Just to give everyone a peak into the buffoonery that keeps us amused, well some of us. ..........
For the past however many years we've been a band, Dave has delighted in stealing Josh's lighters at every possible opportunity. As you can imagine he has ammassed quite a collection, much to Josh's irritation.
Over a year and a half ago I was made privy to the hiding space of these lighters and was rather impressed at the quantity.........
This past Sunday, Josh walked upstairs and asked Dave's cousin, Matt (who isn't party to the constant disappearing lighter prank) and Matt proceded to tell Josh he knew where there were quite a few. The ungodly amount in the picture (under "lighters" in the photo albums) is only a fraction that Josh recovered.
I know, retarded........enjoy.

October 13, 2008. 9:23am- 20 miles outside of Nashville TN, still driving home. 8 hrs. to go.

Friday in a nutshell was just a complete and utter nerve racking experience up to and including the set until about 10 minutes after. Nobody felt great about the set due to space, sound and venue. We were essentially out of our element, and we felt it to our very core. If I get rattled by absolutely anything before a set I cannot get in the right headspace to perform, but in this case I did what I had to do; sometimes you have to just put your head down and plow, just get the fucking job done to the best of your abilities despite any barriers. We did the set with no real mistakes, felt just OK, used the cramped stage to its utmost and hoped for the best, again, forgetting that this was our brainchild to play live for the guy, having already sold him on the music and not really having to prove anything. Regardless of how good we may have done, It just felt no good, not to mention I was watching Ivan's face the whole time and could tell (or so I thought) that he was completely unimpressed. When we got off stage I went over and thanked both Ivan and Guy for coming and slunk off outside to decide what bottle I'd prefer to crawl into after annihilating our chances with this label.  The things I didn't take into consideration though, was that, although it didn't feel good to us, we were getting a favorable response the whole time and we were definitely not this crowds cup of tea, but we turned them around………………I went back in to lick my wounds and say goodbye when I fell into the conversation that somehow we had miraculously impressed Ivan for the same reason I just said, he watched us take a fairly insurmountable situation and turn it to our advantage, lemons to lemonade. He said he understood the limitation we were dealing with but saw past it. So what seemed like a definite defeat turned into a victory. Ivan and Guy both hung out for the rest of the night, we all talked a lot and made an appointment to get together the next day and discuss the good and the bad and the plan to move forward. We had planned to go to South Beach that night after the show but didn't end up going because nobody had the energy they thought they would due to the exhaustive drive. To top off the night we were implored by our buddies in Mindsite to hit Pete (the owner and all around cool motherfucker) up for a little gas money, to which he asked, "Is $300 enough?" Well fuck yes it was considering we weren't expecting anything. Plus to top that off Pete asked us to play at his St. Patrick's Day bash on an outside stage with no less than 4000 people in attendance for a very nice chunk of change. Nice enough to subsidize a short spring tour of the south east……………

Dave and I got up early the next morning and went for a swim in the apartment complex pool, which was completely empty at 9:30 on a Saturday morning…….? We had a tentative time to meet Ivan later that day so we went and had breakfast then went to South Beach to meet up with Guy and his wife to wait for Ivan to call.  South Beach might as well be on another fucking planet. For anybody who has been there, this is rather obvious yet hard to explain, opulence mixed with desperation I guess you could say. We had a good day hanging with Guy and his wife, they had to take off at 4 and Ivan still hadn't called so they left, saying that they would see us at the evenings show in West Palm Beach, about an hr. and 15 north. By this time we had seen everything South Beach had to offer during the day (not sure I would've wanted to witness what it had to offer at night) so we went and had sushi and decide to head back to get ready for the show. We decided to give Ivan a call and stop by the studio. He had had a hectic day and was just finishing up when we called. We intended ..ping only for a couple minutes to see what he needed us to do next. We ended up staying for almost an hour, talking about the good and the bad as he had suggested. There was really no bad from what I heard, only constructive criticism, which, coming from him, was great. This guy has worked with HUGE artists; he signed Christina Aguilera for Christ's sake. The producer we will be working with has worked with U2, need I say more? Point is when this guy tells you your strengths and weaknesses, you fucking listen intently. And we did, we left feeling pretty good about ourselves, feeling like we accomplished what came to do.

It was close to 8 by the time we left Ivan's. We had to get back to the apartment (30min.),Get changed and ready for the show(another 3o), travel to the venue (1 Hr. and 15min), get loaded in (20min)and be able to chill for a minute and have a drink before having to set up (another 20). The math gets pretty tight at a certain point so we were obviously hauling ass to get there with enough time to get everything done.

The venue was close to empty when we arrived, right before the first band was set to go on, so, tempting fate even more, Josh and I decided to go check into the hotel 15 minutes away, after we loaded in of course. We arrived back in enough time to walk to a taco stand one parking lot over from the club, big mistake. The tacos were completely and utterly delicious and I contemplated having 3 more but thought better of it. When we got back to the club I ordered my drink of choice, Redbull and Absolut, and settled in for the next band as my acidic elixir blended terribly with my recently masticated culinary delight. The club filled in a little more and by the time we were set to play my stomach felt like a pool of molten lava. It was so bad I could hardly concentrate to play and had more than my share of mistakes because of it. Luckily Guy didn't show because of a babysitter issue. The bitch of it is, this venue was the exact opposite of the previous nights' accommodations and it looked like it would be a great show; huge stage, Great sound, good lights and what appeared to be a rock crowd. Truth be told, none of it mattered and it was quite the contradiction because just as we had turned a complacent crowd to our favor the night before, we could have set ourselves on fire in this perfect setting and not gotten so much as a clap out of these people. I'm sure it wasn't quite this terrible, but being my own worst critic and taking everything for less than face value, it sure felt like it.

We sold a couple of discs, hung just long enough to decide the hotel was a more happening place to be, loaded up, got paid (surprisingly) and got the fuck out.  Dave and Josh went down to the pool and hung out for a bit and told me they had a pretty cool gym when they came back, so I got up in the morning and got dressed and went down to work out. I'm not sure what their idea is of a pretty cool gym is but there was a stationary bike, a treadmill, an elliptical and a stair stepper, none of which I use. So the workout schedule was a wash on this trip. Went back up, got Dave, ate breakfast and went for a swim. Got loaded up and started the 25 hour trek home. Stopped so everyone else could eat breakfast and discussed stopping at a beach so we could snorkel in the ocean for a little bit. Everyone seemed to think that since it was raining now it would be raining all day, nothing could be further from the truth; it will storm 5 ft. from you and you'll never feel a drop, it will also rain like hell for 2 minutes then the sun will come out.

We headed north and decided to stop when it cleared off. We stopped at Jensen Beach about 2 hrs. Later, snorkeled and collected shells for the kids. Only after we got to Josh's aunts a couple of hours after leaving the beach did we find out that Jensen Beach was the 2 beach for shark attacks in Florida. Luckily that's in June during mating season.

I already covered stopping at Josh's aunt and uncles but let me reiterate how cool and welcoming they were; Awesome people to say the least.

The ride home was fairly uneventful. We talked a lot about what Ivan had said and how we were going to implement the changes. People had different opinions and pissed others off but, all in all, it was a moral victory, we all feel like we are on the same team and working towards something tangible. IF things go as planned it will be the ultimate vindication, if not for anything other than to stick up the hater's asses. You know who you are……….and the funny thing is, you read the whole thing.

October 12, 2008. 9:08- Newbacca, Back on the road. 21 hrs. to go

Just left Josh's aunt and uncle's house. They invited us for dinner on our way home. Unbelievably gracious hosts, made us a huge dinner, really opened their homes to us. His aunt even packed us sandwiches and a ton of other food for the ride home. Great people.

Back to Friday night; we get the set times figured out, the house band was very cool and hooked us up. We settled in and hung for a minute.

 Our lawyer, who we had not met in the flesh yet, had come out to see us as well as greet Ivan, our prospective label president. It's an interesting thing to finally have a face to put with a voice that you've spoke to a million times. You form a certain mental picture of someone and it's odd when the reality doesn't match up, not like it ever does…….

So the situation could have been worse for this gig but not by much; the stage was tiny, the sound system was less than what we are used to, we were playing in what was essentially a sports bar/restaurant where the patrons couldn't give a fuck about a band, which, ultimately, unbeknownst to us, worked in our favor. More on this later.

October 12, 2008. 5:38pm- In Newbacca, Somewhere near Orlando, Headed north

Got in Friday around 5pm after a very fucking long drive. Stayed with Josh's friend Jesse who lives in Pembrook Pines where our first nights show was. Set up shop, went and got food, showered, tried to nap to no avail, finally gave up and headed to the club around 8:30 to get set up. The bar (J.P. Mulligan's) was attached to a hockey rink with a Plexiglas window down the center of the building so patrons could watch local hockey teams go at it while they ate. The bar staff was very cool and accommodating. We were originally supposed to play on the house bands equipment (which was the ultimate in suck considering we were showcasing for a record label) but when we showed they told us we could use our equipment so we loaded in. There were slight problems with set times at first but the house band was very cool and let us go on when we needed to. This could've turned into a huge problem (and I've been told to leave this out) but somebody was trying to be difficult for no real reason and was quickly dismissed by the people who were much more understanding. This person went on to be a bitch for the rest of the night but everyone was having too good of a time to pay them the attention they were so desperately seeking.  

I don't know if everyone was, but I was certainly on edge about whether the record label was going to show at all, only because the sole reason for this (expensive ass) trip was to showcase for them and they've been notorious for being hard to get ahold of and very busy, understandably so. We had gotten confirmation that he would be there and even talked to him as we were leaving Indiana and were reassured he would be there.

On top of being on edge about that there was the obvious pressure of being able to impress the guy when he actually got there…….

Sub Story; we almost fucked ourselves on this deal a little very early on. We received the proposal in May (I promptly lost my job shortly thereafter) we had our lawyer look it over and he said it was a pretty solid contract so we decide to accept the proposal. When we initially talked with the label they said they'd like to meet face to face so we could gauge the others personality to decide whether we could actually work together, not a bad idea…….Now here's the part where we nearly screw the pooch; We collectively (so as not to put this on any one member) had the genius idea that we'd like to really seal the deal by not just meeting but playing for the label. Now, the guy was already sold on our music but we felt the strength of our live show would really blow the guy away, What the thought process behind this was for us I'm not terribly sure but he agreed and offered to have the show booked for us. What we found out later was the booking agent was not a employee of this label and was only a friend doing a favor, well, we all know how that works out most of the time and as luck would have it, the friend/booking agent flaked. This conversation took place in July and we lost contact with the label up until about 3 weeks ago. So, in the meantime we were kicking ourselves in the ass thinking we should've just went down and met the guy and sealed the deal, thinking we somehow fucked up. The reality was that the label and its studios were moving and it was a long process for which our contact was out of reach for most of.  When we finally got word from the label again it was to say why they were out of reach and that we could book a show and be certain of priority, so we pulled a rabbit out of the hat and booked 2 shows in less than a week and let them know when we'd be down...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Anyhow…..So there we were with this superficial pressure put on us by nobody but ourselves as we had already secured the contract on the strength of our music and this whole 'live showcase', that was our own invention, only succeeded in frazzling us.

October 10, 2008- 8:09am.  Somewhere near Ocalla, Florida in Newbacca.  Six hours north of our destination.

We crossed the Ohio River in Louisville, KY around sunset last night. Been on the road almost nonstop since 1:30pm yesterday, stopping only for gas and once for food. Somewhere around our forth stop for gas we realized it we had horribly miscalculated our MPG as we had allotted $360 one way and we were already up to $425 with 6 hrs. Of travel still to go. It's a damn good thing gas had come down roughly 50 cents to a dollar in last week or we'd be even more fucked. It's a much better thing that superfan Rick decided to take Randy's spot when Randy dropped out of the trip as he was going to pay for gas one way and Rick picked up the slack. These two things saved our ass; we only had a certain amount of money and it would've been gone before we had a chance to make it home.

Stopped to use the bathrooms at a rest stop after a delicious Wacarnold's brefess. Decided to change one of the trailer tires because the wear from the first 1000 miles has made the tread crack on one of the tires and the other is almost bald. We are now in search of a place to buy another trailer tire.

It's suppose to storm the entire time we are here although it seems like it might clear up now, but being right on the ocean where we will soon be the weather can change from hour to hour.

The Year in review-07..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

So much has happened this year that I'm bound to forget something so I'll apologize in advance. Feel free to comment anything you feel should be included and I will try to squeeze it in.

2007 was a huge year for signal. It's very humbling to look back and see all we've accomplished this year alone. It's honestly such a blur I don't know where to start….I'll try chronologically if my memory will function;

JANUARY-Dave goes to NAMM, makes quite a few contacts, gets some endorsements, but most importantly, meets Alesandro DeGaetano, director and producer extraordinaire of cult horror movies.  Dave was able to get Alesandro to give our demo a listen and he liked it so much that he wanted to use some of the songs in his upcoming romantic thriller, Neowolf.  Throughout the year we worked on contracts to include "Prove", "Utopia" and "Something to Say" in the film. We recently got to see an advanced screening of the new movie and were very impressed with the final product. This movie is slated for a March '08 release, so get to your local Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and bug their ass to order it.

January was also the month we got to play the Merrillville Star Plaza Theatre for the Midwest Beat's 'Region Rumble'. We were 1 of 8 handpicked bands that got to rock this amazing stage. The big names that have played this venue is nothing short of awe inspiring, so to have been able to play where they played, well, I run out of adjectives to even begin to describe it. We felt fortunate to be included.

FEBRUARY-We get word we have won runner up for 'Favorite Regional Metal/Heavy Act' in Midwest Beat Magazine's 2006 reader's poll. We get a mention in the March issue of the magazine and are invited to an awards ceremony where we are presented our award by none other than "Sister Mary" of Queensryche fame. This really meant alot to us, as we were chosen by THE FANS!  A big thanks to everyone who made this possible by casting their vote.

We also competed in a battle of the bands at Famous Freddies in Mt. Prospect, IL, and made it to the next round.

We appear on the cover of Midwest Beat Magazine.

MARCH- We film two videos on two consecutive nights. The first on a Friday at Club Fever in South Bend, IN for the song "Utopia". The second on Saturday at Clancy's in Portage, IN for the song "Invited". We extended the invite to all of our fans to make these videos special and they delivered.

We are invited by Vance McNabb, Saliva's road manager, to Indianapolis to hang with the band at their stop at The Vogue. Vance was instrumental in hooking us up with Ten Star Entertainment and ultimately, getting us to Atlanta, GA to work with Corey Lowery. For this we owe him a debt of gratitude. He is one in a long line of cool people we have met this year that believe in the band and have lended a helping hand.

APRIL- We play the second round of the Famous Freddies Battle of the Bands, we lose. There was really nothing else for April, so this was the most eventful happening of the month. Keep in mind that through all these highlights we are playing at least twice every weekend, traveling to the ends of the earth, so when I say a month was uneventful, we weren't sitting at home thumbing our asses, we were still grinding it out.

MAY-We play Cheer's 25^th Anniversary. This was a great opportunity to honor THE bar that has always embraced original music in the South Bend area. If it weren't for Cheer's the South Bend music scene would be virtually non-existent.

We are invited by our sponsor, Jagermeister to play the Jager Mobile Stage at the South Bend stop of the Cannonball Run. While the turnout wasn't that great, we made an important contact at this show in Jack Carson. Jack was very impressed by our set and actually called Adam Grayer (Jagermeister Music Director) and said he was quitting unless we were given several dates on the Jagermeister Fall Music Tour. True Story……of course he was joking, but, he went to bat for the band and that's something we won't soon forget. Jack is one of the coolest guys you'll ever want to meet and I have a feeling he'll be in our corner for quite some time.

We were asked to open for Papa Roach at Club Fever. Great show, good time.

JUNE- We share the stage with Brian Blush of Refreshments fame ("Banditos" anybody?) at The Backstage Grill in South Bend, IN. This meant more to me than the rest of the band as The Refreshments 'Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big and Buzzy' is one of my top ten desert island discs. We met Brian through a mutual friend in April and had been helping him get some shows in the area. In return he helped us with ideas for our promo packs and offered to share some contacts.  Not only has Brian become indispensable in signal's evolution, he has also become a good friend.

We debut our video for "Utopia" at Backstage Grill in South Bend, IN.

We were asked to participate in The State Theatre's Battle of the Bands. We made it to the finals and took 3^rd place. We have since had a falling out with the hypocritical pseudo-christian assholes that decided to pass judgment on us after using us for ticket sales.

While I'm on FUCK YOUS, June was the month that we parted ways with the infinitely worthless Elton Boch. Without getting into too much detail, Elton had gotten us a couple cool shows so we decided to let him book our tour. Long story short, he booked a bunch of bullshit shows that were completely fictitious and would have gotten him beaten had I not thought to call and confirm his shows, which were never actually booked. So, Fuck You Elton….. As you can see, not everything newsworthy is pleasant.

JULY-We embark on our first self financed, self booked and self promoted tour. July was a huge month for signal. We left with little money in our pocket, lived 6 deep in a van for 8 days, and survived. Every venue we played booked us back before we left for the next town; we gained new fans in every town and pushed into a couple of new markets. We added Missouri to our list of states played. Turnouts were a little sparse in certain towns but the people that did show up really took care of us and we are eternally grateful to these people. Mike, Melissa and Dave from Springfield. The guys at the tattoo shop…….. Jansen and friends from Mt. Pulaski. Diggs and 'Slash' from WQLZ in Springfield for the 2 sweet interviews. Mike from Bloomington.The staff of the Lincoln Hotel, sorry for the mess, and the defiling of your coat closet……..I'm really rackin my brain to try to remember everybody, please email me and cuss me out for forgetting and I will add you……We met a lot of cool people and I'd be hard pressed to remember them all but they were all equally important to our survival on the road.

July was also the month of our first physical altercation between 2 members of the band. For anybody who knows us, they were surprised it took this long for it to happen, but it's a real testament to the brotherhood of the band that this was quickly forgiven and forgotten.

It was around this time that we first made contact with someone who has made themselves a truly integral and irreplaceable part of the signal team; Guy Strempack of My Music Law Firm. Guy has helped us with all our contracts and steered us clear of many a pitfall. He is our personal Johnny Cochran and has proved himself to be a junkyard dog with the bands best interest in mind. Guy has given freely of his time and really believes in the band and we love him for it.

AUGUST-We begin talks with Ten Star Entertainment to have Corey Lowery produce 2 of our songs in Atlanta, GA.

We play FreakFest in South Bend, IN and make contact with Andrea Alexander, a Notre Dame grad with a CPA that offers to try to get investors for our Atlanta trip. Another great person that gives freely of her time because of her belief in the band.

Steve and Dave go to Ozzfest and hang in the Jager VIP area at the invite of Jack Carson. They meet Randy Blythe of Lamb of God.

SEPTEMBER-We receive our promo packs and go about plans of where and who to send them to.

We travel to Kentucky (making Kentucky our 5^th state played) for the clusterfuck of the Gateway Fest. We actually did play acoustically, but for more details of this debacle read the blog "Fuck The Nappy Roots".

OCTOBER-We are featured artist of the week on five7four.com.

We travel to Atlanta, doing the ironman drive straight through, to have Corey Lowery of Dark New Day, Stuck Mojo and Stereomud fame, produce 2 songs; "Love and Violence" and the  song that was "Stitches" that turned into "Living a Lie". We get our asses kicked around and handed to us, do preproduction and full studio recording in 4 days in a whirlwind of a trip. All in all, we have a great time and learn a lot in our first rock and roll boot camp. Everyone really stepped up to the plate and delivered the goods under pressure and we were all proud of this accomplishment. Corey is one of the coolest motherfuckers you'd want to meet and I feel he will be an important addition to the signal team……….  We were going to try to stop in each state we went through so we could say we played there but we didn't end up having time. We tried to set up some shows during our stay in Atlanta but it didn't pan out, so we weren't able to add Georgia as our 6^th state played.

NOVEMBER-We play 3 dates on the Jagermeister Music Tour as guests of The Cult. Dates include The Orbit Room, Grand Rapids, MI. The Fillmore (formerly The State Theatre) Detroit, MI. (our first time playing in Motown) and The House of Blues in Cleveland, OH. Making Ohio our 6^th state played. Jack Carson was true to his word and really delivered for us. We had a great time and met some cool people, one of which was Brian 'Wookie' Wolk. Wookie was Billy Duffy's guitar tech as well as the stage manager for the tour. He welcomed us warmly, implying I was gay for playing Paul Reed Smith guitars, and really made us feel at home. We plan on hanging with him at NAMM in January.

DECEMBER-We play at The Double Door in Chicago, IL for the first time.

We are interviewed and featured as 'Artist of the Month' on SoBendt.com

We are invited to submit a song for the 2008 edition of The Jagermeister Music Sampler. We conduct a fan survey and decide to include "Love and Violence" for this disc. With a circulation of at least 50,000, it promises to expose us to a larger audience than we've had the opportunity to have hear us.

2007 was a big year for signal and 2008 promises to be even bigger. We spent 2007 making contacts and putting plans in place to push signal to the next level in 2008. We are starting out the new year by taking 2 months off to focus on writing some new songs; we were so busy in 2007 we were only able to churn out 6 new songs. 2007 was also the first year that we didn't have an official release, something we hope to remedy by summer '08. We are currently booking heavily to start gigging again in March………see you on the road!

12:39am, July 6^th Springfield, IL-Back at the hotel. Just played Capital City Bar and Grill. Very cool venue. Played with 2 other bands, local bands at that. How fucking pathetic is it that there was more people there for us than the 2 other bands put together, which wouldn't be a hard feat considering they brought NOFUCKINGBODY. We are from 5 hours away and we managed to bring more people than a local band??? How the fuck does that work. The PA was so bad that we were considering just saying fuck it but the bar had already fed us, so we figured we should probably do a few to sing for our supper, so to speak. The bar owner was very cool and really took care of us. Maybe because he knew there wasn't going to be a very good turnout.  Enough bitching. Sitting here at the hotel, eating bullshit because theres no place open to get anything to eat. We actually had the girl we stayed with the last time we were in town show up tonite. Kinda funny because  I've been trying to get ahold of her forever because we sent 10 discs down for her to put in her uncle's record store, which sold very quickly but we never saw the money. The reason this really sucked is because I wanted to send down copies of the new discs because I knew they were  in demand but I wasn't going to lose more money. Well, she showed up tonite waving $50 high in the air. We also had one of the bartenders from the St. Louis gig drive 2 hours up to see us again. Our Bro, Dave (with the cabin) came out again. So we cultivate loyalty if anything. We Managed to get almost 3 songs out before the PA took a complete shit. So we stopped, packed it in, drank up the rest of our drink tickets, listened to about 30 seconds of the 3^rd band, and dipped the fuck out. So I plan on finishing this, setting my alarm so I can get up and workout, swim and eat some breakfast at the hotel……..which brings up an interesting point I wanted to touch on; I always read about the debauchery that ensues with road bands and I feel  we've maybe let some of our blog readers down because we haven't had the antics that you may expect from a touring act. There is a reason Motley Crue's 'The Dirt' is so popular. BUT, we've had a pretty tame journey thus far, all apologies.

2:01am- sitting in the same spot. Just got done watching a bunch of Danzig/ Misfits shot on YouTube because I'm having a rare bout with insomnia this evening, everyone else is sleeping. I checked signal's myspace mail one last time before I attempt to get some sleep and it seems we have an on air radio interview on WQLZ Springfield tomorrow at 3:30. Very cool………..Good night and good luck..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

10:57 July 5^th, Springfield, IL, Sittin in front of Dave's pond (not our drummer), Stayed here last night in a cabin, no plumbing, but, again, not the van stacked with dudes, so , no complaints. Springfield people have really taken care of us these last few days. There was absoluety nobody at the show yesterday, aside from actual bikers and skaters, except the hardcore signal fans: about 7 or 8, but hey, that's how you start; grassroots. Those 7 or 8 people have turned so many other people onto our music, and that's what it's all about. 

This show was a fucking sweat fest, I thought I was gonna just melt into a puddle it was so fucking hot. We forged ahead and did the show we would've done wheather there was 5 or 5,000. Playing on the ramp was cool, some guy was shredding the whole time we were playing. He was just there to skate but I heard him voicing his very loud approval of our music several times, very cool, another fan. We came to terms with the fact that we weren't going to make shit off of the door but had haopes of maybe selling some merch; didn't happen. This show was a bust financially and we kind of knew it would be but we couldn't let down the fans that did show and just call it, and we seriously were considering sayin 'fuck it' before they showed up.

4:32 same day, same city, The President Abraham Lincoln Hotel. We decided to treat ourselves and not worry about trying to sleep in the heat tonite. So I just got out of the pool/hot tub/ sauna for the second time today. The last 2 shows were a contradiction of our living situation; We played Monday in St. Louis and made out from the door and merch and slept in the van the previous night. Now we're sittin in a nice posh hotel and we didn't make shit yesterday, kinda funny. Hopefully tonite will go good, somehow. We have decided to play, Jammies feelin better so we're gonna go for it.

Anyhow, Yesterdays show sucked, but I must include all the cool ass Sprinfeild folks that are making our stay a whole lot more comfortable. Let me just preface this by saying, 3 things matter on the road; 1. SLEEP, 2. SHOWER, 3. And most important, GOOD FOOD. So if you have a band that you love coming through your town and you have access to any of these 3 things to offer, please, by all means, OFFER. You will have the eternal gratitude of your favorite band.  You ave no idea how important these basic amenities are to someone who doesn't have regular use of them.  Onto the cool motherfuckers that have done right by us:

1.       Mike and Melissa Reed ; after the show last night they invited us over to dinner. They put out a righteous ass spread and welcomed us into their home. Very fucking cool….they also said we are welcome any time we are in town, good to know

2.       Nicole/Peyton A.K.A. Slash; She was the DJ that interviewed us on Monday for our shows in town. She also extended the invite to use her shower and hang at her house, that subsequently we didn't take her up on. I guess it was cool to have too many options. She also brought us snacks and an ugly monkey the next night.

3.       Janson and friends; I feel bad because I couldn't and still can't remember his friend's name (I'm bad about that, sorry) I know his mom was Lana, she hired us to do the Mount Pulaski Fall Fest. So, I suck for having a bad memory. Anyhow, they brought their girlfriends and invited us back to Pulaski to swim (which I was all about) after the show. We ended up going to eat and kinda crashing out at Dave's cabin. So we suck because they really wanted to hang and we shit out.

4.       Dave Staley; Dave came to the show with a CD of pics he had taken a year earlier when  we were last in Springfield at Viele's Planet (now closed)  He also extended the invite to say at his cabin that was pretty fat, it had a pond with huge fucking fish in it right out the front door. So We stayed at the cabin last night,grilled out and fished a little in the morning. Dave actually kicked his son out of the cabin. The cabin doubled as his room, poor guy. Dave was very cool and said we could stay anytime also.

I think that covers yesterday for the most part. I'm gonna take a fucking nap before the show. The rest of the guys are taking off to promote a little more. We went down to the fireworks and passed out a couple hundred sample CD's last nite. There was a shitload of people, so hopefully someone will be at the show tonite, we were promoting for Fridays show because we weren't sure we were playing tonite. So we might've screwed ourselves for tonite……..goin to sleep now

One last quick note; These blogs are being posted on the signal site (as well as Steve's site) but are being written solely by Steve, the guitar player, who has gotten in trouble on occasion for being over-opinionated. So this is one persons perspective of this journey. I have an abrassive writing style at times that's not appreciatted by all. So, just a cautionary disclaimer. Don't hold anything said in these blogs against the band……..or do, whatever, nobody else wants to write them, but wants them written, so fuck em, hold them responsible too.

12:43pm Wednesday, July 4^th  Springfield, IL, the Ghetto Mcdonalds. Got into town about 11am, checked out the 'venue'. I use the term loosely because its in a tiny skatepark and we are playing on top of a ramp, at 3pm no less. Not complaining, it's just a less than ideal situation for a gig, but it could come off pretty decent depending on turnout. We usually have good luck with the all ages shows, and as we have played out this way before, hopes are high. The only thing that could fuck us as far as turnout is the holiday. If kids havta go with their parents out of town or whatnot it might not be that good of  a show. Keeping fingers crossed.

Ate some Subway (endorsement please) Dave was recognized, walking through the parking lot, by the same guy that recognized us last time we were here right after the Staind show. Kinda weird, kinda cool too. It was actually a husband and wife that has kept in steady contact with us since then, so, they'll for sure be at one of the shows.  Now we are hanging at the McD's because we thought they had free WiFi (you gotta pay for that shit son!) Also because it's hotter than fuck outside and Jammie needs some hot tea for his throat; the sleep deprivation and medical ailments have taken their toll on him, we may have to cancel tomorrows show. I really hope not, because what's the point of bein out here and enduring the boredom if you aren't gonna get to tear it down for at least 1 hour out the 24 to break up the monotany………….

Last night in St. Louis was a pretty good show. I don't think we played all that well,played on a tiny stage, not a big crowd, sound wasn't great, but OK…… but we sold a shitload of merch, hung out with a lot of cool people and paved the way for a much bigger return show. Met  a promoter that came out to see us and was impressed and wants to work with us, she seems on the up and up and offered to match us up a show in Spetember when we come back down so we can hit 2 shows after a 7 hr drive instead of 1, give us a chance to make a little more money for gas. She seems to have some good connects and has offered to hook us up with some of the bigger drawing bands in the area for bigger visibility. Went back to Dave's sisters and slept, morning came much too fast. We had to get on the road to make the early show. Dave's sister (Carla) and her husband (Brian) were gracious hosts and even bought a shitload of Panera bagels for us for breakfast, made us coffee and Juice. They said we were welcome back  any time, which is cool because St. Louis seems like a good scene to make a regular stop.

 So, everyone got a shower and a decent nights rest, god knows when we will get that again so we savored it and headed off to Springfield IL, where we will be for the next 3 days. I hope someone has a swimming pool…….and someplace to stay with some AC. I can't imagine sleeping in that van with this heat. The weather at nite hasn't been that unbearable for the most part. Maybe we will have to break down and go in on a hotel room……..

I'm just glad to be out here, distancing ourselves further (and I cetainly don't mean just in miles) from the bands and people that hate us for doing what we have the balls to do……………It's so humorous to me because we aren't doing anything they can't do too. We apparently believe in ourselves a litte more to be able to take the leap. Fuck em all in their hating asses, you know who you are……………..insist upon yourself...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

4:34pm July 3^rd- St. Louis, Missouri, Cruisin Route 66 Bar and grill. Everything has been a blur of sleeplessness, endless driving and downtime. From Saturday til today has feels like one long continuous day. We were supposed to get a shower in Muncie yesterday but that kind of fell through, so everyone is not only irritable from no sleep but from having sweaty, dirty asses, which always goes well when your'e crammed in a van with 5 other guys. We all played a decent, and rather long, set last nite for not having practiced in a week. We had a moderate turnout for a Monday night and had everyone's attention and a good response. The set was broadcast through a webcam on fmmusiclive.com, which I thought was cool. We sent out a bulletin letting everyone know  that they'd be able to watch it but, for whatever reason, it didn't work like we were told and just ended up sending out still shots every couple of minutes. This has all been a little bit of a shock to our systems with all the sleep deprivation and such but nothing we aren't embracing wholeheartedly because we are crash coursing what we love to do and how we want to do it: taking it to a different city every night.With all the bullshit involved it isn't any more stressfull than your boss at work comin down on you , so, all in all, a fair trade I'd make in a minute.

We rolled in to St. Louis around 9am, went to Dave's sisters hoping to be able to chill a bit and shower, only to find she wasn't home and somehow Dave seemed to remember she had to work….Of course she had to fucking work, doesn't everybody?..FUCK!....anyhow. So we touched base with the bar, a very cool bunch of people by any measure, very welcoming and hospitable. We get free food and the are also a restaurant so they were open early enough so we could hang, and the food didn't suck either. Wed decided to see the sites and made our way downtown, which was an adventure unto itself; this city is so fucking expansive it is very easy to get lost, turned around and find yourself in the ghetto, and to top it all off, the Magellan has decided to freak the fuck out on us so it was little help, if any. We finally made it downtown after much craziness, got to check out the giant arch ($10 to go up into it that nobody had to spend), walked arund downtown and through some fair type thing where the goo goo dolls are playing tonite ( bodes very well for our turnout) and headed back to the bar where we (I) gorged ourselves on some of the best food we had eatein in the last couple of days. Just kind of chillin out, waiting to go back to Dave's sisters to shower, hopefully catch a few Z's before the show and drive through to Springfield where we have to play at 2 in the afternoon.

8:39pm Tuesday, July 3^rd, Back at the bar. Got a shower, feel almost human again . Walked down to the gas station and bought a huge ice cream snickers bar and some rolaid; this not eating them over eating has fucked my stomach up something fierce.  I guess we are planning on staying now that we found out Springfield is only 2 hrs. away. The original plan was to leave from here right after the show since we had to play so early, now we'll just get up early and head out. So we will actually get to sleep in a bed tonite, at least dave and I, we had the fore thought to call dibs on the 2 extra beds inside. The van hasn't been too bad at nite so there'll be 2 less in there tonite. Waiting to go on, we got put on last, which is only 11pm (early start, week night 8pm) , but still you don't usually stick an out of town band last. I'm not about to complain though, these people have been great to us. It really opens your eyes when you go to different citys, especially the last 2 we've been to, Muncie and St. Louis, They're such huge music towns, so supportive of original music, they treat musicians with respect, feed you, pay you (somewhat) Kind of like the way I imagined Chicago would be but was dead wrong. It's such a different vibe all together. I'm not about to trash Chicago bars but the only thing they're interested in is 1. If you're cool or trendy OR 2. How many people you can bring. And they pay you so fucked up, treat you like a bother and couldn't really give 2 fucks about you, let's not even get into coming off some drinks or some food for and an out of town band that they're going to send away with not even enough money to pay for gas……..Oh, I said I wasn't going to trash them didn't I? Oh well, they're not all that way but most. Its's so much more than that though; the reason I feel like we've been treated so well by these other bars in different towns is that they seem to really give a fuck about the actual music, not just getting people into their bar (which I understand is important also)……Last nite we were offered a second gig after the bar owner heard our sound check AND he promised to put us on with drawing bands to optimize our exposure, very cool. On the flip side but from the same idea, we just watched the opening band get cut short, because, quite frankly, they sucked. I probably shouldn't put it so bluntly but noone was enjoying them and the bar owner yanked them, that's a completely objective point of view, sorry. Anyway, waiting to play, seems like it might be a good turnout. Looking forward to an actual bed in something that doesn't rock back and forth.