What's up everybody, we are currently on the road again! yes, the never
ending tour full of fun and experience!!  WE started off in Fergus
Falls MN, and played 2 nights in a small town called Underwood (about
300 people) and it seems like they all came out to see us play! It was
a great welcoming start for the tour. We then drove through North
Dakota,  South Dakota, Nebraska, Denver Colorado- where it snowed on us
in the mountains--We had to drive 30mph with our bus loaded to the
max--Then Utah, where we finally pulled over on the side of the road
and slept in our lovely bus that Dave(drummer) built bunk beds in for
us all to sleep on. We woke up early around 7am freezing as the weather
had dropped to about 20-30 degrees!
We then headed to Vegas  where
we played and stayed for 2 nights! Thanks to one of Dave's tennis
clients as they hooked us up with 2 rooms to stay 2 nights in Vegas. It
was finally nice to shower and brush our teeth!!haha!
We left vegas Thur. for our most anticipated show to date in Sika's career, The Whiskey A GO GO. We played there Fri. night. It's a world famous venue, bands like The Police, Motely Crew, Guns n Roses, Sika (haha)
u name them they've played there. The Whiskey wasn't all that it was
cracked up to be however. The sound was fantastic and we rocked the
stage. But in LA things are way different; you actually "pay to play"
we had to pay $600 to play a 1/2 hr. show. So did every band there as
well. That's why we were selling tickets and doing fund raisers inMSP ,
cause we don't have that many fans in LA yet. However, we were told
originally that after the initial $600 was paid up front that the band
would keep the rest of sales. What they failed to mention was that
those sales had to be outside of the venue. We actually had quite a few
of friends and fans show up--even some from MN andTennesse-- We were outside greeting everybody and told them just to go to
the door and purchase a ticket to see Sika.
So they did, all in all we probably sold an additional $200-$300 extra!
Which we were pumped! Gas money right! Well, after the show we went to
the box office and said hey can we grab our extra ticket sales? They
said well you will have to wait and call backmonday, this was Fri.
So
we did, we couldn't even talk to the people in charge, instead they
referred us to their assistants, because apparently everybody is too
busy when you wanna collect money! Anyways, they said sorry your
contract specifically stated that the tickets sold at their box office
were theirs. That really sucks cause we were counting on that money for
gas. All they could say was sorry. Even when we were standing right
outside and we directed our people to the door to buy tickets. I mean
why keep track of numbers because it's all theirs anyways! Not to count
the fact that they had 6 bands play that night, all of whom paid $600 +
extra tickets. Plus the venue parking behind the building charged us
$30 to park. Also, the whiskey charged us $25 to film our performance
ourselves on  our own video camera!!! What is that?? Plus, the venue
didn't have any drink tickets for the bands (which is customary) and I
asked for 2 glasses of water before i went on stage
and they said sorry we can only give you 1 glass of water!! what the heck is going on???
So
that was our experience at the "famed" whiskey a go go. It was pretty
bad actually, we had way more fun in Fergus Falls and Underwood, cause
the people actually treat you like people!! After our "great but bad
"experience at the whiskey, that night we met our friends from Tennesse
Rose, Emma and Ian at the Beverly Hills Hilton. We hung out at the bar
there and Aleksey and John played sing along songs ie. the Beatles on
the grand piano and rocked out with a bunch of drunk guys from New
Zealand. It was a lot of fun, and these New Zealand guys were drunk!
but hilarious!! Thanks to Rose for amending our wounds from the whiskey
that night as she got a room for us at the Beverly Hills Hilton.
Aleksey, John and I enjoyed the festivities as Dave and his brother had
fallen asleep in the bus about 10pm--bunch of "Grandpas"!! haha

We
then headed to San Diego and played a couple of nights, really late
1am. One gig was fun, we got on the ticket with all Heavy Metal bands.
When we showed up to the venue it was full of "head bangers" all
dressed in black with tattoos everywhere, and the bands were screaming
and blasting metal!! I walked in with Aleksey and i turned to him and
said, we're going to get beat up!!!!! 
WE got up on stage and did our thing and just rocked--a little heavier if i might add-- and the crowd and other bands liked it a lot! they were so nice after wards, we all just hung out and laughed and they bought us drinks! funny
We ended sleeping all 3 nights in our bus right next to the beach on a side road, it was magical!! Funny incident, Aleksey got up a little later than us on Sun. and when he walked out of the bus, guess who was standing right there?? Dan Nabedrick, his boss at GVCC!! Dan was like Aleksey, and Aleksey was like DAN!! It was a funny exchange. Totally coincidental too, Dan and Molly and their newborn had just happened to be staying at the hotel right next to where we were parked, it was a funny and friendly exchange.

We
then played that sun. night and stayed next to the beach again. Mon. we
woke up and headed for Vegas. We had to drop Dave off because he had
4.0 nationals with his tennis team.  Our friend Rose, who flew from
Tennesse to see us in LA, said why don't we come to Austin for "ACL"
(Austin City Limits Festival) for the weekend. She said she had places
for us to stay and free ACL passes. So we left Vegas Tues morning, this
time minus our drummer and headed to Austin. We stopped in Fort Worth,
TX to pick up the "one and only" Diego. He flew down to Dallas to hang
with us in Austin and help Aleksey and I drive back because John had to
leave sun. for work. Austin was great! Except when we got there Friday
we were suppose to play a show, acoustic. But there were chains on the
venue doors and nobody was inside?? We called the booker and he said,
sorry i forgot to tell you the power went out last night and there
won't be any music for the weekend. We were kind of bummed that we
didn't get to play but it worked out anyways, we headed with our
friends to ACL that night to catch "Kings of Leon" . Sat. we woke up to
torrential rains. We headed to the venue and watched music all day in
the down pour, it was kind of fun!! We saw Dave Matthews Band and Ben
Harper. Sunday, was an adventure!! as all the grass--ACL had just added
1 million dollars in grass from previous years--had completely morphed
into a mud swamp! The mud was so thick it was practically up to our
ankles. You had to walk extra careful or you might end up with a free
"mud spa" treatment! Of course there were those people that didn't care
about their appearances or clothes and just dived head first into the
mud! Of course, Aleksey was NOT part of that mud crowd. He had to stay
pretty! Well, we braved the mud all day and finished off with a 2 hr
performance from Pearl Jam, that was sweet! We definitely got a taste
of "rock n roll" as we stayed up 3 days straight until 730am! and
didn't get much sleep. We ended up staying mon. as well as we had to
get the oil changed on our bus. We ended up seeing our buddies' band
the "statesboro revue" great band! Real awesome guys! we stayed with
them in their house sun. They played at a bar mon. night down on 6th
st. and they asked Aleksey and I to come up on stage and jam a bit, so
we played some acoustic songs, it was fun!
We left tues morning and or currently on the road, Diego, Aleksey and I. About 2 hrs from home so we're excited!

All
in all, through small towns, through big cities. Through smelly bus
sleeping to Beverly Hills Hotels'. Through ocean sand beaches to muddy
swamped festivals.Sika had a wonderful experience and can't wait to do
it all over again! Thanks again to everybody that helped us make this
happen and all who helped us along the way! Thanks to the parents and
kids ofMTA and thanks to Rose. And a special thanks to my mom for helping us with everything!

Sika