to surrender would be a crime against yourself.

Hey dudes, we haven't updated you too much since tour because we've been pretty busy for the past couple of months and some changes have been made in our line up. If you've been keeping up with the smaller changes on our page, you've already seen that Andre and Paul left the band recently. Andre and Paul are founding members of SVM and have played key roles in making SVM what it is today. There are no hard feelings between the remaining members and them. We love you guys and we wish you the best of luck.

Now, if you're just finding all of this out right now, chill out! We've already filled the positions. Replacing Andre on the drums is a good friend of ours, (you know him as our promoter) JOSEPH BLAQUE! And replacing Paul on guitar is a man who needs no introduction, he is CHRIS STRYKKER!

Keep an eye out for new pictures and updates. We've already started writing concept songs for the new album. Prepare to experience music like never before.

-Tony

Check this video out!

This video was taped and spliced by none other than The Wolf himself. This is the song we opened our set with at Bourbon St. for the Awakening CD Release show.

Let us know what you think and thanks again John!

-St. Valentines Massacre-

This will be the last post of the 2009 "Awakening" tour diary. An exciting, semi-gay, too much fun journey that we will not soon forget.

The last day of tour, we played in Florence, Alabama. We weren't too sure about the turnout, but after getting there, we changed our minds. We played at The Smokehouse, a venue in the downtown area which had a stage on the second floor of the venue looking down on the first floor. Needless to say, bringing 1,000lbs of pro-gear into the venue (1 flight of stairs), and up to the second floor (another flight of stairs) was by far the most difficult and grueling show prep we have all ever done. Fortunately, our work was well worth it, we played by far the most fun show of tour, we had a great crowd, and between joey climbing up the fence to the second floor to rock out with us, and us jumping down to the first to be with the crowd, we just loved it.

All in all, we're glad we got the opportunity to finally tour after 5 years, but we're also glad to be home. It's time to recooperate, rest, publicize, restock our merch, and get ready for our next tours, and start writing some more music...

We've also got some more exciting stuff in the works, that we know EVERYONE is going to be happy about, so stay tuned...


-Paul

So the past few shows have had some issues, we did get to play at Tiger O'Stylies in Chicago, which was very cool, the crowd was responsive, and the bands were very cool. All in all, a great show, aside from us being drunk (and tyler was of course drunk on love, and not alcohol at all whatsoever in the least way, at all). We got to experience a Chicago pizza... which at $20 a pie, we only splurged on one to split 6 ways... needless to say, the 6 of us couldn't finish one pizza. This pizza, took an hour to cook, and was literally a bottom crust, like 5-10 lbs of cheese, a top crust, and a little red sauce. I had a slice and a half (that was me splurging), and couldnt eat another bite. It was amazing, but extremely filling.

Next few days we had some issues, even though our original Chicago show at White Star Sports Bar got cancelled, and we got lucky to jump on at Tiger O Stylies, the Tennessee show was permanently cancelled, and Louisiana got cancelled when the two other bands we played with lied to the venue owner about their ages, and cancelled the show before we even got to the venue. Not what we wanted, but after driving through New Orleans we decided it was the most god-awful place on earth anyways, and we wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I would suggest to never visit new orleans, ever, in your life, and we have twitter pictures to prove our disgust.

Today we found ourselves in Tupelo, MS at Good Time Charlie's. Of course, per recent tradition the two bands we were supposed to play with decided to bail and no-call, no-show, but we stayed anyways, people showed up and we played a few songs. The cool part about the night is that the sound crew for Framing Hanley showed up with a 50,000 PA system for the next day's show that we got to use. Amazing. We need a bigger trailer and a 50,000 sound system, most definitely.

We've got two more days of tour left, and we've got a lot of footage from the past month of touring for our dvd (you guys knew we're coming out with a dvd, right?), and we'll have a lot of work to do when we get back to town as far as booking the next tour, publicity, new merch, and more. As for right now, we're all ready to go home, get back to our normal lives, sleep in our own beds and not be huddled up with a truck full of guys. It's been fun, but we're tired, and we've got a lot of work ahead of us.

-Paul

Two days ago we played at The Cup and Saucer, a little place in Cincinatti, OH. Very glad the venue didnt burn down, but the area we were in had pretty much nothing there. We walked for blocks only to find a tiny tiny grocery store with 3 aisles. Between the grocery store, and the bar, they were the two main attractions of the entire town, pretty much nothing else. The turnout was pretty good, and the kids seemed to like us, they got tons of posters and stickers, so it was definitely a positive.

We wound up staying at Tyler's aunt's house, which was a nice taste of home for us, there was enough beds and pull out couches where we all slept in a non-homosexual fashion, and it was very hospitable.

Yesterday we played at a place called The Vollrath. Not the greatest show, but we had fun playing a lot of songs we haven't played in a long time, and haven't practiced at all, just for the fun of it. We played Braver, Nightmare Theory, Bringing Light to the Darkest of Places, and a bunch of other stuff.

Went to sleep, woke up, took showers, and now we're relaxing for the time being, and promoting tomorrow's show online.

Now I'd like to present to you....

Paul Starr's Top Ten Most Destroyed Things of SVM's "Awakening" Summer Tour.

10. Chris Strykker's Cellphone - "Goddamnit fuck this thing!" as he aggrivatedly throws his cellphone at the ground, snapping it in half.
9. Paul Starr's Cellphone - A six pack later, it's found destroyed in two pieces on the floor with the inside wires ripped apart.
8. Tyler's Guitar Rig - Between the jack caving in, it being tossed around the trailer, falling on the ground, and the wireless magically stopping, it's still kicking though.
7. Tyler & Alan's Faces - One Paul Starr guitar spin later, and both tyler and alan's heads are feeling the pain.
6. The Bathroom of the Oneonta Log Cabin - 2 cases of bud light, jagermeister, and early times, and the game of "how much hotel possessions can be flushed down the toilet" ensues.
5. Joey's Mouth - Somewhere in new york by the Connecticut border, Joey decides he wants his lips pierced... twice. Of course the only one there ready to take the challenge of doing it is the dread pirate alan...
4. Our Waistlines - Tony somehow lost 5lbs, and Tyler seems to have gained that and more... Too many rodeo burgers.
3. Phantasy Concert Club, Cleveland, OH - The damn place caught on fire. You cant get much more destructive than that.
2. The Durango - Between Tyler getting on the roof and peeing on the hood to the cookie crumbs, wheels scraping against the wheel wells, gum on the carpets, stains on the seats, and 4,000+ miles added to the odometer, it's taken a beating.
1. Howard Johnson's Milford, CT - They SAID they had good wireless internet... they lied. So to repay them, they got a big fat Big Mac Pizza (ground beef, mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickles, sesame seeds, ketchup, mustard, onions on pizza dough covered in cheese)..... Where did they get it? Right between the mattresses of the two queen size beds, that's where.

Brooklyn, NY: The hometown of both myself, and Dre, we got a show at Red Star Bar in Greenpoint with Waking the Cadaver (Necromantic Records), and a few other locals, the bar was cool (2 floors with an elevator), higher end style bar, won awards for best wings in brooklyn, etc. We had a pretty good show, we played to a crowd and they enjoyed it, didnt go crazy in a pit or anything, but they enjoyed the show. We met some cool people, and got to eat some real New York pizza (which tony enjoyed thoroughly), and the next day (we had off) we hit up New York City.

We stayed in Jersey (I got like 2 hrs of sleep, especially after driving all around the city trying to get to jersey without hitting a tunnel: we have propane which is restricted in tunnels for its flammability), and went to New York City the next day. The sheer amount of shit we did in Manhattan (New York City) was just nuts. We started at 11am, by driving around the city looking for a parking spot or garage with some vacancy ANYWHERE (didnt happen, not even close), so we had to drive back to Brooklyn, park in Greenpoint, and take the subway to Manhattan. We hit up Chinatown, and ate at a place called Wo-Hop, one of the most famous restaurants there, which I used to eat at when I was so young I could barely walk. Sat at the same booth, and brought back lots of memories, the guys there even offered to put up our stickers at the restaurant since we're apparently "famous". Stuffed after walking for 45 minutes to get there and eating 2 lunches each, we headed to Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center. Watching it on TV, and seeing it live in person, is two totally different worlds, it really hits you when you're standing next to a giant crater the size of a football stadium (stadium, not field) that goes 20 floors beneath the earth's surface in a giant cavern surrounded by skyscrapers. You start actually understanding how massive of a destructive effort what happened was. Afterwards, we hit up Rockafeller center, and Joey bought a 6 dollar milkshake (which was damn good), saw Times Square (which is like the las vegas of new york city, packed full of people and lights and you barely have room to think or breathe, there was even a Toys R Us MALL. Yes, a mall which was just one big toy store. After another (shit ton) of walking, we wound up at Central Park, which we stayed at for about 2 minutes, after saying "screw this, it's 250 acres, and we're tired", and we finally headed back down the subways for another 45 minutes of riding until we wound up back on the other island (Brooklyn), back to the truck, and headed to Alan's parents house in PA.

This morning we woke up in PA, showered, shaved, and got ready for our 7 hour trek to Cleveland, Ohio, only to find that the venue we were supposed to play at was burning down as we got there.... Ok, maybe not burning down, but it was definitely on fire, with 5 fire trucks surrounding it. Needless to say, we tried to hook up with 2 other shows going on, but it didnt work out, and we are now in the outskirts of Cleveland, chilling out, and soon to be resting up for our trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and our show at The Cup and Saucer in Cincinatti, OH. Only a week and a half left of tour. It feels like forever, and still flying by at the same time, but it's definitely been an adventure so far.

-Paul-

So it's been a while since I posted an entry, we were too busy and I completely forgot that it's been so long since I've posted one. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so listen up.

Worcester, MA: Pretty much an almost dead show, but the people that were there made it worthwhile, we met another really cool band, that was pretty close to our style, as close as I think we've seen so far in that "spawn of a7x" sort of way. They played a great show, and they loved us as well. As for our set, let me just say we had a few lovely ladies that decided to get on the stage and dance and grind to our music during the set, one of them who thought for some reason neccessary to wear less clothing than jesus would approve of, and by less, I mean less than she was legally allowed to wear.... nuff said. Mass was pretty alright, some strange intersections with no stop signs or street lights and just like "what the fuck of these 6 roads do I take to go straight, and why is nobody stopping". Lovely.

Oneonta, NY: Awesome crowd, we stayed in Oneonta for two days, at a log cabin of all places... go figure, upstate new york and we stay in a log cabin. Tyler and I decided to play a game of "how much shit can we flush down the toilet before we get kicked out of the lodge", and we pretty much flushed everything we could find including the shower curtain (see pics on twitter.com/svmmusic). We wound up playing in a performing arts center, on the 2nd floor, we had a good crowd, got paid well, sold merch, and the kids loved the music. Very happy how the show turned out. Awesome.

Danbury, CT: Probably the weakest show of tour, we were the only band that brought people, and it was 4. I'm pretty sure that was the only paying customers that night, but these things happen. Really not much eventful on this one. We later went and stayed at Middleton, CT, or Milton, CT or something like that at a Howard Johnsons, did some much needed laundry for a few hours, I cleaned the truck inside and out, and the boys went shopping.

Brooklyn, NY: Damn, this is going to take a long time. I'm going to need to start a new blog entry for this one....

So a few days since I posted last on the tour diary, since then we've hit up North Carolina, played at Charlotte's Underground, and headed up to Pennsylvania and played at C-Rock Live.

Aside from having minor altercations at Charlotte's Underground, it was a pretty good show. We had some fans there, and from the door count, we seem to have brought the most people to the show (pretty cool), had some good merch sales, and played a good show. Tony somehow managed to knock over tyler's 150lb speaker cabinet while jumping on it (even though it weighs more than him), which we all had a good laugh at afterwards, and it was (unfortunately) Strykker's last show before he flew back home.

A 12 or so hour drive later, we wound up through Virginia, West Virginia, and who knows where else, in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and by mountains, I mean there are no flat roads anywhere in the state, and all the houses are built on the side of mountains. Pretty cool though, we got to stay at Alan's parents house, meet the rest of his uncles and family etc, and do some much needed laundry.

We then hit up two spots in Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.

Pittsburgh was pretty cool, our venue was right across the street from the new Penguins stadium, and by right across the street, I really mean like 20 feet from it. C-Rock live, was four floors, with a freight elevator to get from the load in (1st floor) to the staging area (4th floor), and eventually to the show area (3rd floor). Really cool was the buffet (3 different kinds of chicken wings, french fries, free soda, and free beer. None of us were expecting that, the Pittsburgh kids really enjoyed the set.

Philly on the other hand was also pretty badass, no show there, but we took the day we had off to head over to a guitar center (restock our broken gear), and check out the world's two most famous philly cheesesteak places: Pat's and Geno's. Joey and I were psyched seeing them both on travel channel and food network, and of course tyler was super psyched at anything involving food. Final Verdict: Pat's won by a landslide. Best cheesesteak in the world hands down. Even Tony (being the finicky eater that he is) enjoyed the fries.

After that we headed down the most amazing big city we've been in with skyscrapers right next to cathedrals and some of the oldest buildings in the country, saw a city with a nightlife that was actually alive for once, and made our way to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For anyone who doesn't know, that's where the famous scene from the movie Rocky was filmed with Sylvester Stallone running up the steps of the museum (of course re-enacted by Joey Blaque, which will of course appear on the tour dvd coming out this fall), and then headed off to see the liberty bell, which I can only describe with 3 words:

Heavy Fucking Metal.

Right now I'm off to bed for some much needed rest after driving the band across the state of Pennsylvania and back today. Tomorrow we'll be hitting up the Worchester, Mass area, and rocking out Tammany Hall, in appreciation of our buddy Adam D (Killswitch Engage), and being in their hometown, I'll be rocking the chops for tomorrow's show.

Also, to let everyone know, today was our bassist Alan Olshefski's birthday, so send him a message to say happy birthday.

-Paul Starr-