b natural. c sharp.

After a lovely afternoon filled with snacks, naps, and Mexican food for dinner we stopped at Guitar Center before our show. Katie and I stayed in the van, but the boys shared their experience with us. After trying to convince the guy at the register that Joe was not the Joe O from Salt Lake City (they have a database that keeps track of what you buy) they were praised for their purchase by the guy at the door. “Every real musician needs a Monster Cable.” (Monster Cables are overpriced instrument cables that are supposed to last forever). The highlight, however, was that the door guy’s greeting/goodbye was “Rock and roll!” Naturally, a discussion arose over whether or not it’s required to be a moron to work there, or if it’s just a product of the environment once the person is hired. Although I think it’s a little of both, my theory is that the employees are so caught up in the constant noodling on the overpriced instruments that they aren’t physically unable to tell you anything useful. I’ve known a few intelligent GC employees, but more often than not you’ll leave with a good anecdote of the lameness encountered.

The show was at The Cavern in Dallas ,TX. Our new friend Tania from The Ramonalisas was really nice to set up the show for us.

It was a pretty cool place, but the majority crowd was kind of weird. We started playing to a full room and then suddenly everybody disappeared except for the people at the tables and bar. After finishing our second song I think a whole two people clapped out of the 15 or so in the room. It was so weird because they didn’t even clap for the the band after us who most of the people were clearly there to see. So I guess it wasn’t that they didn’t enjoy the music, they just didn’t care to express their appreciation? It was a prime example of lame-o hipsters that are too cool to clap. Fortunately, one of Wyatt’s friends came to see us as well a nice lady that we met at our first Dallas show on this tour. Although we only got paid $10, it still wasn’t the lowest profiting show because we sold some CDs.

We are sad to announce that our we got two nicks in our windshield from stupid trucks. One of them happened in New Mexico on the way to Oklahoma.

We have also massacred a significant portion of the bug population in several cities as suggested by the disgusting front of our van.

After another delicious breakfast made by Aaron’s aunt, we had to ship off to The Atomic Cantina in Albuquerque, NM. Grandma also sent us along with some of her famous banana bread, yum! It was actually pretty decent for a Monday night and especially with having no other bands. There was a little bit of a built in crowd that spilled over when Monday night trivia ended at the place next door. There were also some Ministry (yes, the industrial metal band) fans that came in during our set which made for an interesting mix. I challenged a 250 pound man to a fight when he tried to say that we weren’t from Baltimore because we didn’t have Natty Boh with us. Fortunately, said fight never came about. Katie’s old roommates who have since moved to Albuquerque came to the show with fantastic green chile burritos for our dinner. I love green chile. <3

We requested a place to crash on the mic and ended up staying at our new friend Hadley's house. We've actually only had to find a place to stay twice on this tour because we've known so many people in each city whether it be family or friends. It's really nice not to have to worry about where we're going to sleep, but we have been very lucky to meet generous people along the way when we're in unknown territory. We've been touring since fall '03 and we've only had to get a hotel two or three times in all of that time. Hotels would be nice, but if we want to make any money it's not an option.

The drive to Altus, OK was on the longer side (7 hours) but totally worth it in the end. Not very exciting scenery. A lot of it looked like this:

If we were lucky, we saw this:

We got hooked up with this random town on our last tour. The Rentals were playing music that they liked on a radio show and Ben Pringle played some tracks from our full length because he is so awesome. The promoter Stephen heard us on the show and saw that we were looking for dates in the area. He offered to book us a show and anytime people offer to take some of the load off we’re more that happy to accept. We had no idea how it would be the first time we came, but we have since vowed to plan our tour stops around Altus whenever possible.

Even on a Tuesday night our show was amazing! I knew we were in good shape when I saw a kid walk by wearing our t-shirt. Stephen brought us dinner from Pick Up Taco (they have the best green cilantro/avocado/delicious sauce ever), we sold almost $200 in merch, and got paid all of the door money. They rent the hall for free and the other bands didn’t take any money so we got paid $226! At $3 a head that’s about 75 kids. Incredible. So all said in done this one show in a tiny little town not only paid for itself, but also made up for the three shows we didn’t get paid. We stayed with Stephen and left early-ish so we could hang out more at the Yeargin estate before our show in Dallas.

Note to self: I need to remember to take some more pictures of band related things instead of just cacti. =P

Although we didn’t have high hopes for our show last night, it turned out to be really great. We played at a coffee shop called Fireside Espresso in Payson, AZ for the first time. Some of Aaron’s family lives here but we don’t know any bands or anything so we were the only act for the evening. We were thinking about playing a piano/vocals only set since we were all tired and didn’t think many people would show up. I’m glad we ended up playing a full set because all of the family came and brought a bunch of friends. All of his younger cousins are really into playing music too so I think everybody had a good time and enjoyed the music. We sold a bunch of merch, got a ton of donations, and even got paid $50 for gas from the shop - we didn’t expect to get anything since it was no cover and we’ve had bad luck on tour so far with that kind of thing.

The best thing is that we were done the show by 8pm and had the evening to hang out with the family. Aaron played an intense game of Scrabble with his cousin’s and Grandma - they are total professionals with the Scrabble dictionary and all. Joe joined in an even more intense game of ping pong with some of the other family members. Katie and I spent the evening knitting and chatting with the ladies - no competition for us.

After getting some much needed sleep we had a big fabulous breakfast at Aaron’s aunt & uncle’s house where Katie and I stayed. The boys slept over at Grandma’s right next door. It’s been a really relaxing day… playing music with the cousins, playing ping pong, having knitting lessons, and doing laundry. I even went on a walk and got some much needed exercise. It was intense though because I’m out of shape from sitting in the van all the time and that mountain air is thin! Katie stayed home and slept because she’s not feeling well - hopefully the day off will be enough time to shake it off.

I imagine much of the evening will be the same and am looking forward to all of this down time. Do we really have to go play a show tomorrow?

We’re currently in the van and I’m lounging in the very back after taking a nice nap. We have a fairly long drive to Payson, AZ (probably 8 hours) so I’m taking advantage of the down time to get some writing in. This week has been really busy so I haven’t had a chance since Tuesday. This update is five days worth of tour so sorry in advance for the super long post.

We had a blast in Tucson. After Katie and I had dinner with her aunt, uncle, and cousin, we got in the hot tub for a while and went to bed fairly early. The next day the same aunt (Joan) took Katie, Joe, and I out for the day while Aaron went to his favorite spots around town and got the van an oil change. Our first stop was Las Palomas Resort, which their uncle is associated with. It’s a gorgeous hotel with a golf course, spa, and huge pool area complete with a water slide, hot tubs, and various sized pools for kids and adults. We spent the afternoon swimming and Joan was so nice to treat us to a poolside lunch (plus dinner the night before!).

Our next adventure was taking a guided tour of the Sabino Canyon. A tram drove us around to two spots in the canyon where we had a chance to explore for a few minutes. It was so beautiful and amazing. As soon as we boarded the tram Katie and I freaked out because we saw a pair of quail right nearby. Then right as we started the tour a rattlesnake crossed the road ahead of us! Unfortunately that picture is stuck on Joe’s camera until we find a compatible cable for him. We also saw a few lizards, including a horny toad and a poisonous gila monster. Apparently gila monsters are very rare to see - even the tour guide took her camera out!

After a very lovely afternoon, Aaron’s aunt & uncle treated us to a yummy dinner at a place called Yoshimatsu. Once we were way too full, we headed to the show at Sports on Congress. Aaron was really excited to see all of his old friends and had a good time. One of our old friends that moved from Baltimore also came with a bunch of people too so it was a really fun show.

The next day we played in San Diego, CA at The Epicentre. If you’re a touring band I strongly suggest not playing there. The show wasn’t a total bust but only because we had some really awesome friends who showed up and made the night worthwhile. The promoter put us on 1st out of 5 bands even though he said he would put us in the middle. Since he wasn’t there, the guy running the show would not change it. When you play in an unknown town, it’s ideal to be sandwiched in between local bands so that you have a chance of people actually seeing you. I busted my ass to find some of the bands for this show and make it happen, so you think they would have the courtesy to let us play where we requested. All in all I don’t think it really mattered that we played first, but it was just an irritating start to a long night.

One of the bands after us had a lyric that we could not resist documenting: “I’m not too bright… but I just might… kick your ass.” Amazing. Two other bands that were really nice to help me make the show happen were The Fascination, and Love Campaign. They were both really nice to us so hopefully we’ll get a chance to play with them again in the future at a more band friendly place.

After the show was over we found out that we weren’t getting paid anything. This is venue #2 of the tour that has stiffed us.

*** RANT WARNING***

It infuriates me how some venues get away with running things the way they do. In the case of The Epicentre they require you to pre-sell tickets and only give you a whopping $1 per head off of $8 tickets. In addition to pre-selling they “tally” at the door asking who is there to see who. We had 9 friends pay to specifically see us, which isn’t a lot but pretty good considering we’ve never played in that town before and only really knew a few people. Their oh-so-accurate tally sheet said we drew 2 people. Even though there were 70 people in and out the entire night (roughly $560 in door money) they were only able to pay two bands who pre-sold tickets maybe $35 each. The rest of us got stiffed because the guy running it said they had to “eat it big time” since there weren’t more people in attendance. If the overhead for one night is over $500 for an all ages venue there is something seriously wrong.

There are so many things that are wrong with the way venues like that do business. It is a fact of life that a venue is going to have some really amazing nights and some not so great nights. Sometimes you might lose some money but it all balances out and there is no excuse not to be able to pay bands anything at all because it doesn’t balance out so easily for them. Bands are providing an entertainment service for venues regardless of if they bring a ton of people or not - it’s not the other way around. Tallying is something else that drives me up the wall. If a venue decides to tally to get a general idea of who is bringing who and then pays the bands a little more or less depending on their draw, I’m totally fine with that. However, in most cases these venues pay per the head you bring and will completely screw over anyone who doesn’t draw well. This is unbelievably unfair to touring bands, especially if they haven’t played in the area. I’m over slimy venues and promoters.

*** End Rant ***

Like I said, the night wasn’t totally a bust… The people who did come to see us were super awesome. Specifically there were two people that missed us but came anyway at the end to say hi and bought a ton of merch. It really made our night. Sometimes shows might not be great, but even if there is one person excited to see us or if we get one new fan it makes it worth it.

We were happy to finally get out of there and go crash Aaron’s friend’s house. She was super awesome and treated us to an amazing breakfast the next morning. We also bonded over our shared craft nerdiness. She crochets using plastic grocery bags that she cuts into strips for yarn. Using the plastic and other recycled materials she makes these awesome eco-friendly bags.

Our next stop was a nice short 2 hour drive to Long Beach, CA. Aaron grew up in Long Beach so his friend Brad made us a killer dinner. While Brad was cooking, his wife Carrie took us to see the beach which was only a few blocks away. We were totally excited to walk in the Pacific Ocean but unfortunately that’s all the California beach time we got in.

The show was at a small but awesome bar called The Prospector. It was packed, we had an open bar tab, and they paid us extremely well. We were super excited to see our friend Kyle who moved away from the Baltimore area a few years back. It was a great show and a relief after the rocky night before. Afterwards we drove to our friend Ben Pringle’s house in LA since it was only 40 minutes. Poor Katie had to listen to the alcohol influenced ramblings of the rest of us for the length of the drive because our radio had stopped working on the way to Long Beach. It turned out that our GPS plug came apart and blew the fuse when we plugged it in unknowingly. I’m so happy it was just a fuse because no radio is just not an option if we want to stay sane.

We got to Ben’s, crashed almost immediately, and slept until about noon. It was fantastic because we were exhausted from the past two days. Unfortunately Friday was one of the busiest days we had so far so that sleeping in was the only real downtime we had. At 2:00 we recorded a radio session for STAR 98.7. Adam’s friend Josh is a DJ there and hooks us up with some sweet radio promo. We recorded three of our new songs stripped down with vocals and piano in this totally smooth studio. There was a ridiculous pile of pillows in the middle of the rooms for studio audiences. The engineer was telling us how they had just had The Donnas, The Go-Gos, Evanescence… totally smooth. If you live in LA and can get the station, Josh’s show “The Adventure Club” airs on Sunday nights and he’s able to play some pretty cool music unlike most of the top stations. I think our session will be aired in about a month.

After the radio thing we went to In and Out Burger as per Aaron’s request and I got an “animal style” burger since I’ve heard so much about it. I don’t eat a lot of meat and haven’t had a cheeseburger in almost a year but it was pretty amazing. Even Aaron, who is a strict vegetarian, made an exception and loved every bite. A couple hours later we drove over to Sunset Strip where we were playing and parked our van in a crazy Hollywood hills neighborhood. That reminds me - I never saw the Hollywood sign! Oh well. Anyway, Katie and Joe’s friend Laurie picked us up and took us out to dinner with her husband and baby. She picked us up in her super smooth Bentley - I kid you not. It was at this point where I felt I was getting the true LA/Hollywood experience. They treated us to dinner at a nice french restaurant and it was delicious. We have been incredibly fortunate this tour to have had so many people make and buy dinner for us - we don’t ever expect it so we’re very thankful for it.

After dinner we had to go to the venue called On the Rox and load our stuff up a crazy steep flight of stairs. After loading in Aaron and I had to park the van which is always a feat in a busy city. We got a space, came back and set up our stuff, did a sound check, and doors opened right after that. I was so jittery and wound up from the business and also worried that we wouldn’t draw 30 people. The agreement with the promoter was that if we drew 30 people they would split the door with us - otherwise we wouldn’t get paid. We took the gamble since we didn’t have any better offers and wouldn’t have a show at all. If we could do it anywhere, we could do it there, but it a bunch of people couldn’t make it and the count ended up being 17. Regardless, it was a great show - the crowd was all really awesome friends that we haven’t seen in a long time as well as their friends. It was really nice of Ryan, the guitar player from Ozma, to come see us after playing together a while back in DC. Ben is also in The Rentals, so having two people that are in bands we’re big fans of geeking out over our keyboards was a pretty awesome sight.

After the show we parked our van back at Ben’s house so we wouldn’t have to deal with paying for parking on the strip. Then my friend Dani from college was super nice to pick us up and drive us around to all the cool Hollywood stops. After taking touristy pictures and seeing all the wackos we headed back to her house, played some Wii, and went back to Ben’s to crash when he got home from his gig. Him and his roommate Chuck were very nice to let us stay for two nights.

We had to get up pretty early this morning since we have an early load tonight and now we’re officially headed back east with a little under two weeks of tour left.

After being spoiled and relaxing for a few days in TX, we had to actually get back to playing shows (at least for a few days). We had a keyboard and pedal malfunction in Baton Rouge so Katie and I got to work on fixing our stuff.

We played at The Prophet Bar in Dallas on Saturday night with our good friends Cruiserweight. It was a good show - it was only our second time playing in Dallas so we were happy to get some new fans. We’ll be coming back later on tour so hopefully some of them will come to that show too.

Cruiserweight was amazing as usual and were very nice to let me and Katie pick some of our favorite songs off of their upcoming album for their set. I absolutely adore their new songs and can’t wait until they release it so I can force everyone I know to hear how fabulous they are.

After one last amazing breakfast at Barbara & Richard’s, we hit the road for a long 10 hour drive to El Paso, TX. Thankfully it wasn’t my turn to drive so I got to knit most of the day, watch For Your Consideration, and play Yoshi’s Island to entertain myself. Although the drive was long we saw a lot of really cool things on the way. I got tons of pictures of oilies and windies (windmills).

Other than that there wasn’t much else - just miles and miles of wide open space with the occasional ranch entrance (like on “Hey Dude!” - do you remember that show?). I’ve come to realize that just about all of my knowledge of the west and desert spans from movies, games, and cartoons. I’m expecting to see lots of sand dunes and the sun get really angry and start spinning around like in Super Mario 3. I have yet to see such things, however we did see a tumbleweed! A real tumbling tumbleweed! Just like you see on those intense western standoffs. *whistles*

Joe also got some amazing pictures of the sunset for me since he had the prime seat.

Anyway, the show in El Paso was pretty good considering it was a Sunday night and we’ve never played in the city before. The Crowd, The Town, and Everyone were wonderful and set up the show for us at a place called Zeppelin’s Underground. We were really surprised to find that a nice lady named Chris came specifically to see us and brought two of her friends. It turns out she saw us around 3 years ago at The Ottobar and has since moved to El Paso. We had no idea how the show would be and assumed we wouldn’t know anyone, so it was a pleasant surprise. She was also nice enough to immediately tell us we could crash at her place, which was a relief after the long day we had. Time zones are crazy! We ended up going to bed at 3:30 mountain time - that’s 5:30 eastern, so my concept of time is all wacky right now.

After getting some much needed rest, we headed to Aaron’s hometown of Tucson, AZ. I spent the day knitting and finished my first entrelac scarf. Entrelac is a cool technique that gives the illusion that the piece is woven. It’s currently drying out pinned to the ceiling of our van for on-the-go blocking purposes (blocking makes it look nicer - like ironing).

This trip was also full of some exciting sites. The mountains in New Mexico and Arizona are crazy. I’m so used to seeing green rolling hills - these are jagged, straight up road to Mordor type mountains.

There was also a really beautiful canyon called the Texas Canyon (in Arizona) with giant stacks of boulders.

I was fascinated by the mini dust storms and dust devils that popped up all throughout the desert as well. The closer we got to Tucson, the more varieties of cacti we saw. Katie and I freaked out when we saw our first saguaro cactus. They are the ones with the arms (sadly they don’t dance or have faces) but they are as big as trees! I had no idea.

So that brings us to now - I am currently laying on a hammock at Aaron’s aunt & uncle’s amazing house in Tucson, AZ. We have the day off and will be playing in town tomorrow night. It’s about 70 degrees and breezy - I think I’m in heaven. They even have a hot tub that she’s warming up for us to use later. The boys got some burritos and are going to get tattooed, while Katie and I stuff ourselves full of Mexican food with her aunt & uncle (apparently everyone’s family lives here!). Aaron’s Aunt Julie’s gardens of full of amazing cacti so once my camera batteries recharge I’m going to have a photographic heyday.

Wednesday’s show was our first mediocre one of the tour. It wasn’t horrible, but there weren’t many people there… maybe 10 or so. Even still, we played with a cool band called The Western Civilization, got paid a little bit for gas, and we had a comfortable place to stay. We’ve had much, much worse shows in the past.

We spent a good portion of yesterday driving to Grapevine, TX. Although the drive was long, it was really pretty a lot of the way. Everything is turning my favorite shades of green and there are wildflowers everywhere. There is this awesome stretch of I-10 going West from Baton Rouge that is miles of bridges. On one side of the bridge as far as you can see are trees growing sporadically out of a huge body of water, which I’m pretty sure is a swamp. It looks unreal but unfortunately I was driving so I couldn’t snap a picture. We also saw oil derricks later on, or “oilies” as we so affectionately call them. I’m fascinated by a few things that we never see in Maryland: armadillos (although sadly, they are usually dead on the side of the road), oilies, windmills, and cacti.

We are staying with Adam’s (Katie’s fiance) parents in their beautiful house. Barbara and Richard are incredibly nice and visiting is always like a mini-vacation. Our shows tonight and tomorrow were both canceled by the promoters. It’s a bummer to have shows fall through, especially on a weekend, but the longer we get to visit here the better!

Today the boys spent the day doing laundry and relaxing while Barbara, Katie, and I went shopping. We had some amazing Mexican food for dinner, watched some more Arrested Development and spent a little time in the hot tub, It’s been really rough.

That brings my blog up to date. I’m currently camped out watching Fellowship of the Ring being friends with Mudgy the cat! Are you jealous?

Hello from Mobile, AL. I’m currently in our friend’s /promoter’s really awesome loft. He has this beautiful greyhound dog named Jasmine that was rescued and although she’s super skittish, I am determined to make friends with her before we leave today.

We stayed at Chris’ house again and since Mobile is only 3 hours away from Pensacola, we had a lot of time to hang out during the day. Katie, Chris, and I went to the beach! It wasn’t exactly bask in the sun/play in the water weather, but it was still lovely. We walked around, they had daiquiris (I left my wallet/ID at the house), and we even saw dolphins in the water!

Check out this wacky UFO shaped house near the beach!

After watching some more Arrested Development (Joe and Aaron haven’t seen it and are tired of our constant references, so we’re all making our way through the 3 seasons) we said our goodbyes and hit the road to Mobile. Katie and I finished the knitting book on tape in perfect time to arrive at the venue.

We played at a place called Picklefish which is a restaurant that has some amazing food. There is another location in downtown Mobile, right nearby the venue we used t play. This is where we first had fried pickles, and oh boy are they good! Anyway, this new-to-us Picklefish is right on a college campus and they just started doing shows. They fed us even though the kitchen was about to close and gave us an employee discount.

All of the sudden a bunch of people started showing up, including the nice bands we played with. We sold a bunch of stuff the second I started putting merch on the table and had a great show thanks to our dedicated fans in Mobile. Our friend G.J. and his sister, who were nice enough to take pictures with my camera during our set, has been following us for 5 years now. How cool is that?!

We just went to check on our van to find that we had two $50 parking tickets for being parked in an unmarked spot. One for the van, one for the trailer. =(

I just woke up and decided to get some writing time in since everyone is asleep still and I don’t have a wireless connection to distract me. We are still in Pensacola at our dear friends Chris (the promoter) and Tim’s house.

Sunday was great. We arrived in Pensacola in time to have dinner and relax a little before the show. We had gourmet pizza from the new restaurant Tim works at and it was delicious. There was this white pizza with whole cloves of roasted garlic on to die for. Why is garlic so amazing?

Anyway, the show at Sluggo’s was really good. The band after us drew a hoard of t-shirt bearing teenage girls who screamed like banshees at the mere mention of their name. We were kind of worried their fans wouldn’t like us, since we’re generally not boys that they want to kiss. When we were setting up, a girl asked us how long we were going to be playing because she wanted to see the band after us and had to babysit the next morning. We giggled, told her hours, and apologized for the inconvenience, but the question did not bode well for our response with the new crowd. However, once we started playing, a dance party ensued and everyone seemed to really like us. Even our new babysitting friend!

Our new friend from Out of Nothing, Katie, Regina, and Chris together being friends!

The next morning Chris got up at an unbelievably early hour and tried to wake me up about every hour after that until I finally gave in at noon. He’s used to getting up super early for work, so even though we all went to bed at like 4am, he was bored because we took over his living and computer rooms. He made an awesome breakfast for us and we spent the day lounging around the house watching Arrested Development because it was too cold for the beach. As to not be total lazybones, Katie and I did 8 min abs and legs which I am now feeling this morning haha. The workout was promptly followed up by recharging those lost electrolytes with burritos from Moe’s. We also watched Enchanted and it was incredible! Amy especially - you will love the crap out of it (she is a Disney professional, as is Chris who was appalled that we hadn’t seen it).

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but Chris is amazing. He books killer shows for us, lets us take over his house, and buys us just about every meal. We are so lucky to have met him on our 2nd tour a little over four years ago thanks to Second Saturday.

Our show last night at Coaster’s was good for a Monday night. Not a huge turnout but we had an entourage from Pensacola as well as some local Ft. Walton area friends so we were in good company. The bartender Rachel remembered us from last time and was really awesome to us. Yay friends!

The highlight(?) of the night was probably when a very colorful local told Katie that he really liked us, but would enjoy our music if we were “more pissed off and on our periods.” I think he was trying to say that he would prefer more of a hard edge in his own special way. =P

We are currently somewhere in middle of nowhere Mississippi driving south to Pensacola, FL. On our drive yesterday we found out that our air conditioning isn’t working correctly once again, but hopefully the weather will be mild enough that it won’t really matter. We just spent a crapload on getting part of it replaced last summer, but there must be a freon leak somewhere still. At least it’s not summer yet!

We had a fantastic show last night with our friends Poacher and Second Saturday. Wasson’s was an awesome place that we’ve never played before. It’s a really nice fish oriented restaurant, but also have an upstairs bar and outdoor patio. They gave us free food so Katie and I got fried pickles and fried okra (YUM!) but she ended up getting a few hives from the fish fry crunchies. )= The weather held up for us so we were able to play outside and over 100 people showed up. We can always rely on our shows in Starkville to be one of the best stops of tour. We played well, but I broke a string on our second song which doesn’t happen often but I was due for a change. Here is a pic of Katie and I taken from the balcony singing on “The Fox” with Second Saturday.

I’ve never heard of a concrete before but it’s apparently like a blizzard. Having never heard of it we thought the word was very out of place in the sign at first sight haha.

Wyatt’s parents made us a yummy dinner before the show and Venom’s parents (guitarist of Second Saturday) made us a big breakfast this morning. We have certainly been well fed these last few days and we’ll be having dinner with our good friend Chris in Pensacola tonight and/or tomorrow.

We’re in the van and Wyatt is riding with us on the way to Starkville, MS. It took us an hour to finally get on the road today because we had to stop at 3 different gas stations to finally find an air machine that actually worked. Wyatt’s been “letting me win” at Kirby’s Avalanche on a SNES emulator. =P

The show in Johnson City was good. It looked kind of questionable at first attendance-wise but we ended up having a decent crowd, selling some stuff, and getting paid a nice amount for gas. It’s always surprising for us because we’ve been the main drawing band the last two times. The guy that played before us left after he played but the crowd stayed and some more arrived right after we started. Good to know we have friends in Johnson City!

We found a place to stay, but decided to drive overnight to Nashville. I drove because I don’t get fall-asleep-at-the-wheel syndrome and with the help of non-stop jams by Cruiserweight, Surferosa, The Cardigans, and ABBA we made it safely around 4am Eastern Time. It’s not a very easy drive because of the mountains, but it was nice to have the day free before the show.

The next afternoon we went to Casa Fiesta or House Party as we call it, which is my favorite Mexican restaurant EVER. If you know me you’ve probably heard about it, it’s kind of an addiction. After getting full of food and margaritas we had some time to nap and relax at the house before going to the show.

The French Quarter was really nice to let us move our show there last minute after The 5 Spot double booked us. It was a really nice place and we had a great crowd. It was The Loblaws first show but you wouldn’t have known it because they were really good. Second Saturday was great as well - I’m really looking forward to their next album finally being done - the new songs are awesome!

The only bummer was that the booking lady failed to tell us that if we wanted to get paid, we needed to have a door person. We were expecting to be paid a percentage of the bar because that’s how it typically works on shows with no cover. So, even though over 50 people came specifically to see the three bands we made zero money off of it, other than selling a couple things. Not good news for our bank account but hopefully we’ll make it up with good shows somewhere down the road.