And the Winner is...

After 2 days of rest coming off our Colorado tour, we headed down South for 3 shows in San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, and Sunnyvale. They all went pretty well and in Sunnyvale we got to play with our friends, The Animations, with whom we haven't seen or done a show with for a long time (I used to work with Beau at Granite Construction). Below is a video I shot of them covering Bohemian Rhapsody. It's really crappy sound quality, but you get the idea (I love their version of the song).

We drove home after the Sunnyvale show and got back at 4:00 A.M., slept until about noon, then at 3:30 P.M. headed downtown to the Sacramento News & Review's Musicfest celebration. It was about 103 degrees out at 6:30 when we played, but it was tolerable and we were pretty much flawless (we have been playing almost every day for the last 2 months, so we should have the kinks worked out by now!). We included "Billie Jean" in our 4 song set since Michael Jackson died the other day and the crowd was really responsive to it. We also got a lot of good feedback from people and it was great exposure for us.

At 8:00 P.M. they started announcing the winners of this year's Sammie Awards. For the second year in a row, we won the Readers' Choice award for Outstanding Reggae/Ska/Funk/Jam band!! Thanks to all of you who voted - we won because of your support! It feels good to get home after a tour, but it feels even better to get home and receive an award!

Now we have a few weeks off before our next tour starts (with a couple local shows between now and then), so I may not post a new blog for a while unless something cool or crazy happens. Have a happy (and safe) 4th of July and remember to remember why we celebrate it. God Bless America.

Video of The Animations (Beau & Shawn)

A quick shot of the crowd in front of the main stage at SN&R's Musicfest. There were about 4x as many people in the beer garden!

Ben eats a sno-cone, then does his best impression of a drunk albino smurf.

Matt does his impression of a guy in a band that just won a Sammie.

Bac in Sac

We’re back in Sacramento, after our Friday show in Breckenridge, CO and our Saturday show in Salt Lake City. Neither show was exceptional, but the respective crowds were very fond of us. I was surprised to see Brooke & Quinn Herran at our show in Breck, and we had a great time hanging out and catching up (I guess Raine had to wash her hair or something else really important, because she couldn’t make the trip). We slept a little late yesterday then drove most of the day to get home; it’s about 10 hrs. from SLC to Sac. We have today and tomorrow to hang out, then we’ll gone for 3 more days before coming home again for the Sammies Award Show, which we have the honor of performing at this year and are up for an award as well – thanks for those who voted for us! After the Sammies, I have 3 days to move into our new house (our landlord terminated our lease) then I’m flying back to Nebraska for the 4th of July. After spending most of the last 8 weeks on the road, we’re going to use the first couple weeks of July to relax at home before heading out on our Northern route again. To be continued…

Curvy mountain roads South of Breckenridge.

More curvy roads South of Breck. We were kind of glad we weren't in our bus at this point in the trip because it only has 4 gears and no jake brake.

L to R: Brooke, Myself, Quinn. Two Herren girls out of three is pretty good if you ask me! I know - it ryhmes.

Beggers Can't Be Choosers

We had a decent show in Durango (pretty good for a Wed), then left that night for Alamosa because we didn’t have a place to park for the night. We got to Pegosa Springs before we pulled over to sleep. The next morning we drove through Wolf Creek Pass, which constantly reminded me of the C.W. McCall (who also wrote “Convoy”) song except that we were heading from Pegosa Springs and weren’t hauling chickens. We got to Alamosa around noon, and discovered that it’s apparently the scenic anomaly of Colorado. After pillaging the Wendy’s dollar menu Ty, Ben & Jonny laid down for a nap and I headed out on a walkabout (in the style of Brandon Lechtenburg) in search of the fabled “internet”.

After walking for about 2 miles I still hadn’t found a coffee shop (the most common source of free wifi) but realized that I was right in the middle of the Adams State College campus (had I known I would end up here, I would’ve worn my CSC FB shirt again, despite the odor). I just happened to be across the street from the library, so I went in and sweet-talked the librarian into giving me a temporary library card. After killing about 3 ½ hours cruising the net I walked the remaining mile to the venue to meet the other guys there.

We had another decent night (again, good for a weeknight), though the venue was big and open and sounded like we were playing in a tin shed. Afterwards, the owner of the bar gave us the key and directions to his “band house”, where we could shower and spend the night. The house looked (and smelled) like one of those old abandoned country houses that you sneak into when you’re a kid to look for various treasures and to break everything that’s made of glass. Nonetheless, about half of the lights worked and it had running water and beds, so we were tickled pink to be there! After crashing on a 4’6” long RV couch for 10 days, I felt like a king in the old, squeaky, garage sale special double bed that I called dibs on, and got my best night’s sleep since this tour started.

Tonight we have a show in Breckenridge, which we have fairly high expectations for. We negotiated a hotel room when we booked this show, but probably won’t be sleeping there. Since we have a show in Salt Lake City tomorrow night, we’ll most likely just shower then start driving so we don’t have to knock out the drive all at once.

Below are pictures of the Alamosa Band House:

Durango, CO

So we've been in Durango for 3 days now, and really couldn't have found a better place to spend our days off. It's another mountain town that's 10x longer than it is wide, but there's a central downtown area with all sorts of food & shops, and there's a free trolly that runs through town and even out to the RV park we stayed at. One of my last clean shirts is from a Chadron State FB team camp and I've been getting a lot of comments about it, since Fort Lewis College (here in town) probably hasn't beaten CSC since 1980-something.

Ty made a flyer on his computer and had 400 of them printed at a Kinko's for $10, so we spent most of yesterday afternoon/evening walking around and promoting our show. Hopefully we get a good turnout since part of our deal was 90% of the door. We stopped by The Summit (the venue we're playing at) yesterday and talked shop for a while and checked the place out. It's up a flight of stairs - we hate stairs. Most of our equipment is stored in huge flight cases that weigh 100+ lbs. each. They all have wheels, which makes rolling them easy but carrying them is just brutal, especially at 6000' above sea level.

I don't have any pictures because I haven't taken any since we've been here. Next time. Peace.

Little Mountain Town, Big Sublime Fans!

We had the greatest show of any tour 2 nights ago in Telluride. We played at the Fly Me to the Moon Saloon, which the real Sublime had played at twice (once in 1993 and again in '98 or '99, I believe). The show was well promoted, the venue has a great reputation and a large built-in crowd, and the band... well I don't even need to tell you (but I will) that the band was f-ing amazing! Needles to say, we had a great time and made a wad of cash, and penciled in another date a few months out.

The town itsself is tiny; about 4 blocks wide by 10 or 12 blocks long and stuck in a holler (surrounded by mountains on 3 sides). It's a little touristy ski town and all of the hotels and much of the day to day needs are located over the mountains to the South, accessible by a ski lift type machine they call the Gondola that runs for free from 7 AM - 10 PM. My friends Goose & Mary came down from Grand Juntion and came to the show, and we spent some time hanging out around town as well.

Last night we played a show in Cortez, CO, and did pretty well for a Sunday night. It was kind of a laid back early show that started off with us playing for a dinner crowd, and by the end of the night turned into a very personal concert for a bunch of regulars that we made friends with throughout the night. We even made up a couple impromptu songs for people when they would shout stuff like "play a song about Aspen!"

We got to Durango today and decided to rent an RV campsite for the night so we can shower, clean things up, and get our stuff together again. We have a show here in town, but not until Wednesday, so we have a couple days to rest and get our energy back before our last four shows, which will require a lot of driving between them. Until next time...

Mountains to the East of Telluride

The view of Telluride from the Gondola, about halfway up the mountain.

A picture of me :)

Our crowd at the Fly Me to the Moon Saloon. They sang every Sublime song with us.

L to R: Myself, Mary (wearing a shirt with a picture of me on it), and Goose (with whom I shared a 710 sq. ft. house in Rapid City for 2 years).

An even better picture of Telluride, CO (looking East). It's hard to see, but there's a waterfall between the 2 nearest peaks. This town treated us well.

Quick Update

We're still loving Colorado and having a shit-load of fun. We love the RV we borrowed from Jonny's parents (it's very modern and drives with minimal effort), but miss Violet (our bus) and the privacy we get from our bunks (she's still in the shop in Sac-town). I saw Ben Brabec at our show in Denver. We played an early show in Canon City, then spent the rest of the night taking full advantage of our "free drinks" agreement. We got our first showers of the tour this morning (day 5), courtesy of a generous employee from the Whitewater Bar. Telluride is a gorgeous town surrounded by mountains on 3 sides. Former college roommate Adam Geis and his fiance Mary Hart are coming to our show tonight (in Telluride) from Grand Junction, and I'm pretty excited to see them. Morale is Medium-High. More to come in the next few days (we have 2 days off after tomorrow night).

(picture: this guy made this painting at our show in Boulder, then sold it to us)

(Picture: the damage we incurred to the street in Boulder)

(Picture: the beautiful outdoor show we played in Canon City. We were set up in the gazebo at the left.)

(Picture: the view directly over my right shoulder as I'm typing this right now. See our trailer at the left.)

Colorado

The first leg of our Colorado tour is underway.  We left yesterday morning and just got to Boulder about 4 hrs ago (stopping a few times to sleep, eat, etc.) - about 19 hrs of actual driving.  We were a little unsure about making it to some of the dates we booked because our bus is in the shop, but we were fortunate enough to get to borrow Jonny's parents' RV.  Our venue tonight is downtown Boulder and not RV/trailer friendly!  Altogether we spent about 2 hrs looking for parking spaces, parking, and moving when people complained.  We also did a considerable amount of damage to the street by dragging our hitch while trying to back out of an alley.  We eventually found a permanent parking space a block from the venue, just as it started pouring rain.  And on top of all of it, we have to deal with this kind of thing (see below):

P.S.  For those who didn't get the memo, our show in Casper fell through - don't go to Casper to see us!  We won't be there!!