The Winter break was all in all a great time, and will probably one of the last month long tours I plan on scheduling. On our last date in San Francisco, We started a 12 hour scheduling system between the people in the van which was quite treacherous but was sufficient with the amount of time it took for us to get back home. 2 dudes manning the front (9-8) during the day as the others slept and vice verse around with Patrick from Boar and I's night shift around 9pm to 8am. You never know how nostalgic you're going to get when its 5 am and the sun begins to rise over the Arizona mountains - and all thats left to listen to is Patricks Headbangers Ball CD as we begun to quiz each other in naming what nu-metal band was next. WE returned safely, broke, tired, and hardened from the road.
Delirious, hungry, broke, and calling all of my friends who have yet pick up my 7" in exchange for gas money; I drove into my hometown (Bloomington-Normal) hauling an empty 18-passenger van with me at 9am. I had an amazing brunch and conversation with my father and brother and was lucky enough to hop on to a show later that night in "uptown" Normal at the Acme Music Hall. Karl from BloNoShows was a great help in adding me to the bill in such short notice, which included: Citizen Stab and Lexicon. I used to play bass in Citizen Stab which was originally an dark-jazzy-improvisational group which would sometimes consists of 8-10 members or 4-5 members at a time. Now, Citizen Stab resides the name in a more minimal configuration between Nathan Parks i.e Natronicus - who is an absolutely gifted piano player and all around amazing artist/friend in the Blo/No area and his new drummer, Ryan Tauscher. This show made it more than possible for me to arrive back to Chicago with a fresh tank of gas, oil change, and a peaceful state of mind.
For this;
Everyone from Acme Music Hall and who came out that night - deserves a huge thank you for helping me when I literally had no funds to get back home by making a bittersweet ending to my long month on the road. Being able to have some kind of "Homecoming" show is always a great way to end a tour of any size.
Along with additional wasted time last week there are a few more places to find me:
Amidst all of these daily distractions I will be updating my Soundcloud account the most with different demos or clips from my new album this summer. I just wanted a place where I could upload rough and newer songs that I record throughout my weeks and post the demo versions up along for feedback.
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.
I had the pleasure of opening for Rainbo Video near the beginning of the summer which was ironically towards the end of his tour. Rainbo Video also runs a blog called Video Pop and included me within a recent article, There are downloads available within these linksfrom my upcoming full length due in 2010 and "kites" from my 7" split with GK.
Chicago's first snow means alot of things...... dont forget to buy your grammy something for X-mas, Hand in that Research Paper you've been ignoring all semester, wipe your ass!! for gods sake wipe that ass.....
This Winter will be the first Swim Ignorant Fire tour.
I met Alex from Boar near the beginning of this summer at Noise Shock II in East Moline, IL at Mixtapes. We both had a very good weekend of fellowship, eating corn dogs, puking in grass, and jumping in the brownest river I've seen called the Mississippi.
Luckily, after cutting my foot open in the river there was no lockjaw or tetanus involved
and at that moment as the first drop of blood dripped through the dock into the river we decided to tour together. Amidst this summer of planning dates and such, We started file-swapping and exchanging song ideas for a possible collaboration to have ready for this tour. We've been writing for this collaboration all summer and it has finally come to fruition. This is probably one of my most aggressive releases so far and crosses alot of genres, its not just a chunk of one thing. There's alot more vocals on this release than I had thought, but makes an interesting blend of metal vocals driving or leading this quirky-quasi-noise-metal? album.
This Boar collaboration will be released through Alex and I's own label: Feeding Cotton Records and Nail in the Coffin Records (NITCO) in East Moline, IL and will be ready for purchase on tour.
1 Drawing Circles with Chalk 2.He’s calling your name 3. If I see another Warhol bag, I’m gonna throw up 4. Cutting down your high horse 5. Blowing smoke up the cowboys ass 6. Run like you’re told 7. Shit rolls down Holy Mountain 8.Save Me 9. Shelter 10.Bruise Festival 11. Ash 12. The classic, “I have a show, but no material” move 13.Celine Dion Handwriting 14. Awkward conversation til we die
Tracks 4,11 recorded as Boar Tracks 2,14 recorded as Swim Ignorant Fire (all other tracks recorded as a collaborative effort)
