SoCal Leg

After a few days back at home, we left for a quick 3-day tour down South. Wednesday, Aug. 12 (I know, I'm lazy!) we were in San Luis Obispo at a great venue called Mother's Tavern. We had a good show, especially for a Wed. night in a college town when school's still out. These pictures are of "gum alley" - a narrow passage between 2 buildings (one of them is Mother's Tavern) where everyone sticks their gum as they walk through. It's maybe 200 ft. long, and literally covered with gum from the ground to about 7' high.

The drive from SLO to Victorville, CA was terrible. Because of the landscape in CA, we decided it would be quicker and easier to take the freeway through L.A. than to go through narrow, winding, single-lane highways that zig-zagged to our destination. We were wrong. Traffic was slow and shitty the entire way. Nonetheless, we got there and had a great crowd at a tiny dive bar. These pics are intended to show how crappy the air quality is in L.A. county! The second one almost looks like it's dusk, but it's really about 5 PM and there's another 4 hours of daylight left!

Our 3rd and final show of this little stint (not counting our show in Sac on Sat.) was in Bakersfield. The show was O.K. - nothing special, but when we went to leave at the end of the night, we went across a huge dip in the driveway and broke our trailer hitch off and drug the trailer about 100 yds down the street before we finally realized that something was wrong! That sounds like a long ways, and it is, but the RV is wider than the trailer, so you can't see it in the side mirrors, and there's no back window, either. Also, the RV weighs so much more than the trailer and has enough power that Jonny couldn't feel the resistance while he was driving. We heard the the jack dragging on the pavement, and that was our only clue. Thankfully, we had an extra hitch (I can't even tell you why) and we switched them out and went on our way!

We have quite a bit of time off now, so I probably won't post anything else very soon. I'll throw up an update when something newsworthy happens. Peace.

The Long Haul

Day 23 (Telluride, CO) - The last time we were in Telluride, The Fly Me to the Moon Saloon went off the hook with Subilme fans. Of course, that was a Saturday and we were there on a Thursday this time around, so were surprised when we actually brought out MORE people than we did a couple months ago! Needless to say, Telluride has quickly become one of our most favorite places on Earth! Below are some pictures of the crowd we had, and the spot in the green room where Bradly (of Sublime) signed the wall when they played The Moon back in the 90's.

Day 24 (no show): We ended up with a weekend without anything booked, so we decided to head home for a few days before our Wed/Thurs/Fri down in Southern Cal. We drove about 18 hrs. straight from Telluride to Sacramento and hot home around 5:00 A.M. I spent the next 4 days doing nothing, which is why I'm posting this blog about 10 days late. I'll post another one tomorrow (hopefully) and let you know how our trip down South went.

More of Colorado

Day 21 (Denver): Our 3rd day in Denver (the first 2 spent camping in an RV park), we got to Herman's Hideaway pretty early and unloaded. It was a really cool venue, with great built in sound and light systems and a great engineer; this place has hosted the likes of 311 and Dave Matthews (before they were huge). They don't, however, have a great built in crowd - at least on Tuesday nights! Nonetheless, we got some free booze and had a good time. Oh yeah, and I had leaned Precious Pearls up against a trash can while we unloaded and she got stolen (2 flat tires and all - there were stickers at the last RV park) within the hour! Great neighborhood!

Day 22 (Colorado Springs-ish): Ty got a voicemail a day earlier from the dude at the Thirsty Parrot in Colorado Springs saying he wanted to cancel the show. We never actually got ot talk to him, but Ty said he sounded like a douche on the phone when he booked the show. The guy never told us why he canceled on us, but if I were to take a guess, it would be because 40 Oz. to Freedom (another Sublime tribute band, out of San Diego) was playing that same night at a different club in Colorado Springs (we try to avoid other tributes while we're booking, but it still happens on occaision). Of course, we believe that we're better than them, but they've been on the road for about 2 years longer than us and have more name recognition. Plus, they were playing a premier venue and we were at some shit-hole that cancels on you in the 11th hour. We spent the day driving to Telluride instead, and found another RV park to camp out at for a day. The only bad thing is that it was waaaaay up in the mountains with no internet, cell phone service, or gas stations/stores of any kind. It was a boring day & night, though very pretty (see photos)!

Sublime (Tribute)?

Days 16 & 17 (Rapid City): Ty and myself were both pretty excited when we booked a 2-nighter at the Robinsdale Lounge in Rapid, because we both know a lot of people there (Ty has family & I went to college there). When we got to town, I jumped out of the moving RV at a stop light and walked 3 blocks to Matt Kautz's house. Within the first 5 minutes of our conversation, he brought up the fact that the radio ad on KSKY said that the 2 remaining original members of Sublime were going to be at the show, which of course, was a complete lie! Somehow (and of no fault of our own), the venue believed that the REAL Sublime was coming to Rapid City to play 2 free shows at a bowling alley lounge for $1500... seriously?!! I spoke with the radio station DJ who made the ad and he told me about his overwhelming skepticism and how the venue representative swore that it was true, and I apologized for the misunderstanding and reassured him that that's not the way we do business!

We were a little nervous at how the crowd would react when they found out we weren't the real band, but most of them didn't even notice. Many of my friends that were at the shows heard several people repeating the rumor and even adding to it! I'm sure some people noticed, but nobody said anything to us, and hey - free shows! In the end, the place was packed (sold out on Friday) both nights, everyone had fun, and we had 2 killer shows, so we're going to call it a success despite the fraudulent promotion.

Day 18 (Breckenridge, CO): Normally we try to keep our drive down to 6 hours or less per day, but today we found ourselves getting up at 9:00 A.M. (which isn't early unless you're up until 3 A.M., which we usually are) to break down and load equipment so we could start our 8-hour drive to Breckenridge. We got there just in time to load in, sound check, and microwave a few burritos before going on. The night was a little slow, but we were O.K. with that, since we were all low on sleep, low on energy, and low on oxygen (elev. 9600'). Besides, we had a guarantee, so we got paid the same no matter how many people showed up!

Days 19 & 20 (no shows): After 15 shows in the first 18 days of our tour and 3,900 miles of driving, we finally get a couple of days off in a row. We woke up in Breckenridge, drove to Denver, stopped at a grocery store, then found an RV park to camp at for 2 days. Our next show is here in Denver tomorrow night.

A packed house in Rapid City.

Ty crowd surfing in Rapid City!

The view from off stage - what a crazy night.

One of my former IE professors, Dr. Carter Kerk came to the show on Friday.

My parents came to Rapid City for both nights and we got to hang out quite a bit, and had a lot of fun.

Tom Campbell (Ty's dad) stopped on his way to Sturgis to hang out. If we didn't have to head to CO, I would have rode up with him on "Precious Pearls" (my $11 Salvation Army Special that gets me around when we have some free time).