First Post of Summer 2010 Tour.

Thursday May 13th Austin //Beerland Tourkick off
Sorta not as many people showed up, but still had a good time. Cruddy and Horse + Donkey were great, but the opener how I quit crack didn’t show up. She had sent us a message on myspace day of saying she couldn’t make it, but we didn’t check it. Not that it is new information, but having to use myspace to book stuff is fucking terrible. I found myself on myspace often for this tour looking for local bands in various cities. Hard to believe that I used that site on a daily basis in the past. Brutal.. Anyway we made about 300 bucks with all the merch sales, and the other bands being cool about hooking us up with $$ for the tour. Said our goodbyes had my last breakfast taco for a while and then headed to Dallas on Friday afternoon..

Friday May 14th Dallas//Lounge on Elm St.
Oh Dallas. While it was good to hang out with John Iskander the show was meh. The Beets had cancelled day of which certainly didn’t help the draw, but ya not exactly a stellar first show out of the gate. John was nice enough to let us stay in his incredible appartment in Dallas, and he showed us chat roulette. That was interesting. Old dudes and young girls. Fell asleep watching 2012. Woke up,showered, and headed to Metro Diner for our first Diner food breakfast (fav part of tour).

Saturday May 15th Hot Springs, AR//The Exchange
Easily one of the best venues for small unpopular touring bands such as ourselves. Bobby Missile is the main meister there. Great guy. Got two 30 packs of Budweiser cans for 40 bucks as we pulled into town to gas up. Went to the venue, and the non veggies ate a bunch of chicken that was left over from a city wide Cmyself cken cook off. Marc and I went and had a couple beers and a pizzzzza. The bill that night consisted of a high school band called Through the looking glass (a self described “metal-core” band), us, and one of Bobby’s bands called Mother Hug. The high school band brought about 95% of the very underage crowd. Mother Hug ruled (especially the drummer), and a couple friends from Little Rock (goose and jay) drove up to see us. We drank a ton of beer, and ended the night watching the classic film… Do America. A perfect day. Next morning had breakfast at Granny’s Kitchen.

Sunday May 16th Kansas City,MO// Joseph Stack Memorial Hall
So before we left on this trip George downloaded about 10 hrs of Sharpling and Wurster clips from the best show on WFMU. We listen to a lot of comedy and dub in the van and on this particular drive we hit a brutal hail storm. Beautiful country,but I’m glad I wasn’t doing the driving. Anyway, the show was great. Demon Horse the first band of the night killlled it hard. Also enjoyed the Conquerors set. The crowd was gutterpunk-y art kids. They really liked us. That felt good. Kansas City was really good to us, and I liked walking around the old abondoned brick buildings of downtown. Reminds me how new Austin is. Our drummer Chris is from KC, and we stayed at his buddy Josh’s huge house. Fell asleep watching Hangover. In the morning Josh went to the store and made us a big ol’ breakfast.

Monday May 17th Chicago, IL// Empty Bottle
We plan our tours through the midwest on the basis of getting a show at the Empty Bottle on a Monday. Easily the best Monday night in the country. It’s free to get in, always packed, good bands, and $1.50 PBR’s (.75 for bands).
Jesse used to work there so we have a sort of long time friendship going with the club. The first person I saw when I walked in was Bob. He’s a big teddy bear who can probably punch hard. Great to hang with him for the night. We have been emailing back and forth with the band KK Rampage about doing a split 7″ (still in the works) so it was great to finally meet and watch those dudes. They killed it. Also played with Psychic Steel (ex-coughs), and they were cool. Was a great turnout 220 through the door. Bands get paid through the bar. Was awesome. Saw a lot of friends… Dr. G, Mike Lizer, Ryan + Jessica, and Loren (who kindy let us sleep at her cribbbb). I slept in the van . In the morning we watched a couple episodes of Arrested D, went to record shops, ate greek food at Sultan’s, and drove to my home state of Indiana.

Tuesday May 18th Bloomington, IN// The Bishop
My mom and dad made the drive over from my hometown of Seymour (go fighting owls). They bought us dinner, and brought over some fresh strawberries from my parents neighbors garden. Nate and I went to college in Bloomington, and have kind of avoided it after a few pretty terrible show experiences at uncle fisterz aka being too loud on punk rock night… However we heard there was a new venue called the Bishop that was cool so we decided to go for it. We played with Nobunny and Apache Dropout. Really great crowd, and we somehow didn’t drive out the garage rocker fans. Sold a bunch of stuff, and blew some minds. My friend Joel drove over from Cincinnati and was great to see him. First time my parents watched dinos and they said that the crowd seemed entertained. Ended up at video saloon for a few beers before sleeping in an empty house that was owned by Chris’s friend Lars brother. INCREDIBLE Sat-Tues. Driving to Cleveland now..