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Tomorrow (FRIDAY APRIL 22) is the big day- our "Preludes" album release party!
We'll have the album for sale on CD and LP, admission is still dirt cheap if you buy your tickets online right now ($4 in advance vs $7 at the door!), and Prisms & Antibubbles will be starting the night off right @ 9:30! Please join us at Local 506 in Chapel Hill for this all ages happyfuntime!
We've been away for weeks and we're about to leave again, so we really want to see your lovely faces- let's do this!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 9 (Day 20), 12 April
On the drive to Medford, we encountered our first snow. And hail. And more hail. And sub-freezing temperatures. We rocked a really fun set filled with songs we really needed to work on for the upcoming Vexations album as well as songs we want to bust out from Preludes, in front of maybe three people we didn’t know/were traveling with. Weeknight in a town where no one has heard of us or really goes out at night for that matter. We had a good time and a great opportunity to work on things. We spent the night in town and set our course for Portland Friday morning.
We tried hard to not have many days without shows. Booking is the least fun part of being in a band, and while our luck has been pretty good, we had a Friday with no show, and that’s always hard to swallow. We were lucky though that Greyday helped us out with a chance to play on the radio at KPSU, Portland State University’s radio station. We busted out a fun set of acoustic songs and had the evening free to pursue our respective fancies. We grabbed some incredible food at Slingshot, and then some of us went out partying and some of us stayed at the house to catch up on things or rest.
We were lucky enough to have a great place to stay the two nights we were in Portland. An old friend Christa had some room in her cute house in town, and she let us more or less have the run of it while she set about her task of righting wrongs and making the world a better place. We crashed out Friday night and got ready for a busy day Saturday.
Saturday afternoon, we did a set of five full rocking songs for an upcoming podcast . That took us a little longer than expected, so we ended up being a little late to our load in at Mississippi Studios. We pride ourselves on punctuality and professionalism, so we were eager to get there despite our outdated GPS trying to kill us. John’s GPS is better than mine. We should have brought his!
Mississippi Studios was a blast! It was our last night with The Trophy Fire, and our last night hanging with Todd from Greyday. We rocked an early show that had us getting out of there by 10, and then we partied down and annoyed those around us for a few hours before parting ways . The next day was another day off, so we slept in, hung out with Christa for a hot second, toured the Greyday offices, helped ourselves to a few free cd’s, drove to Voodoo Doughnuts (leaving due to the prohibitive line going partway around the building), and headed as far as we could towards Salt Lake City.
We tried hard to not have many days without shows. Booking is the least fun part of being in a band, and while our luck has been pretty good, we had a Friday with no show, and that’s always hard to swallow. We were lucky though that Greyday helped us out with a chance to play on the radio at KPSU, Portland State University’s radio station. We busted out a fun set of acoustic songs and had the evening free to pursue our respective fancies. We grabbed some incredible food at Slingshot, and then some of us went out partying and some of us stayed at the house to catch up on things or rest.
We were lucky enough to have a great place to stay the two nights we were in Portland. An old friend Christa had some room in her cute house in town, and she let us more or less have the run of it while she set about her task of righting wrongs and making the world a better place. We crashed out Friday night and got ready for a busy day Saturday.
Saturday afternoon, we did a set of five full rocking songs for an upcoming podcast . That took us a little longer than expected, so we ended up being a little late to our load in at Mississippi Studios. We pride ourselves on punctuality and professionalism, so we were eager to get there despite our outdated GPS trying to kill us. John’s GPS is better than mine. We should have brought his!
Mississippi Studios was a blast! It was our last night with The Trophy Fire, and our last night hanging with Todd from Greyday. We rocked an early show that had us getting out of there by 10, and then we partied down and annoyed those around us for a few hours before parting ways . The next day was another day off, so we slept in, hung out with Christa for a hot second, toured the Greyday offices, helped ourselves to a few free cd’s, drove to Voodoo Doughnuts (leaving due to the prohibitive line going partway around the building), and headed as far as we could towards Salt Lake City.
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 8 (Day 18), 10 April
We arrived at El Rio in San Francisco to see a building on fire a few blocks away. We took the chance to both relish the beauty of the conflagration and reflect on the obvious tragedy. We hope that no one was hurt, but at the risk of sounding insensitive, it was a fairly awesome sight. Fire crews were there from right when we arrived until right when we left. SFFD did a great job.
By the way, being in and around San Francisco inspired me to irritate the band with constant but varying renditions of the Monk theme song, one of many great Randy Newman jingles. I personally believe that to be annoyed is to feel very much alive, so I try to keep my bandmates as annoyed as possible as often as possible. Because as we all know, it’s a jungle out there…Disorder and confusion everywhere…
The show at El Rio was a lot of fun. We played with Shuteye Unison and Silian Rail, the latter of which features John’s old friend Eric Kuhn. El Rio is divided with a straight up bar on one side, a nice, open patio out back, and a stage in a separate room next door. It’s a really great setting for a show. We had played there the last time we came through, except on that occasion, a July 4th party/festival, we had set up facing the patio instead of the house of the club. It’s a fine place to play regardless of which way you face, and we finished the night ecstatic to have played in front of people again.
We spent our last night in California and headed out of town early enough in the morning to ship out a mail order (yep, even when we’re on the road you can buy our stuff!) and take Joe across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then we stopped at the Marin Headlands, and John showed us some of his old stomping grounds. Being a fan of both ruins/urban decay and old military installations, seeing some of these places was almost spiritual for me, just like the old ruins I saw at Point Lobos on the west side of town. We spent some time there and then head out of California. We had spent a week there, and while we enjoyed it tremendously, actually leaving the state felt like we were making real tour progress. At least for me, it felt like we had been stagnant for a while. Plus, I love Oregon. On to Medford. More soon!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
STREAM THE NEW ALBUM!
The new album, Preludes, is out TODAY on CD, LP, and digital. Pick it up from your favorite record store or online retailer. Also, you can listen to the whole f-ing album for free here: http://www.undertheradarmag.com/media/premiere_preludes_album_stream
Enjoy! Much love from the road.
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 7 (Day 18), 10 April – NEW TRAILER AND BALANCE IN THE UNIVERSE
Man, it’s really hard to keep this blog up to date! We’re in the van driving from Portland to Boise, and as far as you know, we’re still in California! Oh well, better that we blog chronologically and just try to catch up. There hasn’t been a lot of time for photos or video compiling, but as we take them, we’ll try to post them! The one thing about this tour, even with several days without shows, we’re moving constantly. I think between John and myself, we’d kill for six hours with nowhere to go and nothing to do. That won’t happen anytime soon though, so we’ll just keep doing our best to keep you caught up.
We left the L.A. area to play one more show in San Francisco before finally heading out of California. We had seen a half dozen trailers and called two dozen trailer stores. We knew the exact trailer we wanted but the price was prohibitive. So we decided to head straight for the trailer dealership that had the 2600 dollar trailer, and over the course of the five hour trip, we researched and called every trailer and RV store along our route in Oregon where there’s no sales tax. We even tried to call Wells Cargo’s headquarters to see if they could tell us which dealerships had our trailer model in stock, but they close at 5 eastern and we never really got the hang of the time difference. So in the end we spent all day trying to locate a trailer that doesn’t exist outside of 101 Trailer Sales in Aromas, CA.
We got to our place and got the wheels rolling, so to speak. Our hitch was too low and our ball was too small (wah), but the wiring was righteous, and with a few small modifications we had ourselves a brand new trailer. Brad at 101 Trailer Sales was so nice that he actually arranged with a friend at U-Haul for us to leave our rental trailer at his place to be picked up sometime in the near future.
We want to thank several people for helping us through this ordeal. U-Haul was accommodating and let us hold the trailer for as long as we needed and leave it wherever we had to. Brad the trailer guy was super nice and helpful and never pushed us too hard to buy the trailer. The trailer itself is a hunk of magical awesomeness, each wheel with its own shocks, 15 inch tires, and a load capacity far greater than we will ever need. Most of all though, we have to thank Greyday Records and Todd Berry because HE BOUGHT THE TRAILER FOR US. We’re already way in the hole to Todd for everything he’s done for us, but he didn’t hesitate to get us on the road quickly, and even though we know he didn’t want to throw 2700 dollars (with tax and accessories) at a trailer for us, he did it, and it just goes to show you how great we have it right now. Todd’s the king of the world and we will remain in his debt forever!
So trailer woes solved, we rocked it to San Francisco and onward. And onward. And onward…
We left the L.A. area to play one more show in San Francisco before finally heading out of California. We had seen a half dozen trailers and called two dozen trailer stores. We knew the exact trailer we wanted but the price was prohibitive. So we decided to head straight for the trailer dealership that had the 2600 dollar trailer, and over the course of the five hour trip, we researched and called every trailer and RV store along our route in Oregon where there’s no sales tax. We even tried to call Wells Cargo’s headquarters to see if they could tell us which dealerships had our trailer model in stock, but they close at 5 eastern and we never really got the hang of the time difference. So in the end we spent all day trying to locate a trailer that doesn’t exist outside of 101 Trailer Sales in Aromas, CA.
We got to our place and got the wheels rolling, so to speak. Our hitch was too low and our ball was too small (wah), but the wiring was righteous, and with a few small modifications we had ourselves a brand new trailer. Brad at 101 Trailer Sales was so nice that he actually arranged with a friend at U-Haul for us to leave our rental trailer at his place to be picked up sometime in the near future.
We want to thank several people for helping us through this ordeal. U-Haul was accommodating and let us hold the trailer for as long as we needed and leave it wherever we had to. Brad the trailer guy was super nice and helpful and never pushed us too hard to buy the trailer. The trailer itself is a hunk of magical awesomeness, each wheel with its own shocks, 15 inch tires, and a load capacity far greater than we will ever need. Most of all though, we have to thank Greyday Records and Todd Berry because HE BOUGHT THE TRAILER FOR US. We’re already way in the hole to Todd for everything he’s done for us, but he didn’t hesitate to get us on the road quickly, and even though we know he didn’t want to throw 2700 dollars (with tax and accessories) at a trailer for us, he did it, and it just goes to show you how great we have it right now. Todd’s the king of the world and we will remain in his debt forever!
So trailer woes solved, we rocked it to San Francisco and onward. And onward. And onward…
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 6 (Day 18), 10 April
The Ventura show was pretty decent. We had a good time and played in front of some friends. Long Beach was the next day and it was fairly meh. We played with good bands, and we had a lot of fun, but the turnout was paltry and it was the first night of the whole tour that we didn’t get paid anything or sell any merch. At the time, it was a little frustrating, but looking back on it, for that to be the ONLY show of the tour so far that we didn’t recoup anything speaks well for the overall good fortune and supernatural booking abilities this band has! Silver linings are the bomb!
Between the Ventura show and the Long Beach shows, we managed to get ourselves into Los Angeles proper. We really wanted to show Joe the L.A. Guitar Center, we had a few hours to kill, and we needed to get the van’s oil changed and such. I waited near the van while we got the work done, and the rest of the band went over and tried to experience the vintage guitar room. Unfortunately the vintage guitar room was closed for some kind of film shoot (whaaaaaaaaaat? In Hollywooooooood?) and thus began poor Joey’s 24 hours of misery.
We met up with Todd Berry, owner of Greyday Records, in Ventura and Long Beach, and he joined us for part of our travels. He got his own hotel room in Camarillo, CA where we were staying and Joe opted to take the second bed. Little did he know, the bed had already been claimed by a very large family of bedbugs. But that’s his story to tell, and hopefully he will publish a blog post about it. Someday he will look back and laugh about the whole thing. For now, we can all revel in his personal tragedy!
On Wednesday, we hit the road for San Francisco again, and set about one more time to procure a trailer. Stay tuned!
Between the Ventura show and the Long Beach shows, we managed to get ourselves into Los Angeles proper. We really wanted to show Joe the L.A. Guitar Center, we had a few hours to kill, and we needed to get the van’s oil changed and such. I waited near the van while we got the work done, and the rest of the band went over and tried to experience the vintage guitar room. Unfortunately the vintage guitar room was closed for some kind of film shoot (whaaaaaaaaaat? In Hollywooooooood?) and thus began poor Joey’s 24 hours of misery.
We met up with Todd Berry, owner of Greyday Records, in Ventura and Long Beach, and he joined us for part of our travels. He got his own hotel room in Camarillo, CA where we were staying and Joe opted to take the second bed. Little did he know, the bed had already been claimed by a very large family of bedbugs. But that’s his story to tell, and hopefully he will publish a blog post about it. Someday he will look back and laugh about the whole thing. For now, we can all revel in his personal tragedy!
On Wednesday, we hit the road for San Francisco again, and set about one more time to procure a trailer. Stay tuned!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 5 (Day 14), 6 April TRAILER SHOPPING BLUES
Monday morning, we left San Francisco earlier than we might have wanted to, but we had trailers to buy. We had been calling all over, and Rachel had been getting some very quick lessons on trailer makes and models. We had been working with a big trailer chain called Trailers Plus or something like that, and we thought we had a plan. We drove to a town called Gilroy on the 101, expecting to buy a trailer for about 1600 bucks. Sadly (for them) the trailer store we went to had just decided to be closed on Mondays, so we were stuck with a U-Haul and nothing else. We didn’t have time to sit around though, so we hit the road towards Ventura and decided to google and call trailer stores along the way.
There are lots of trailer stores out there. And there are lots of trailers. And they are all kind of expensive, but they are also very hit or miss in terms of quality. Of course we had just lost a trailer so we knew some of that, but we must have hit six different places over the next few hours. The second or third one we hit was tucked away just off the road, but it was the kind of place you would just drive past without noticing. Somehow I saw out of the corner of my eye some really nice trailers, and so we did a couple of U-turns and came back around.
This place had the trailer of our dreams! But it was around 2600 dollars, just way too expensive for us to think about buying. But looking at it, the trailer gave us a very clear idea of what we needed to look for in terms of size, suspension, tongue, hitch, etc. We hit the road again, hearing tale of an elusive, comparable trailer for almost half the price a few hours south in Paso Robles.
We drove the two hours to Paso Robles to find a nice little 4X6 trailer, made by the same company (Wells Cargo), but the thing was crazy flimsy. It seemed like an errant stone could pierce the shell of this thing like a thin pane of glass.
Thwarted, we continued down towards Ventura, calling places ahead of us and finding nothing. It began to dawn on us that if we really want a trailer that would make the trip, protect our gear, etc, we would have to be willing to spend the money. If we had the benefit of time, we might be able to find something cheaper but we have business to conduct.
This is where our incredible label comes in. We called Todd, owner of Greyday Records, telling him that we were in trailer trouble and that we might need help affording a new one. He did not hesitate to say he would help us out. This guy is amazing, putting the same skin in the game that we’re putting. We do this together, succeed or fail. Anyway, our plan was to meet up with him in Ventura and bring him home to Portland, so he came in just at the right time to help us resolve this.
The U-Haul has been great. It has been easy to use even though it’s way too long. We can fit all of our gear into it, and it doesn’t bounce like the last trailer did. But we are eager to have a trailer of our own again. By the time we got to Ventura, we were still empty handed though, so it looked like we would still be waiting. Stay tuned for the rest of the story!
There are lots of trailer stores out there. And there are lots of trailers. And they are all kind of expensive, but they are also very hit or miss in terms of quality. Of course we had just lost a trailer so we knew some of that, but we must have hit six different places over the next few hours. The second or third one we hit was tucked away just off the road, but it was the kind of place you would just drive past without noticing. Somehow I saw out of the corner of my eye some really nice trailers, and so we did a couple of U-turns and came back around.
This place had the trailer of our dreams! But it was around 2600 dollars, just way too expensive for us to think about buying. But looking at it, the trailer gave us a very clear idea of what we needed to look for in terms of size, suspension, tongue, hitch, etc. We hit the road again, hearing tale of an elusive, comparable trailer for almost half the price a few hours south in Paso Robles.
We drove the two hours to Paso Robles to find a nice little 4X6 trailer, made by the same company (Wells Cargo), but the thing was crazy flimsy. It seemed like an errant stone could pierce the shell of this thing like a thin pane of glass.
Thwarted, we continued down towards Ventura, calling places ahead of us and finding nothing. It began to dawn on us that if we really want a trailer that would make the trip, protect our gear, etc, we would have to be willing to spend the money. If we had the benefit of time, we might be able to find something cheaper but we have business to conduct.
This is where our incredible label comes in. We called Todd, owner of Greyday Records, telling him that we were in trailer trouble and that we might need help affording a new one. He did not hesitate to say he would help us out. This guy is amazing, putting the same skin in the game that we’re putting. We do this together, succeed or fail. Anyway, our plan was to meet up with him in Ventura and bring him home to Portland, so he came in just at the right time to help us resolve this.
The U-Haul has been great. It has been easy to use even though it’s way too long. We can fit all of our gear into it, and it doesn’t bounce like the last trailer did. But we are eager to have a trailer of our own again. By the time we got to Ventura, we were still empty handed though, so it looked like we would still be waiting. Stay tuned for the rest of the story!
Friday, April 8, 2011
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 4 (Day 14), 6 April
Saturday we got to San Francisco intact, and we played a superfun show at Hemlock Tavern with The Trophy Fire and Glass Trains. Then we split up, Joe and Curtis staying with our good friend Ben, and John and Rachel sleeping with our friend Jamie. I slept in the van, of course! Those chilly NoCal nights are right for me, and I found a spot near Diane Feinstein’s residence, which had its very own security guard. Prime real estate for van sleeping in a big city.
Sunday was a day off from playing shows, but not a day off. I woke up early and when to this amazing little spot by the water where some cliff dwellers had set up dwellings and a giant set of pools. It was spectacular and I felt all renewed and ready for the day. Then I realized that I had locked my keys in the van. I spent the next hunk of time waiting to be rescued by John and Rachel, driving a car that Jamie has graciously let us use for the day. I did make it back to Jamie’s in time for crepes and some songwriting.
Jamie McGoldrick is an amazing fellow and a very talented songwriter. He played in Io with John back in the day, and John has never lost his admiration for Jamie’s skills. Jamie has been toying around with a song called Save Your Life for some time, and John likes the song so much that he asked Jamie if we could have a crack at it. Jamie said sure, and since then we have been working out a version of the song. That Sunday morning, John, Rachel, and Jamie sat down with some acoustic guitars and started ironing out all the bugs and putting the song together. Then we did some laundry, walked around Haight Street, and picked up some pizza before heading out to Jamie’s practice space in South San Fran to work Save Your Life out as a full band.
We had originally worked off a little demo that Jamie had given us, but we got a couple of things wrong, and we got the song sounding great in a few different ways. We rocked out some, we tried quieter versions, we just played with it, something we don’t do a ton of at home. It was great working with Jamie, and we look forward to recording the song in May up in Minneapolis. We got some drinks at a nice bar near Jamie’s place, and I ate some kickass late night Thai food. We went to bed somewhat well rested and ready for our trip back down to SoCal. We still had a trailer snafu to work out…
Thursday, April 7, 2011
UPDATE FROM JOHN!
Hello from California! Tour has been fun, interesting, hectic, disastrous, tragic, beautiful, and rocking so far. It's all been nuts and there's so much going on in IWTDI-world that it's been really hard for us to keep up. James will continue filling our fine readers in on the day-to-day, but let's do a run-down of what's up with other thangs:
1. Our music video for our new song, "Fight/Flight", premiered on Under The Radar last week. If you still haven't seen it, check it out below and tell your friends!
2. We've had a couple of changes to our upcoming shows. The Salt Lake City show on 4/11 has been moved from Burt's Tiki Lounge to Bar Deluxe, which is a better spot with a better bill, so yay! We've also just added a live radio performance on kpsu.org in Portland from 4-6pm on this Friday, 4/8. In sad news, the awesome Party House have had to jump off our Minneapolis show, but will be replaced by another local in the next couple of days. MPLS peeps- if you have any ideas, let us know- I know a bunch of you have hit us up about this before- so if you want to play with us- let's do it! Just stay tuned to our schedule, wherever you follow it- we'll keep it all up to date with the forthcoming changes...
3. Our big homecoming performance on 4/22 at Local 506 in Chapel Hill is also our album release party. We'll be joined by Prisms & Antibubbles, and couldn't be more excited about it! We highly recommend getting your tickets in advance, and we're offering an extra incentive to do so: advance tickets will be available through local506.com very soon for $4, whereas they'll be $7 at the door. Unlike a lot of advanced sales, you actually DO save money if you pay the $4 plus service charge, so get that shit! Let's make this a party to remember, y'all! Tell your friends. (I'll post an update as soon as the tickets go live!)
EDIT: TICKETS ARE LIVE! GET 'EM!
4. Our new album, "Preludes", comes out next Tuesday, 4/12. There are only a couple more days to get our pre-order subscription package (with an instant download of the whole damn thing, right now!) on vinyl or CD for the super low price of $25ppd. That gets you our two upcoming full length albums, plus tons of free bonus goodies! After 4/12, the package will still be available, but the price will jump to $30. Get it now!
5. Thanks for reading! We love you!
1. Our music video for our new song, "Fight/Flight", premiered on Under The Radar last week. If you still haven't seen it, check it out below and tell your friends!
2. We've had a couple of changes to our upcoming shows. The Salt Lake City show on 4/11 has been moved from Burt's Tiki Lounge to Bar Deluxe, which is a better spot with a better bill, so yay! We've also just added a live radio performance on kpsu.org in Portland from 4-6pm on this Friday, 4/8. In sad news, the awesome Party House have had to jump off our Minneapolis show, but will be replaced by another local in the next couple of days. MPLS peeps- if you have any ideas, let us know- I know a bunch of you have hit us up about this before- so if you want to play with us- let's do it! Just stay tuned to our schedule, wherever you follow it- we'll keep it all up to date with the forthcoming changes...
3. Our big homecoming performance on 4/22 at Local 506 in Chapel Hill is also our album release party. We'll be joined by Prisms & Antibubbles, and couldn't be more excited about it! We highly recommend getting your tickets in advance, and we're offering an extra incentive to do so: advance tickets will be available through local506.com very soon for $4, whereas they'll be $7 at the door. Unlike a lot of advanced sales, you actually DO save money if you pay the $4 plus service charge, so get that shit! Let's make this a party to remember, y'all! Tell your friends. (I'll post an update as soon as the tickets go live!)
EDIT: TICKETS ARE LIVE! GET 'EM!
4. Our new album, "Preludes", comes out next Tuesday, 4/12. There are only a couple more days to get our pre-order subscription package (with an instant download of the whole damn thing, right now!) on vinyl or CD for the super low price of $25ppd. That gets you our two upcoming full length albums, plus tons of free bonus goodies! After 4/12, the package will still be available, but the price will jump to $30. Get it now!
5. Thanks for reading! We love you!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 3 (Day 13), 5 April FAULTY TRAILER BLUES
Where to begin? The show in San Diego was great! We had a good crowd, saw some friends, and had a place to sleep that was comfy. We played with dogs, ate some burritos, and got up way early to make the trip all the way up to San Francisco. And then…
We went out to the van to hit the road, and we noticed that our trailer was starting to look funny. The front of the trailer was bending the tongue of the trailers hitch and while we had noticed a few days earlier, the damage seemed to have increased slightly. We hit the road anyway.
About an hour up I-5, we stopped for some in and out burger and a quick pee break. Upon going back out to the van, the trailer seemed worse than it had been. I was already looking kind of bad but we couldn’t tell if it had gotten worse. So we busted out a piece of paper and marked it so that we could check again down the road. We hit the road again.
About two hours later, we stopped for gas. The trailer looked terrible. We were about 30 minutes south of Bakersfield at this point. We got the piece of paper out again, and the front end of the trailer was a good inch and a half lower, the bottom of the trailer about 4 inches off the ground. When it was new, it was more like a foot. We decided that we couldn’t make it to San Francisco and started looking for U-Haul places. We found a place in Bakersfield, so we hit the highway with our stupid, poorly built trailer one last time, 40mph and hazards flashing.
By the time we got to the U-Haul place, the trailer was done. We scraped the bejabbers out of it pulling into the parking lot and Totally Destroyed the wiring harness. We managed to get it off the van, went to a nearby auto parts store, bought a new wiring harness and rewired the van. We paid for the trailer, a giant, 4x8 with a 6 foot tongue, loaded it up and hit the road again, now roughly the length of a city bus, about to drive into one of the most hilly and turny cities in the country. And then, we started looking up trailers to buy.
We’ll upload a few pictures of our wounded soldier (traitor?) as soon as we can get them up! But for now that’s episode one of the trailer saga.
Monday, April 4, 2011
IWTDI tour blog, Volume 2 (Day9), 1 April
We’ve been crazy busy the last several days so we’re way behind on the blog posting. You’re about to get an avalanche of them, so check back!
We made it to Las Cruces and I made it to the house in which I spent two of my childhood years. It was nice, but what really drove it all home was seeing the tiny convenience store where I used to buy candy. I remember picking up discarded aluminum cans and giving them to my parents to recycle, then taking the money to Scotty’s II for candy and video games. I also remember riding my motorcycle for hours on end in the vast New Mexico desert, but not surprisingly, the area had been taken over by developers in the 27 years since I had left.
The drive from Las Cruces to Tucson was uneventful, which is awesome! We drove through a border patrol checkpoint, but were let right through. I find that odd. I’m glad we didn’t get searched, but I am surprised that our tinted van, loaded to the hilt with gear, and our little trailer with the iron cross tail lights didn’t raise a red flag.
We got to Tucson early enough to Priceline a hotel and catch some rest. I rarely nap, but I turned the AC on in my room and immediately crashed out, for nearly two hours! We played a place in Tucson called The Red Room at Grill. We got some amazing free food and some cold, tasty free beer. There weren’t a ton of people there, but we had been given a really nice write-up in the local weekly and online, and so the people that were there were super friendly and eager to spend some time with us! The room was on the small side, and they prefer a slightly quieter sound, so we set upon the task of trying to figure out what to play. I think we did a good job: Come Out, Come Out; Favorite Haunt; All Get Lucky*; Cup of Tea; Fight_Flight*; Actors**; Outside Blinds**; Save Your Life**; Blood on Film**; The Ocean
In many ways, we might have actually preferred the quieter set! I didn’t overpower anyone, everyone could hear, John and Rachel could sing without screaming. It was a nice change. For my part though, I look forward to hitting hard and building a sweat again. We’re on our way to San Diego now. More to come!
*: From Preludes, out April 12!
**: From Vexations, out later this year!
We made it to Las Cruces and I made it to the house in which I spent two of my childhood years. It was nice, but what really drove it all home was seeing the tiny convenience store where I used to buy candy. I remember picking up discarded aluminum cans and giving them to my parents to recycle, then taking the money to Scotty’s II for candy and video games. I also remember riding my motorcycle for hours on end in the vast New Mexico desert, but not surprisingly, the area had been taken over by developers in the 27 years since I had left.
The drive from Las Cruces to Tucson was uneventful, which is awesome! We drove through a border patrol checkpoint, but were let right through. I find that odd. I’m glad we didn’t get searched, but I am surprised that our tinted van, loaded to the hilt with gear, and our little trailer with the iron cross tail lights didn’t raise a red flag.
We got to Tucson early enough to Priceline a hotel and catch some rest. I rarely nap, but I turned the AC on in my room and immediately crashed out, for nearly two hours! We played a place in Tucson called The Red Room at Grill. We got some amazing free food and some cold, tasty free beer. There weren’t a ton of people there, but we had been given a really nice write-up in the local weekly and online, and so the people that were there were super friendly and eager to spend some time with us! The room was on the small side, and they prefer a slightly quieter sound, so we set upon the task of trying to figure out what to play. I think we did a good job: Come Out, Come Out; Favorite Haunt; All Get Lucky*; Cup of Tea; Fight_Flight*; Actors**; Outside Blinds**; Save Your Life**; Blood on Film**; The Ocean
In many ways, we might have actually preferred the quieter set! I didn’t overpower anyone, everyone could hear, John and Rachel could sing without screaming. It was a nice change. For my part though, I look forward to hitting hard and building a sweat again. We’re on our way to San Diego now. More to come!
*: From Preludes, out April 12!
**: From Vexations, out later this year!
Friday, April 1, 2011
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