show when I passed out in a booth and the Eat ‘n Park when we were hanging out with Chris after the show. This was the start of me getting actually sick, something that kept me passed out in the van just about until noon the next day. I know that when we showed up to Chris’s jernt there was a huge barking dog that scared the shit out of me. I tried to make some phone calls outside but there was no service in Ohio.
At 8:00 in the morning Chris woke all of us up and kicked us off of his lawn where we were sleeping in our van in fear of dogs. We had to be at the Toledo show at 5:00 for load-in and I made it my bet that even though we would be arriving in Toledo at 11:00 AM we would still find a way to procrastinate enough to be late to the show itself. After 4 rest stops on a three hour drive I knew I should have bet money on this.
Our first stop in Toledo was at a Rite-Aid to get directions to a record store to buy the new Green Day and to a Starbucks so we could get some wireless internet and do some booking. The best we could do was a Barnes and Noble/Starbucks Café and a Circuit City. I thought that this was cool because I had left a book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime at home and I got a chance to read basically the whole thing for free while we waiting to go to the show. Then we had to go to a record store to consign CDs, stop by a music store to see if Sean could buy a Fender Bassman and go to a Western Union to get money wired to James. After getting lost several times in all directions for many miles, we managed to get to the venue around 5:30. CHECK TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT INSTALLLLMENT!!!
9.23.04 – 2:34 PM, Madison, WI
We showed up at the venue and it turned out it didn’t matter that we were late to this Toleldo Show. The band Kickstand had cancelled because the AKAs were playing with them on Saturday and their drummer couldn’t get off work for both shows. Here is a template for things you should not do if you are booking two bands from out of town if you would like to continue being a good promoter even though your band cancelled.
- Do not tell the bands playing “Yeah, there were going to be people here but now I’m not so sure… our band dropped off the show, so we told our friends that we aren’t playing so they won’t be coming.”
- Do not put a giant sign at the door that says “Kick-stand will NOT be playing!”
- Do not put a pile of flyers next to the sign that advertises your upcoming show with a more famous band.
- When people come to the show do not say “Hey, Kickstand aren’t playing. They’re playing Saturday instead.”
- Do not follow that by handing them a flyer.
- Do not describe the show as “yeah, I mean two touring bands are playing, so I don’t know” as an attendee is handing you money for the show.
- If a band had been in town a few months before with a big tour that had hundreds of people, maybe mention that.
- Please fuck off.
So, surprise surprise… not too many people were at the show… there was this cool chick, Katie Ferguson who showed up to the show. We met her at the Barnes and Nobles earlier and like people had done before, she promised to go to the show. Yeeeeah. Surrrre. But, no shit, she was there. There were like ten to fifteen other people there and we didn’t play very well. Dave and I were both sick and towards the end of the set we were choking down our coffee-taco lunches from earlier on.
As we were loading out sick as hell, we realized that JT had left the light on in the back of the van, so the van would not start. I Voted For Kodos tried to jump us but it would not work for a while. To top it all off, we received word at the beginning of the day that our Cleveland show the next day was totally cancelled. This warrants another list:
1) The promoters of the show do not want people to go to the show.
2) Our show in Cleveland is cancelled
3) Dave and I are sick.
4) The van is dead.
The I Voted For Kodos guys and us both agreed that we needed a day to just hang out and end the shit luck of the first couple of days of our tour/last couple of days of theirs. So after Rick made a couple of the most dangerous two-hundred seventy degree turns I’ve ever seen, we followed them to Madison, WI where there was no vegetarian food en route other than fries and a wonderfully bare house of IV4K’s drummer to sleep in. We just woke up this morning and we’re about to head out to the streets of Madison to try to get laid, flyer, but mostly try to get laid.
9.21.2004
9.20.04 – 11:25 En Route to Pittsburgh
Last night we stayed at our friend Steph’s house in Pittsburgh somewhere. Pittsburgh is a funny city. It is a funny city because it has belts like the Orange Belt and the Green Belt that consists of 1,000 feet segments of main roads and then a turn onto another main road. It is funny because the kids who were leading us around tonight told us they just planned to drive and hit a bridge because there are so many bridges. It is funny because two of those bridges are painted piss yellow. You look out over a field and you see tons of houses all painted a completely different color than all its buddies.
We all got a good night’s sleep for the first time in a while thanks to alcohol mistakes. You see, sometimes beers come in cans called “tallboys”. These are 16 ounce cans, but you tend to drink them like you would a normal can. If there is still beer in your can after a certain amount of time, you better finish it. After a couple of times doing this, it is quite easy to get fucked up accidentally to the point where you can barely stumble up the stairs so I can take a shower. I was awoken by a subwoofer at abour four AM because some of the other guys and girls were playing Dodgeball on Nintendo and the sub was cranked. I also couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.
We all woke up with no illnesses and got to work on mailing list, bookings and downloading “Ghetto Superstar”. Steph woke us up and led us into the city to run some errands. The traffic was quite bad so we cut through a cemetery which I thought was strange, but it got us where we needed to go quicker. Sean went to Gutiar Center to sell his gear so he could buy a Fender Bassman which was priced at $600 even though the legit price is $150. To top it off, they wouldn’t buy Sean’s gear, so he got pretty bummed. James and I went to the mall to use the bathroom and unbeknownst to us until a couple of hours later this was THE mall from the ORIGINAL Dawn of the Dead, one of James’s favorite movies.
We pulled up at the show and it became more and more apparent to me that it is difficult to not drink and smoke. Smoking and drinking is always a stupid thing to start doing because before you start, you can have fun doing whatever the hell you want, but once you do you find yourself sitting in a parking lot loading into a community center where there is a lot of work to do losing your mind because smoking used to be your hobby and now you don’t have anything to do. After wandering around with nothing to do, I finally went inside and did some more band work. No wireless internet. Bummer.
Also, no people showed up to the show. Well, around fifteen people. Fair enough. No big bands from the area were playing and the venue had also not hosted any shows for four years prior. Unfortunately, the venue beforehand cancelled out of the show so the people at Player Productions managed to find this venue with only a week to promote. So it was understandable, and I still had fun. I told one of the guys from Player that it was cool to be playing at half-court in the gymnasium because then we didn’t feel as bad when no one showed up. I don’t think he thought this was funny. I think he thought I was kind of a dick and mad about people not coming, but I really did appreciate it. This is why I don’t talk to people.
The winners of the night, however, were us. This guy Sean, who we got to know later on in the night invited us all out to eat. When we said we had no money he explained that he just got a credit card with a thirteen thousand dollar credit line. He bought us all a feast and holy fuck. This was FOOD! WE GOT TO EAT WHATEVER WE WANTED! Sean used to be in a band called the Berlin Project, so I guess he had sympathy for us ‘cause we were on tour. We had a great time at the Eat ‘n Park and now we’re taking a bunch of fuckin’ roads that I don’t understand to get back into the heart of Pittsburgh, or maybe the left shoulder of Pittsburgh. I don’t know. I don’t get Pittsburgh.
HOSPITLIANO: THANKS SO MUCH TO SEAN AND STEPH, JOSH AND EVERYONE IN THAT HOUSE. YOU GUYS HAVE HELPED US OUT WAYYY A LOT. THANKS!!!
Last night we stayed at our friend Steph’s house in Pittsburgh somewhere. Pittsburgh is a funny city. It is a funny city because it has belts like the Orange Belt and the Green Belt that consists of 1,000 feet segments of main roads and then a turn onto another main road. It is funny because the kids who were leading us around tonight told us they just planned to drive and hit a bridge because there are so many bridges. It is funny because two of those bridges are painted piss yellow. You look out over a field and you see tons of houses all painted a completely different color than all its buddies.
We all got a good night’s sleep for the first time in a while thanks to alcohol mistakes. You see, sometimes beers come in cans called “tallboys”. These are 16 ounce cans, but you tend to drink them like you would a normal can. If there is still beer in your can after a certain amount of time, you better finish it. After a couple of times doing this, it is quite easy to get fucked up accidentally to the point where you can barely stumble up the stairs so I can take a shower. I was awoken by a subwoofer at abour four AM because some of the other guys and girls were playing Dodgeball on Nintendo and the sub was cranked. I also couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.
We all woke up with no illnesses and got to work on mailing list, bookings and downloading “Ghetto Superstar”. Steph woke us up and led us into the city to run some errands. The traffic was quite bad so we cut through a cemetery which I thought was strange, but it got us where we needed to go quicker. Sean went to Gutiar Center to sell his gear so he could buy a Fender Bassman which was priced at $600 even though the legit price is $150. To top it off, they wouldn’t buy Sean’s gear, so he got pretty bummed. James and I went to the mall to use the bathroom and unbeknownst to us until a couple of hours later this was THE mall from the ORIGINAL Dawn of the Dead, one of James’s favorite movies.
We pulled up at the show and it became more and more apparent to me that it is difficult to not drink and smoke. Smoking and drinking is always a stupid thing to start doing because before you start, you can have fun doing whatever the hell you want, but once you do you find yourself sitting in a parking lot loading into a community center where there is a lot of work to do losing your mind because smoking used to be your hobby and now you don’t have anything to do. After wandering around with nothing to do, I finally went inside and did some more band work. No wireless internet. Bummer.
Also, no people showed up to the show. Well, around fifteen people. Fair enough. No big bands from the area were playing and the venue had also not hosted any shows for four years prior. Unfortunately, the venue beforehand cancelled out of the show so the people at Player Productions managed to find this venue with only a week to promote. So it was understandable, and I still had fun. I told one of the guys from Player that it was cool to be playing at half-court in the gymnasium because then we didn’t feel as bad when no one showed up. I don’t think he thought this was funny. I think he thought I was kind of a dick and mad about people not coming, but I really did appreciate it. This is why I don’t talk to people.
The winners of the night, however, were us. This guy Sean, who we got to know later on in the night invited us all out to eat. When we said we had no money he explained that he just got a credit card with a thirteen thousand dollar credit line. He bought us all a feast and holy fuck. This was FOOD! WE GOT TO EAT WHATEVER WE WANTED! Sean used to be in a band called the Berlin Project, so I guess he had sympathy for us ‘cause we were on tour. We had a great time at the Eat ‘n Park and now we’re taking a bunch of fuckin’ roads that I don’t understand to get back into the heart of Pittsburgh, or maybe the left shoulder of Pittsburgh. I don’t know. I don’t get Pittsburgh.
HOSPITLIANO: THANKS SO MUCH TO SEAN AND STEPH, JOSH AND EVERYONE IN THAT HOUSE. YOU GUYS HAVE HELPED US OUT WAYYY A LOT. THANKS!!!
9.20.2004
9.19.2004 - 10:54 P.M. Monroeville, PA
Today was the first day of tour and went possibly as badly as a first day of tour can possible go. Our worst first day ever. Last night Dave lost a significant chunk of money in Atlantic City while trying to make more to go on tour. We got back from A.C. at about 2:30 AM and I went to sleep while Dave ran errands. We planned to meet at Dave's house at 9:00 AM so we could be in Pittsburgh by 5:00 PM for the show.
note: we have played ONE show in pittsburgh in our lives, but we have been told that we have been playing countless shows in pittsburgh. from now on I will refer to pittsburgh as fuckin' pittsburgh and not pittsburgh as monroeville or whatever other not pittsburgh fuckin' suburb we are playing. people, STOP TELLING US WE'RE PLAYING PITTSBURGH. the excuse of "oh, it's right outside of the city" is horse shit. no one leaves a center of entertainment to see a show in nowhere. which is fine. just, fuckin'... say it's not pittsburgh. the people of covington don't tell us it is cincinatti, they say it is right across the river
Anyway. 9:00 call. 5:00 load in.
1) JT and Mike couldn't get out here.
2) Mike arrived at my house around 9:30.
3) We were about to leave my house and found out JT DID have a ride.
4) JT left his phone charger at his house so we had to wait for it to be retrieved.
5) We did not get James's stuff taken care of the night before like we should have. Queens. Manhattan.
6) There were three or more street parades in Manhattan that got in the way of us and Monroeville. NOT pittsburgh.
Combined with the usual ASOB forgetting shit and taking forever (me forgetting everything in my house and doing five double checks), we got to the show at about 9:00 POST-MERIDIAN (aka PM). The show ACTUALLY started at 2:00 PM and when we got there, I Voted For Kodos had just been kicked off the stage by the sound guy because the show was actually ENDING AT 9:00 PM. (Never mind that we almost got stuck in some driveway because DRIVEWAYS have the same names as ROADS that would be similarly named to the ones we are supposed to turn on. Such as CLINTON RD. vs. CLINTON DR.)
So we show up and the word is that we can't play. Here is why:
1) The girl was under 18 who booked it.
2) She went on vacation and had the sound guy fill out the necessary 18+ paperwork.
3) The sound man decided to raise the cost of the show to $10 pre, $15 door. Way too much.
4) The fire station was home to a party of 3rd graders last week who were obviously grossly obese because they managed to break part of the floor with their jumping, so nobody was allowed to move inside
5) Between the fighting sound man and promoter, the ridiculous ticket price, and the fact that everyone had to sit in chairs like an assembly, most people just left
(list by james lynch)
We play acoustically in a parking lot outside the fire hall we were supposed to play. I intentionally cursed a lot to try and start something with the show stoppers, but they were downstairs in the basement drinking, so they didn't come up which I guess works out better for our arrest records. It was a lot of fun to be playing but it always feels kind of awkward because you can't really dance to a guy playing the guitar and people always try, which is the nicest thing ever until they give up thirty seconds in and just get bored. We got called good background music and also got told it was awesome what we did. We didn't get to actually play our first show though, which just sucked. Then we didn't even get our money because of the wack sound guy and of course because we didn't show up on time and didn't deserve it. None of the kids who went to the show live on their own yet, so we had NO place to stay.
Right now, though, we just arrived in fuckin' pittsburgh and we're staying at our friend Steph's house who magically is the one person who owns a cell phone and has maintained the same phone number within the past couple of years. They're all super nice here and they have wireless intenet so me and James have set up our computers like awesomely, back to back. Now we're just watching the Minor Threat DVD, waiting to have everyone get back with the beers and the food. We're forgetting that we got lost looking at a million different sets of directions to get from the fire house to the people house and getting ready to drink drink drink and start this tour off right tomorrow.
we invented a new social movement called NEW EDGE or nXe... NEW EDGE is for people like our band who appreciate the morals of straight edge but just aren't too good at staying away from booze and cigarettes and marijuana. So the rules of NEW EDGE are
1) No drugs that are expensive
2) No drugs that fuck up your life more quickly than cigarettes and booze
3) You MUST feel a little guilty about over-drinking/smoking but, eh, what are ya gonna do.
We have drawn giant N's on our hands.
Today was the first day of tour and went possibly as badly as a first day of tour can possible go. Our worst first day ever. Last night Dave lost a significant chunk of money in Atlantic City while trying to make more to go on tour. We got back from A.C. at about 2:30 AM and I went to sleep while Dave ran errands. We planned to meet at Dave's house at 9:00 AM so we could be in Pittsburgh by 5:00 PM for the show.
note: we have played ONE show in pittsburgh in our lives, but we have been told that we have been playing countless shows in pittsburgh. from now on I will refer to pittsburgh as fuckin' pittsburgh and not pittsburgh as monroeville or whatever other not pittsburgh fuckin' suburb we are playing. people, STOP TELLING US WE'RE PLAYING PITTSBURGH. the excuse of "oh, it's right outside of the city" is horse shit. no one leaves a center of entertainment to see a show in nowhere. which is fine. just, fuckin'... say it's not pittsburgh. the people of covington don't tell us it is cincinatti, they say it is right across the river
Anyway. 9:00 call. 5:00 load in.
1) JT and Mike couldn't get out here.
2) Mike arrived at my house around 9:30.
3) We were about to leave my house and found out JT DID have a ride.
4) JT left his phone charger at his house so we had to wait for it to be retrieved.
5) We did not get James's stuff taken care of the night before like we should have. Queens. Manhattan.
6) There were three or more street parades in Manhattan that got in the way of us and Monroeville. NOT pittsburgh.
Combined with the usual ASOB forgetting shit and taking forever (me forgetting everything in my house and doing five double checks), we got to the show at about 9:00 POST-MERIDIAN (aka PM). The show ACTUALLY started at 2:00 PM and when we got there, I Voted For Kodos had just been kicked off the stage by the sound guy because the show was actually ENDING AT 9:00 PM. (Never mind that we almost got stuck in some driveway because DRIVEWAYS have the same names as ROADS that would be similarly named to the ones we are supposed to turn on. Such as CLINTON RD. vs. CLINTON DR.)
So we show up and the word is that we can't play. Here is why:
1) The girl was under 18 who booked it.
2) She went on vacation and had the sound guy fill out the necessary 18+ paperwork.
3) The sound man decided to raise the cost of the show to $10 pre, $15 door. Way too much.
4) The fire station was home to a party of 3rd graders last week who were obviously grossly obese because they managed to break part of the floor with their jumping, so nobody was allowed to move inside
5) Between the fighting sound man and promoter, the ridiculous ticket price, and the fact that everyone had to sit in chairs like an assembly, most people just left
(list by james lynch)
We play acoustically in a parking lot outside the fire hall we were supposed to play. I intentionally cursed a lot to try and start something with the show stoppers, but they were downstairs in the basement drinking, so they didn't come up which I guess works out better for our arrest records. It was a lot of fun to be playing but it always feels kind of awkward because you can't really dance to a guy playing the guitar and people always try, which is the nicest thing ever until they give up thirty seconds in and just get bored. We got called good background music and also got told it was awesome what we did. We didn't get to actually play our first show though, which just sucked. Then we didn't even get our money because of the wack sound guy and of course because we didn't show up on time and didn't deserve it. None of the kids who went to the show live on their own yet, so we had NO place to stay.
Right now, though, we just arrived in fuckin' pittsburgh and we're staying at our friend Steph's house who magically is the one person who owns a cell phone and has maintained the same phone number within the past couple of years. They're all super nice here and they have wireless intenet so me and James have set up our computers like awesomely, back to back. Now we're just watching the Minor Threat DVD, waiting to have everyone get back with the beers and the food. We're forgetting that we got lost looking at a million different sets of directions to get from the fire house to the people house and getting ready to drink drink drink and start this tour off right tomorrow.
we invented a new social movement called NEW EDGE or nXe... NEW EDGE is for people like our band who appreciate the morals of straight edge but just aren't too good at staying away from booze and cigarettes and marijuana. So the rules of NEW EDGE are
1) No drugs that are expensive
2) No drugs that fuck up your life more quickly than cigarettes and booze
3) You MUST feel a little guilty about over-drinking/smoking but, eh, what are ya gonna do.
We have drawn giant N's on our hands.
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