BELLINGHAM June 26th

We woke at a greasy diner waiting for greasy food, and then stopped by Bryan’s mom’s house on the way up to Bellingham to use the internet and stuff. When we got up North, we hit Chuckanut Drive and went to the beach where we messed with crabs and starfish and climbed around on the rocks like monkeys trapped in the bodies of donkeys.

I got some new shoes and pants (i had to get new pants because i kept getting dick sores in the old ones) at Value Village, and we had Vietnamese food for lunch.. Then we still had some time to kill so we went bowling. I was kind of bewildered that I couldn’t find any bowling balls that fit my hand — this has never been a problem before at any other bowling alley, thus it would seem that the entire bowling population of Bellingham either have custom balls or tiny fingers. My top score was 113. Not my best, but as long as I hit 3 digits I’m happy.

We showed up at the venue right on time due to being model citizens, but the booker/sound guy was not there yet and neither were any other bands. We loaded in and after about 45 minutes of sitting around we decided to get a 6 pack and go down to the beach. There was a refreshingly cold breeze blowing off the water and we were bombarded by extremely agile fighter jet swallows. They were really cool looking as they threatened Melody by skimming the beach and the driftwood and the piles of seaweed (and us) at supersonic speeds, and I realized that Red Stripe is a pretty good beer for summer time.

We were playing at The Rogue Hero that night — I had been to this place a couple of times before and heard that it’s generally always crowded on a Friday night so we were excited. The bar itself is pretty cool, though we had to play first so there weren’t very many people there for our set. After we had played for 30 minutes the sound guy let us know it was time to wrap it up. So of course, out of respect for the other bands, we blazed through two last songs and packed up our shit as quickly as possible. Apparently we were on a tight schedule and the next band wanted to use our drum kit. Sure, no problem!

Here’s some live footage:

It turned out that we left the stage just as people really started arriving at the bar which is always a bummer situation, but that shit just happens sometimes so we didn’t have a problem getting out of the way. The totally uncool part was that the other bands (both local) then went on to play for nearly an hour and a half each, to a packed (PACKED!!) bar. So wait, not only did we have to go first, but we also had to cut our normal set short so that both local bands could have DOUBLE the amount of time we got? I think it’s pretty cool when venues and local bands are considerate of touring bands, which I know sounds crazy but that’s just how I feel.

After the second band was finished, it turned out that the third band wanted to “showcase” our kit too. We are happy to help out other bands and share equipment whenever possible, but I didn’t really want these bands to “showcase” anything to be perfectly honest… It was like watching the Barenaked Ladies get their calf tats and flip flops greased up with hemp balm by Dave Matthews’ bongo playing cousin in the WWU greenhouse during the third year of his Horticulture major while an underwater boombox burbles Third Eye Blind from the koi pond. Of course we extended them the use of our kit, but I will add that at no point did it get “showcased”.

Next, in what must have been intended as a really fucked up joke, the bartender actually wrote himself a $5 tip on top of my $10.50 tab and closed out my card. Then he gave it to me and said “That’s all taken care of for ya!” which I thought must mean I had gotten hooked up for being in the band.. so I was like “oh awesome!! thanks man!!” ..I happened to be carrying some cymbals and stuff at the time so I just stuffed it in my pocket and didn’t see the receipt until the next day when I went to fill the monstrous Expedition gas tank. After successfully avoiding the part where, screaming, I pull a whole row of petrol pumps out of the earth and throw them into the street, I calmed myself and shared what I had found with the rest of the band. The two or three extra dollars beyond what I would have tipped anyway may not be that big of a deal compared to the $70 we just dropped in the tank, but the five of us agreed that despite our combined years of heavy bar frequency we had never seen this happen before. That’s because any bartender worth their margarita salt knows that this is COMPLETELY FUCKED.

Alright, I need to meditate for a moment to conjure up a description of the coagulated shit-blood river of lamb’s milk that was our Tacoma experience. I don’t mean to be a big whiner, overall we had a good time playing at The Rogue despite having our set cut short, and this was also the only show that we actually got paid for on the whole trip so there was that. Getting a decent pay-out is always very much appreciated! Plus I didn’t poke my dick with anything sharp all night.

TACOMA June 27th

I woke up freezing my ass off again, this time on a trampoline. The night before, we had driven up to Custer to sleep at Tucker’s parents’ house and after wildly yelling over the Expedition’s system (blasting Alopecia, aka the best album of last year) we found ourselves unable to keep quiet or contain our giggling in the stark silence of the living room floor. So, we grabbed our blankets and pillows and went to sleep outside on the giant trampoline. This was a great idea until I woke up shivering, coated in a heavy breading of ice cold mountain dew. I went back into the house and claimed the couch, where I got 5 EXCELLENT hours of sleep.

We had bagels in the morning, and figured we should refrain from buying any more food today because I had gotten word that Club Impact (our Tacoma venue) was going to feed us dinner. Club Impact certainly made an impact on us, that much can be said right off the bat.

In my defense, although there were some hints that had tipped me off to the Christian nature behind Club Impact, most of us had gone to some relatively cool wholesome youth-groupy type stuff when we were kids and would really love to have seen a band like us there. Also, I hadn’t set up any other all-ages shows for this trip so when the offer came along, I was like yeah, awesome, cool! Still, I regret not looking into the place a bit more because in the end I was responsible for dragging the rest of the band into the belly of the beast.

First on the itinerary was the band meeting+dinner at 6. This went fine, a guy got on stage and made a speech about how Club Impact is all about respect and that if you give respect, you’ll get respect. OK, sounds great. Sloppy joes!!! So far so good!

Then, Melody and Damaris noticed that out of 6 (!) bands there was only one other girl there, and she turned out to be just somebody’s girlfriend. This lead to also noticing that mostly everyone else were teenagers.. How exactly did we end up here? It suddenly dawned on me that we have this one-sentence review up on our myspace page, which for some reason referred to us as “a group of 18-19 year olds.” We only put it up there because it seemed amusing at the time, but it may have just gotten a whole lot funnier. I can’t prove for a fact that this played a role in our being asked to play the show, but I think it’s a really strong theory, and clearly the most likely explanation.. kinda like evolution.

After dinner we went to get some coffee in an effort to help push them sloppy joes on through, and watched a good soft chunk of The Fast and the Furious (or possibly one of the sequels) move by on mute with subtitles. Meanwhile the owner of the coffee shop updated us on what was going on in the story. It was clear that he had seen it before… possibly many many times. Eventually the clock chimed showtime, so we headed back to the place. He was evidently disappointed that we weren’t going to finish out the movie, but it just looked so damn well done that I wanted to watch it with sound.

The first band was Garron-T, fronted by this kid Garron who is basically Jimi Hendrix in the body of a kid named Garron. He totally ruled and he was probably like.. 17? Best band of the night. He even played and sang a twisted version of Billy Jean all by himself for MJ. We talked to him after their set — he said he had checked out our myspace, and he wanted to know if we were really signed. We just kinda looked at each other for a moment, like, what’s that? Oh right, SIGNED! to Spotty Records! Well, we paid like 65 bucks to register a business name with the state of Oregon so hell yeah we’re signed.

After that we went up the street and found some stairs leading up to a pretty cool gay bar. We had a quick shot there and headed back to check out the next couple of bands. No comment.

Half way through the bill (as in, directly before our set) was when they got up on stage and launched into the evangelizing. They informed us that we need to sign up for their mailing list because there is only one true god and it is the same god who rained fire on Jebadiahovaranimo or whoever, and it only got worse from there. We had thought earlier that something like this might happen, but it wasn’t the hopeful jesus-laced pep talk I imagined. This was pumping from a much scarier vein. Did we really just get our eternal souls threatened with… brimstone?? Jesus. Just call it sulfur already, this voodoo stuff is confusing enough as it is. Luckily (for me) I missed the majority of it because I was out in the car hunting around for a missing piece of the hi-hat stand. When I got back, the rest of the homies were discussing whether or not we should pull out of the show, and make a run for our lives. We decided instead to play.

Now, the entire audience was dressed exactly the same in these white Old Navy hoodies they had passed out to everyone (it sort of looked like a fresh-faced-high-school-sports version of a KKK rally, if you can picture that) and as we set up our equipment, these unbelievably bizarre videos started playing above our heads. Most of them were about pretty regular stuff like not drinking or smoking, but the approach and style of the content were so strange! It really felt like we had found ourselves in a secret cult made up of SPACE ALIENS who are able to assume human form, but have found difficulty settling into our society due to a profound gap in their understanding of Earth beings. I got the feeling that our incredulous laughter at these videos was not appreciated by the sound guy. I guess that’s one possible explanation for why there was a constant and heavy LF feedback throughout most of our set while he just stood there, arms crossed. Of course, it’s also possible he just didn’t know what to do about it.

The last guy on the bill was a solo act also from Portland, and he was a pretty nice guy so we stuck it out for the rest of the bands. In the two hours between asking the sound guy if it was OK to unplug after our set, and the time we left, nobody from Club Impact had a word to say to us except to let us know that only one person had come to see us (to whoever that was: thank you so much for coming, and, sorry!) and that they didn’t feel giving us our hard earned $1 was worth the trouble. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s what it came down to. See, Club Impact is a racket. Their scheme works like this: The local bands are asked to pre-sell tickets and everyone who pays at the door is asked which band they came to see. The cover is $8 and for each person or ticket sold, you get a dollar. So if 20 people come to see your band, you just scored 20 big ones! Club Impact takes care of the other $140. I feel a bit embarrassed to have taken part in such a scenario, and especially to have been responsible for setting it up. This show really reminded me that it’s important to take note of the way a place operates when setting something up.

Here’s some more live footage:

To summarize the experience; even though this show was all my fault, it doesn’t change the fact that these people are a bunch of poopycreeps. Sure, they make a point to remind us that they are volunteering their time, but that does not mean they are cool or nice. They don’t give a damn about music or art, they are just there to corral young people into their weird clubhouse to evangelize them with weirdness and generate revenue to further their weird operation. The way it looks to me is that they are taking advantage of starry-eyed young kids who just want to play in a band, and they offer to provide a means to do so but they have entirely ulterior motives.. and the whole thing just FEELS really bogus. I have to say though, I was surprised to find out places like this are still out there pulling off regular events.. I suppose this place can get away with a bit more since they are doing the lord’s bidding and all, but it makes me wonder when all the kids forgot how to rent out a damn Eagles hall like we did when I was in high school.

We left feeling defeated and somewhat violated, but thankfully the night wasn’t quite finished.

We were headed home, but decided that ending the trip on such a brown note was not good for us so we diverted into Olympia for some relief. We decided to check out Le Voyeur, which was perfect. None of us had ever been there before but after what we had just endured, it felt like a home away from home. There was a band setting up in the back and we looked at the menu for a good while trying to agree on something cheap we could split, until we found out the kitchen was closed.

Meanwhile, Damaris had gone to talk to the band that was setting up (Quadrillion, from Seattle) and they were sympathetic to our story. Well, they said.. tell you what. It’s getting pretty late, and there aren’t really any people back here.. but if you guys want to play, just watch us and we’ll watch you. That sounded like a fuckin hell of a deal and just like that our night had been reborn! They played a really high energy set and it was just what we needed, like, spiritually man. It was such a relief and we all danced like we really needed the exorcise. I wish I would have asked if we could use some of their stuff (which happened to be an eerily similar setup to ours) because in the end we ran out of time setting up and didn’t get to play. I guess they have a noise curfew of 1:30 there, and they said we were welcome to try and play until then… but it was 1:15 and we knew we’d be lucky to finish setting up and get through a single song in that amount of time… So, we loaded all our shit back into the car, definitely let down but still in high spirits. At least we tried, and in the end had found some bit of redemption. Damaris saves!

The staff at Le Voyeur were very cool in light of the situation and hooked us up with complimentary refreshments as though we had played. Melody tried to explain, “wait, no, we weren’t technically even booked here tonight!” but they took care of us anyway. I really love it when places are down with being cool.

And Bryan quit the band.. He is moving to Seattle for a job / girlfriend thing. He will be sticking it out for the next few shows to ease the transition as we welcome Damaris into the band/cult. I am really happy to be playing with her, she is totally fun and hilarious which means this will work out perfectly. Also, her playing and singing are great which is totally a bonus.

No joke, for real. I think most of what we have been doing really isn’t what he is into musically*, and I figure he probably realized that trying to lug the rest of us down whatever specific path he wants to take it wouldn’t be the best use of all our energies.. or something like that.. so I suppose it’s for the best in the long run, but he will be missed. Bobby is still on board for our side project, The Ghastly Whiteness — so don’t worry about a thing. WE’LL MAKE IT THROUGH THIS!

*bobby only listens to nine inch nails, and nothing else. sometimes he talks in his sleep and i think last time he was dreaming about jet skiing in a fishnet bodysuit with trent reznor.

I just picked up the CD master from Tim Stollenwerk at Stereophonic Mastering.. He did an awesome job and if all goes well we should have our finished CDs with plenty of time for a release party before Bryan leaves this earth behind.

Recording on the album is officially done! We’re really happy with how it is turning out. Since we did all of the tracking ourselves it was a huge time-consuming learning process that has been fairly taxing on us — even at the most basic basic interpersonal level — but it has at last been completed and they say what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Starting in January, we are going to begin the mixing phase in a studio that has all kinds of cool stuff we don’t have. The place is called Audible Alchemy, and our engineer will be Steve Lobdell. We talked to a handful of different people about mixing, and they all seemed capable but ultimately Steve was just.. really weird. He definitely shines through in that category, so he’s our guy and we are excited to embark.

Maybe I’m spoiled, maybe I’m crazy, maybe I’m naive, or maybe I’m just talking in hyperbole, but touring is fucking EASY. So easy, in fact, that maybe it’s not even worth doing. It truly is amazing that, with a little bit of planning and a little bit of being in an awesome rock band, I can basically take what amounts to a sweet-ass vacation with some of my best friends, and at the end of each day all I have to do to earn room, board and a little bit of reimbursement to do something I WANT to do anyway. (And this is without even considering the drink tickets and words of encouragement from the other bands and people at the show).

I mean, yeah, driving sucks. It sucks a lot less if you’re surrounded by hilarious people that you love and you stop along the way to do fun shit like hike at Deception Pass or go thrifting at a small-town Value Village that hasn’t been raped and pillaged by hipsters like some used-clothing Antioch. But I digress. I’ve read Our Band Could Be Your Life. I know touring can be hard, and maybe we just lucked out playing cushy venues and not doing a desolate pan-Californian drive to play a show for two people in a barn. True, the crowd and bands at WhAAM were all really nice and awesome, and true, the crew at the Dept. of Safety fed us delicious stuffed mushrooms and pasta (AMAZING!!), but even though we definitely spent more money than we made, and even if it were only as fun the next time, I’ll still be chomping at the bit to hit the road and ply my wares to the wild savages in far flung locales we call “people we haven’t met yet in towns we’ve never been to.”
-SPK//LBRT


When I got in the van on the first day of our little tour, the first thing I said was “it’s been a while since I’ve gotten really drunk”. I fixed that promptly after arriving in Seattle. The show went great and luckily I was still feeling fine when we played, however, by the end of the night I was leaning over Tucker to vomit out of the van.

After spending the majority of the afternoon in Seattle we made our way up to Bellingham where we played at an all ages club with the cutest staff in the entire world. Three young girls wore little clip on badges that stated in bold letters “security”. One of the girls looked like Dakota Fanning, all 50lbs of her. I so badly wanted a picture of her physically kicking me out of the club. I said on stage that I’d give her a free t-shirt if she would do it, but I never got kicked out and felt a little creepy pressing the issue too much. The same night, we got invited to a party at an old, shut down hospital. In my mind I pictured a big, old creepy hospital and we’d go down to the morgue and take pictures of each other in the body drawers. However, it looked more like a big punk house with one shitty coating of red paint on the walls. The morgue was essentially the basement and I got the impression that everyone there was thinking “who the fuck are you?” My suspicions were confirmed when a really wasted girl walked into the room, swaying from side to side. We were all tired and pretty mellow at that point, sitting in a line on the couch. She walked up to each one of us individually and shoved her finger in our face, yelling “who the fuck are you?” and we’d tell her and she’d shake our hand and say “I don’t fucking care. I fucking live here” and then she’d move onto the next person. It was mildly entertaining but mostly just annoying.

The third night was also just incredibly fun and I think we all felt a little more at home on stage. Department of Safety is really great. The people who ran it were funny and gracious, the bands were talented and fun and we actually sold some merchandise! I think one of my favorite moments was when we began playing a song and a couple of young girls in the audience giggled and jumped up and down saying “oh they’re going to play that one.” I almost wanted to stop and be like “hey wait a minute, you mean you know one of our songs?” It was just a great time altogether! We were all sad it had to end so quickly.
-Felony


I was just watching this YouTube video of Mike Tyson’s craziest moments, having not previously realized the full extent of his unsoundness. There was this bit where Mike had engaged in a fierce verbal duel with a man, and as people around him prepared for the potentiality of restraining an animal, he yelled “I’LL FUCK YOU TIL YOU LOVE ME FAGGOT”. Jesus! Mike Tyson is intense. You might even say that one phrase blasted from the mouth of a real live madman is more intense than a measly three night tour of Washington state from a Portland band who has never stayed more than one night away from home before but you’d be wrong.

Even though the whole thing only added up to about the distance from Portland to San Francisco, I found out that I just want to tour around with my friends and play shows all the time, forever. We’ll need a van first though. For this trip we rented a totally sweet one from Budget rent-a-car. The newer Ford Econolines have a really big and intimidating chrome grill which made us seem pretty legit wherever we rolled. It cost us 400 buxxx for three days and that seems like a lot until you consider the first time the $500 band van needs a $500 repair in the middle of anywhere. So that’s what we’re telling ourselves anyway. We usually rent a cheap trailer from U-haul for shows closer to home and sometimes we even spring for the damage waiver.

The Comet is always fun and we played with good bands there again. Playing with good bands really makes the difference between a good show and a bad one. Wow that’s like the smartest thing I’ve ever said. Buck’s kick-ass uncle Doug graciously allowed us to stay at his house after the show where we managed to fit six people in a two-person hot tub. I didn’t meet Uncle Doug who was busy at Wintergrass. Wintergrass is a really awesome bluegrass festival that goes all night long in a hotel, thus he never even came home. You kids think you know how to party but you never even heard of Wintergrass. Max weighs 8,000,000,000,000,000 tons. Get real!

Anacortes was fucking awesome. I can’t say enough about the Department of Safety and what a great thing they are doing. We were already impressed with the place BEFORE they made us dinner and offered us a place to sleep. Both of the bands we played with there were very good. One of them was called The Cherubs, and although I hadn’t thought much of them based on a single pass of their MySpace tracks, I really liked their set. They played grunge music, but I should clarify that while I do mean the notorious Northwest rock punk music of the late ’80s/early ’90s, and I specifically do NOT mean the butt-rock tainted kind like Soundgarden or Alice In Chains. I didn’t talk with any of them, but Buck said they were really nice kids. Once we were back in the van he mentioned that they had wished us well on the rest of our tour, which really made us all sad that there wasn’t actually any more tour ahead of us. Then we came home, which is pretty lame.
-Carls