MARCH 30 (Day 7), IWTDI Tour Blog, Vol. 1 -

Sorry we haven’t written! It has been very difficult to get into a tour groove this time around.

We’ve toured to the west coast and back before, but this time around, we have so much to do every day (our video for Fight_Flight came out yesterday, Preludes comes out in less than two weeks), and so little reliable internet access that we feel a little out of touch and therefore a little out of sorts. Starting now we are going to try to turn that around and give our friends, family, and fans some updates on how things are going! This first blog post is going to be superlong! Bear with me.

We’ve had some good shows and some minor setbacks so far. We kicked this whole thing off with an exceptional show in Raleigh at Tir Na Nog. Many thanks to everyone who came out! It meant so much to us that so many people wanted to see us off and wish us safe travels! We set out for tour “proper” on Friday afternoon and enjoyed a fun show at North River Tavern in Sandy Springs, GA, a little suburb of Atlanta. Neat venue, good food (NACHO MOUNTAIN!), and a decent built-in crowd, and the tour was on its way.

Saturday took us to Auburn, AL, and The Independent. We played here a little less than a year ago, and both times now have been a blast! Auburn folk are very welcoming, and, The Independent treats bands exceptionally well. Things were going very well up to this point, but it wouldn’t be a tour without glitches and those aforementioned minor setbacks.

Sunday was a hard day. We were just starting to get into the swing of things when we found out our venue in Houston was canceling our show because, as they told us, we hadn’t done enough to promote it. We made a facebook event, we sent posters to the venue, we booked our own local bands, and we saw numerous listings for the show online, and somehow this wasn’t enough for Mango’s. One would think that a music venue would have SOME vested interest in promoting their own events, but apparently, Mango’s has a different perception of how the business works. I suppose they think the band that lives 1000 miles away can do a better job of getting word out in their town than they can.

As if that wasn’t frustrating enough, John’s amp blew during our set in at Siberia in New Orleans. One of the staff at Siberia hooked us up with an amp repair guy and we spent Monday, our newfound day off in NOLA trying to get the amp fixed and seeking free wireless. It took all day but never quite got 100% put back together, and kept blowing fuses. We did end up making it out to Lafayette, LA on Monday to spend the night before heading to Austin, even though the hotel we reserved through Hotels.com somehow didn’t take and we had to haggle with the lady at Red Roof to give us a cheap room.

We arrived in Austin to an eagerly anticipated show at Emo’s. It did not disappoint! We had a great, enthusiastic crowd, free 22oz Kirin Lights, a sound man who loved us almost as much as he loves reverb, and another hotel that didn’t recognize our hotel reservation, this time through priceline. We’ve wasted many hours trying to hold various hotels and hotel brokers to live up to their words, and while it has eventually worked out every time, it’s a horrible way to spend 2AM in any town.

This brings us to today! First thing, we took the amp to a music store in Austin called Austin Vintage Guitars, and they addressed a laundry list of issues brought about by years of jury rigging by local technicians. I managed to score myself a pound of incredible brisket from a place in Junction, TX, and we drove through a town called Fredericksburg, which was basically a little slice of Germany cut out from the fatherland and plopped down in remotest Texas. Tonight we will try to make it to Las Cruces, NM (where I lived for nearly two years in the early 80’s), before hitting up Tucson tomorrow for our next show. Hopefully the hotel will be ready for us! I might try to find my old house!

Pictures and movies soon, but here's a little taste!