Trials and tribulations of the Roast Beef Wagon...  Huntsville TX, Lake Charles LA, New Orleans, LA and Jacksonville, MS.  Moving Matter Mini Tour - November 2007

7% of touring is actualy playing music...  the rest is spent mostly driving, I'd say about 40% is driving, 3% packin farts, 4% of our time is spent eating at buffets.  10% of our time is spent arguing, boozin accounts for about 88% of our time.  We went to Huntsville texas, to start out our 4 night run from TX to LA to MS.  Huntsville, TX home where they kill folks for killin, Lake Charles LA (gambling wasteland) and NOLA (Substance abuse capitol of the world), then to Jackson MS.   First let's talk about Huntsville...  I thought that the only thing they did in Huntsville was drag gays behind pickup trucks and electrocute the innocent, I was truly mistaken....  It's 6pm, dark already, fucking daylight savings time.....  Made sure to tell myself, definitely don't want to get put in the can in huntsville, that could be really scary.  The can means jail for all you conformists...  The Huntsville that I saw was a pretty laid back hippie town.. At the club (see foto above), very nice place, cool staff.  We were fed well, Dboz got snarky and ordered the Baja fish tacos, great food at The Stardust Room.  It was a mellow night, we played a semi-acoustic set as our electric set would have scared off our listeners.  The best part of the evening happened after the first song, someone doo-dooed themselves.  This person shit their drawers...  this person actually sharted and had to leave for a moment to go do some clean up.  Just in case you didn't know it's sharTed, not sharded, I was mistaken, thanks Meg for clarifying: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shart

If you were at the show in Huntsville, you know who I am talking about! hahah...  Nothin beats cleaning off shit from your leg with personal wipes in the bathroom.  It truly doesn't get any better than this.  There goes another nice pair of boxers in the trash...

Late Night Huntsville:
The Treehouse: Brian introduces himself at the end of the show, turns out he lives in a tree.  This isn't just some treehouse, this is a super badass full blown artistic palace in a tree.  Like something out of swiss family robinson, this was truly an experience, not something you'd expect from Huntsville.  A full blown house with modern day appliances and amazing interior, all fully sustainable and eco-friendly.  My stereotypes of Huntsville were all crushed as it turned out to be a pretty cool place, with super cool people.  Thanks Brian for all the hospitality and snacks, Michelle and Sandra and all the others that came out to support us.  They also made sure to stock up on MM merchandise, we truly appreciate!  We have almost sold out all of our T-shirts!

 Now for the ugly part.  Hotel Greenie.  Have you ever stayed?  I doubt it.  Well, Greenie is the name of our van, of course we have an extremely luxurious touring van with a bed in the back and television, VCR, laptop station, XM, etc (stop bragging fat fuck).  Anyway, cramming four of us into Greenie for an overnight stay is far from comfortable.  You usually wake up with someones balls in your face and it's cold, smells like egg farts and you realize that its only 4am and you can't check in to the next destination until noon.

Anyway, we hit the road, dodge Houston and stop for some doughnuts in Beaumont.  Almost to Lake Charles, time to GO DOWN GAMBLIN...  After checking in at the Baymont, the man at the counter that wanted to rape all four of us told us it would be a while as he had to corrall the disgruntled maid service to getting our room ready.  Time to kill?  Casino?  Isle of Capri - ASS.  Next to the gigantic bridge on Lake Charles, is a nice riverboat casino, we wanted buffet (Buffet 1 of 4)...  after losing a few bucks, we hit the buffet for roast beef and gumbo... the gumbo was a fucking joke..  I could see the chef in a canoe out in the middle of Lake Charles with a ladle attached to the end of a very long stick scooping up mud for the gumbo... The gumbo was truly a disgrace, muddy shit with rice.  When you come into Lake Charles, there is a huge bridge, that jolts up into the sky, conveniently located next to the casino.... I asked the waiter if anyone ever jumped off the bridge, he said someone actually did, we all figured if was certain death, this bridge is HUGE.. turns out some miserable prick actually jumped and lived about two weeks ago, shocking.  We thought for sure if you jumped off that bridge that you would die, apparently not?  We played at Lunas, it was a pretty low key night again, night two of an apologetic staff "sorry guys, we gotta get you back in here on a weekend".....  We drank 400 redbulls and played video poker in between a pretty sloppy loud set.  My ears were starting to wax up and ring already, only the second night....  It was pretty uneventful night, the bar owner of Lunas was super cool, invited us back looking forward to doing better on a weekend....  Back to the hotel, guess what?  Someone still wants to party... I bet you can guess who?  BERNIE.  He goes to Isle of Capri solo, wins big, we went to bed.  10am, Bernie yells at a maid for waking him up, everywhere we stay, we check out last minute.  Its normal to get knocks, have maids coming into the room, knocking, pissing us off etc.  So Bernie was a jerk to this lady.  I forgot to mention that he also told the dealer at Isle of Capri that he hopes he never sees the place again, even though he went back there 6 hours later.

NOLA bound, let's stop at Gatti's (Buffet 2 of 4) for some good old fashioned carbs and pudding.  After that we stopped at Payless Shoe source to try and score some kickin kicks, but no luck.  On the way to NOLA me and Dboz cranked out some Wayne Dyer, listening to the power of intention, I've definitely got some things to work on, like being nicer to Bernie and intending love and all that shit.  Eat yer heart out Yankee Bean, I guess we better start re-intending waka for round two....  Although I think Jones got us in to Waka not intention...  Just kidding, it works!   Wayne Dyer, Great CD so far, but the rest of the band doesn't seem very receptive to letting me listen to self help books on CD while driving.  NOLA bound, check in at the Ramada Inn.  Naps ass.  Finally some quality down time, we got rested up and headed down to the Maple Leaf.  

The Maple Leaf is awesome.  It's located over by Tulane, on Oak street.  It's got a super quality restaraunt next door to it, Digiacomos (jaque imos), badass food.  Turns out Joey Pantoliano from Sopranos and many other films, was sitting outside waiting to dine there as well.  Bernie decided to run over and chat with him, he interrupted his cell phone game of minesweeper.  He was not happy to see Mr. Holland (Roy Munson), after he gave him a limp handed weak handshake (The Brantley) he tried to brush him off quickly.  About the Maple Leaf, we are all convinced that their are spirits in the room, playing there is sort of eerie spirit presence in the room, the room has some history.  Played a killer first set, we nailed some tunes with great intensity, again the crowd just wasn't there, fucking daylight savings.  The folks that were present at the show were extremely supportive and impressed.  The ongoing theme of the tour "man, you guys, fuck! you gotta get back here soon, you guys are awesome" ... "I don't know why nobody is out tonight"...  etc.. either way,  We turned some heads, sold some merch and of course got super snarked.  Speakin of snarkin, we snarked over to Harrahs Casino downtown NOLA.  I opted out for gambling, me and percy ate foot long hot dogs and snarked around the joint.  This place was jumpin, they even have a disco/tecno room where there are all these slots and lights and music blasting.  Bernie had to puke, we had to go. We headed back to the Ramada, slept good that night.  This Ramada was okay, the Ramada had a strange theme, pictures of all these "urban acheivers" as someone called them, turns out they were "end hunger" pictures of third world kids...  I would normally snag a pic for my collection of random restaraunt awards and misc frames, but...  Wayne Dyer talked me out of it...  anyway Ramada staff, they were onto us for our Best Rate and bugging us to get outta there, these fucking hotels are so annoying always bothering us to get out.  Fucking bullshit, I know that the maids have to get it done and want to go home, but some hotels suck, they need a musician friendly hotel that allows you to check in any time and get the room, never too early, never too late and you get the room for 24 hours regardless.  So we're off to Jackson, I slept great, thanks Benadryl!

We headed over to some Bayou eatins at  Mittendorf's on the way to Jackson.  This was a nice family place, right on the water, we got plenty of catfish and gumbos.  Pretty good stuff, my catfish was ultra thin, breaded very lightly, good stuff.  Mixed reviews from the band, I'd say it wasn't all that...  Jackson ho, the best thing about this tour is the 3-4 hour per day drives, rules.  Most of the time its drive to venue, set up, feel like shit, play and haul ass to next place.  Martin's is cool, pretty big room, dirty and ugly as hell when the lights are on.  Seeing a club in the daytime is an ugly thing to witness, when clubs get dark, it hides all the stains of sins.  With the lights on you can see every spill, cig burn, broken shit, glass, semen, blood.  All that.  The staff was nice, we were just discussing the southern hospitality aspect of gigging down here.  I say this to the North, fuck you, people in the south are so cool, laid back and nice.    Martin's was so nice, pumpin us full of hospitality and kindness.  We scored a nice discounted room at the Holiday Inn express, thanks to Bernies (The Complicator) California King Size beds are the shit, that way I don't have to wake up with my hand between Dboz's warm hot pillow ass cheeks.  We chilled in the room, we got a discount, Bernie treated front desk lady like shit because she sent us to 3 different rooms before she got our request correct.  The gig was okay, I think some of the hospitality helped me flub a few drum fills...  and beats...  note to band, don't put full cooler of red bellies behind fats....  One thing that was rough...  the town wasn't all that lively because Panic was playing in a town 3 hours away which is enough to affect our draw.  Any Panic fans in the south will go to great lengths to see their favorite band.  I think we will do good here in the future, this town has the potential to be a great success.  Thanks to all that came out and supported that Matter...  We had a blast...

Summary of the tour.  Lots of food, aside from a night in the van, it was a nice vacation, short drives, good venues, good hospitality, pretty successful.  MM is getting out there, turning heads, learning the ropes and spanning out the web.  Lots of farts and way too much eating.  Our band smells bad, Dboz's feet smell like a rotting bag of babies.  It's a miracle Bernie hasn't needed a liver transplant just yet.  Percy doesn't have much left of his ears.  I can hear myself getting fatter.  Call out the instigator, because theres something in the air.  We've got to get together sooner or later because the revolutions here.... because you know it's right...  we have got to get it together, now......  Take me to the Gallow's Pole.  Knob n Bob, turkey creek and the Buzzards Beak.  Reach out and roast beef.
<br> As much as I don't want to, must give some props to Bernie Gold, our new booking agent.  Moving Matter has been fairly successful at paying down our debts and turning more of a profit.  In case you were wondering, the sacrifices we all make to do this are very significant.  We rarely see a dime for what we do, having a free meal compliments of the band and free hotels are the majority of our pay.  It's quite the sacrifice right now, some of us are losing big $$ unpaid taking these runs, so if any rich assholes are reading this, send cash to 5806 Bull Creek Road, Austin Texas, 78756.  Attention FAT FUCK

No really, all things considered, WHEEEEEEEEEEEAL!

Goals for next tour:
Less eating, more grocery store healthy foods
Less gas station trips
More FAP FAP
Save the drinks for after the show
Shamless self promotion... asss