the eastern seaboard, continued

this will be a fragmentary blog, as events are still unfolding as we write; and we seem to have misplaced erik's camera--within which are stored many images crucial to our narrative. at some point, once we clean out the van and find the thing, we'll throw in another all-photo entry. but for now it's text only i'm afraid.
one last little bit about boston: on our last night in town dave and i decided to let aaron have matt and colleen to himself and joined erik at his old school friend erika's house out on a secret little spit of land north of town, surrounded on 3.5 sides by the atlantic ocean. there was delicious barbecued chicken, pork chops, expensive bourbon, conversations about the future of local print jounalism, and--most importantly--a deliciously bracing swim in the ocean the next morning. erika, don't ever move from that spot! you've got it too good.
yesterday we wormed our way through traffic into the belly of the beast (i.e., new york) where we had a gig at the TRASH BAR in williamsburgh, brooklyn's fabled hipster ground zero neighborhood. what we thought was a 9pm gig was actually moved to 8pm, and we scrambled to get ourselves ready in time. part of this scramble entailed driving down to (the much cooler) neighborhood of red hook where we were quickly taken in by the nurturing arms of one GARETH HUGHES, owner of the 'down under bakery' (i.e. DUB PIES)--a very chill cafe serving delicious and authentic meat pies for all the antipodean expats (translation: people from australia and new zeland) and their friends. wow, that was quite the run-on sentence. i'll be better with my grammar from here out--promise! gareth graciously opened up the kitchen for us and made us all feel human again by way of steak and mushroom pies, spinach-ricotta pies, chicken pot-pies, and the 'best coffee drink in new york' known as the 'flat-white'.
re-energized, we scooted back to williamsburg to our first big new york gig, YES! well...not really. it's ironic that the earliest show we play all tour long happens to be in the once city where people don't start going out until after 11pm. the irony was not lost on us as we were first on the bill, playing to a handful of loyal friends, and not many more. this lead me to develop three theories about rock and roll and williamsburgh brooklyn:
1) rock and roll is dead--before 10pm
2) this particular part of the brooklyn 'scene' seems to be a mostly paint-by-numbers affair, with everyone popular sporting the right rock and roll hairdo, the proper equipment, playing the requisite chords and striking the tried-and-true poses. it's funny that in this supposed hotbed of creativity and innovation, people are more attracted (than anywhere else we've seen so far) to the familiar and comfortable.
3) there is no collegiality among bands here. they don't listen and support each other's music like they do elsewhere--it just seems like they're there to compete.
or maybe i'm just bitter because a pint of stella cost me $6.
ok, there's a danger that we might never see any of new york except the inside of gareth's pie shop--it's so comfortable and welcoming. so it's time to cut the umbilical and go be a tourist before we play again tonight at the LIT LOUNGE in the east village.
more soon....

boston.

granary graveyard... downtown boston.

i particularly enjoyed this moment.











matt took this picture at the yacht club..













i have a few impressions of boston.

1 - it's difficult to drive here, to say the least... and the problem seems to split evenly between the people and the street layout.

2 - matt and colleen have raised the boston average significantly, as far as i can tell..
those guys are pretty cool, they fit in with bostonians (?) but have so much more going on (for example - they want to recycle). fuck yeah, matt and colleen!

3 - bulfinch yacht club doesn't really want to be a music venue. perhaps they inherited a stage or something. if only they'd inherited a sound guy. Capt. Troglodyte seems to have meant well (he bought two shirts!) but it was not the best experience.

4 - cute girls on the subway who strike up conversations are awesome.. fuck yeah, boston girl.

enough numbers.. it's great to see matthieu. i don't care much for people, you know. fuck people - but matt's alright with me. the hardest bit about tour is getting lonely, kinda. not just homesick, either.. lonely. despite having your friends around you (erik and dave and garrett are all great friends, of course) it can be hard. it was a great relief to sit comfortably and drink a beer and relax at matt's house, as close as i can get to my own.. no offense to any previous hospitality, of course.

and he told me i smell bad, which somehow made me feel good.. ha!

aaron

williamsport to syracuse

rock stars in a pittsburgh diner
















pittsburgh staircase: aaron scampered up this like some kind of elfin man-pixie.















you've got delicate hands...






aaron says:
i hear the akron/family is around here, which is oddly thrilling for me.. i love those guys.

and i love eric filipkowski.. he's my old friend from the Ft. Collins and Portland days, but for years he's been hanging out in Williamsport, and he now co-owns and co-runs Kimball's, a nice little bar near the college.. good times, all around.

Garrett says:
Williamsport is our second college-town Sunday-night show this tour, and—no offense to kalamazoo—was by far the better of the two. And kalamazoo was fun, which means Williamsport pretty much rocked. Down at kimball’s we got to play last this time, and after a sweet set by sisterhood duo KEY OF V and a blistering retro garage rock inferno by local favorites THE TELL TALE SIGNS we played to a packed, happy, drunk house. There were real cheers, people actually dancing, and our first-ever encore in front of strangers. Heck, even the girls liked us. Even lesbian folk-rockers liked us. Most importantly, aaron got to show off his guitar-hero licks to both Emily and his old band-mate eric/flip/earl.
After chilling with the great folks from the TELL TALE SIGNS (if ever in w-port, look up andy: he can make you a beautiful custom guitar, or hot-rod your motorcycle or muscle car) we cleared a path through all the drunken little-league victors and crashed in luxury at eric/flip/earl’s cozy little pad out on the creek. Eric/flip/earl, you didn’t have to pack your bar for us; you didn’t have to pay us to play; you didn’t have to let us sleep on the softest floor yet, but you did and some of us will never forget it.








eric/flip/earl and his relaxation porch





We eschewed (yes, ‘eschewed’) showers in the morning for the more refreshing charms of the creek out back,

bid a fond farewell to Emily, then headed north through the countryside past all number of cute little vinyl-sided hamlets and the temptations of Ithaca/cornell, on our way to Syracuse. We drove through the cornell u. campus on the first day of classes and all agreed that we were gypped in our own previous college experiences.
What can one say about Syracuse, new york on a Monday night? You guessed it: nothing. What was supposed to be a show turned into a semi-band practice when it became apparent that nobody promoted our show in an empty student-run art gallery in a desolate part of a desolate city. At least frank was cool to let us drink beer and plonk around in his empty room and crash on all manner of futons and couches in his apartment. Good luck with the school year, frank.
We struck out looking for bagels this morning so we’re trying our best to put Syracuse behind us and get to boston as soon as possible.








spark art space, syracuse, new york: where the couches go to die.













look at all the people!

ha! rust belted!

RUST BELTED
Let’s see, where were we? Ah yes, Cleveland rocks. As does medina, rocking with relaxation and the amazing hospitality of horst and mary, erik’s parents and proprietors of the SKI LODGE EAST. The fed us ribs and potatoes and german egg noodles and red cabbage kraut and ice cream and off we went to play the beachland tavern with very full bellies. A far more talented musician joined us that night, but alas only to watch and not participate: aaron’s muse and collaborateur Emily made the trip from Portland to jump in the van with us for a few days before joining family in the hills of Pennsylvania. She arrived in true rock star fashion, delayed in Chicago for 4 hours before being picked up and whisked back across town by Erik and aaron mere minutes before we were scheduled to play. There were no delays in the night’s proceedings but there was tension and anticipation in the air, punctuated by the yells of erik’s hometown friends, demanding his whereabouts. The tavern was packed with said loud friends and erik’s family of all ages, both onstage and off, giving the hen a seriously raucous welcome vibe.









Once onstage some of us were still leaden with good food, but I think we gave the people what they came here for. They sure liked our souvenir stand, and helped keep us in gas money at least until new york. A late-night drive through downtown Cleveland under flashes of heat lightning brought us back to a relaxing late evening on horst and mary’s patio under clearing skies and blankets of crickets.
Everyone slept in late on Saturday morning as I think we were all pretty reluctant to slide off the lap of luxury and back in to the van. it was just a quick few hours’ hop across the border into Pittsburgh and before we knew it we were being welcomed by our next amazing host and benefactor, dave k.—yet another old pal of erik’s. I could waste gigabytes of space describing how much I love Pittsburgh, from its hills to it’s rickety crammed-together old row houses, to all the amazing old brick buildings and churches towering over everything, to the toothy, slightly-dangerous but ultimately-friendly tough-guy vibe of the place, to the decay among the renaissance, but that will have to do. Just find a reason to go and keep an open mind.
After a tasty meal of burgers, perogis, bacon sandwiches and chicken-walnut salad at the hip BRILLO BOX we headed to our next venue, GOOSKI’S TAVERN, in the equally aptly-named ‘polish hill’ neighborhood. Gooski’s is a touring bar-band’s sticky wet-dream: a long narrow loud dirty rock and roll joint with a packed bar up front and the stage closing out the full width of the back room. Not too many of the barflies came back to see us play but we had good local support with dave k., his wife Jennifer, their pal steve, dr. vipul and his pitt posse, and even a few Carnegie mellon students brought by Portland-native zoe pinfold. We played loud and sloppy but really had a blast this time around, everyone but dave going offstage at some point during the songs. The other two bands, LOVECRAFT (from Winston-salem n.c.) in the no.1 slot and locals PERSONA GRATA in the last slot, were both very entertaining and pretty humbling—especially persona grata, giving everyone a clinic on ballistic surgical rock-precision.
Nobody wanted any merchandise this time around, but all the indifferent barflies dutifully paid their $5 cover, so the house was generous to us.
But that was no match for the surreal, twisted generosity of dave k. after the show. By his unsteady hand there were rooftop conferences, long climbs up city staircases, abandoned churches, haunted mansions, and no sleep until 5am.













What a guy—long live dave k. and Jennifer and their 3 cats! it think I caught a cold but it was worth it, dammit.


After a kielbasa/egg/American cheese breakfast sandwich we’re now heading through painfully beautiful Pennsylvania countryside on route to Williamsport, home of the little-league world series and aaron’s old friend eric, (aka ‘flip’, aka ‘earl’) our next angel of mercy and proprietor of kimball’s site of our next act of …er hemorrhage.

image happy

we keep hearing from people who don't like to read and only want to see pictures; so here is a compilation of the best of the...er, well that's all we have:









benefactor #1: andrew from omaha













our minneapolis welcome












are the twin cities on fire? does that make erik happy?












75% hen with merch display. 'erik, you look like a medium.'












this is dave before coffee.












our madison welcome. it only got more soaked from here.













this is aaron after madison.













our chicago welcome.


















iggy pup











yes, we play music too. this is chicago's ELBO ROOM.












our camera takes more drugs than a touring funk band (sing it!)













aaron likes chicago...












southern michigan is apparently the hottest place on earth.









our medina, ohio welcome and crash pad. erik designed this house for his parents. not bad for a rock star, no?

















supermanrockstar + groupie



















aaron macdonald: one-man CD factory.

WE LIKE IKE

i never know what to expect on tour.. you can't predict much of anything, from the venue to the crowd to the bands to the lodgings. Kalamazoo was awesome. The bands were great, super tight, good sounding, and good songs, plus a great stage presence.. i'm a big fan.

on top of all that - we rolled up to our 'lodgings' in the middle of the night, and i just had the best time of my life.. honsetly, the most amazing thunderstorm rolled in over the course of an hour or more, and the whole time i was pleasantly lit, strumming a gorgeous little ukulele and enjoying the light show. i couldn't possibly do the experience justice, but few things are worth talking about, and this night was one of 'em..

Aaron

Two full days in Chicago now seems like some kind of surreal dream of luxury, sightseeing, relaxation, and good food. I’ll put in my own shout of gratitude out to my good buddy chip who allowed me to catch up on a decade of old friendship and put me up in style in the wide open spaces of his big Lincoln park house.
After getting lost in chicago’s south side while trying to find an on-ramp to the skyway, we shot over to kalamazoo Michigan with no knowledge of what we were getting ourselves into, no expectations, and no maps—having left them all behind at mike and jill’s pad. We played the kraftbrau brewery, a very laid-back big brick box with great beer and the nicest, most earnestly genuine and friendly people I’ve seen anywhere. My—already sunny—opinion of folks from the oven-mitt state has only brightened from this experience.
We were the deli-meat in a three-band sandwich, the top (first) bun being the best-educated band in the house: WISHEK, fronted by our main contact for the show, the inimitable indie-jouneyman ike and his shiny aluminum guitar, and backed up by sweaty steve the English teacher—the only drummer I know who shows up to gigs on his bike and plays with a ball-point pen clipped to the collar of his t-shirt. We played a set that rivaled our Chicago show in sweat and acumen, but probably outdid it in verve, what with aaron and his hilarious banter, his playing from atop the amp and out in the beer garden, and ike’s wildly enthusiastic back-up shouts to our only cover song, a sweet little ditty from the late great mcklusky. All that and aaron didn’t even break a string! The third and last band were the hugely entertaining SPIT FOR ATHENA, a super-rocking trio careening between sounding like the pixies and fugazi, and I think trying to back up their name with on-stage feats of stunt-expectoration. Nice catch, levi.
We didn’t make much money last night but the citizens of kalamazoo (or at least those who like to go out to see loud music on a Wednesday night) made up for it in laughs and hospitality.
We ended the evening by following ike to crash in somebody’s house (not his), occupied by a nice kid who actually didn’t even live there. Yes, I’m confused, too. It was typical college pad, full of very smart literature, porn, musical gear, and dirty clothes. The floor (my bed) didn’t seem like it had been vacuumed in several years, but—unlike our last college-town sleepover--at least someone lived there! There was an amazing lightning storm directly overhead as we sat out on the porch. For the longest time it was just silence, no rain, and all these flashing lights going off in the clouds all around us. Then the thunder started rolling and in the next instant it was a deluge. For a west coast kid that’s some very pretty weather.
We’re now in our second day off, relaxing at erik’s parents house, THE SKI LODGE EAST, in medina ohio, until we drive up to Cleveland tomorrow, a city that, according to drew carey, rocks.

Garrett

Chicago

we love Chicago. it's been a long since i was here last and even longer since i lived here and it's nice to be back, albeit briefly. we played the Elbo Room Monday night, first of 4 bands. the show was pretty good, i had a good group of old friends come out of the woodwork to see us play, friends i haven't in like 9 years.. wow! we played a good set and by far had the best sound onstage - thank you Aaron the sound man at the club. playing first we got a legitimate soundcheck and everything was pretty dialed in. we cruised thru a half hour set and finished up feeling like we just wrapped up running a marathon -for some reason the AC wasn't turned on downstairs in the basement where the music is and it was hot, Africa hot. we played pretty good and got some nice compliments and sold a few things to some friends..... and now we have a day off ! 6 shows in a row and now we have Tuesday to hang out and relax in Chicago. we are staying with my friend Jill from school and her husband Michael and their 2 pets, Lucy, a little fireball of a kitten and Iggy the dog, a doberman puppy, in Wicker Park. compared to our accommodations in Madison we are now in Club Med. Thank you Jill and Michael for your hospitality we appreciate it immensely. Aaron and i tooled around dowtown today for a bit, went to lunch with another long ago friend from my Chicago days and that was nice. the weather cleared up today and it is nice and sunny, a nice break from the rain. i dont miss humidity though, nope not one bit. Chicago is great, we rode the train too and it was fun. -erik

madison, oh dirty madison

Quote of the day: ‘my mother would cry if she saw where we slept last night.’

None of us have ever been to Madison Wisconsin, but everything we’ve ever heard about the place was nothing but positive niceness, an oasis of culture and progressiveness in the smiling land of cheese—but obviously they’ve never been to the klinic bar on a Sunday night. It started off with a bartender already sloppy drunk himself by 8pm, and finished with a night on the stained carpet of the ‘apartment’ above the bar, hoping that mouse won’t get bold and scamper across my face but will instead choose to settle in next to that month-old open bottle of half drunk Snapple over there in the corner. And everything in-between: from aggressive rocky, drummer for the CORN FED DAMES, to Amanda the other bartender wailing on the house drumset in an impromptu early evening jam-session, to larry-richard-something, drunker than he was fat (and he was a big boy), offering us drugs he didn’t have, extolling the virtues of Portland and—once again, its drugs—telling us how great we were while secretly trying to order drinks on our bartab, to tattoos that should never see the light of day, to the sound guy telling us after we played how surprised he was that we didn’t suck. By the way, He’ll be playing our tunes on his UW college radio show next Sunday night—‘support your scene’—so tune in or stream in if that’s your flavor.

The king hen could have fallen much much lower last night, but we didn’t embarrass ourselves, we kept our new friends at arm’s distance and we got out of there with no strange rashes.

Tonight we play the ELBO ROOM in Chicago, and will wallow here in luxury for a few long-anticipated days.

those guys run in the rain

it's sunday morning in minneapolis and it's raining.. it's actually not too bad, considering all the 95 degree weather we've been through, but i wouldn't call it jogging weather. some people are crazy.

last night was pretty successful, and i think we ended up going over pretty well.. i don't think we had any friends or family at the show, so it was tough to expect an audience.. but we did alright, the merch sales seem to bear this out, and everybody was really complimentary.

the set last night seemed (to me) much like our other sets of the tour.. the first half is rocky, and the second half is awesome. it's a tiny bit frustrating, i feel like as people get into the music and what we do, we've only got two songs left.. if only we could play for hours and hours. ha!

aaron

omaha giveth and omaha taketh away

for anyone who's never done it the drive across nebraska is like you are actually standing still--nothing changes in front of you--for several hours, then suddenly it gets dark over all that corn and you're in omaha.

o'leaver's pub is tiny, loud, and very friendly. and for good measure they have a whole sand-lot volleyball extravaganza across the parking lot, well-lit and well attended well into the evening. but we were here to be inside guys, and inside we stayed, playing within whispering distance of tables crowded with pitchers of beer and shiny nebraskan faces. not like there was any whispering going on--they should put 'permanent hearing loss' on their drink special menu.
75 percent of the band was able to exploit the kindness of the guys in the headlining band NOAH'S ARK WAS A SPACESHIP, and had fun drunken conversation and couches to crash on in a house with twice as much music equipment as furniture. when in omaha, please look these guys up. between john's all-encompassing enthusiasm for, well...everything, andrew's quiet generosity (don't let that stage act fool you) and rob's appreciation for all things single-malt, you could do a lot worse for a welcoming committee.
too bad our rooftop rocket box popped open on saddle creek blvd this morning and let fly a sleeping bag and therma-rest all over a six lane intersection. the damage was minimal, but wouldn't you know it a subaru station wagon pulls up next to my well rolled therma-rest, stops, picks the thing up and drives off into the cornfields. and a subaru, nonetheless! sheesh, not cool.
oh well, the coffee is good and minneapolis beckons.

denver = surreal

What do you do between a 14-hour overnight trucker-haul and the next set in the next club? Capitalizing the sweet generosity of aaron’s sister Adrian, some of us did a pretty good imitation of a good night’s sleep in two hours at the Denver ramada; some of us went for a stroll down cofax, and some of us looked after our ailing relatives (godspeed a fast recovery, meemaw)

We were the midpoint of a 5-band showcase down at the 3kings tavern last night, and oh my what a strange lineup. First we had THE BUTCHER (of music), doing his one-man guitarist/laptop-drums/keyboards/harmonica/flute comedic….er, techno-metal freakout which was actually pretty dang entertaining and laugh-out loud funny at times. Dr gus, you could’ve been this guy, but hey babe: don’t go a-changin’. Next up was a band devoted entirely to other people’s songs, doing mostly punked-up covers of such favorites as ‘bright bright sunshiny day’, and ‘hungry like the wolf’ by duran duran. Honestly I can’t remember their name but 2 out of three of them were called tim. Oh yes, ‘NO GOOD REASON. That’s the name. then you had us, but you already know about us, and half the fun of these reports is in describing the bizarre slice of musical life that we collide with on this trip. Suffice to say we were loud enough, fast enough, erik was smart enough to bring his back-up guitar, and we were apparently good enough to attract a few funny drunks to sway on their feet and yell right in front of us. After we played came PROGRAM, a quintet from Houston that reminded me of superchunk, all sweet and bright and chirpy. Do you see any connection between any of these bands yet? Well neither do i. and if that wasn’t enough the last band was a very serious, well-funded cocky strutting metal band called SiX, from—as best as I could gather—“the muthervuggin ROAD!!”. There was much leaping about, surgically-executed heavy power chords, and grabbing of shirttail/crotch. At this point the seething hordes at the 3 kings stage swelled to about 4 drunk guys waving their brown-bag-clad 40s around the place. These guys had some amazing chops, serious talent, and lots of charisma. But I guess I like Shakespeare better than bleeding skulls.

All-in-all it was a strange evening of music, but the venue is fantastic, with a good combination of hot bartender-woman, a pinball machine called RADICAL!, enough jackass drunkard guys to keep things entertaining from a distance, and a very cozy green room with buckets of miller high-life on ice. Too bad the roadies (yes, roadies) for SiX drank them all by halfway through the night. It would have been a lot less fun without Adrian our self-appointed wannabe ‘merch-bitch’, and all her conversation, taunts, crazy friends, and provisions.

The morning saw us rocketing the minivan out through the flats of eastern Colorado, scenery blanketed with an endless carpet of yellow flowers and the air throbbing with ted nugent calling me his baby and telling me I’ve got him in a stranglehold. Now we’re somewhere in Nebraska, just passing the exit for the ‘heartland museum of military vehicles’ and staring a low-fuel warning light in the face. More to come after Omaha….
--Garrett

Driving across Nebraska is pretty boring, and one of the only bright spots was going to Kirk’s Nebraskaland Truckstop. I thought we might buy a souvenir t-shirt, but I think we just drove right past it.. hmph.

--Aaronß

denver has a hotel, with a pool

RadBounce 2007!

Neurolox is pretty rad. i had four drink tickets, and i broke two strings.

but all of that is secondary to the other band of the evening, Dagger of the Mind - a Shakespeare Metal band, no lie. these guys are pretty rad, replete with period costumes (that looked very fancy and expensive), and awesome over-the-top metal guitar lines, unison and harmony solos, and a great frontman who spoke in some vaguely historical manner, a la old england. (i think).. and they're from Portland also.. crazy.

of course, we have to play in denver tonight, so immediately after Neurolox we set out for Boise, which was about a 13 hour drive.. crazy.

we ate breakfast at Little America. I recommend the biscuits and gravy. ha!

but here we are in denver, in a wonderful air conditioned hotel mere miles from the venue, the 3 kings! it should be quite a night, although i haven't gotten to try the beds out yet. *yawn*

i'm gonna sleep tonight.

aaron

day before departure

so far i've packed my swiss army knife. hey dave, can i borrow your towel?