P.S. Why I will keep on shaving forever.

So Will and I were growing beards the entire tour, you know, like a tour beard vibe, where you come back from tour with this beard and you are like, check it out, it's my tour beard! but alas, i am utterly incapable of growing one, and i just looked like a sketchy asian bro-dude with a stupid goatee, so i shaved it as soon as i got back to my apartment on monday:

Cleveland, monday 4/4

Brooklyn, mon 4/11

Philly: The M Room

Got to the M Room super-early. I believe around 5 or 6pm. The only person in there was the bartender, Vasily, so I took this picture and that was supposed to be the entirety of this post, if no one showed up to the show:

We loaded in and fired up the ol' macbook for a little blogging about our epic drive from Chicago > Atlanta. We also enjoyed a few of the local brews and shot the shit with Vasily, who quickly became our favorite bartender of all time.

The other bands came trickling in, and so did a bunch of Nadia's friends. We thought we were playing at 9 but were told we were playing last, at 11. Boo! What to do now? Suppose enjoying some more of the local tipple and hanging out with Nadia's friends. And maybe eat some food. We were mulling over the options when Nadia informed us that Vasily has already order some food for us to share. Sweet! Free food!

The plate of sauce was the same size as my hand! Thanks Vasily!

We felt very badly indeed that all these fine people came out on a sunday and had to wait around for hours for us to play. So we gave them the best we got. I think we are getting better and better each show. Actually, it was the first time I didn't fudge the drum machine on Park Ranger which we've been playing on tour.

During the show, Nadia somehow managed to drop her cellphone through the crack in the stage down into the netherworld. Maybe she was texting. Who knows. Anyway, the sound guy opened a trap door and I had to crawl down under the stage to look for it. It was really creepy down there and the phone was just within arm's reach, or else we would have lost it forever. The sound guy said if there were C.H.U.D.s down there, we wasn't going to save me.

Thank you for everyone who showed up on this sunday!

Few of the lovely Philly friends who stayed til the bitter end

Vasily, bartender extraordinaire

We drove off to Nadia's parent's house in the 'burbs and played Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero until 5 in the morning.

Back to New York!

Chapel Hill > DC

We left the comforts of our Durham Red Roof Inn and headed toward DC with plenty of time to rollick about the ol' capital. We thought... Until we stop at a waffle house and noticed this screw lodged into our back tire:

 So we pulled up at a gas station in NC and asked for a mechanic. Turns out we had to go on an odyssey to Super WalMart in order to get this thing fixed. We spent a few hours rollicking about the store and by the end, our spare was on and the flat mounted safely on our back door. And it cost $5!

We rolled into DC around 5 and decided to eat some noodles. The most vegetables we've eaten since, well, I suppose Chipotle for will, and perhaps Chicago for Nadia and Yoi. Anyway, it was delicious.

 Nadia decided to meet up with our friend Kenny while Will and I took  a power-nap in the van outside the Velvet Lounge.

I fell into a deep sleep and woke up just in time for load-in. We met up with the kids from Ra Ra Rasputin and said our hellos, and met the members of Miyazaki - surprised to see that Rob, who used to play with our good friends The Vita Ruins now plays with Miyazaki.

Super-psyched about this show. It's always great to play with like-minded bands. For once we all had synths and sequencers. And we all got the house dancing! Hate to say this, but DC crowds definitely know how to dance way more than the New York scene.  It's true.

Miyazaki 

 

Extra thanks for everyone that came out for this show! It was amazing! Loved every second of it.

We stayed in Cleveland Park with our friend Chandni. Such a gracious host. Hung out for a good while after the show, seeing as we only had a short ride to Philly the next day. We can't thank you enough! Got to hang out with our super-fan who came all the way from New York for the show. super awesome!

Slept in my own bed. what a luxury.

Chapel Hill 2

Ok, so Chapel Hill didn't end at getting TO Nightlight, we just passed out while writing the last bit, like at, 5am or something. (I say we because now it's getting to the point where the "I" in the posts are getting a bit confused.)

So, we got to Nightlight and loaded our gear into the club, Met Montgomery, the sound dude, and members from Spiral Fire and Sons of Young, who were playing with us. Fooligans, the headliners, where no where to be found. Will and I got into a minor tiff about where to park the van, so I drove off in an irrational rage to find a parking spot. Actually, more than anything it was this fat lady claiming the spot in front of the club that flew me into a rage. I drove around a few blocks and tried not to run over the dozens of drunk UNC kids randomly running across the street. I was feeling a bit crazy, kind like this dude. We finally parked the van where we originally agreed to park, as we saw that the Fooligans where actually already at the club this entire time.

Super varied bill this night. Sons of Young were a punk outfit. Spiral Fire were a heavy pop band with a great singer, and then us, and then Fooligans.

We probably played the best of all the shows so far. We drenched the vocals in reverb, which was kind of nice for a change. We might do that a bit more.




Then, my friends, then the Fooligans. Ian, the lead singer/guitar player, is a fucking monster. He is like, if Ted Nugent and Jimi Hendrix had a love child. We just stood there with our jaws to the ground as the Fooligans burned through their set. I think this dude is the best guitar player/singer I've ever met. It's like he has two brains, one that let's him sing, and another that let's him shred/destroy his guitar. It's really a sight to behold.

 

Dude even played the guitar with his fucking teeth. And also bled all over his guitar. What a mad man. 

Cheers!

Chapel Hill

we left for chapel hill in the late am and we saw some very large items. notably, a giant peach and some giant tires:

at this point we began our stretch of "drives that are of a length that dont make us want to stab ourselves in the face" and made it to chapel hill in a swift length less than 7 hours. oh boy! also. we were so hungover going from chicago to atlanta that our we were unable to get redrunk and our drive to north carolina was minty fresh!
also it was 80 something degrees still and humid and we had to use the AC. which maybe didnt work in the van. and was inconceivable. because in new york it was 40 and rainy. suckers.
anyhoo we checked into our red roof inn in durham. nadia attempted to check for bed bugs although shes not sure what to look for. other than bugs. and maybe tiny feces. it seemed to make the cut. then we left for chapel hill, hungry for some bbq (minus will.) like most of our drives, we'd miscalculated our amount of "free time" and picked our most convenient option. which was time out, home of the "chicken cheddar biscuit" (which none of us had...i think we wanted pork), pictures of possible celebrities/athletes on the walls making the "time out" ref signal, and according to yelp tips "being a magnet for homeless people and drunk students at 3am." anyway nadia and yoi both housed some pulled pork, mac n cheese and some other things that soon thereafter made us question our digestive capacities.

meat party

and then will, unable to find things fit for his pseudo vegan (lactose intolerant pescetarian) diet, went to chipotle and ate veggie burrito. and a delicious modelo. while listening to karma police. mkay.

AND SO ON!

we got to nightlight and had some drinks, served by the lovely owner of the establishment. the first band was a punk band from columbia, sc called sons of young. i cant write anymore but yoi can. so time for the next chapel hill post!

Chicago > ATL epic drive

We loaded the van at Quencher’s and immediately hit the road towards Atlanta. The plan was to drive as far as possible during the night without dying and then picking up the driving in the early AM.

I put on the audiobook version of A Bit of a Blur by Alex James, who is one of my bass heroes and is also rather entertaining to listen to reading about his rise to fame with Blur. Call it our version of a tour movie, like Spinal Tap was to so many bands before us.

Somehow our GPS had us driving through the sketchiest part of Gary, IN in the middle of the night. It was bizarre and quite frightening. 

We drove straight down toward Indianapolis. We drove through what I thought was an airport at first, but it turned out to be an endless row of blinking red lights for miles and miles. It took literally 15 minutes of driving through this weird field of lights until it finally faded into the distance. I thought we were going to get transported to some space station or something. 

Just about the time Alex James was rushing to the hospital to see the delivery of his twins, we were a few miles outside Indianapolis and it was nearly 4am. I decided to pull into a rest stop (the next one was 75 miles away and I didn't think I could drive that much longer). We set our alarm for 6:30am and decided to catch a few hours of shut eye. Except no one did. First of all, it was freezing in the van, and Will and I had no blankets. There were bright rest stop lights glaring in from every direction. And tho Nadia was wrapped in blankets, the images of Gary made Nadia have paranoia about sexual predators and truck drivers. So None of us slept very well. 

When the alarm went off Will took over the driving. Actually he kind of grunted and wobbled to the rest rooms first, and then he climbed into the driver's seat and grunted and commenced driving. The sun was coming up as we drove past Indianapolis:

The sun was well up by the time we crossed the border into Kentucky and into Louisville:

And onward toward Nashville:

I might add at this juncture that Nadia was sleeping this entire time. And Will and I were in the front making funny videos of her sleeping. Yea, I suppose that's kind of creepy, but that's what you get for sleeping through two states. We pulled into our first Waffle House (and Nadia's first ever) somewhere in Kentucky north of Nashville. We woke her up in the Waffle House parking lot and all her dreams came true!

One thing about being in Kentucky: You can still smoke in restaurants. I did. And then instantly thought it was pretty gross. We all did. 

Finally into Tennessee and Nashville:

It was quite confusing being in these middle states. We kept on going back and forth between Eastern and Central time zones and we never had any idea what time it was. So we entered Georgia sometime around 12:30 or 1:30pm. No idea. Did I mention we only slept for a couple hours? 

We finally rolled into Atlanta in the late afternoon and went straight to Little Five Points and the Vortex, which is where Jeremiah suggested we go. There was some dude getting arrested outside when we rolled up. And we met up with our friend Lauren. We were pretty crazed by this point:

 

I ate a black bean burger with a salad, Will had a salad and a veggie chili, and nadia had tuna salad sandwich with a salad. Yea, we like salad. We were craving it, actually. I think our collective brains were begging us to consume something healthy for a change after being abused by hours and hours of being trapped in the van, and coming from the midwest and fried everything.  amusingly enough we chose to eat salad at the home of the double coronary bypass burger

thanks jeremiah joyce you meat loving caveman!

We headed to Wonder Root after dinner, and I made the mistake of thinking coffee would somehow help me feel better. I got an iced coffee and downed the delicious beverage in a matter of minutes. And then it made me feel like I was going to die. I hate coffee. I will never drink it ever again. 

We got to wonder root and nearly mowed over a pack of bikers who were occupying the parking lot shared with wonderroot and drinking beers. luckily, we didnt. but maybe our lack of wallet chains and leather led them to believe we were gay. 

anyway! the first band was places which was really a one man band by nico, the drummer of the second band the compartmentalizationalists. we love nico. we want to take him home in our pockets. and listen to him play and self deprecate all of the time. 

nico of places and compartkejs,n,sdnsdffists

Then the compartmentalizationaliists played. most notably, the theme from kids in the hall! awesome!

they also played with andy warhol wigs on, which is always awesome.

then we played. it was purty good! the speakers couldnt handle our major bass noises so it sounded kind of like farts. but generally speaking the show was a success! thanks to our atlanta friends for coming out!

then new animal played and they had a big following despite the fact that it was their first show ever. new animal was great and we expect to hear big things about them in the future!

Thank you so much to Sean from Small Reactions for putting us up in his mansion! Nadia is really so sorry that she single-handedly destroyed both your bathrooms in one fell swoop. We assure you it had nothing to do with the toilet. we swear.

We finally got to getting to bed around 2am. our epic journey finally come to a close. On to Chapel Hill!

4/6 Chicago - Quencher's

Woke up in the hotel woefully hungover. We have no idea what happened last night. The room is a mess.
Time to go explore Chicago! Woof.

I was basically a corpse on this day. And Will and Nadia dragged my body all around town like some kind of Medieval parade... We were on the search for a mythical Chicago legend named Jeff Tweedé, who is known to inhabit pubs and dark alleyways about town. We never saw him. We ate lunch at the French market food court in the train station, where I slept for a a good bit. I didn't take very many pictures of this day, because I was too retarded or unconscious to operate a camera.

We headed to Quencher's around 4pm and loaded in early for the show. Then we took a nap in the van for a bit before heading in for our free pizza:

The sound dude's name was Darren and he showed up around 9:30. We took an instant like to him during soundcheck. We were all miserable with hangovers but he instantly lifted our mood by saying stuff like, "They told me I could get a job in six months...at the clinic." We kept on quacking into our mikes and he even joined in doing that. Amazing. Then we found out that he was from Newburyport. What?! Do you know how small Will's hometown is? It's very small. Darren, we salute you! You are the best!

Will had to get ready for the performance by ingesting some sort of gatorade performance enhancing gel. It looked pretty foul:

Kinda looks like Will's playing the melodica...

We banged out our set and then watched the next band, Collectors, who were pretty rad dudes who used no effects. The dude on the right is an amazing guitar player. The dude on the left is a great front man. We enjoyed their set very much. Rock on!

We loaded straight out after their set and began our epic drive to Altanta...