1/9/10

1st half of Tour

Our first nipply night of the tour was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Borg Ward. Apparently, they pull out the big guns whenever there is a noise show. On top of two horns, 3 monitor bass amps and 2 JBL towers were added to this show. I was probably the loudest I have ever been in Milwaukee; the towers were looking like two rings of fire from the back of the house.

The rest of the weekend we stayed in Chicago playing two nights. Our first night was at the Metal Shaker where my Blo-No-Drone-Duo VEYOU with Nick Hoffman, had its first performance.

The next night was probably one of our most successful nights of the tour where we played at The Mopery in Chicago, Ill. I thought Winters in Osaka’s set was amazing as well as all the others. The Mopery is always a packed house and pretty receptive to anything unusual.

Soon enough, we headed South to Nashville, TN and got a chance to fill sometime with a Dave and Busters and eat some pretty amazing Macaroni and Cheese. I spent the rest of my time playing shooter games like Time Crisis, Aliens, and Rambo. Patrick from Boar apparently is obsessed with claw games and any other kind of bullshit sucker games you will find at a truck stop. This kid will definitely make you wait another ten minutes for him no matter where you have to go if any store or gas station you are at has a goddamn claw game. Surprisingly enough, he’s also really good at it. So far we have a penguin named Frank #2 and a pink teddy bear named Pickles. I can imagine our stuffed animal inventory will definitely be booming by the time we’ve reached the west coast. Patrick also has just as much of an affinity for Taco Bell as much as I do, Its good to know someone is on your side when its time to pullover and eat. It’s a bean burrito heaven lately here.

The next day was New Years Eve as we head to Louisiana. We stopped in Mississippi to celebrate in a hotel. Unfortunately a lot of our festivities were caught on tape as well, and this includes some Mangina from yours truly. We woke up early to get the “continental” breakfast, which was a great spread of endless orange juice and bagels. Later On, We played in Hammond, Louisiana. It was scheduled to be at a Skate Park but due to Dangerous Sounds founder Corbett being so cool, we moved it to his house. We surprising sold a lot of Merch that gave us just enough gas money to get back to the cold Midwest.

Dangerous Sounds will be releasing my full length for the new year in 2010. Corbetts a really cool dude and even though this was a small house show, the ears and spirits were definitely high while being surrounded by a somewhat miserable town in Louisiana, or maybe I'm just being presumptuous by the Taco Bell employees.

This drive up north was our first attempt to sleep in the van in the middle of winter, I knew this wasn’t going to happen unless I was drunk or something. So in celebration of me not having to drive that night, Alex and I bought a case of beer to slam in the van on the way up. After 5 hours of driving and Taco Bell ass and pissing in Growlers we stopped in a rest area to have some horrible sleep, which only lasted till dawn until we hit the road again. Drowsier than ever we pass through Memphis and had only 2 hours left before St.Louis before we got a hotel and mauled at a Chinese Buffet. It was a great day of rest ending in a Hot Tub Volleyball match and a good amount of sleep. Lemp Center was the next day and is always a good time chatting with Mark Sarich from LNAC, Seriously the coolest man on this tour. Being in Lemp is always a warm time, good food, good morale, and a lot of couches! It was wonderful to sleep on a couch and get a set of rest before Des Moines, IA the next day. Kyle Miller and Mathew Crowe joined us on the bill at Vaudeville Mews in Downtown Des Moines, It was finally a good chance to meet these guys. We all had an improve collaboration with their set and from what I remember was pretty damn loud! Two guitars, vox, drums, and keys.

I’ve never had spaghetti pizza until I visited Alex in Iowa. There’s a place called Happy Joe’s in the Iowa area, and everyone has been talking this place up ever since we’ve been on the road. Finally as we end our first 10-day leg of the tour in Iowa , I finally had the chance to dive into this wonderland of sauce, noodles, and crusty goodness. We have been staying in Iowa that last couple of days to rest up and edit and export tour videos, cook spaghetti, and practice our 3 songs collaborative set for the west end of the tour.

We had practice last night in a grandma and grandpas basement, the 3 songs we’re performing for our collab went overall pretty well and I cant wait to play them in Missouri.