"We've Arrived at the Good Work"

Total distance driven: 1268sm

Currently listening to: Neil Young -- Harvest Moon

Only 47 miles outside Indianapolis we encounter some seriously heavy rain and a full rainbow (the end-to-end, totally legit kind of rainbow). I’ll take this as a sign that the show tonight will have …seven different colors and a pot of gold at the end.

The past several days have been hectic but great: we trekked from St. Louis after an okay show to Champaign, IL where we played great and drew a good crowd from playing an outside stage. It’s fun when passers by stop outside the fence of the venue to ponder what they’re seeing and hearing. Several people who came up to talk to me after the show informed me that they had, in fact, wandered in because of the sights and sounds. Successful night, complete with an awesome breakfast at a local diner the next day:

The following two days landed us in beautiful Chicago, a town famous for deep-dish pizza, the Sears Tower, Grant Park and not giving local/touring bands the time of day. It was great to meet up with some friends and have a clean place to stay. I am ceaselessly amazed at the hospitality shown to us by friends and “strangers” (usually bands we play with or venue people) alike. Having a floor to sleep on is a tremendously coveted opportunity and Julia was kind enough to have coffee and eggs made for us when we woke up.

Back to back Chicago shows: the first, Friday show was a disappointment, leaving a sour taste in our mouths. It was our third show in the Windy City and our third time to face the fact that Chicago is difficult. When you have a city so large and so densely populated, there is music everywhere. The same goes for towns like Austin and NYC. The city is calloused to new music because every band in the contiguous US wants to be “from” there or just play there (it looks great on paper – “yeah, we’ve got a gig in Chi-town next weekend). The result of this attention paid to a city like Chicago is a population so disinterested in small-scale, touring bands that you can find yourself playing for the only sound guy and the other band dudes/dudettes if you book the wrong club.

On a more positive note we had a really GREAT show in Chicago the second night, Saturday. We played at a place called Ronny’s (different than the previous night’s venue) for a solid crowd and did well in the merch department. Talk about a 180 degree flip. It just goes to show you the complexity of a city as diverse and huge as Chicago. There is, of course, a lot of promotion, emailing and other assorted media moves to be done before any show but, for the sake of simplicity and “zeroing that out,” we’ll hold that all constant; it levels the field of these shows and lets me compare them objectively, the bad one night and the good the next.

Saturday was an excellent day off. With no driving necessary to get us to the next show (excluding the consistently hellish Chicago driving which can often lead to 30 minutes of car time to traverse five miles), we had the full day to embrace the town. Zach and Mack went west to visit Chris at I.V. Labs, the studio that we mixed “Tadaima” at last summer. Wil and I opted for a cold swim in Lake Michigan with the skyline in full view, on a beach inhabited by everyone from toddlers and parents not much older than us to elderly couples and solo, urban women working on their tans.

Wil, you beast you.

One kid, walking down the beach with his father in tow, pointed to my American flag bathing suit with an ear-to-ear smile and excited laughter. “Yeah, you’ve seen that before, haven’t you!” the father cheerfully remarked. I smiled and simply said “World Cup.” “They stand a chance,” the father said, supportively. Despite my good spirits and the light nature of our brief exchange, a voice in my head screamed “man, it’s OUR team, it’s WE, not THEY! USA, USA, USA!” Being a World Cup - excuse me - a United States fan, I was pretty torn up about our loss to Ghana not an hour earlier that afternoon.

--Man, Ghana played a sleazy game. Sure, they won “fair and square” and I’m not by any means a sore loser but come on—any time we got a lead they would trip our players or just pull them down by the jersey. I can only wonder how much jersey grabbing and other illegal behavior was going on during those corner kicks. Seriously, faking injuries during added time to get a fresh player in? Filthy. The differences in how we played the game and how Ghana played the game really points to implicit differences in national cultures, in my eyes. That’s a whole separate conversation!

After our time at the lake we hopped on a bus to Jefferson Park where we slid onto the metro Blue Line, road a few stops down to Logan Square where we disembarked and walked about a mile to the venue, arriving promptly at the predetermined reconvening time of 8pm. Showtime.

We headed out mid-morning the following day, Sunday, for Indianapolis. The Non-mobile, AKA The Burb, drank $100 in fuel as we stopped to heat up a pleasant meal of Easy Mac with a side of peanut butter and honey sandwiches at a gas station just off I-64 out of Chicago. Living on the road is just as glorious as one might expect!

The drive to Indy lead us into a sever storm, exactly where I began writing this gargantuan blog post. We played a pretty good show at a venue run by a couple of not-so-nice people, the kind that have absolutely no interest in returning any gesture of kindness or good natured interaction and got out of dodge. I stuck myself behind the wheel and drove two hours to Louisville, Kentucky (a city and state I have never had the opportunity to visit before) where we stayed with a recently graduated and married friend of Wil’s. Serving as an example of the spontaneous hospitality I keep talking about, they sheltered us after a midnight phone call and soaking wet, 2:30am arrival. Man, people are great. It’s really incredible.

So, we find ourselves on the drive yet again. I now sit backseat passenger side as we pass through more intermittent, heavy rain showers. We are now about 70 miles outside Nashville and the local time is 12:17pm. What’s interesting about today is a meeting we have with a SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers) representative at 3:30. SESAC is now essentially a record label and publishing rights organization along the lines of BMI. We’ll see how this goes, it should be exciting. We have a show tonight at a place called Open Lot in Nashville, which should also be pretty awesome.

[The sun is now out and the clouds have cleared away! As a situational update –

Total distance driven: 1565sm

Currently listening to: Candy Claws – In Dream of the Sea Life

What a long freakin’ post! I had a great time writing this one.]

--Life on the line continues!

Mojo Risin'

Currently listening to: Black Flag -- My War

We're hanging out at a place called Cafe Berlin in Columbia, Missouri after a short two hour drive from Lawrence, waiting to load in to Mojo's where we will be playing with a band called Nonreturner in a few hours. Actually, we rolled into town about an hour ago and stopped at Sam's to buy the mega-size packs of Ramen and Easy Mac so we can have a surplus of free [gas station cookable] food.

Last night's show went well! The Taproom is a really cool place and seems to be quite a hub for Lawrence music--everyone we talked to immediately knew of the place and had something along the lines of "oh yeah, that place is cool, good music" to say. Things worked out pretty well for a Monday with an audience of maybe 30 people and a pretty decent payout, putting us a bit more than in the black for the drive to MO today.

Also (totally worth noting): Lawrence has an awesome and surprisingly legit kickball league. We got to watch a game on Sunday night along with about 400 mostly cigarette smoking, beer drinking, tattooed Lawrence residents. The picture from my phone does not do this justice.

Kind of a funny thing having a day off yesterday, so early in the tour. Waking up in the same place multiple days in a row instead of packing into the suburban and cruising the interstates tends to sort of trick the mind.

One almost forgets what it is he's doing out here! Not so fast, semi-constant-location-mind trickery--the short drive to Columbia has proven refreshing. It feels good to be back on the move!

Had a great show in Columbia last night at Mojo's, stayed with the guys from Ptarmigan and got up early to watch the incredible USA vs. Algeria game. We wandered around the streets of downtown and into the Ragtag Cafe and Cinema where we watched the game with around 100 other excited people. The moment of Donovan's goal at 91 minutes was probably the most intense sports-watching experience I have ever had. That much energy is what makes watching things like that so great. ...show tonight in St. Louis

--Life on the line continues!

LIV!

Total distance driven: 20.9sm

Currently listening to: Menomena – Friend and Foe

(12:24pm) -- Go time! Saturday morning was greeted with my rising out of bed and treating myself to an excellent Waffle House send-off breakfast. We hit the road around 11:30am after removing t-shirts and rolling up pant legs to cope with the heat, preserving our freshly showered bodies which will likely not claim that status for some time.

First stop—Wichita, Kansas for the LIV Music Festival all afternoon and night. Other bands on this bill include our friends Student Film, French Horn Rebellion, Split-Lip Rayfield, among others. We’re off to a good start with a day off tomorrow before two week’s worth of shows across the Midwest! After that we have a three day home-break followed by four weeks out to the west coast. Getcho freak-on, ‘Merica.

Total distance driven: 179.1sm

Currently listening to: Sleigh Bells – Treats

(11:43pm) -- Wil and I saw an incredible shooting star tonight while sitting on a curb after the show, the kind that almost makes you think it’s an airplane it moves so slowly across the sphere. Had we not witnessed it’s blowing into pieces I might have gone on thinking it was a satellite or airliner. The performance was great, awesome stage and awesome sound. I restrung my bass last night, too—it’s hard to beat brand new strings. Hospital Ships from Lawrence were definitely the best band I got to see tonight. This whole outdoor festival atmosphere means we get to call it a night at 11pm and move on. That’s a big change from some cities, which send you on the road around 2am. We’re currently in the car en-route to Lawrence where we have a place to stay with an old friend. Thanks, Steve!

Sunday holds a full day off in the town and nobody is going to let it pass. Love Garden Records, coffee shops, and the many awesome places Lawrence holds will receive our visits throughout the day. Man, Lawrence is great!

--Life on the line continues!

Pizza so damn hot you have to hold it under an industrial fan to cool it off.

This weekend held two shows, one in Denton on Friday and Austin on Saturday. We took off a bit on the late side Friday, due to the inevitable and unavoidable __________(fill in the blank--lots of variables mean lots of little reasons things always get pushed back). We also caught the wave of OKC workers heading south at 5pm, causing I-35 to move at 15mph with their eagerness to start the weekend. A good start came to our weekend when we finally got the mighty iPhone to work correctly and, instead of directing us to some invisible point in the middle Elm, light the path to the beautiful town square Denton possesses, from which we quickly found The Boiler Room where we would be playing:

The show went really well. The stage was definitely on the larger side and included a drum riser (which I think we all secretly hate). Nonetheless, it was a great and well received night that consisted of six of the eight tower lights, lasers and smoke. We had to back off using the four, 300watt can lights because of breaker capacity issues. No big, common problem! One thing that is always very fascinating about Denton, a small town despite having a university with an undergrad population of something like 30,000, is the town square. Literally, the city is centered on a beautifully designed public building of some sort with a lawn serving as a general hangout and surrounded by all the cool coffee shops, restaurants and venues the town has to offer. Never have I been to Denton and not seen at least 100 college-age people floating about the square. Wil and I wandered around and tried to chat the townsfolk up, persuading them to check out The Boiler Room that night. I think it's safe to say we rounded up a few new listeners. Denton is always such a fun town to see!

Saturday called for waking up at 11:30 (after going to sleep at about 4am) and cruisin' south the the famed Austin, TX, a town that never, ever, ever ceases to surprise me with something weird that I never thought possible. IT'S AWESOME. I wish OKC would be as interested in things like the aesthetic of highway support pillars and city power-plant edifices. Austin just "has it" when it comes to design. Probably a result of the people who flock to the city because of it's status as a [legitimate] hub of the arts. OKC is my home, no doubt, and I love it so but I wouldn't mind our city officials adopting a slightly more design influenced stance, generally speaking.

We got to the venue we were playing, Scoot Inn, at about 7pm. Plenty of time to get some face to face with the town when the show starts at 10pm. The temperature was probably around 102F and humidity at something like 900% as we strolled nine or ten blocks to East Side Pies, whose slogan should be "pizza so damn hot you have to hold it under an industrial fan to cool it off." Dinner was great!

The show went great as well, again consisting of only tower lights, smoke and lasers. We received some great responses from the folks hanging out that night and saw the bartender smiling during our set. That means a lot, considering she sees bands probably every night at her work. She was very cool, directed us to a great coffee shop on 6th called Rio Rita's earlier in the evening. We earned some new listeners and sold a good amount of CDs and shirts but, most importantly, we got a lot of promises of attendance at our upcoming July 1st show, again in Austin at the Mohawk.

I saw this just outside the venue as we were leaving (at 1am for the seven hour trek home):

Wonder if this dude/dudette saw the same GZA show at the Mohawk that I saw back at SXSW in March. Hope so, because that show was awesome! I didn't go around writing "I just saw the GZA" on everything but that doesn't mean I didn't think about it.

So--hit the road at 1am in the because Zach had to be back Sunday mid-morning. Mack and Zach did all the driving on that leg and we managed to arrive home at about 7:30am Sunday. Sleep was the only thing on the mind at that time.

It was a fantastic weekend! Can't wait to get back out in two weeks for the big tour.

--life on the line continues!