Hello from the road,
We're about a week into our Summer DisasTOUR and it has been a very
interesting adventure. The shows are going surprisingly well, in spite
all of the broken guitars, broken bones, and broken plans the earth can
throw at us in one short week.
Because of 1000 fun and not-fun distractions, it has been quite a while since we had enough time to get to a computer....
Scott wrote the following passage on Tuesday, somewhere in between St. Simon's Island and Daytona Beach:
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
If the offensive odor of a paper mill
won't motivate my lazy hung-over ass the persistence of a hotel clerk
will definitely get asses out of beds. Its 1:06 and I'm in the death
throes of my worst hangover so far. We're cruising along the golden
isles of Georgia on the way to Daytona Beach, FL. I haven't been to
Florida since Disney world when I was 12. Totally looking forward to
another state and making some new friends. Last night was a great time.
Rafter's Blue in St. Simon's Island is a venue we'd like to revisit.
A cool older place with a healthy bar, two rooms, great sound and banging
BBQ tucked upstairs from the typical storefronts of a beach town. I
want to play there on a weekend night. I woke up at 11:26, crusty eyes
opened to familiar faces, nearly a half hour late for check out and
ready for another night of jamming. Contemplating the lovely tanned
sexy women of FL…my white ass baked in a Georgia parking lot…
As we backed out of the hotel parking
lot there was a disturbing sound... someone had left the back doors
of the van open and Shane backed over his back-up guitar! It is fucked.
No more backup guitar. Shep left his sandals at the venue. Brandon is
licking his wounds from the devilish rocks at Folly Beach in Charleston,
SC, and all I want is a bloody mary and a double cheeseburger.
Can't wait to see you all.
Thanks for reading,
Scott Birch, on behalf of Cougar Magnum
====================
Back to now......
The show in
Daytona went very well. The Ocean Deck is a slamming bar. We played
with a cool band In My Words, whose drummer Aaron Hearst let us crash
at his house in Orlando after we rocked to a hookah-mellowed crowd at
the Meridian Hookah Lounge.
Tonight we are in Tampa, about to rock another location of the Meridian Hookah Louge. We're excited.
----Just want to take a moment to recognize the hard work that two very important members of our touring party have been doing:
Cat Strandberg - She
has a phone in her ear constantly, working, pushing, making connections
for us. She is doing more work than anyone could ever ask for. We are
so thankful to have her on this tour with us. She really earns the
term "Tour Manager."
Jim Schaeffer -
We asked Jim to come with us on this tour with only 36 hours notice.
He said yes and instandly assimilated into our weird little family.
Suffering a near-concussion in Charleston, and a lobster-like sunburn
in Daytona, Jim remains the most organized and hard working member of
this group. With a background in lights, he has been running our sound
when needed, filling our mailing list every night, carrying stuff that
takes two of us weak band members to haul by himself, and generally
keeping us in line and level-headed day and night.
==================
For Tonight, We are lucky enough to
shack up with one of my best high school friends, Jon Scott and his
cool-ass roommate Hugo. We got 3 days off in this area. I heard
Clearwater Beach is a badass place to chill.....
Happy 4th of July. Thanks for reading.
Sending 4000 smiles,
Brandon and the entire Cougar Magnum Team