Hey everybody, I was meaning to start this blog the whole time that we were on tour, and I kept forgetting but I figure a blog that retraces our steps is better than no blog at all. So anyway we're back in Indianapolis and we're going to start planning our next tour soon, for this summer, and we'll probably do a couple of short weekend jaunts in the meantime. So here's an account of our travels:
Jan. 1st- Steve, alison and I (adam) drove down to nashville to meet paul at his parents' house and get their volvo to take on tour. We encountered crazy snow all the way down on and off until we got into tennessee. Then we practiced and whatnot and played in nashville on the 2nd with happy birthday amy and jared micah and hats. The sound man/owner i believe of the place we played (the end) was kind of a crazy guy. He was a fairly large fellow and spoke in 3 second bursts in which he said about 100 words each time so we could barely understand anything he said. But the show went well, a lot of paul's friends came out, and the other bands were good and nice, to us.
jan 3rd- we headed to little rock in the morning and realised that, next to brooklyn, arkansas has the shittiest roads imaginable. But we made it to the venue nonetheless. When we got there one of the other bands was there, the memphis pencils (good happy indiepop) but the guys who put the show on wasnt there. He walked in shortly after looking all messed up and explained to us that he had the flu and would probably be going to bed and leaving his friend in charge. This kind of scared me because we were supposed to stay at his house. But we played and the other bands played and it went really well. There were some kids who were really into it and they bought some cds and shirts. so we made enough money for gas. Then the last band played, attic ted, they're pretty much a straight up circus band with a crazy old organ ran through loops and echos with scary masks. It was very cool, and very akward once the cellist broke her bow and started crying horribly. So anyway, after the show flu guy's friend took us back to flu guys house only to find his door locked and no one answering. So he and paul went to the back door to try to pry it open. A few seconds later we heard the sound of breaking glass. They broke his window, but after seeing the inside of his house, i don't really think he cared.
jan 4th- we headed to denton tx and were incredibly surprised at how fancy the roads were around dallas. We played at a place called jnjs pizza. We got free pizza and free schlitz all night, which was awesome. And we played with some really cool and nice bands. This was hands down the best night of the tour. Anyone from denton who reads this THANK YOU! We played alright and so many people were so nice to us and really liked our music, it was such a nice change from Indianapolis. We met a really cool guy named chris who recorded our show that you can find here http://thingschrisrecorded.com/MP3/DDFW/ That night we stayed with our friend justin, from Fishboy and Harin Sweaty and the Ready to Go (who we played with that night).
jan 5th- justin showed us around dallas all day and our friend john and his brother came down to hang out. We went to an awsome restaurant called the cosmic cafe and some other really cool places. That night we played in dallas with some nice bands one of which was the happy bullets, who are very good. Chris recorded that show too I believe. We played last which kind of sucked but it was still really fun and people stuck around. Then we went back to justins around 2 in the morning and while pulling into the parking space, paul hit a parked car. It made for a fairly tense moment. But luckily paul's insurance is supposed to cover it. So we stayed at justin's again and woke up pretty damn late the next morning and took off. Justin is probably one of the best hosts ever and he was nice enough to burn us a whole bunch of data disks with music and ricky gervais podcasts for us, which we found out are amazing.
jan. 6th. Steve's dad got us a hotel for free in jackson ms. So we went and stayed there considering we didn't have a show. We got 2 2 bedroom suites which were absolutely the nicest rooms I've ever been in.
jan. 7th. We went to athens Ga after eating free breakfast at the hotel. Paul left his phone on the top of the car at a gas station and it flew off on the on ramp. Paul proceeded to go find it hoping it still worked, he did find it, but it definetely did not work. We got to athens and found out that our google directions sucked horribly and we got lost about 5 times. But we finally made it in just enough time to do an interview on wuog, the university of georgia radio station, which was fun (thanks sarah) but which was also a little odd considering we all kind of suck at interviews. Then we played at the go bar with sweet tooth simpleton and the simpletones. It was an alright show but very strange. The bar was a really small place with a not very good pa and they had the lights down and no spots or anything over the band so it was kind of hard to see what we were doing. But some people came and a few seemed to really like us. Mike from hhbtm came out and we talked with him for a while, and then we went to sweet tooth aka andy's house to sleep. thanks andy.
jan 8th- we went to chapel hill nc and played at a place called nightlight. It was a pretty cool place, diner/bookstore/record store by day, and a venue by night. We walked around and saw downtown chapel hill and tons of college students. Not a lot of poeple came out to the show but it was pretty fun and the bands we played with, sound of singles, and jeff crawford, were pretty cool. Sound of singles gave us some good info on pressing 7 inches so thats always good. There were also 2 girls who came out to the show who were very nice and informed us that there was a write up in the local paper about us and the show which had a picture of the cover to the dictatorial soiree in it, which alison and oviously the rest of us were very happy about. That night we also stayed at a hotel courtesy steve's dad.
jan 9th and 10th- we went to d.c and stayed with paul's aunt in her amazing house in her amazing town. we went into the city and saw all of the tourist stuff; lincoln, the white house, etc. Then we met up with one of alison's friends and had dinner.
jan. 11th- we begrudgingly left paul's aunts house and drove to new york. luckily we didn't encounter any traffic but we did take the wrong exit and ended up in china town. We found our way back though and made it to the venue with plenty of time to spare. We loaded in and read a little, then we went and got some good ny style pizza. We played first which sucked because it until halfway through our set there was almost no one there. I think the owner felt a little bad about putting us first so he gave us a generous amount of money for there not being a cover and a round of free beer. Some of our friends who moved to ny came out but didnt get there until right after we got done which sucked. Steve paul and i went to our friend ruben from Afuche's house to sleep and alison went with our friend julie, who lives in chicago and just happened to be visiting our other friends in ny, to her hotel. the next day ruben showed us some of brooklyn, which is a pretty cool place, and then we went to central park and times square to meet up with alison, and our eyes and we had a sensory overload with all the people and lights. Then we went and played in queens which was a really good show. All of our friends came out again, and this time they made it for the show. A girl with a ukulele called jumping flea circus opened up which was nice and then afuche closed the show and they were amazing, as expected. It was a definetely a good way to end the tour. After the show all of our friends piled in ruben's van and we all went out to a bar and ung out for quite a while then we went back to ruben's and had a good sleep.
jan. 13th- we drove all the way from brooklyn to indianapolis, which took forever, but it was fine. Steve started driving and then paul tookover for a really long time.
So that's it. thanks to everyone who helped us get shows, thanks to justin and ruben for being good long term hosts, thanks to casey (flu guy) and sweet tooth for letting us break your window and crash on your floors, thanks to steve's dad for the hotels, paul's aunt for the food and letting us stay, and thank you to anyone who reads this because I have a feeling no one is going to make it through the whole thing. I'm sorry it's so long. Hopefully the next one will be even longer!
-adam and amo joy!