You can find me working at Lucky Devil Tattoo in Seattle Washingtons Caitol Hill district as of October 1st 2008. Saturday - Wednesday, noon til 8pm.
1720 12th Ave
Seattle WA. 98122
(206)-323-1637
j_jerad@yahoo.com

www.luckydeviltattooparlor.com

Minnesota. Minnesota was pretty damn fun. It was in a place called the Alamo House. It had apparently been a venue for a long time, but had kind of stopped having shows. This was the 1st show in a long time.... Not to many people came out, but we still had a great time. Minnesota had really nice weather. Thats about the only thing that really stood out...



Waterloo Iowa!!!!



Boooooo..... This was supposed to be our second to last show... if it actually ever existed.... which it didn't. A few days prior to this show, Bob checked to see if any advertising had been done on an Iowa music message board online. It was listed, but there was no other info on the show. No other bands, no time, etc. He mentioned that the show might be kind of lame. So when we got to the venue, we weren't to shocked when no one was there. We'd shown up first to several places and folks who wanted to see the show came much later. But Bob decided to check our band email account only to find that the show had been moved, last minute, to Des Moines.... 2 1/2 hours away. The guy putting on the show didn't tell us this till 3pm the day before. Great. We email him our number and decide to try and bust ass to make it to Des Moines.... It was about 7pm when we left.... We hauled ass and made it to Des Moines at about 10pm. We were all pretty sure that the show would be wrapping up and we could at least sell merch to help cover the gas cost. This was my 1st time in Des Moines, Iowa. Its a confusing place.... The streets go from a mixture of numbered streets AND avenues to named streets and ave's.... and in no particular order. Needless to say, it took us a while to find the place. The promoter of the show gve us the wrong address too, so that was an extra little challenge. We finally found it. It was just as dead as the first place in Waterloo. We were fucked. We totally missed the show. It didn't look like anyone was left in the place. I banged on a few doors and windows for good measure. A few minutes later a guy named James pops his head out, so we asked him about the show. He said they DO in fact have shows there, but he'd never heard about us playing there. We told him our story and decided that we had just been screwed. He apologized over and over and even invited us to crash at his place. Before we went to sleep, James took us to an internet cafe so we could re-check our email to see if the promotor tried to get ahold of us again. Turns out he had read our email with our phone number in it, but hadn't called us or responded to our email. He had our number by 10pm, but never called. There was never a show. He fucked us. James was Iowa's saving grace. He gave us a place to sleep, let us watch the best movie in the world, "Rollerblade", and the next day even offered us money (we declined) because he felt so bad for us. We were soon on our way to our last show.... in Sioux Falls, SD... Which is about 3 hours or so away from Minnesota... which is where we were before we drove all over the shit smelling state of Iowa. Iowa. Boooooo!




Sioux Falls. Radical basement show.... then a 24 hour ride home in our 9 passenger, Dodge van.




Seattle..... its good to be back. I look forward to doing it again. Highlights of this tour were San Francisco, Greensboro, Boston, and Columbus. Places I don't want to go back to are Ft.Worth, Athens, and all of Iowa.

Milwaukee.





We played a pretty bad ass basement show with a band called Half-Gorilla. The show was fun, but the highlight of the evening was when Bob's friend took The Helm to a bar called "Safe House".... We get to the area where the "Safe House" was and Bob's friends lead us down an alley. We get to a random door in the middle of a non-descript alley way and one of the guys walk in. He says its clear so we all go in. We enter into a small room with two doors, bookshelf, and a podium. We walk up the stairs to the podium and a girl greets us. As she's welcoming us I notice a painting on the wall. Then the eyes on the painting shift. Soon the lady is done with the introduction to the place and asks us for the password. I didn't know the password. Bob and his friend new the password. They whisper it into her ear and she says "Ok! You can go in" She pushes a button and the bookshelf slides into the wall to reveal a hidden hall way. The go through and the bookshelf slides back into place. Then the girl looks at the rest of us and says "Alright... since you guys don't know the password, I have to make sure you guys are legit. I can't let anyone in I can't trust. ". We all look at each other, wondering what the hell is about to happen. "You're going to have to pass a series of tests to make sure we can trust you" says the girl. She then proceeded to force the remaining, hairy, tattooed, smelly, guys to do a little ballet in the small room in front of the book case. Not so much of a test really. More of a task.... Anyway, we finished our dance and she approved. She then again pushed the button and the bookshelf slid out of the way. We enter the hidden hall way and begin walking past fake doors and more paintings with moving eyes. We approach a short stair case and begin to walk up, which triggers another hidden door. It opens to reveal a bar full of people who were pointing and laughing at the guys who were just dancing in the lobby.... us. We order our drinks and begin inspecting the bar. It was pretty intense. Doors leading to nowhere... which were hilarious, until you had to go to the bathroom and you kept running into fakes. Once you did find the proper door to the toilet and were able to use it, you think that your in the womens room because of all the womens room signs they've posted to screw with you. There were also stair cases that lead to nowhere... A third level area with a drink elevator, tubes like you'd see at a bank drive up for sending mixed drinks all over the bar, a whole section dedicated to spy music karaoke, and one of the coolest things we got to see was a birthday interrogation. A poor, unsuspecting girl was whisked away from her birthday party by "security" and taken to a down stairs interrogation/shower room. As she is taken down stairs, a movie screen lowers down fro the ceiling in the main bar area and the whole down stairs scenario is displayed for everyone to see. Security began questioning the poor girl, prompting her to answer correctly, otherwise she'd be getting a shower. As she's sitting in the chair, answering each question wrong, the security became ore and more upset. Finally you hear a shower go on and the girl is obviously uncomfortable. She is soon left alone and locked in the tiny room by herself. Soon a light in the bar goes on and people begin to move outwards, away from the center of the room. In just a few seconds, a trap door in the floor opens up, and the girl is raised up through as the whole bar sits and watches. She was then presented with a house b.day drink and a video of some dude stripping. Flags fall from the ceiling and lights and sirens are going off everywhere. Pretty amazing. Soon the bar settled down and we finished our drinks. It was time to go.... So we headed to a phone booth. Only two people at a time could fit in the booth at a time, so me and another guy hop in, put a quarter in the pay phone, and receive instructions to press in the secret code on the key pad. We press a few numbers on the phone and the wall slides away. We head down another hall way and through another door. We were in another non-descript ally way and then on to Bob's friends house to sleep. Pretty cool.... And the show we played was fun too.

Columbus Ohio. I lived in Columbus for about seven years in my early 20's. I was excited to get there and see my friends that hadn't moved away. We rolled into town at about 4am and went to my friend, Mike's, house. The fellas went to sleep and stayed up for a bit and chatted with Mike and his girlfriend Katie. Finally I turned in. We had to load in the next day at about 5pm. We woke up, hung out and had some coffee before we decided to run around town and grab some food at a vegan place called whole world. The food at whole world was pretty good, but the people there seemed like they either didn't want us there or absolutely hated there job. Either way, we ate and took off to meet some friends at a place I used to work. The Blue Danube. When I think of "The Dube" it makes me think.... "Who says yo can't polish a turd". The answer is, the fine folks at the dube can polish a turd. And people will go there to eat and drink. We head down to the venue and load in. The show ended up starting a bit later than it was supposed to. I got to see tons of my fiends and play with a great band called "Black Dove" . We finished playing (without a single amp issue, unless you count something getting unplugged) and I ended up getting pretty drunk with my friends. We crashed out semi-early and headed over to a friends house to sleep. We were heading to Milwaukee the next day.

Syracuse New York....



We arrived at about 6am and went straight to sleep. We woke up to eat and try and find another place to fix Timm's guitar head. I opted to stay at the house and sleep more while Jeffery watched movies. Timm dropped off the head and Bob went to the mall. We headed out to the show around 6 and stopped off at a BBQ/ buffet in a near by coffee shop.



We filled up and met up with Giant for our last show of the tour together. The show ended up being pretty packed. We played a longer than usual set with a band called Night Owls. We had a great time. Packed up our stuff and said a long goodbye to Giant. Earlier in the tour Giant let us know that they would be changing their name due to legal reasons. We took it upon ourselves to create a list of names for them to choose from. We presented it to them as we said our goodbyes. I'm not sure they are going to pick one of names.... which is their loss, but I'd like to think we came up with some great ideas. Anyway... we finished up and headed back to Hex's house to hang out. The next day will be a day off. We spent the day off eatting, hanging out with Bob's buddies, and picking up Timm's guitar head. We had a bit of a drive ahead of us and it had already gotten kind of late. We decided to drive over night to our next destination.

Birlington Vermont. Its a beautiful town, however, there are tons of mosquitos. We arrived just before the show started. It was in this old military base that had been converted into civillioln spaces. Stores, living areas, etc. We were the first ones there so we sat in the parking lot and threw a frisbee.





Again we played with Giant and a band called Romans that we'd played with back in Seattle. The show was fun but pretty uneventful. Unless you count all of Timm and my amps getting knocked over. Now his Matamp head is acting squirrelly. Mine seemed fine. We spent most of the time in the van driving so we really didn't get to explore the city. We played and hit the road to Syracuse that evening. Bob drove, since he is originally from Syracuse and new the roads. Mr. Toads wild ride.... I slept the whole way there.

Boston was a blast. Jonah from Ramming Speed rode with us and showed us where to fix Timm's guitar head.... again. And so we dropped it off. Jonah also happened to be the guy who set up the show. The show just so happened to be cancelled last minute due to the venue being under renovation or some shit. Jonah some how managed to pull it together and have a bad ass basement show instead. We picked up the amp and headed back to where the show was. As we arrived the bottom fell out of the sky. It started pouring. One of those traditional east coast down pours.... We loaded our gear through it and played with Giant, Battlemaster, and Ramming Speed. Immediately, Timm's amp re-blew up so we borrowed one from Giant. After The Helm played, Jeffery and I decided to run to a corner store and grab some beers. On the way we came across a old guy who had JUST fallen on a bottle of wine. He was wasted, his head was bleeding and he had a huge cut in his hand. He was pouring blood. We called an ambulace and waited for them to arrive. EMS showed up and we moved on. We got our beer and headed back to watch the bands. Afterwards it kind of turned into a rager... people parting and hanging out. It was a blast. We closed out the party and decided to head back to Bob's friends house for some sleep. In the morning we woke up to fresh waffles, strawberries, and coffee. I didn't want to leave. Boston was deffinately one of the most fun shows we played.

Pawtucket Rhode Island.... We passed through some of the prettiest country side I've seen since we left the North West on the way to Rhode Island. We arrived at Tides house early enough to relax before the show and have the tubes replaced in Timm's guitar head. We didn't have to drive anywhere because the show was in Tides basement. The space was huge too. We basically lounged around till we had to go pick up Timm's head. We went back to the house and set up. Amp issues plagued us once again. It started with us being to lazy to carry all our cabs in, so we borrowed some stuff from Giant. Timm's JCM 800 didn't agree with this. Jeffery heard some funny noises from the back of the head and upon closer inspection, we noticed the same white sparks coming from one of the tubes. It was toast. So we played a quiet, short set with Giant, Tides, Battlemaster, and Ramming Speed. Soon after the show was done we passed out, only to have to wake up early and head to Boston to see if we could fix the amp.

New York.... Our first show in NYC was great. We had a little trouble navigating the city when we first arrived, but soon found our way to Nikki's place in Greenpoint. The show wasn't to far from her place so we decided to get a quick bite to eat and then head over to the show. We arrived to the large converted warehouse/living space called the Stolen Sleeves Collective. All of us went inside to check the place out and somehow ended up on the roof. The view of Manhattan was amazing.



So was the weather so we decided to hang out there for a bit. We finally loaded our gear up several flights of stairs and waited for the show to start. While we waited, the folks at the collective made us veggi lasagna. Totally radical. This nights show was another with Giant and their good friends Tides. One of the girls that lived at the collective made bad ass silk screen posters for the show.... I never got one saddly. The show started around 8 and both Tides and Giant were amazing. Durring our set, Timms amp took a dump. White sparks popped out the back and that was that. We would have to head back to Nikkis, get some sleep and get up early and find someone in Rhode Island to fix the problem. We hung out after the show for quite some time before all the gear was loaded and we were off to sleep at Nikki's joint. Timm and Bob promptly went to bed.... Jeffery, Nikki, and I decided to go get drinks. It was about 4am when we decided to head back to the house. Nikki had a doctors appointment at 8am in Manhattan the next day. She didn't make it. We all woke up way later than we expected and busted ass to get out of town. On to Rhode Island....

On to Philly. We saw a horrible car crash happen right in front of us on the way.



We stopped and tried to help. Basically, a 4-Runner veared under a semi.... The semi crushed the 4-Runner. It was horrible. Both vehicles were totally destroyed, but yeah, the 4-Runner was totally run over. The driver was trapped/crushed by the roof and dash. I pryed the back door open and tryed to pull his seat back to free him as a gasped for air. He was totally unconscious. I couldn't pull the seat back because he roof was to caved in and prevented it from moving.... Soon emergency vehicles showed up and we decided to get out of the way. The driver of the semi was ok. Bleeding from the head, but ok. We never figured out what happened to the 4-Runner guy. We made it to Philly. Ate, played, stayed at a house with giant roaches everywhere,



and got up early to head to NYC. I might update this later.... I can't think of any other exciting stuff to write about.

Richmond VA....



We played at a tiny, shitty place called Ramakins. Fuck Ramakins. The place was pretty crappy. A ton of folks came to see the opening band and split right after they played. This Time Tomorrow played next, us, then Giant. A few old friends came out to see the show and we had a pretty good time. After the show we learned that we supposedly only made about $80 total from the door. $80 total to split between 3 touring bands. The weird thing is the guys were charging $5 at the door. We estimated about 70 folks at the show.... That equals way more than $80. We literally had to corner the owner of the place and demand more money. We never figured it out, but one of the guys there was either skimming off the top or just not paying us. Bullshit. Fuck Ramakins. He gave us a bit more money and we took off and headed to Mikes place. While there we ended up listening to records (King Diamond Christmas) till about 4 in the morning and playing with he and his wifes radical cats.







Tomorrow is Philly...

We left Athens after a sad turnout and headed to Greensboro NC. We arrived at the dudes from Giant's house at about 5am and promptly went in and headed to bed. We woke up late the next afternoon. The first thing I noticed about Greensboro is that it was about 15 degrees cooler. We ended up running around town, meeting up with the rest of the band, drinking coffee and stocking up on groceries. After that, we met up with the guys from This Time Tomorrow and headed over for a vegan BBQ with the bands. We stuffed ourselves and headed to the venue. While there, I met up with some of my family. We chatted for a while till it was time to play. We played our set to a huge crowd in one of the hottest places I've ever played in. It was so hot, I thought I might pass out. The show was great. We did really well with the door and merch. Mostly a mellow day and a great show. I'm looking forward to playing there again in the future.

We woke up around 11am and headed to a Waffle House for some hashbrowns. I'm deffinatly in the south. When we were done we headed to the nearest Ultra-Mega-Super-Wal-Mart to have our tire fixed. We were soon on the road. I ended up driving all the way o Athens GA. We were scheduled to play a skate shop.



I was kind of excited. It sounded like it was going to be fun. We talked to the promoter for a bit and he gave us the impression that the show might not turn out so well... He was right. No one showed up. Unless you count my good friend Jason. He drove for 5 hours just to see the show. We played to the other bands and Jason... Kind of. The 1st band played and then This Time Tomorrow from Seattle was supposed to go on. We decided to have a rock-n-roll battle. I'm still not sure what to think about that idea. No... actually, I know what to think. It was a fucking horrible idea, but it made the time go by a lot more quickly.



The Helm set up directly across from T.T.T. and we took turns playing our songs and trying to fuck one another up. And so it was... fucked up. Jason drove for 5 hours to see the most disheveled mess by two touring bands ever. It was fun though. Afterward we regretably got back on the road. Another night drive. 5 hours to Greensboro. Here we go. Apparently, Speak was put to sleep this morning. RIP buddy.

We left Austin at about midnight and ended up in Birmingham at about 5pm the next day. But not before I stuffed myself with cheesy, bacon filled grits.



We went from shitty blowdryer heat to heat that felt like someone just threw a hot, wet, blanket on you. Horrible!!! Welcome to the south. On the way we ended up running into another southern style down pour. It happened right before the Mississippi bridge. Turns out that little windsheild wiper issuse would come back to haunt us. And so it did.... On the bridge... surrounded by semi-trucks. Right on. We ended up pulling into the next city and finding an auto parts store. We picked up some rain-ex and a gromet with the "teat" on it to fix the wipers. We went to a gas station, borrowed some tools and did a proper fix. I ended up selling a CD to the guy that loaned us the tools, so that paid for rain-ex and gromet with the "teat" on it. After we were all settled we continued to Alabama. We rolled into town a little after 5 and went straight to the club only to realized that we were about to blow our 2nd tire of the trip. So... We changed the tire. We ended up running into a really drunk guy with the laziesteye I've evr seen and a southern drawl so thick, even I couldn't understand it. He was doing an amazing job of mowing the lawn next to the place we played. Actually, he did an awful job. He kind of zig-zagged across the lawn a bit before he came over to tell us that it was a shame our tire had to be changed. Then he told us a story about a cat that was startled and jumped 12 feet into the air with out any one throwing it.... Or some shit.



We finished chnging the tire and headed to a resturant with AC, ate, drank a beer, and headed back to the club. We got to Cave 9 just as the 1st band was setting up. The show was pretty full, and we played with some great bands. Choke from VA. and another band from Nola called Thou. Best line up in my opinion of the whole tour up to this point. It was a blast. The concert ended and basically the whole show went to some 24 hour diner. Jeffery and I ended up going and having a beer with the dudes from Cough, because everyone else was hanging out with some weird ass cop who wouldn't go away, and was trying to be cool, but he was a douche bag, rookie cop, who was trying way to hard, so it was impossible. We finished our beers just as everyone was finishing up dinner. We all met back up and went over to Kevin and Emily's place. I got to shower, do laundry, and even sleep in a bed. This day was one of the high points of the tour... then my girlfriend called me and let me know that my dog is dying. and probably wont make it till I get home. Great day and crappy day. My dog is 13... I've had her since she was born, she's moved across the country with me twice, and she is one of my best friends in the world. Its hard to write about... She will be missed dearly. That was the end of my day.

Austin, Texas. I've been to Austin once before for a tattoo convention. It treated me well the first time. I was excited for round two. We rolled into town at about 3am and headed over to Nate, the promoters, house. It was great relief to get to his place. He let us shower and had AC and then the swimming pool! We all showered and headed to bed. We woke up at the crack of 2pm and made our way to the swimming pool. We stayed for an hour or so and decided to find a bite to eat. It turned out that we probably waited a bit to long. We were all starving. That mixed with record breaking Texas heat started making us all crazy. We found a food co-op, ate sandwhiches and headed over to the Red 7 in downtown Austin. The show wasn't very packed, but we got to play with a bad ass band call Giants, from Iowa. They were all really nice guys. We played after them and when we were done I took off to hang out with my good friend, Geoff, and his brand new wife, Adawna. We had a few beers and the fellas called me up to let me know we were about to head out. The most dreaded night drive of all. 14 hours to Birmingham AL....