b natural. c sharp.

Today we headed to Orlando to play at The Social. The boys got dinner late last night at the hotel but I opted out since I wasn’t hungry. That ended up being a mistake because I ended up not eating for about 24 hours. Oops! Needless to say I was very happy when we stopped for some food when we got in town. I took a nap at the hotel and then we headed over to the club.

After loading in I continued my ritual of playing through all the songs on the setlist as well as the new ones that were added mid-show. The show had a good turnout and everybody seemed to be having a good time. I was particularly excited to see my friends Jeff and his awesome wife Katrina come out! I met Jeff on KG’s first tour ever when we played with his band Elora Dannon twice, then ended up touring with his new band The Complete Strategist.

Tonight the set on my part was pretty frustrating because not only did we do the songs on the set, but I also had to learn 2 or 3 on stage this time. I had this guy right in front of me analyzing everything I did and at one point try to show me the chords to the song. Nobody in the band cares if I mess up and they just tell me to fake it, but for me but it’s really embarrassing to not know what I’m doing. I’m already the odd one out, not to mention a girl, so I feel like I have a lot to prove. Those songs went okay but then Joe decided to do an encore with more stuff I hadn’t practiced. He told me to wing it, but I just didn’t have it in me at that point so I sat out and talked with Jeff and Katrina.

I want to add that nobody is pressuring me except myself. Joe and Dave are super nice and always tell me I did a good job after the show. It’s just me being a perfectionist and coming from a totally different background of music. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating and I’m trying to power through without whining to them about it.

Adam convinced me to come hang out at a party with The Leftovers after the show and promised to bring me back to the hotel. He’s had to go through the same kind of thing jumping in on drums with the Queers so he can relate to my uneasiness. When I got to the party everyone was super nice and complimentary to me about my addition to the band. I really take those comments to heart, so it made me feel much better. We spent the rest of the night drinking beers, hanging out with friends, meeting new people and listening to good music. I’m glad I went - it was a good end to the evening.

This morning we drove to West Palm Beach, FL. On the way we stopped at Golden Corral where I ate pretty decently considering it’s a buffet full of temptation… lots of veggies, salad, etc… until the dessert bar ruined everything and made me sick. The Second Saturday boys have a saying “So sick, so happy” which applies to that exact situation. You eat yourself stupid and you’re totally sick, but really happy about all the yummy food. Fortunately we got to the next hotel very early so I had a nice cat nap and watched some of the Beatles Anthology. When we finally went to the venue, Respectable Street, I ran through the set again on keys and guitar.

Midway through the show, Joe wrote up a new setlist which wasn’t a problem because it was actually shortened a bit and consisted of all the songs I had practiced except for two. I quickly learned the two songs and wrote down the chord changes the new set so I could cheat if need be. They actually went pretty well, but right before the encore he decided to add another song! He told me the chords before getting back on stage and I just went with it. Nothing like learning a song on stage haha. I’m pretty good at following chord progressions or at least faking it so I made it through just fine. The show went really well over all and the crowd was super into it. I even signed some autographs afterwards which was surprising to me since I’m just an adjunct member. It made my night though!

I got some decent sleep last but we didn’t get a late checkout this morning and were booted out of the hotel rather abruptly. After getting an oil change, we hit the the road for Tampa. It was only a 3 and a half hour drive so we checked in our next hotel and I got a quick shower in before going to the club. Tonight we played at The Orpheum.

Load-in was way before doors so I used the extra time to go through the entire set on both guitar and keyboard. I felt a lot more confident going in to the set with the songs fresh in my mind and things went a lot smoother. The club’s sound was an improvement from last night which is always a plus. I also ran my keyboard through an amp so I could hear it a lot better on stage. I’m excited to start getting in the groove of things so I can just have fun and play! The show was over before 11 which is AMAZING so now I’m happily relaxing at the hotel and watching Remember the Titans with The Leftovers.

The Leftovers left early this morning for the beach. I might tag along with them sometime but opted to stay with The Queers this time around since our first show is tonight. We headed over to the studio around 11 and loaded up all of the equipment. It’s crazy how few things they need in comparison to Karmella’s Game, even with my extra keyboard stuff. Their van is similar in size to KG’s, but they don’t pull a trailer. All of the equipment fits in the back with the merch on a loft.

After running a few more errands we hit the road for about a 6 hour drive to Jacksonville, FL. For passenger seats they have one large and very comfy bench seat (that isn’t bolted down… that should be interesting if we stop quickly) and then the driver and passenger chairs. It’s definitely more comfortable than the KG van (the front seats actually recline and aren’t made of awful plastic), but I miss having my own bench seat to stretch out in when in the back. While got a set list together for tonight, which I’m currently listening to and going over in my head once I finish this post up. Other than that I’ve just been knitting a hat with some fun wool that is turning my hands orange.

Before arriving at the venue Jack Rabbits, we stopped for coffee to get a fix for The Queers Starbucks addiction. I swear they have Starbucks spidey-sense or something and can find on anywhere. I don’t drink coffee very often but got a small cup and was all wired the rest of the night. Not a good combination with nervousness about my first show!

During the show I went over the setlist and tried to prepare but it’s hard to focus while the other bands are blasting away in the club. There was a local, TA80, The Leftovers, then us. It was really hectic for me setting up since I don’t have a system down yet. I was pretty nervous while we played but I’m pretty good at not showing it and rocking out. Not being able to really hear myself on guitar or keys was really difficult. It’s okay if I don’t hear myself with KG because I know the bass parts by heart, but it’s a lot different when I’m 100% on the music. We played about 25 songs so I was just happy when it was over and relieved when we went straight to the hotel. I’m pretty hard on myself when it comes to non-perfect musical performances on my part so I wasn’t in the best of spirits. I know it’s going to get better each night as I get more comfortable so I need to relax and not worry so much. Joe reminded me that no matter how much you practice it’s always going to take a few days to gel.

Not a whole lot to talk about on Wednesday. After a late start to the day, we had a full rehearsal now that Adam was in town. It went well and I feel pretty confident about the songs on my part. The Leftovers and I had some great Thai Food for dinner, then hung out in the hotel room for the rest of the evening. I’m so happy they are on the tour - it’s so nice to have friends in a strange environment.

After a lazy morning Joe picked Dave and me up, then headed over to the studio for our real first rehearsal. We ran through the list of songs unplugged and it went pretty well. Amy (from TA80, another band on the tour package) also rehearsed with us, who is going to be singing backup and taking over for me after LA when I leave the tour. Being the crazy small world that it is, I happened to have already met her once on a KG tour when we stopped in Tuscon! The concept of touring with a bunch of boys, especially without Katie, is crazy but at least I’m not the only lady.

After a good rehearsal we headed back to the hotel. I got some Panda Buffet for dinner and then met up with The Leftovers who are staying in my room. I’m super excited that they are on are also on the tour because they’re good friends of ours! Their drummer Adam is doing double duty and playing for The Queers as well. After hanging out with them for a few minutes, I got the chance to meet up in the lobby with some of Wyatt’s awesome family who lives nearby. It was great to see some more familiar faces! After chatting for a while, they headed back home and I went back upstairs to the room to get some more guitar practice in. I learned a few new songs that Joe had added to the list, so now I’m ready to go for tomorrow!

Since I’ve been good about doing tour journals for KG and HAVEN’T been so good about regular blog updates, I thought it would be nice to document my tour experience with The Queers. Here’s how it all started… I got the chance to jump on keys for a few songs at Insub Fest 2008 when they did a pop-punk set. This was special because although the band has a lot of upbeat pop songs, they usually play their “harder” punk material live. I assume the set got a good response, because Joe (vocals/guitar) contacted me about doing a tour featuring the pop songs not long after. Since I had decided to wait until spring to start grad school, I jumped on the opportunity and said yes! I’m playing keys and guitar, which was quite a challenge to build up my playing chops for at first. I can pretty much play bass in my sleep, but only dabble in keys and guitar. After an intensive week of practice and lots of help from Wyatt, I’m confident and excited to start rehearsing with the band. That brings us to tonight…

I’m currently in an Atlanta hotel room decompressing after a long day of driving, rain, and traffic. The original plan today was for me to meet up with The Queers and rehearse for the first time. Unfortunately this fell on a week of record rainfall - so much that downtown roads were shut down due to major flooding. Needless to say, traffic was a nightmare and driving was really sketchy at times because of the spots of heavy rain. Luckily I wasn’t by myself because Wyatt was nice enough to ride down with me so he could take my car back home. It took us about 5 hours, then after killing some time at a comic book store, it took another 45 minutes to get a quarter mile back down the road to the hotel. It was TERRIBLE.

We finally met up with Joe and Dave (bass) at the hotel, then everybody agreed it would be best to just take the night off and relax. Wyatt and I got some yummy Chipotle for dinner and watched some TV together before he set off for home. After getting a little more guitar practice in, I’m winding down for the night and ready to get some good sleep!

Our show in Cleveland was originally at a venue called The Davenport, but it shut down out of nowhere in the middle of our tour. Fortunately the local band Vietnam Werewolf was nice enough to get it moved to a local house that does shows called The Soggy Dog. We got to town a little early so we got some Chipotle down the street. I swear we will never learn that eating a huge Mexican-ish meal before a show is a horrible idea, but it sure hit the spot. Since it was the second to last day of tour we were kind of just going through the motions, but there were a handful of people at the show who seemed to like us and all the bands were good. Our friends Slingshot Dakota also played and it was great seeing them again.

When the show was over we headed about an hour and a half away to Katie & Joe’s grandma’s house in Youngstown, OH. Mim is amazing - she is the most energetic and funny grandma I’ve ever met. She was the one disappointed when we wanted to go to bed at 1:30am instead of playing cards with her but we were exhausted. The next morning we got up early and drove with Mim to Katie & Joe’s other grandparents house in Pittsburgh. After having some lunch, the majority of us took a long nap. Katie and I were exhausted after not getting much sleep when a snorer who will not be named set up his bed right next to ours. Normally we sleep in separate rooms for that very reason but didn’t have a choice the previous night. After getting some rest we had a delicious meal with the grandparents and headed to the show at The Lava Lounge.

It was a neat little bar with the interior modeled after a volcano. Here’s Aaron changing his strings in the lava pit!

The show was well attended and we had some returning Pittsburgh friends. Our good friend Robby from Baltimore who is originally from Pittsburgh made the drive up and brought a crew along. He was also nice enough to take lots of pictures for me.

Slingshot Dakota played with us again (yay two day tour!) as well as our friends Bridgley Moore who set up the show. It was a lovely night of co-ed keyboard based bands.

We got up super early on Friday morning and headed to Baltimore. They dropped me off around noon so I got to catch up with my parents who had the day off before I crashed into another nap. Our show that night at Fletcher’s was fabulous. It was wonderful seeing all of our friends and family as well as a handful of surprise people that we don’t often see at shows.

I am just now getting a chance to write this blog because I haven’t had a break since getting home. Saturday was Katie’s wedding shower at my house which was lovely. We had a show at the Federal Hill Festival on Sunday morning which was also pretty fun. Needless to say, I’m not doing ANYTHING today except settling in and relaxing.

That brings my documentation for this tour to a close. Just a reminder - you can see all of Katie’s and my pictures here. You can also read Aaron’s account of the tour here.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for much more mundane posts about knitting and other random things until something exciting happens.

Our show in Minneapolis was at The Hexagon Bar.

It was a pretty good show, but had a kind of weird vibe. There was a decent crowd but nobody showed any particular interest while we played. Regardless, we ended up selling some stuff and had a few friends there to see us. We played with our friends Now Now Every Children who shared the bill with us last time were were in Minneapolis. They are really young but incredibly mature and awesome. Think of a really mellow Eisley if you’ve heard them… lady lead singer with very low key pop songs.

We also played with The Mood Swings and The Has Beens, both of which were very nice and let us take $100 for gas out of the bar money. Anyway, we stayed with my good friend Jen that I’ve known since fourth grade. She and her boyfriend were awesome and made us veggie burgers the next day - we planned on grilling, but didn’t have enough time to buy a grill, assemble it, and heat up the coals in time. The frying pan did an excellent job.

That night we played at The Annex in Madison. We played for a bunch of people, but didn’t sell too much in terms of merch. I think most people were holding out for Enon who were the headliners for the night. We had a handful of returning friends and fans so that was nice.

We got to hang out with our friend Alex along with his other friends. He’s a resident at a hospital and we constantly ask him a barrage of questions about what he does - his simple answer is that it’s just like Scrubs, but that leads to questions like: “Do you have constant inner dialogue and thought bubbles pop up over your head?” Poor Alex has to put up with our nonsense. He also happens to be the guy who made our super sweet tour poster, so he’s pretty much awesome. We stayed at his house and watched some Arrested Development before hitting the hay. We’re about a quarter of the way through season 2 now… it’s getting so good, I love it.

We got to sleep late on Monday morning and head to Chicago a little bit early to avoid traffic. We met up with our good friend Matt who is one of Wyatt’s best friends. We had dinner and went to the free zoo but unfortunately it was closed. Hopefully next time we can go earlier and get a zoo visit in.

Matt, his girlfriend Ellen, and their friend met up with us later at Quencher’s where we were playing. It’s an awesome bar with tons of beers from all over the world and they treat bands really well. When we sound checked we were having some amp problems which isn’t a surprise after playing around 26 shows almost in a row. My speaker cable got bent up against a wall at a previous show and finally died, but fortunately I was able to borrow one from the sound guy. Something is also up with Aaron’s amp, which we thought was also a speaker cable issue, but still have yet to figure it out for sure. It cut out a few times during the set but he was able to fiddle with some things and jump back in.

Unfortunately the local band canceled so there wasn’t a huge crowd but about 15 people watched us, most of which who were there for the open mic night afterwards. Along with Matt and friends, Dee from Baltimore came and her awesome mom sent her along with new earplugs for us (she works at Etymotic Research). The most dedicated fan award goes to our new friend Luiz and his girlfriend Anna. They are from Brazil and he’s been listening to us since our first EP… back in the days of mp3.com. They happened to be traveling in Chicago the week we came to town. We were embarrassed that the night was so was sub-par in attendance/excitement but tried to put on our best show for them. Our friend Phil from Sybris also came and hung out with us for the remainder of the evening. Late at night a guy comes to the bar and walks around with hot homemade tamales that are $5 for 6 of them. Phil, being the awesome person he is, bought us two dozen cheese tamales and we chowed down - they were amazing.

That night we drove about an hour northwest to our friend Mike’s house. He’s in a band called Dorm Life who we met a few years back at a show in NC and have been keeping in touch with ever since. Anyway, Mike’s parents are some of the nicest people in the world. He works the graveyard shift and wasn’t even home, but his parents let us show up in the middle of the night anyway. They said they do it because they hope other people would do the same for his son while he’s touring. They not only put us up for two nights in a row, but also made us several incredible meals and let us do some laundry.

After getting a solid 10 hours of sleep, Katie and I took a walk around the neighborhood then went to the music store with Aaron and Sam (also from Dorm Life) to get new speaker cables. We came home and vegged around the house a little more before going to our show in Wonder Lake, IL. It was a nice short 30 minute drive to the EWL House. This place is dirty and smokey as any good punk rock show house should be and probably produced one of the most energetic sets on our tour. The other two bands Stop Yeah Go and our friends Dorm Life were awesome.

There was a slight hold up when cops came because of a noise complaint right before our set but eventually they left and we were able to play. I think it added to the excitement of the night because we only had a short time to set up and play (which ended up being way longer I think) because if the cops came back somebody was rumored to get arrested. About 50 people packed into the small basement and a dance party ensued. I think Katie’s fabricated exclamations to the crowd that they better dance because we almost got arrested helped. It was so much fun - it makes such a difference to play for people who actually have a good time and express that they enjoy the music. In addition to the fabulous dance party, everyone threw donations our way and bought a ton of merch.

We stayed with Mike’s parents for the second night, then left early this morning for our show in Cleveland. It’s our last semi-long drive (around 7 hours) and we’re only two days from home!

On Thursday morning we had one last breakfast with the Yeargins and left for our show at Vino’s in Little Rock, AR. The venue was really cool and treated the bands well. We got a free large pizza, salads, some beer and $100. The first band brought a ton of people but the majority of them left right afterwards - they were mostly kids and parents and had to go because it was a school/work night. Too bad though because I think the kids would have liked us. The band after us was a screamo-ish band and their fans weren’t all that interested in us except for a few. We did end up selling a couple of things and the promoter said she would have us back with bands more stylistically similar next time. All in all not bad.

We found a place to stay with the last band but they were planning on partying and we were in for a long drive the next day. We decided that getting one hotel wouldn’t hurt since we’ve made a good amount of money so far on the tour. We stayed at a decent little hotel for and booked a room for two adults with two double beds. We usually have two of us check in then sneak all four of us in the room to save some money. This time proved to be much more difficult than usual because there were cameras all around the building and a security guard. Never fear - we are covert masters and knew their “security” would surely be no match for us!

Aaron and I hid in the van while Katie and Joe brought all of our stuff in only to find that the guard was watching our room from his car. It was probably pretty obvious when they brought a ton of stuff inside if they hadn’t already seen all of us in the van. The security guard drove around the building and soon as I saw his lights I screamed “Get down!” and we both dropped to the floor - are you jealous of our stealth skills? At one point 007-Joe brought the ice bucket to the van with the room key hiding under it.\

After about a half hour of this nonsense we just gave up because the security guard still hadn’t moved and we didn’t want Joe’s Travelocity account to get overcharged - it said four people in a room was like $175 on the door and we could’ve gotten another room for less than that. Joe called down to the desk and found that it was only $10 more for each person added to the room so Aaron and I joined them fair and square. Our secret mission failed, but it was still pretty hilarious.

The next morning we got our sub-par but free continental breakfast, checked out, and headed to Kansas City, MO. It was about a 7 hour drive, but I slept a good chunk of the way so it wasn’t bad. We met up with our friend Brandon from The Architects at his house before the show. He made us the best dinner ever - I swear he is a gourmet chef. We really appreciate all meals even if it’s simple “promoter pasta,” but his super fancy meals from scratch can’t be beat. He denies the fanciness but he doesn’t give himself enough credit. The salad consisted of watercress, chopped fennel, green grapes, and a orange/wasabi vinaigrette. He made a “poor man’s coq au vin” which consisted of chicken breast fried in bacon fat then simmered in red wine with potatoes and onions. Even our vegetarians ate it because it was that good. He also made sauteed mushrooms to top a super fancy macaroni and cheese made from a bechamel sauce, spices, and two kinds of cheeses. It was incredible!

We followed up dinner with a fabulous show at The Riot Room. We played with three other great local bands: Little Lost & Innocents, Lights & Siren, and The Kinetiks. We were worried about our spot (we were 3rd of 4) since we haven’t been lucky with crowds staying/liking us a lot but we were pleasantly surprised when we had a nice sized crowd and everybody seemed really into it. We sold some merch and met a lot of cool new friends. There was a guy who came to see us that had played with us back in 2003 at our first KCMO show! Several drinks later we went back to Brandon’s and stayed up until 5 in the morning talking crap about bands and sharing fun stories. Good times all around.

We had breakfast this morning with Brandon and his wife Jen, then headed to our next show in Minneapolis, MN. We’re about an hour and half away and I’m keeping Joe company in the front seat while he drives. He is a driving machine lately - he drove all of yesterday and today (about 14 hours all together). It’s my turn next so I’m not complaining. Normally we rotate every 5 or so hours and have assigned seats (girls in front/boys in back or vice versa… yes we’re little kids…), but I’m letting Aaron get some sleep since he’s been in the passenger seat for so long. We are good at sharing… sometimes.