 Okay
so I'm not a writer. I think that's very clear. I've already been asked
a hundred times "how was your tour?". So I wrote this. Cheers,
Jay
We left for tour today. A day early but we wanted to make sure that
we got across the border okay. It went well. We headed straight for
Tacoma, Washington to hang at our manager's place and maybe go out for
some drinks. Pat Hall from the band The Iotolas was going to be our
"fill-in" guitarist for the tour beginning in LA so he felt we
should rehearse as we only rehearsed with him twice. We thought getting
drunk would be more fun. We sit down at Don's and begin drinking with
The Man. If you don't know The Man I can't explain him to you. Good
times for sure. We end up at Hell's Kitchen drinking with Eric and
Paulie, Justin Jet City and The Man. Denyss and The Man get so bombed
they become fast friends. Friends who can only use hand gestures to
speak at that point. God they were a mess. Brilliant start to a tour.
Before heading out from Tacoma we learn that our San Francisco show
had been cancelled for Thursday. This is a bad omen at a beginning of a
tour. Ask anyone. We headed to Portland for our first show though. We
met Davey, who is going to be playing guitar for the shows down the
coast, at the venue called Solid State. The other bands on the bill were
The Born Losers, The Stivs, As Cities Burn, and the Iotolas. It looked
as if the turnout wasn't going to be so great tonight and we quickly
learned that The Distillers were playing across town at another all ages
show. Not only do hardly any kids show up but the promoter decides that
he doesn't need to show up either. We play to the other bands and our
pals Gillian and Chris Squire who make the trip from Seattle. The guy in
the Stivs was super cool and handed us as much money as he could. We
were greatly appreciative as we learned that we did indeed now have a
show in San Francisco tomorrow so we drove out of town. We stopped
halfway there to sleep in the van at a rest stop. Dano pulled a fast one and managed to get us a show at the fabulous
Parkside! This bar is incredible! They have the coolest staff who are
true music fans and they treat their bands amazing!! (God, they fed me
so much liquor it was a crime) One of those places that I just like
hanging around in. Dano gets a band called Flex Bronco and The Angry
Amputees to open the show. The bands were great and Angry Amputees
really blew us away! Our pal Billy Rowe from American Heartbreak was
kind enough to offer up his place for us stay but his roommate
accidentally locked us out. So after the show we begin driving to San
Diego. We go a little ways and then fall asleep in the van at a rest
stop. We played this place called Soma. It's huge. We were on the bill with
about 5 other bands. There were a lot of kids there and they seemed to
like us but they have this door deal thing where they check off at the
door who the person wants to see. Doesn't really work for a touring band
since the other bands are all local bands and all of their friends are
coming to see them. The promoter guy or whoever he was, was cool enough
to shoot us a few extra bucks to help us out. We played a good set and
then afterwards we headed over to Ralph's and bought some cheap food.
After eating we drove up to LA to stay with our excellent lady friend
Kina!!! We just lied around Kina's all day pretty much until we had to leave
for our show which was in Anaheim at The Chain Reaction. Ron Conflict
was cool enough to get us a show there and the turnout was cool! The
other bands on the bill, one of which was Ron's own band, were really
cool and very different from one another. We hoped the kids would keep
an open mind to all the different genres and they pretty much did except
for two or three kids who just hated us. No matter. We played a good set
and had a great time!! More cities need a cool all ages venue like this
one! After the show we headed back to Hollywood as were going to stay at
Kina's again. We decided that we were going to head to the Rainbow for a
drink but it was prom night and there were drunk idiots everywhere. What
possessed us to drive up Sunset towards the Rainbow is beyond me. It was
a nightmare. We ended up parking and walking forever and just generally
hating the end of the night. At least I did. Day off today!! We just lied around and watched t.v. We played the Knitting Factory with The Dead Idols and The Dollyrots.
The Dead Idols played some cool trashy rock'n'roll and the Dollyrots
wowed me with their fun, bouncy, pop!! It was cool meeting the folks
from the other bands and it was cool seeing Jeff, Josi, Ron and lots of
other old tour friends! I thought we played a good show that night and
to celebrate Rob, Davey, Pat and myself headed over to the Rainbow for
some drinks. Once there -- you think I'm going to say we met Lemmy - but
we didn't. We ran into Texas Terri and her drummer Vic Foxxxxx (formerly
of Enuff Z Enuff)!!! We got a pick up show as our New Mexico date got cancelled. We played
a place called El Cid. Cool new venue apparently. We played with The
Blair Bitch Project and The Shocker. Both great bands with some great
people in the bands! We also got to see Brian and Ron (Hangmen) come out
and see us along with Toast and Texas Terri again!! We didn't play so
good that night though and it was our last show with Davey for a while.
We then had a ridiculously long drive ahead us of to Oklahoma City. We started driving to Oklahoma City which is something like 18 hours
from LA?? What a joke. I fucking can't stand being in the van that long.
I go crazy. We get to this venue called The Green Door. The promoter is there and
is totally cool. He lets us in and the drinks start pouring soon after.
It was very cool to see Ashley once again as she was until recently a
Vancouverite but is now an Oklahoman or whatever you call 'em. This is
our first show with a band called Philmore who are scheduled to do a
string of the upcoming shows with us. We also played with a crazy band
called The High Pressure Idiots. Zany shit it was. Also on the bill were
American Ruse who, you could guess from the name, very Detroit MC5-ish
rock'n'roll. Good stuff for sure. Apparently the singer is some sort of
grade school teacher or something. He must be the coolest teacher in
school. The show is great and we played great (our first show with
Pat!!!). Lots of cool people come from Kansas down to see the show and
buy some shirts. Really incredible. Next time we have to play Kansas.
After the show, we hit the cool bar in town which is some gay bar with
shiny silver walls. We had a blast there and stayed next door at the
sound guys place which is like a museum of old show posters and
flyers. We played Dallas tonight and it was our first show with the lineup
that is to be the tour lineup. Calico System, Haste, Philmore and us are
the exciting tour calvacade that are about to embark on a massive
Southern tour!!! Or so we thought. There was nobody at this show except
for a lot of Christian kids who were there to see Philmore. Not a good
omen to start an "exciting tour calvacade". Ask anyone. We
also have a good time though. If anything has ever been said about us
it's "that we always have a good time". Tonight was no
different. After we finished playing we went to another bar and drank
some beer and did some shots and then began our drive to San Antonio.
And boy is hot down here. Like driving on the sun. The drive to San Antonio was hot. Like driving on the sun. Did I mention that before?? I tend to forget with my brain boiling in my skull. There was hardly anybody at the show except for a few Austin kids who showed up to see us. They invited us back to Austin so we could check out The Applicators at Emo's and then onto a party but we couldn't leave without being paid which was to be at the end of the night. Royal bummer. We head next door to the '80's night instead and drink beer with Haste and watch Rob dance his "Dark Elm" goth dance. Good times. We left around 3 in the a.m. towards Corpus Christi. We make it halfway then sleep in the van at a rest stop. Seeing a pattern here?? Woke up in the rest stop covered in sweat. Holy fuck is it hot. Like waking up on the sun. Anyways, the show wasn't attended by anybody. We played to the other bands on the bill and to a few kids who showed up. Turns out A Perfect Circle were in town that night. No matter. We played like we were playing to A Perfect Cirlce's crowd and Denyss hit me with his bass and I think he caused a hairline fracture in my hand making my continued streak of always-hurting-myself-in-Texas unbroken!!
Woohoo!!! Houston ruled!!! We love this city!!! The venue was great and the promoter whose name escapes me now and I apologize if you read this -- was a super cool girl! They had this incredible barbeque going on and lots of beer and a patio to sit on -- I love drinking beer on a patio -- seriously, it's the best. What a great night!! The show was packed and we had such a fun night. So many of our old friends came out that night and it felt like old times. We got see Punk Daddy Willie, and Evan (but no brother of his that night....), Jared, Jay Debauchery, and loads of others!!! While loading the van at the end of the night SOMEBODY forgets the last of our merch at the club. We don't realize this until the next morning. In our blind drunkeness we head over to a party at Mikey's place and had a blast!! Jared and his lovely fiance let us sleep on their floor at their apartment. And Jared, I didn't have your keys!! I don't know where they got to??!! Baton Rouge. Honestly, I don't know what happened to this show but it's hard to keep your moral up when the shows are starting to suck. Lucky they stock beer in the corner stores in this country. I think Canada should get into that. Jacksonville, Florida. This was a cool venue. Unfortunately Haste and Calico System cancelled but Philmore came through and that left us with two other bands, Chase Theory and Farewell To Arms. We played a cool set and Matt from Chase Theory got up sang a little of "Where Eagles Dare" with us. His band was cool and I wished them a good tour. Philmore offer us a place to stay at a church in Holly Hills - a town just south of Jacksonville. We accept the offer. Denyss and Pat find other sleeping accomodations. Rob, Billy and I travel with Philmore in their Semi-RV-type vehicle and head for the church. The Pastor Matt shows up to greet us and is possibly one of the coolest people we've ever met. He sets us up with rooms and has a few laughs with us about how funny Homestar Runner is. We geek out for a bit on that and then crash out. Matt takes us and Philmore out to an all you can eat Chinese Buffet and pays!!! We also learn today that Matt was voted "Citizen of the Year" of Holly Hills, Florida. OF COURSE HE WAS!! He's one of the nicest guys you'll ever run across. Afterwards we continue riding with Philmore in their vehicle. We get to know Gabe (Philmore's merch guy) and Rebekah (Kayle's wife) a little better and Gabe keeps us laughing the whole way to St. Petersburg. Our show is pretty poor due to the turnout mostly. Haste and Calico System have cancelled this show as well and lots of kids decide to not come in. We play horribly. Denyss jumps in the air and lands on Billy cutting his eye open. What a crowd pleaser. The little amount that were there all took 10 paces back after that incident. I think they believed we were crazy. Certifiably, drink your own pee type crazy people. We pack up and head out of town just to -- you guessed it -- sleep in a rest stop in the van. Again. I honestly can't believe this day happened. It sounds like I made it up. We awoke in the rest stop only to find that the van was broken. The alternator was shot. We ask everyone for a jump. Oddly, the only people that offered to help us were a Canadian couple and an Irish couple. Now i'm not saying that all Americans were rude, because they weren't -- they said, "no we don't have any jumper cables" very nicely...it's just amusing to note that when asked, the couple that said "sure, we got cables and we'll help you" were Canadian and Irish. But I digress. We get the van moving and we're worried because the van has been stalling alot on tour already. If it stalls, it'll shut down and we'll need another jump. We're told that the nearest town is only 1 mile away. That's good. We can make a lousy mile without it stalling. Unless of course a FUCKING CAR AND MOTORHOME TRAILER CATCH FIRE ON THE HIGHWAY IN FRONT OF YOU!!!! Yup, our luck is amazing. We see the smoke and the fire and the traffic comes to a halt and so do we. Stalled on the highway. We manage to coast to the side though so we don't actually block anything. Anything but all the emergency vehicles that are trying to get by!! Police cars and fire trucks and whizzing by us in the grassy ditch yelling at us for pulling over!! We called for a tow. The nearest place to fix the alternator is farther than the "town a mile down the road". We get charged over a hundred bucks to get the van and trailer towed to this gas station in the middle of nowheresville, Florida. It's seriously out of a backwoods movie. As the van is getting fixed we head across the street to the local diner. Then the tornado touches down. I'm not kidding. One mile down the road (there's that darn "one mile down the road" again!!) the thing hits and the roads are closed off because of downed power lines and such. We sit in the diner for an hour and then make our way back to our van. We eventually get it going only after paying way too much for the part and labour. We head towards Pensacola in hopes that we can make the show since we're down around $400 bucks now. We do make the show but it was poorly attended. There are a few people who saw us last time we were in Pensacola (about 4 years ago) who show up and Chris the promoter is a great guy who feeds us loads of draft beer. He even gets up and sings "Somethings Never Fall" with us. We left that night to look for a hotel which we don't find until we're just north of Mobile, Alabama. We travelled to Gadsen, Alabama. Along the way we passed the Statue of Liberty. No shit. American has two!!! This one was a lot smaller but it's the same alright. Weird. Anyways, the show was, again, poorly attended. It was a cool space called El Santos (or Old Santos) where most shows go off really well. There was apparently a wake for some kid from a local band who passed away. This was our last show with Philmore. They were having trouble with their vehicle and we're going to be heading back to Tulsa. After the show, Calico System, Philmore and us all said our goodbyes and headed back towards Birmingham to Brandon's (Haste) house. We got there and sat around drinking beer with Brandon, Jason, Jeff and Chris and their girlfriends and wives. It was a great time! Chris had us laughing non stop. That guy is so fucking entertaining when he's drinking it's great! Finally Rob and I head to Jeff's place and crash out. It's probably the best sleep I had since the church in Holly Hills. Day off!!! We all hung out at Brandon's again and all the Haste guys came over and we got drunk. We leave early for Myrtle Beach. The show is at a place called The Limelight. Calico System, Haste and us are the bands on the bill. We're surprised to see our old friend Bruno from S. America at the show!! Turns out he's living in Myrtle Beach and working their for the summer. After the show we head towards Columbia, SC. Halfway there we sleep in a rest area in the van. We get a hotel in the early afternoon so we can lay around before the show. The show was at this really cool club called The New Brookyln Tavern! The bartender was cool as hell and the food was great! These little things mean the world to a band after only a few short weeks into a tour. Ask anyone. There are some cool kids we meet at the show, one of which travels all the way from Atlanta only to miss us!! We get back up and do 2 songs for her and give her a shirt. Afterwards we head to a bar called Artbar or something like that and drink cheap Pabsts. I watch a pretty girl dance by herself. God, i'm turning into a creep. Baltimore - The Otto Bar. This was a different Ottobar than what I remember. What a great bar and a great room though! This was our last show with Haste. We actually had a decent turnout for our set which made everyone pretty happy. We got to see Billy Whitfield again and he handed off some of his zines for us to read on the road. This kind of gesture is always appreciated!! A bunch of great people from Lancaster, PA. showed up for the show as well and invited us to come back and stay at their place. We spent a half an hour saying good bye to Haste and exchanging emails. Those guys were some totally cool guys and I hope to see them again sometime. We then headed to Lancaster. Once we get there, sleeping is out of the question what with all the beer they have in their fridge. Jamie, Jill, all the Nightime Dealers - these are some fine people with good drinking habits. We have a great time and an even better time when Joan Jett starts getting played on the stereo. You really had to be there for that. We head over to Angry, Young and Poor where the good looking staff set us up with some clothes and make us some Black Halos pins!! Will the kindness ever stop?! We say our goodbyes and drive away. On our way to the next show we begin to overheat around Hellerton, PA. We get to a garage where they said the van will be looked at tomorrow. We eat pizza in a hotel. We miss our first show. The van is fucked. We have to stay another night. Pat actually looks into buying another van off the lot. We miss our second show. On our way to a lot to look at another van we pass a van for sale on the side of the road. Pat makes the call, drives the van around the block, gives him cash and we leave with a new van after going back, taking the plates off the old van and abandoning it. We drive all the way to Buffalo (because we wouldn't have made the matinee show in Maine - our third missed show) where we call my cousin Britt and go to his place. We drink a bunch of beer and head to a bar for cheap drinks. The bar is really cool, with some great music and we meet Colleen, Erica and Sarah.
We go for breakfast in the morning with Britt at a place around the corner from his apartment. There we meet Lance Diamond. He's a Buffalo staple of the music scene. He sings a song on the last good Goo-Goo Dolls record. I'm the only one at our table who has ever heard of him. When we get to the venue we find out the show has been cancelled. I won't get into it but we were a little pissed. So we call Britt again to arrange a place to stay. We can't get a hold of him so we call Colleen. We go to her place and then we all go out for food and some exploring of the Buffalo Nuthouse. It's not called The Buffalo Nuthouse but whatever - it's a long abandoned, huge, spooky as fuck institution!! It's fully fenced off so we just walk around and look at it but it's creepy. I think everyone should see it sometime. At night. It's no fun in the morning i'm sure. We head back to Colleen's to watch School of Rock then head out towards Cleveland. We go halfway, then sleep in a rest stop. I call my cousin Shane as soon as we get to Cleveland. I have dinner with Shane, Anne and their kids and then go back down to the bar for the show. This is the first show where 1208 has made it!! They were broken down early on and missed a few shows. The show is a good turnout and afterwards instead of going out we went back to Shane's and slept. The worst attended show of the trip probably. We played with a bunch of other bands such as Glasseater, Scatter The Ashes, 1208, Halifax, and one other band. Most of the bands played to the other bands. Glasseater had the best draw by far. Afterwards we drove towards Chicago. We slept in a fucking rest area again for the umpteenth time. I'm getting sick of doing that, although I shouldn't complain because Pat's new van is way more comfortable than the last and it's got a colour tv and a dvd player -- i'll stop bitching now. We got to Chicago and stayed with our friend Adam Lustkiller. We spent most of the day just listening to music and chilling out. Adam managed to get us on the guest list for the Vue show at the Bottom Lounge so we went there in the evening. After the Vue show we headed to the Smart Bar for some '80's dancing. We all got drunk and danced around and had a good time! It's amazing what not loading gear for a night will do for you. I guess i'll ask Billy what that's like since he seems to get away with not moving gear the most. We played the Fireside as we have many times before. I love this place despite the heat and the weird smell. The show was well attended and lots of our old friends showed up! I'm sorry that we missed Norah but her band Headache City was playing at another club and we didn't get a chance to get over there. After the show a bunch of us headed over to some bar to have some drinks. Adam Lustkiller came along and drank with us. Denyss' ass even had a drink courtesy of Adam. We drive up to LaCross, Wisconsin. The venue is really cool but the show is a disaster due to no bands showing up. 1208, Scatter The Ashes and The Shocker are nowhere to be found. One other band, from California did show up and played first. Just as we were ready to go on The Shocker showed up and set up and played right away. It was really good seeing Leah, Jennifer (Precious), Davey and Scott show up as we had a good time meeting them earlier in our trip in LA. There was nobody at this show so as soon as we were done we headed up to our friend Bill Caron's house in Minneapolis. Bill was at the Lacrosse show and offered up his house to both us and The Shocker. We took him up on the offer. Both bands head out with Bill for some breakfast. We eat at some underground bar type place that feed you these portions the size of a full grown man's head. We then go lay around Bill's until the show. The venue is the Triple Rock Social Club. It use to be a tiny bar that we would frequent whenever we were in Minneapolis that was owned by a guy from the band Dillinger 4. I guess it's still owned by him but now they've added a whole other room for bands to play in and it's incredible!!! The staff there are so amazing, the food was great and the magical bracelets they give the band allows them to drink free alcohol. Any alcohol. And lots of it. We woke up early so we could say our goodbyes to The Shocker people. Jennifer, Leah, Scotty and Davey were a blast to hang out with and we wished that we would have done a whole tour together. Or at least I hoped that. I like the band and I like the people and that makes the tours so much more fun. We end up having to stay in town a day longer than expected due to some paperwork that still needs to be worked out for Pat to cross the border into Canada. Bill lets us stay one more night at his house. We just sit around watching videos and movies. We spent the day driving to Winnipeg. We finally get there and we stay in some shitty hotel. We checked out at 11 and spent most of the day wandering around Winnipeg going to thrift stores and searching for something to eat that cost less than $3.00 because that was all I had left. Pat and I found a bargain store that had a snack food section that, combined, with his $1.50 or so we could get a feast of chips, cookies, and fig newtons. So we did. When we eventually got into the club (the Royal Albert) the promoter set us up with some food and drinks and we were happy. The show itself was pretty good. Even though that Art Garfunkel guy spit a HUGE gob on Pat's leg. Post Stardom Depression were supposed to do the Canadian dates with us but couldn't get across the border. That sucked. We did get to meet a cool bunch of guys whose band The Reason played with us that night. We were invited back to the Royal Albert for breakfast so we went there early and ate before leaving for Saskatoon. We got to Amigo's in Saskatoon and set up for the show. The show was pretty good and the crowd that was there were cool enough to get out of the seats and come up front which made it way cooler for us. We met some of the people we partied with last time we were there like Sara, Brooke, Jessica, and Melissa. After the show we went back to Jessica's where she sleeps on this tiny couch in a livingroom and lives with an elf named Lee. We all just sat around discussing different business ventures that only made sense at 3 in the morning. We spent most of the day hanging around Saskatoon, going for lunch with Brooke, Sara, Jessica and Lee The Elf. We did a little book shopping where Billy bought more Brady Bunch and Partridge Family books that he had been buying the whole trip now. After we made all of our book purchases we set out for Regina where we played at the State. We were the only band on the bill that night since there was no Post Stardom Depression and they only do 2 band bills there. The girls from Saskatoon came down to the show to hang out with us and Jessica helped sell our merch. The crowd slowly filtered in until we had a decent crowd to play in front of. We had a great time and the bartender was great and served up some good drinks. We ended up hanging out in the back of the club for another half an hour after it closed with some new friends we had met that night. We also found a charming little note from some kids who were too young to get into the show. We wrote them a note back and with some pins and stickers we placed the note where they asked so they could get it at a later date. It was so cool and the note really made our night. We drove to Red Deer to meet with the promoter, Kevin for tonight's show in Sylvan Lake. As it turned out it was the same promoter we had a few years ago in Humboldt, SK when we played with Gob. Kevin treats his bands great and today was no different with Kevin providing loads of drinks and a great barbeque! After we ate and drank we headed over to Sylvan Lake to the venue. The venue is this really small little club with a vocal p.a. and lots of bikini wearing and pastel colour loving people hanging out in it. We didn't mind though since we were booked with a couple of other punk rock bands. DeVille are from Calgary and were totally cool guys and The Homewrekers are probably the cutest/hottest punk rock girl band ever. They play some fast, aggressive punk rock and sounded cool. I'd like to hear 'em through a larger p.a. sometime. The show was drunken fun! What a crazy day. We started out by watching videos at Kevin's and having some amazing waffles made by Kevin's wife Vicki. Then when the afternoon rolled around we all started getting into the cooler of beer. Larry, Corey, Jamie, Kevin, Tom, the guys in my band and all of Kevin's kids and their friends ended up getting into this huge water fight. Water balloons, buckets of water, the hose, everything was used and everyone got soaked. Nobody cared and we just kept drinking until the barbeque was fired up again and we had a huge meal before we left for Calgary. The Calgary show was amazing!! I think we were just a dozen people shy of selling out the Night Gallery so the place was full and boy howdy does Calgary drink a lot. It's almost sick. We played a cool show and just generally had a blast!! We always love coming to Calgary! We woke up to find that our van had been broken into. The bloody crooks got away with a bunch of shit like walkmans, CD's, DVDs, cell phones, clothing, books (Billy's entire collection of Brady Bunch and Partridge Family books were gone!!). We were pissed off but it could have been much worse with gear being stolen or something. At least it was just a bunch of easily replaceable stuff (although i'm sure Billy will tell you that those Brady Bunch and Partridge Family books are hardly easy to replace -- send any of your Brady Bunch and Partridge Family books to Billy please). We drove up to Edmonton to play an all ages show at the New City Likwid Lounge. We played here last time and it was great. The promoter Rob is a fabulous guy and he set us up good. The show had a good turnout i'm told for a Sunday night. The other bands were all cool on the bill as well. The Whiz Kids have to be seen by everyone. Dance Floor Disasters and the Frantics were also super great guys and bands. Everything went well and afterwards we headed upstairs for the punk karaoke and about another dozen or so drinks. I'm going to feel this one in the morning. I wasn't hungover at all. That's a good thing. We headed on out for Lethbridge only to find that Denyss had forgotten the last thing he owned, his wallet, in the hotel in Edmonton. We went back and got it. If it wasn't for us Denyss would have been naked a lot earlier in the tour - we help Denyss find things he's left behind. It's what we do. After retrieving his wallet and having a good laugh that Denyss was now wearing his last pair of pants, shirt and underwear -- no socks -- he lost all of them at this point, we headed out for our last show of the tour. We arrived in Lethbridge in time to set up and get some pizzas and beer in us. Jason is a great promoter and music fan and the venue was incredible. It's a cool room that apparently had just been added not long ago. The show wasn't all ages so the staff opened the 2 bay doors so that the kids that came to the show and couldn't get in could still see the show. There was a small but enthusiastic crowd and it turned out to be a very cool end of a very long tour. We drove home that night. 
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Tuesday,
May 18th/2004: