It's a Funny Business

Day 12 (Bellingham, WA): After a slow Friday & Saturday in Spokane, we were a little apprehensive about traveling 360 miles to Bellingham for a Sunday night show. As it turned out, we had a great crowd and an exciting night at the Wild Buffalo, which is a very nice venue that tailors to a lot of touring bands!

Day 13 (no show): We headed back to the East and spent the night in Spokane with some people we met at our shows there. Nothing really exciting.

Day 14 (Missoula, MT): We had a great show at the Top Hat on a Tuesday, which reinforces the fact that in this business the best days aren't always on the weekends! One of my friends that I worked with at Granite, Jacque Chatriand (right) now lives in Missoula and came to the show with her sister, Jessi (left).

Day 15 (Sheridan, WY): We booked our show at the American Legion Post #7 in Sheridan about 2 weeks prior, and weren't expecting a huge turnout for a few reasons:

1.) It's the American Legion and not a hot spot for the younger crowd.

2.) It's Sheridan, WY on a Wednesday night.

3.) They only had 2 weeks to promote the show.

4.) Their live music schedule included the likes of the Boot Hill Band and Ethyl & The Regulars.

Despite our expectations, however, a lot of people came to the show, due to the efforts of the manager of the Legion, who did an excellent job of promoting and even put an ad on the local rock radio station. At the beginning off the night, the crowd looked like this: And at the end of the night... It turned out to be the best show of the tour so far! Thank you, Sheridan, Wyoming!! And just to recap the week so far:

Friday Spokane, WA slow night

Saturday Spokane, WA slow night

Sunday Bellingham, WA great night

Tuesday Missoula, MT great night

Wednesday Sheridan, WY amazing night!

It's a funny business!

Dance, Dance!!

Day 9 (Coeur D'Alene, ID): We played a venue called The Grail, that hosts a lot of larger national acts (Powerman 500 and King's X are the most recent). We were supposed to have 2 opening bands for the show but one of them had to cancel because their van broke down. We met the other band and they seemed nice, but then disappeared before load-in and we never saw them again! The show itsself was good but not great, though it's always fun to play on a big stage with a great monitor mix, and believe me, the sound guys at The Grail do an excellent job!

Day 10 (Spokane, WA): We got to town and met Ty's dad at his old Air Force buddy's (Jack) house. We showered there (for the first time since we left Boise 3 days prior) and spent a few hours relaxing in the shade. That night we played a place called Litz's - a smaller bar with a lot of regulars. They wanted us to play outside for the first part of the night then move inside because of a noise restriction. It was a pain in the ass, but we did it anyway. On the outside patio, there was not quite enough room for one of Jonny's cymbal stands, so we had to find a short coffee can to put under one of the leges (see the photo). We had everything plugged into 2 outlets and kept blowing breakers. By the end of the night, everything on our end of the bar was turned off except for our equipment!

Day 11 (Spokane, WA): Our 2nd night at Litz's, it was pretty much the same as the previous night. There was, however, some fat guy the had the greatest dance moves I've ever seen! I managed to shoot a video of him by placing my camera on top of my amp during our last song. The video is posted at the very bottom of this blog, but be patient, because it takes him a minute to warm up.

Old Air Force buddies: Jack (our host for a day) and Tom (Ty's dad).

Our outside setup at Litz's.

Johnny's new cymbal stand addendum.

The best dancer I've ever seen!

A Tough Couple of Days

Day 6 (Boise, ID): Monday nights are always tough! I would rather play a Sunday because all of the waitresses, bartenders, and bouncers go drinking on Sundays - we refer to it as an "industry night". Anyways, we played a comedy club and had a pretty mediocre crowd. As you'll see in the pictures, I actually got bored (drunk) enough to take some pictures of us while we were playing! It beats a night off, though.

Day 7 (no show): Nursing the worst collective hangover since we started touring, we had to go back to the club and tear down/load up our stuff, which was not-so-conveniently located on the 2nd story of a downtown building on a weekday. After holding up a lane of traffic and sweating booze for 45 minutes, we left and found a cheap RV park, showered, then plugged in and enjoyed the air conditioner for the rest of the day.

Day 8 (Idaho Falls, ID???): We got up and drove to Idaho Falls, ran a few errands (music store, internet stop), then met Jana & Tyler Petty (siblings, not spouses) for early dinner at one of the best sandwich shops I've ever been to (Mike McCroden can vouch for me when I say that). Then we rolled out to the club, said "hi" to the bartender lady that we met the last time we played there, then started loading in. Around 9:15 P.M., we had everything set up and were still waiting for our sound guy, who is also the club owner and booker. Jana & Tyler showed up and we were hanging out when the dude finally got there and told us the show was cancelled. The only reason he would give us is that the posters we sent him arrived "late" (about 10 days before) and he "didn't have enough time to promote the show". Our take on the situation is that the guy thought he could get more people out with a DJ and is, generally speaking, a dick. So we packed our stuff up (under the watchfull eye of one of the bouncers) and got the hell out of there, plotting our revenge all the way to Missoula, MT, where we stopped for the night. All told, he screwed us out of about $400 cash and $150 worth of fuel by making us drive to Idaho Falls and not play a show. Needless to say, we'll never go back to The 840, and never stop telling people how shady the owner, Shawn, is.

Ben & Jonny goofing around in Boise.

This is me getting creative with my camera.

Jana outside of the Sandwich Tree - great sandwiches!

My sandal, that Ben stepped on and broke when he was trying to ruin my picture of the Sandwich Tree.

Myself and Jana, after the show that she didn't get to see because of The 840's crooked owner, Shawn.

July 17-19

Day 3 (Mt. Shasta, CA): Another little mountain town - we had a great show despite a slow start. We needed a little morale booster after a tough night in Redding. The stage was really small and we had to set up on it and in front of it. Luckily, they put a bouncer next to us and he saved us multiple times from drunk people stepping on and spilling booze on our pedal boards.

Day 4 (Dunsmuir, CA): We got up today called some dude that had offered us a shower and we very gratefully accepted. It's been really hot the last few days (100+) and that makes showering so much more valuable! Afterwards we spent the day hanging out at Lake Siskiyou just outside of town. Dunsmuir is only about 6 miles from Mt. Shasta, which made for a nice, short, cheap commute. We had another good show and made pretty good money, which is important because our dates are going to start getting pretty far apart and we need a bank roll to travel on.

Day 5 (no show): We have a day off today, and drove about 6 hrs to Burns, OR and rented an RV campsite (showers, poopers, & electricity - very nice). We're about another 3 or 3 1/2 hours away from Boise, where our show is tomorrow night. Nothing really exciting to report (sorry), just moving along...

We ding'd up our trailer a little from trying to weasel our way out of a tight spot.

A view of Mt. Shasta (the mountain) from Mt. Shasta (the town). The elevation difference is about 10,000 ft.

A shot of the crowd at Roxy's Vet Club in Mt. Shasta.

This guy loved the show, but was really annoying and eventually got kicked out. His signature move was flipping the bird, and did it all night to everyone.

Lake Siskiyou, outside of Mt. Shasta City, CA

The First Leg

Summer Tour, Day 1 (Chico, CA): Only 100 miles North of Sacramento, Chico is almost a local show for us. As close as it is, though, we still won't be going home for another 31 days, so it makes little difference! We had a good show last night and I got to hang out with Abby Denzin, who just moved to Chico and I haven't seen since my days at the School of Mines.

Day 2 (Redding, CA): We got up this morning and drove to Redding, which only took us about 1 hour. It's kind of nice to be so close to our next show and we're savoring it, because we have a few 8 hr. drives between shows coming up in a couple weeks. We did run into a little trouble on the drive today when we came to an overpass that only had 8' of clearence (seriously?! eight feet tall?!!). Needless to say, we had to back into someone's driveway and turn around and when we did some crazy old-timer came out of his mobile home half nude and started barking orders and waving his cigarette at us. It was kind of funny - see the pictures!

On the Road Again (soon)

The next tour starts in Chico, CA on Wednesday, and it's going to be a long one! It's 32 days from first show to the last, and we're covering more territory than the last 2 times out. Check the dates posted on the "Where am I" section to the right or follow the link to our website for more info, because we're coming to a city near you!

We had a couple of local shows this past weekend, and now it's getting ready to be gone for a month: doing laundry, making sure all the bills are paid or arranged to be paid, eating all of the food in the fridge so it doesn't spoil, and etc. We're also still doing some booking for the tour. There are a lot of places we've been in contact with that just haven't confirmed a date yet, so I'll try and update the calendar as we add more shows.

That's it for now, but stay tuned because there's a lot coming up! Also, I don't have any photos to post, so here's a hand drawn picture of Sean from The Animations that I found at the show in Sunnyvale (artist unknown):