A week or two ago, I was graced with a few emails worth full of pictures from the tour we did late last year. As some of you may remember, our buddy Joe came out to play a handful of instruments with us, and he had a gift of taking pictures at some unique times. So, here we go. All photos courtesy of Joey.

the pre-tour hang at Hole Mole in Long Beach. it's a close walk from Robb's house.

this is probably less than a minute away from our first show of the tour. it was at some ritzy place in Phoenix. it was ritzy we couldn't actually take drinks on the stage cuz they were afraid of spills.

the very necessary documentation of Justin's tattoos.

I wish that I was holding a better case of beer than bud light, but we had two days in Phoenix, so the second day was spent at a backyard bbq / pool party. and apparently, I was gonna be taking a boat out for a spin.

the backstage at the ritzy place in phoenix. jonny is contemplating how hard it is to be rock star.

we had a day off to get to texas, so we spent most of it at hotel congress in tucson. we ate lunch.

just past tucson is the home of THE THING. this is the exit. it was really nice out... a hot day, a quick rain.

justin found his street sign.

now we're in Florida! there are tons of these touristy orange stands. we like touristy orange stands. good thing, right?

in St. Pete, it rained during our show, then we found this frog near the backstage. robb was takin care of it.

THEN IT JUMPED IT JON'S HAIR AND GOT ALL TANGLED!!

we had a day off in Florida so we made it a beach day. we kidnapped some of the Format dudes, and met our friends Kristen and Jamie down at the beach. it was amazing. we found a crab cage buried in the sand and we took it out. no crabs though.

here we are looking for alligators AGAIN. no luck this time.

but the sky is pretty good lookin.

a dude in florida sellin key limes while we were on the way to fort lauderdale. of course, we bought the bag, then made the coronas just that much better when we got to the show. GO TEAM.

we busted a tire around 6am heading north outta Florida. michelle was driving and she freaked and screamed and woke everyone up. then everyone went to sleep except robbdog and me. we unhitched the trailer, and robb sat with it and read a book. I drove the van to find a tire shop and got the tire fixed. oddly enough, this same thing happened in the middle of nowhere Canada, but the Format bus was 15 minutes behind us. so Muzz made them stop and we borrowed their spare trailer tire. problem: we don't have a spare trailer tire. did we fix this problem yet? HELL NO.

we found a new swimming spot in New Mexico. this is in Santa Rosa. it was an amazing day out... we stopped here to do some cliff jumping and relax a bit. unfortunately, when we stopped by this place on our last tour (in late march '08), the lake was waaaaay too low for us to jump in. and it was cold. boo.

onward, to albuquerque.

we had a few days around home... me and Jonny P hit the beach for some surfing. here's us catchin the same wave. even though he's from milwaukee, he's a pro.

carolyn was off for summer break, so she came too. she was a few months away from havin' Coop, if you can't tell.

no, these pictures were not about to be eliminated or nothin. Im just watching some bad show on vh1 about parents that want their kids to be stars. today the kids are gonna be in a horror movie. it is bizarre. these pictures are actually stolen from our friend Zannah. which may have actually been from our friend Becca. not too sure, but they basically rule.


here we are in a bar in Oklahoma. I think this was a year or two ago. but I like this picture. A LOT.


me and justin after we played the PureVolume party at SXSW. they had this thing where you could text message somethin to this number, then it would put it up on this big projection screen. it ruled. I was thoroughly entertained by it. there was this awful rap band that went .. us. they sucked. can you see the message on the screen?


JON PHILLIP IS THE KING OF SXSW!!

let me start out with sayin that my apostrophe / quotation button on my keyboard has ceased working, so please bare with me. Im currently in columbia, maryland trying my hardest to stay on my pacific standard time schedule. I was hoping to find an episode of Intervention on, but i guess I have to stick with Rock the Cradle.

on our last tour, I took my Lomo camera with me to capture choice moments. the bummer is, it aint digital, so I cant upload pictures at the drop of a hat, nor can I see how good a given picture is after I take it. on the other hand, it is an amaaazing little camera. its super small, so I can take pictures very quickly, and it gives each picture a certain kind of character.

the reason that these pictures are not chronological is because theyre not in order in my iPhoto program and im too lazy to actually put them in order. at least theyre here though.

this was during our trip to Austin for SXSW. we made it downtown for brunch, and encountered this peace ralley passin us by walkin up 6th street. i dig the flag.


this is one of my favorite people in the world, Brother Adrian Amodeo.
on the day of this photo, he organized this giant brunch on the fly. we started it off with a round of patron shots. does that tell ya anything about how good it was?


two more of my favorite people in the world. Emily Driskill, and Jonah Bayer. you may recognize them from past tales Ive told. Emily is an amazing photographer, and has taken a handful of brilliant pictures of us. someday shes gonna live life like ALMOST FAMOUS. she rules. Jonah Bayer is a gifted writer. hes done a few bios for us, and he writes for a bunch of cool magazines all the time. we got to hang with him a few weeks prior to this photo while we were in his neighborhood in brooklyn. he shared some stories that blew my mind. then we went to the alligator lounge and ate pizza and then he got a ride home from some random cuz he was tired of me playin the hunting video game. ha.
I dont seem him nearly enough as Id like to, but we got to hang HARD in Austin.


this is another fave.... Jai. (Justin is also a fave, but I feel like thats a given since he frequently takes part in my stories). Jai is from Australia, but he now lives in Los Angeles. you may recognize him from our australia video when we were DJing a club in sydney. he was there. and hes a super pro DJ. I cant say enough good things about him. hes a badass.


ok, this is gettin redundant, I know.. BUT more favorite dudes. this is Jake and Nathan from the New Frontiers. they joined us for the first half of the tour. I had to watch them every night. theyre amazing. they just did a session over at daytrotter, and its equally amazing. go to daytrotter dot com to get it for FREE.


best day ever in Little Rock, Arkansas. we got into town early, and went down to the river to play football. there was some big downtown event happenin. our friend hailey brought us some mango margaritas from Juanitas (the club we occasionally play in little rock). this night we played a bar called the White Water Tavern. we owned it. Jon Cheese has pictures of us in the process of owning it which I will get from him.


that aint a great vibe. free dont mean nothin.


Jon Cheese | Paducah, Texas


Robb MacLean | Paducah, Texas


we stopped in Santa Rosa, New Mexico off old Route 66 to grab some lunch. we ate at this place called Josephs. if you dont know much about Route 66, you should read up on it, or watch the movie CARS. basically, people dont take enough time to stop and smell the roses and enjoy life. its sad.


one of my favorite places to be.. Hotel Congress. Tucson, Arizona.
we had a good show there. an even better time in the bar after the show. and after the bar closed, an even BETTER time in our room after we got kicked outta the lobby. Jon Cheese dialed friends of his for 2 hours. we met the House of Fools and some of the Ralstons for lunch at the cafe downstairs. I can never order anything except the Queer Steer (its a killer veggie burger)


self portrait in our room.


after enjoying the previous night to the absolute fullest, Cheese was feelin it a bit come morning. the waiter was nice enough to bring him a full pitcher of water, then threw a straw in it.


our van overheated, then broke down somewhere west of tucson on our way to phoenix. it honestly couldnt have happened in a better place for us. the foolz were a lil behind us, so they pulled over to check on us. then we got a quick tow to a shop, and they took care of us in a hurry. so we made it back on the road and got to the show right when doors opened. not bad. heres robbdog on the drive. the mountains looked perfect.


we played two shows in Phoenix. on the second day, Adrian flew in for the show and he was christened with an anchor. right before he sat down his mom called. it was cool. speaking of the phoenix shows, the second night was the last night of tour, and it was insane. our buddy chris giorgian (he was in teen people) flew out as well. we ended the show with me gettin floated, adrian taking the kick drum off the stage and robb singin People Dont Change with no guitar, just the mic. theres a video of it somewhere. dont worry, ill get it. both nights in phoenix, we made it around the corner to this house that is actually a bar. you walk up, and its a normal house with an OPEN sign in the window. then you go in, and its still totally a house. you go to the kitchen, and order a beer, then you hang in the living room. the bartender, rhiannon, was super sweet to us. thank you kindly rhiannon.


Jon Cheese | Fat Slice Pizza | Berkeley, California
we played at UC Berkeley for lunchtime, then we got our real deal lunch at Fat Slice on Telegraph.


heres our buddy Will. another favorite dude of mine. hes a great musician, hes good at life, and hes a badass dude.


we spent quite a bit of time in record stores on Telegraph. the Jons are slummin it in front of Rasputins. ROFL. just kidding. that makes no sense.


will and justick got screeching weasel tattoos in Berkeley. I already mentioned theyre good at life, right?


Self-Portrait | Reno, Nevada.
god bless Reno 911. but the people of Reno dont like to talk about the show, just like how people from orange county dont dig talking about THE OC. I get it.


Welcome to Portland, Oregon
home of Hotel Jupiter & Voodoo Donuts


heres another self-portrait of me rockin the mustache at a Cracker Barrel restaurant.


Robb thinkin of a wise hat purchase. Unfortunately, he didnt go for it.


new york new york


we slept over at the house of our good friend Mari while we were in New York. luckily, we had an easy time parking on this street. catch the shoes on the power line.


Waffle House outside of Little Rock. the dude next to Cheese is smoking. Maybe it makes waffles taste better. Robb flipped his plate while he was cutting an egg biscuit too close to the edge of the counter. if I had it on video, it would get millions of views on youtube and Id be famous. he told the waitress he was quote a bad eater, unquote.


Jon Cheese | Waffle House | Little Rock, Arkansas


Cains Ballroom | Tulsa, Oklahoma
another one of our favorite places to play. the Sex Pistols played here on one of their first tours, and Sid Vicious punched the wall. they cut out the punch, and framed it. quick side note, we played Tulsa a week or so later on the tour. we stayed over at our friend Zannah & Rambos house, and Dan Bonebrake of the Ralston Band punched the wall in a heated moment of conversation with Justin, and put a hole in it! maybe Oklahoma is a good place to put a hole in a wall. I back it. Sorry Zannah and Rambo. but thank you for being so kind to us.


our buddy Travis got a new dog. he was very friendly, and greeted me nicely on the porch. Travis lives in Austin, and we always have the best time stayin over at his place. this time was no different. it included a post-sxsw BBQ extravaganza.


this is a pretty waterfall outside of Portland, Oregon. it started raining when we decided to go check it out. but it was worth it.


the firepit outside of Kilby Court. Salt Lake City, Utah.


we played in Denver, and coincidentally parked our van right in front of a huge mural that Jesse LeDoux was responsible for. we didnt notice it until after the show, but we made the most of it. Jesse did the cover art for our self titled album.


the Chicago Skyway Tollbooth. gotta love the sign.


jonny p throwin the peace. shotgun style.


I dont know where this bridge is, but I like how this picture came out.


a newly established *must go* food stop for us in detroit. its a BBQ joint called Slows. located directly across from the scariest building ever in the world. but it rules. they have a veggie chicken bbq sandwich, and baked mac n cheese. done!


band pic, post food stop at slows.


LJs lounge. Detroit, Michigan.
the sign just looked cool. should we hang out here?


thats all Ive got for now, but Im still tryin to track down a few videos from tour (robb crowdsurfing with his acoustic guitar and me diving into the drums in Austin / the last show of tour in Phoenix), and Cheese if yer reading this, hit me with some winners from yer camera. yall will thank me for it. seeeeee ya.

where the hell am i? oh yeaaaaaaaaah... russellville, arkansas. I like to call it NOWHERE< USA. we drove way too far to pull up to this super 8 hotel in the middle of nowhere that (even after we already pricelined this shit and get 2 beds in super posh hyatt hotels and shit for free) feels the need to charge us another FIFTEEN DOLLARS so we can have 2 beds in our room. seriously. i’ve seen better beds in a burger king bathroom. at lleast there was a waffle house in the parking lot. the minute we pulled in i’m like, "i’m going to waffle house. gett outta my way." jonny p came with me, and we met up with superblonde and bonebreaker over there. the wairtresss chrystal was nice but she’s been workin all day, so I could tell she’s totally over 4 dudes comin in at 4 am. and one dude (me) lookin for a piece of pie and a water. they were outta pecan pie (my 1 choice), so I had to settle for the triple chocolate. the name sounds good, but it didn’t taste as good as its name. the little waffle house sign they put in it was wortht he dollar I paid for it though. so I win. I forgot to say earlier, the lobby of this joint is all decked out for easter and stuff. and they have plastic easter eggs and stuff, but GET THIS: they don’t even have anything inside of the plastic eggs!!!! total burn on us. robbdog grabbed one and couldn’t undertstand how bad he got duped. whatevs. we’ll get ’em back int the morning when we jump on the beds for 2 hours straight. that’s why we get two beds, so we can jump from bed to bed without touchign the carpet, cuz the carpet = lava. remember that? I’m over it. literally. i’m in the bed now, which means i’m safe from the lava. i should sleep now. it’s 5 am. officially. and we ahve to go to waffle house in the morning so I can eat something decent. I wanted pecan pie earlier, but they didn’t have it. lame. seeeeeee yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa



i don’t know who this chick is, but the pie she’s got is way better than the pie I got. i know I only paid .99 cents for it, but man, I’ll put down the cash for a decent piece of pie. this girl knows what’s up.

waking up with enough sleep under my belt to conquer day two of this thing is makin’ me feel pretty damn good. yesterday was a long one to put it bluntly. we finished up a show in tulsa kinda late, and since we had some mid-day engagements down in austin, we had to make the overnight drive down to austin so we could get all of our "ducks in a row". jonny p and I drove til around 6am, and which point the backup team took over and got us into town around 11am or so.

at this point, my sleep-o-meter was at about 3 hours. I woke up about an hour outta town cuz I was excited to see how texas was lookin. note to self: not a smart idea. we pulled into the convention center, where we picked up all of our credentials and started to scour the schedules of things we wanna check out. we had to run over to a place called Headhunters for the vinyl collective / suburban home showcase. we got loaded in as quick as we could, and set our merch up on the street. it worked out nicely, cuz I think havin our shirts out in the sun helped some people notice that we were actually playing. at sxsw, there’s always about 3-10 things going on at the same time that would be sooo good to be at, but unfortunately since technology has not advance quite enough yet, you can’t be at 3-10 places at the same time. yet. robb and I ran down the street to catch a few songs of the weakerthans, which was great. then we got back to our place and played our thing. I was truly impressed with the crowd that came out. it was a good thing to see. we caught a band called Teenage Bottlerocket that played after us, and they were really cool too. very ramones-y. they busted out song after song. everytime they finished a song, the drummer would immediately count into the next song. virgil from suburban home was very happy to keep robb and I supplied with tequila sunrises, which was kind of him.

we walked out of the show and heard vampire weekend playin across the street, and we remembered jon cheese magically acquired passes to get in. we were able to catch a good half of their set. I didn’t wanna like that band very much, but jonny p picked up their record a few weeks ago, and I have to say I really dig it. their show was cool, but it seemed like everyone was talking to the person next to ’em about if the band is really worth all the hype. it seemed like they woulda fit a lot better playin a small venue packed to the ceiling. more of a party. the outside stage at stubb’s is just a little bit too roomy. oh well.

I think i’m gonna have to split now. we’re at our buddy travis’ house and people are wakin up. i’ll continue this soon...

this is what I looked like near the end of friday night... just sayin:

good morning folks.
we’re currently in little rock, making the most of our morning...
well, attempting to at least. at this point we’re all cleaned up, gettin our shit together, and trying to make some sense of drew carey hosting the price is right.

tonight, we’re lucky enough to be in Tulsa for a show in the small room at Cain’s.
then post show, we’re making to big trek down to Austin by sun up, so we can get settled in at SXSW. we’ll be trying to make the most of our 3 days down there.
usually we’re able to make it in to town on wednesday morning, which is the official GO time, and we stay all the way til sunset on sunday. although we’re definitely gonna be doing it in abridged form, I’m sure we’ll leave with smiles on our faces.

(insert lunch break here)

back in the van, heading westbound now. we stopped for lunch at the waffle house across the street. while we were eating, the manager answered the phone with.."it’s a good day at the waffle house! this is wayne..." pretty cool. I think I may just have to try that out today while answering the phone. "it’s a great day out here on I-40, patrick here.."
justin unloaded a dollar or two on the jukebox. it gives you the chills to eat hashbrowns and scrambled eggs and raisin toast while "born in the USA" plays in the background. we all got a bit startled at one point when after a song ended, the start of House of Pain’s "Jump Around", or whatever it’s called came on. but then we realized it was this dancing donkey toy a kid in a booth next to us was jamming out with. jam on.

yesterday we had a long drive day. I was hopin we could get to our end point at a decent hour last night so we could catch some decent food, but when we ain’t got nowhere to be in a hurrry, we’re good at takin our time. we made a stop by a placed called Junket Boy in Birmingham, Alabama. they’re an independent music distributor that distributes cool and/or exclusive music to cool indie records stores around the country. they’re super sweet people, and gave us a tour of their operation. I was a little bit sidetracked because someone in the office just got a new puppy, and had already left for sxsw, so the puppy was happily roaming the halls. I spent most of my time gettin my fingers gnawed on, and making him roll over. I forget his long name, but the shortened version of it was Bo, or Beaux if ya wanna get fancy. bottom line, he was a sweetheart. a little later, I found myself gettin sleepy at the wheel, and the van was low on gas, so I took the first option we had to stop to refuel. it ended up being our main dinner stop. I can’t remember if I wrote about this last night, but they had these great homemade pies by "grandma". grandma owns. I got the diet apple pie. she did it right.

lately, there’s a handful of things that have been making this tour go quite smoothly (for me):

waffle house


diet coke


dogs


good weather


lost


trips to records stores (criminal / park ave)


veggie hot dogs


PBR


daytrotter sessions


the pictures of kristin cavalleri on the roof of our van


comedy performances


the south (the carolinas / florida / atlanta)
(sorry, i couldn’t find a good picture, but i LOVE THESE STATES. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH)
punk rock karaoke


thank you. goodnight.

it’s good to be in the south. I’ve always loved it here.
we finished our big monster streak of shows last night. atlanta treated us quite well. there was a pretty rowdy crowd for a tuesday night. we were joined by our good friend Jeff, who added some pedal steel to a few songs during our set. maaan, is he ever solid. post show, jon cheese and I, along with our good friends amanda and john hit up what is probably one of my favorite restaurants in the USA. it’s a chinese food joint called Chinese Buddha. they serve the best mock chicken entrees that I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been stuck on the sesame chicken the last few times, but amanda and jon got the sesame beef, which was a whole different kind of awesome. the constant bummer of tour is having about 4-5 hours to take in as much of a given city at a time, then you’ve got to move on. I’m excited to be moving westbound, but sad to hit the road.
speaking of which, I had one of the best nights of my life a few days ago in Orlando. we played the ’matinee’ show at the social, which basically means we finished our set before the sun even went down. fortunately, they have some huge window shades so you don’t have a clue what time it is unless you have a watch. which I don’t. it’s kind of that casino vibe. anyhow. post show orlando, I hit up the veggie dog stand across the street from the social, which is a staple for us. then we were hangin out at the bbq bar next door for what seemed like forever. I guess that’s because we got there at 7pm, instead of our usual post show time, which is around 1am or so. jon cheese and I took some killer photo booth pictures. literally. in one of ’em we’re vampires. then I took off down the street with some friends and a few of the house of fools dudes. we found ourselves at some karaoke bar where they had a live band playin the song you were gonna sing. it was cool to see some dude wail on "sweet child o’ mine" , but it was kinda bro-fest ’08. so we decided to split. our crew led us next door to a place called the backbooth. apparently they were having punk rock karaoke night. so we walk in, and this dude is singin a misfits song on stage. kinda cool. THEN, they broke out into this monster set... screeching weasel.. minor threat... GORILLA BISCUITS... and at this point, there’s about a 10 person crowd on stage, all gathered around the mic, with people jumping everywhere. I felt it was my duty to get up there too... so we’re singin a gorilla biscuits song, and THEN they break into a 5 song operation ivy set!!! there’s a side story here, which is every once and a while when us dudes are pretty hyper for whatever reason, we’ll put on gorilla biscuits or op ivy and jump all over the van singin along. SOOOOO, this place basically had what we do in our van, but ON A STAGE, with a MICROPHONE. after op ivy they broke out "dammmit" by blink and a circle pit broke out on stage. that’s the first circle pit i’ve done since high school. then they played a bunch of cool rap and there was a dance party til the place closed. talk about bein in the right place at the right time. I had a good night.
before that, was our trip through the lovely Carolina states. they definitely treated us well. we were lucky enough to play in Greensboro, where the House of Fools call home. it was a very inspiring thing to see all of their friends and family come out and support them at the hometown show. they sounded amazing, as always, and they had a couple dudes playin horns with them which was stellar. i’m not much of a gambler, but we played some dice before the show, and I came out pretty huge. i don’t have any new found confidence in my gambling abilities, but I sure did feel good about myself. corey’s (who does sound for the fools) dad came down and upped the stakes pretty big to $20 games. I was only putting down $1, so i had to bail, but Cheese and dan bonebrake took him on. luckily they all came out even, so no one was cursed for the rest of the night. after the show Josh from the fools took over as DJ and played some JAAAAAAMS. we had a big dance party happenin until they told us that we really need to stop and get out. that sounds harsh, but they were nice about it, and it was already ridiculously late. oh, I almost forgot that Robb and Justin did a few more comedy performances at this show. they had a great crowd. you can check out some footage of ’em on youtube. they’re pros. it was justin’s first time out, and he owned it. we got to stay over at the fools practice space, and they greeted us in the morning with some killer biscuit sandwiches. well done.
our show in mount pleasant was a huuuuuge highlight of the tour as well. our buddy Joel was playin the show too. he plays in a band called the Working Title, who we toured with a few years ago. he’s such a sweet dude, and a great songwriter / performer, so it was amazing to see him again. the show went very very nicely. there are too many good people from this region of the united states of america. it makes me wanna move there. it’s a possibility. we’ll see.....
ok. i’m delirious now. i started writing this in the morning when we were in atlanta, and now it’s 3am in little rock arkansas. i have more to say, but i’ll wait til the sun is up. that way I can put a bit more thought into what i’m sayin. check yyaaaaa later

we tell jokes all the time. we laugh a lot. we're funny. so we've decided to take up comedy. tonight, Robb took the stage at an after hours club at the Homewood Suites located in Raleigh, North Carolina. he slayed it. fortunately enough, the local comedy channel did a feature on his performance, and we have the clip of it RIGHT HERE!!!!!

we're stayin in this huge suite right now. probably because Robb did such a good job with his comedic performance.

i should sleep now, but i'll definitely make a bigger post come sunrise.

the carolinas rule.

so does miller high life.

and easy mac.

seeeeeeeeeee ya




1800www.com

WE DID IT!!

we now actually have four Furby's in our van. our first, who's name is Streeze, joined us in Columbus Ohio. it was by far, the coolest way we could possibly come in possession of a furby. we were settin up on stage, messin with our amps and stuff, and we turned around and there's a real deal Furby staring right at us. we all freaked, and started yelling. then we set him on jon's kick drum for the rest of the night. at some point I dedicated "Julia" to him, and then he fell asleep. what a good dude. this show was a good one cuz we got to see our friend Joey, who filled in on keys/guitar/etc. for a while on the Format tour. we played with his band called This Is My Suitcase. they were a good time. at one point, Joe cut his finger and he said, "don't worry, if I pass out I'll know what to do... I'm a nursing student". he's a genius.

We encountered a blizzard on our way over to Cleveland... with that in addition to the Democratic debate in town, we had a small turnout at the show, but from the vibe of everyone there, you'd think there were hundreds of people. they raged. at midnight, robbdog's birthday hit.. so the new frontiers dudes came out with balloons and inflatable guitars, and ran around the stage, along with the ralstons. the grog shop is one of our favorite places to play. the people treat you right, and it sounds perfect. we had a dude named Swampy doin our sound. he's a badass. down the street there's a cool record shop that sells bootleg dvds, and I was able to pick up a copy of The Decline of Western Civilization. when I was home for the last few months I read a book about the singer of the Germs, Darby Crash. man, he was a wild dude. but in the book, he had a handful of really smart quotes about the state of music, and he was sayin all this in the late 70's. also, the fact that he was hangin around with Belinda Carlisle (aka Dottie Danger) before she started the Go-Go's, is pretty cool too. the Decline of Western Civilization is a documentary of the punk scene in LA ,around 1979 or so. bands like the Germs, X, Black Flag, the Circle Jerks.. it's kinda crazy to know that that scene ever existed in LA. los angeles is such a weird place. it's seen a lot, ya know?
so cleveland was our last night with the New Frontiers, and it was a huge bummer to see them go... they're a band that I never got tired of watching every night. not to mention they're a bunch of great dudes. I can't wait til we hang with 'em again.

pittsburgh was pittsburgh. fun show.. too cold. weird venue where I kept thinking that my amp and my keyboard were going to tip over and break at any given point while we were playing. I think my side of the stage was basically just a trampoline, and when i'd start moving around, things would get all shaky. oh well. we had to bust outta town super early the next day to make a huge trek to Boston. it's rough gettin in the van at 6:30am when it's below freezing out. our van wasn't too happy with us either. the drive was a long one, but fortunately we made it in time for a sound check at the middle east. we played the upstairs room, which is just about perfect for us. this was our first show on with the house of fools dudes. I forgot to mention, when we were in Columbus, we were impressed to see them at the number one spot on the photo hunt machine. we try to take first place on every photo hunt game that crosses our path (our name on it is ALWAYS .. GUITARMTN). but anyhow, we placed 4th, and weren't able to take 'em out. it's gonna be an interesting tour to see who will take the cake most nights. we also played w/ our buddies BAKER, who basically rule. saw some good touring friends at the show too. Don from the Format & Luke from Piebald were out on the town, so we got to catch up with them for a while. also our very good friend Matt, who used to play with Steel Train... we've spent years with him on different tours. it's always great to see touring friends, but kind of a bummer when you've got split the town, and they aren't comin' with ya.

from Boston we made a long trek down to Delaware to play at the college there. we played on their college station, WVUD last year, so it was good to be back in town. I just wish we had a day off, cuz last time we were able to hit the downtown and Robb and I found a great mexican food place with some grade A margaritas. next time maybe. oh, and we got another Furby!!

we got a hotel last night in Cherry Hill New Jersey. New Jersey roads are crazy. lots of loops and cars comin at you from every angle. glad I'm not drivin. we hit up a gas station called WaWa last night, which us west coasters ain't too familiar with. they have this cool touch screen sandwich ordering thing which we all hit up. they also have our favorite brand of milkshakes (made famous by our other favorite gas station, Quik Trip). they had a limited edition cookies n cream shake that was insane.. but I had to stick with my number one, good ol' chocolate. they also had those new doritos chips that they're makin a MTV show about. sweet & spicy. good chips. probably gonna be a god awful show.

we picked up some batteries for a couple of our new furby's, and hit the hotel . we watched some creepy jail show for a while about people on death row who killed people and ate their brains and stuff. it was just about the most appropriate thing to watch before callin it a night.

in the morning I made it down to the fitness room to run a few miles and watch part of a nick cannon movie. then back up to the room to clean up, and record some guitar on a cover song. we're workin on a series of cover songs recorded on the road. robb used a bucket of ice as a snare drum. very cool. these covers are gonna be available... let's just say it might be a good thing if you pick up our new record "the delicacy of living modestly". we'll let ya know more as things develop.

we're currently on our way to hoboken new jersey for the best pizza on the planet. a joint called Benny Tudino's. it's solid. and it's mafia-run, I'm pretty sure. all the better. two new york shows this weekend. it's a tiny room, so it should make for some fun.

everything is great.