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!