Memories, Daydreams, Reflections - Part 4: cheeese!

Saturday, another show day. And we needed some serious sleep. Over the course of Thursday and Friday I had very little sleep, way more to drink than I’m used to, and 2 meals. I decided that I would return to eating even after the week of a meal a day. Besides, there was food and it was free! Exhausted, is how I felt on Saturday morning. After rolling out of bed around noon, I was greeted by coffee ready to be brewed in the coffee maker, pastries galore on the table, and an egg casserole in the fridge for breakfast. I love this family! After a hearty breakfast, I did a bit more reading of “The God Delusion”, and took some random pictures outside (I wanted a photo of the swings we got on at 2:30 am) and inside of the house. I got the opportunity to watch the conclusion of the Irish kick the crap out of Stanford too…always a good thing to watch.

Saturday’s gig was in a place called Plymouth Wisconsin, which is about one hour north of Milwaukee. A rather small town, though the venue was a nice hall rented out for the specific purpose of this show. The show was an all day event and was a benefit for a young lady with Autism. We were greeted with much hospitality and many kind faces. We took the stage and held a large portion of the crowds attention the whole time. The reaction was amazing, and the attention was incredible. Very satisfying. In fact, I would say it’s one of the best shows we’ve played performance-wise, seemingly driven by the fact that people listened! They made a majority of Indiana folks look boring. Go WISCONSIN! So the show was fun, and we ended up selling 8 CDs. Not bad for a band no one had ever heard of! We hung around for a while afterwards, and I ended up talking to one of the other bands for awhile. Someone from their posse had said we had a dredg-esque arty sound, which I took as a great compliment. So I had a few cups of wine with them, and talked about touring and music. A very pleasant time.

Due to exhaustion we decided to take it easy Saturday night. We realized that true rock stars can only be true rock stars every night by doing a rock star amount of drugs. And we do not have the money nor desire to do that many drugs. So we don’t. But we watched a movie and chilled for the rest of the night. It was a fine evening…up next…we’ll be in IOWA.

Memories, Daydreams, Reflections - Part 3: BADA BING!

Friday morning I woke up feeling like crap. I should have been hung-over, but my head and stomach felt fine, though my right shoulder which I was sleeping on, was throbbing in pain. I remembered then that as we were loading the trailer the previous evening I crawled in there to push one of the amps in only to ram my shoulder into the top of the door of the trailer, then fell backwards and busted my head on my cabinet. Not a pleasant moment. With everyone else asleep, and being in a somewhat unfamiliar place it’s always confusing on what to do when you first wake up, you know? I wasn’t sure where the hell my Explorer was (turns out they parked it just down the street and it wasn’t lost or impounded), and all of my books were in it. So I grabbed the latest Playboy and decided to read the whole thing. Seriously, the articles were entertaining. I realized that Frat hazing is some messed up shit, and that Steve Jones of the Sex Pistol’s is an interesting chap. I also read the Ludicrous interview, and 20 Q’s with Johnny Knoxville. After everyone woke up we kicked on the teley, and it turned out Donnie Darko was on! I’ve seen that movie more than any other movie, but I can’t resist it every time it is available for watching. Beautastically perfect. After that was over, I think Ocean’s 12 was on, and then we watched that show on MTV where the parents try to pick new mates for their kids. The scripting is so terrible, yet the show is so horrifically addicting.

We finally decided to depart for Milwaukee around 4pm. A bit of traffic between the two cities, but for the most part it was a smooth ride. Drew once again came through with a cozy place to stay, and we were given two bedrooms, a few beds and a few air mattresses, with lots of food and beverages which we were told to consume. A very hospitable family, and a nice home. We stayed with a somewhat older couple and their son Adam, who is our age. Adam had told us that he and his friend Liz would be joining us for the evening, and we guaranteed an “interesting” evening…it was definitely an “interesting” evening…

We rolled into “Heartbreakers” around 9pm, and were greeted by the doormen with instructions. Basically, don’t harass the girls, you get these free drinks, and if you want you can usually get two girls to come dance for you during your set if you go over and ask them nicely. Yup, our first gig in a strip club. \Turns out we wouldn’t be going on until 10:15, so I decided to chill and have a few drinks. I was somewhat curious about the other side, as one part of the bar was where the bands play and has a stripper pole, and the other is solely for the strippers. Haha. So I wandered over to the other side, because, I’m a guy, alright? A single, healthy 24 year old guy. Haha. So I go over there to grab a drink with a few of the other guys, and I’m only in there for a few seconds before I’m even able to get a Newcastle and one of the strippers asks me if I want to tip. I didn’t have any cash, and I told her I was a poor musician. She ended up being really cool, and we started talking about being a poor musician and how I didn’t look like a musician but I looked like I had money. Oops…so she had my back for the next 5 minutes when other strippers came up to me. Eventually, it was uncomfortable, and a little sad so I went back to the other side.
We took the stage at 10:15, and there were no strippers there during our set. I tried to strip, but I couldn’t get to my belt between chords in “Contusions of the Forehead”. Too bad for that crowd…The set went over pretty well with an O.K. response, and we were greeted with the usual “wow, that was neat” stuff. Then the evening got weird. I was wearing a silly old shirt that says “Wanna Play?” on the front, and it’s an old BSU rec T-shirt that I stole from JE Rhinesmith (sorry Justin). Anyways, I was walking around the club after the set and some lady stopped me to tell me we had a great set, and she loved my shirt. I assumed she was just being friendly, and so I said thanks, and as I attempt to breakdown all social barriers I may still possesses in this point of my life, I decided to talk with her. No intent on my part, as she wasn’t my type, and I didn’t figure she had much intent on her part. I was eventually shown to be wrong.

After we loaded up our gear we went back into the club, and everyone had a seat around the stripper pole area (there were no strippers, so we expected it to stay that way, but we were eventually wrong, misfortunately for our new friend Adam) and the last seat available was next to the lady that had said ‘hi’ earlier. So I sat down and she started talking to me again. She was pretty talkative, but it was cool. The band was a cover band and didn’t require too much attention so I continued to talk to her for quite awhile. Eventually she asked how old I was…when I told her I was 24 she kind of looked weirded out. Of course I find out she is 38, and I’m thinking ‘well, this is uncomfortable.’ As I said, I wasn’t sure of her intent at the time so I played it cool. Until one of her friends leans over and whispers to me: something I don’t want to repeat. Luckily we were ready to go about 5 minutes later…wow…weird.

So Adam and Liz then took us to a local Piano bar. A rather plush place with middle aged folks dressed nicely, and drinking wine. It turned out Adam knew the bartender and we slipped into the VIP area which was cozy with nice couches and tables. We kicked back and drank some Chardoney (so rock and roll, I know), and I went up to the bar to grab a wine and beer when I was spoken to by a group of three women, again, obviously way older than me. I told them my woes of talking to the 38 year old at the strip club and how we were a band traveling around playing. I think I threw off the one lady who was 37, when I told her that I was only 24. So at that point I’m wondering what the hell is wrong with Milwaukee. Though I decided to play it off and talked to them for about a half hour. They were very nice people, and I have no idea what we talked about for the most part. But it was pleasant! The evening finally ended with us following Adam home, Drew screaming in the back seat, “oh goddamnit!” and “I can’t feel my teeth!”, and me chucking almonds out the window at Adam’s car, to no avail. Tip for the day: almonds go backwards when thrown forwards out of a vehicle traveling 65 miles per hour. Finally we watched really cool videos on AOL music like “Let’s go to Bed” by the Cure. I soon fell asleep.

Memories, Daydreams, Reflections - Part 2: "Santa Claus, Superstar!"

We finally departed from the state around noon on Thursday. Of course we slept kind of late – a slightly habitual affair since working became a past time – and we needed coffee and the sorts to get started. Upon arriving at Hou’s we had some trouble with the trailer. Oddly, it wouldn’t fall on the damn latch, but we made an important discovery that morning: WD40 fixes everything. After solving that minor inconvenience and WD40ing a few more things, we were off to pick up Drew. A few more goodbyes were said, and it was off to Madison.

Madison was about a 300 mile drive, and definitely not the most exciting drive. If you’ve been through Gary and Chicago, then you’re not going to see anything new. Of course no 300 mile trip would be complete without traffic jams and listening to the theme song from every 007 movie. Oh, and Starbucks. Just so you’re forewarned, I’ll bring that up about 500 times if you’re reading this shit. So anyways, after getting confused in an odd housing addition, we finally found the place that we would be crashing at in Madison. It turned out that Drew had a second or third cousin and they were willing to open up their place to us for the evening. So we arrived and were introduced to Mike, a dude that is just a few years older than us, and a very cool and generous fellow. His friend Ted was also hanging out around the house, and would be joining Mike at the show. More on Ted and Mike later…

I should mention that we were introduced to a really good beer upon arrival. They hooked us up with a Wisconsin brew called “Spotted Cow”, which is a dark and light beer mix. Damn good beer, and I miss that part about the dairy state. After that, we set off for the venue. The venue was pretty nice, and apparently they just installed a new light and sound system. The sound folks were cool, we set up, and rendezvoused with one of the local bands for awhile. Finally we took the stage around 10pm, and we rocked the joint silly. We received a very nice response for a small crowd and managed to sell 4 CD’s. Not bad for a first evening. Now here is where it gets mildly crazy…

I don’t know if anyone else reads Playboy, (seriously, I do read the entire thing…more on that later), but I just happened to read that University of Wisconsin was selected as the number one party school by Playboy in May 2006. And where do you think we were 1 mile away from? Of course…so Mike and Ted were familiar with the area, and promised to show us a good time. We needed to stick around the venue for awhile to make sure that we got paid. On the Brightside, the band received all the beer they wanted. On the bummer side of it all, that free beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon! So I decided to have some of that. Of course I had not eaten a meal in about 24 hours, so a few brews took its toll quickly. I found myself hanging with Ted quite a bit as he was quite the extroverted dude, and we ended up wandering around talking to everyone. Then there was this lady that seemed to have a thing for Ted, me, and any another dude that was within 20 feet. So anyways, next thing I know we’re doing Jaegarbombs with her and the bartender lady that was really nice. Though this lady was persistent…once she started staying some weird stuff involving a stripper pole and me, and me naked I migrated towards the band much quicker!

We finally got paid, Ted started making some calls and we were off to see the rest of the town. So Ted, Mike, JR and me all jumped in a cab and were off to the downtown area. Of course every bar just happened to be shutting down at 2am and it was a little before 2am. We decided to walk around and see if we could find something else going on, and Ted persistently made phone calls to no avail. Eventually we stumbled into a Q’doba, and grabbed a giant burrito. That was the first meal I had in about 30 hours, so it was quite amazing. The night finished with us arriving back at Mike’s in a cab, and stumbling onto a rather comfy air mattress. Ted was singing random songs, and amusing the hell out of us even though it was pushing 3 or 4am. Finally I fell asleep during his song wishing he were a Swedish fish swimming back to Sweden.

So our first day in Wisconsin was an interesting one, but could it get more interesting? You’ll have to read number three to see….

Memories, Daydreams, Reflections - Part 1: Goodbye Song

The day has finally come. Tomorrow we leave. Typical last second chaos occurred today, but that is to be expected with something as ridiculous as we’re about to embark on. I finally went to get my vehicle fixed today, and I heard what I didn’t want to hear. Basically there is a part of my ancient vehicle that is nearing brokenness, and is a three hundred dollar part. The money is not the issue, but the timing is. Haha. So after much discussion with each other, and parents, we decided that we’ll take it anyways and hope it makes it to my parents house so we can get it fixed. And if it doesn’t, this can be somewhat of a suicide note. Well, a goodbye note anyways if we accidentally die. Though is it an accident if we knew there was a problem and said “screw it” anyways? Hmm…I’m sure we’ll probably be fine. If I compose a second tour blog, assume we’re fine. If I don’t post one in the next few days, assume that I have no internet access. That’s because I don’t know the people we’re staying with in Wisconsin. We actually didn’t have anyone to stay with in Wisconsin until yesterday. Now we have a place in Madison and Milwaukee. So 5 days…if I don’t log in within five days, you can then assume we’re dead!

Aside from the morbid part, I’ve been prepping myself for the road of potential discomfort. Somehow we always end up in houses with people that are way more friendly than people around here, and want us to eat all of their food and chill with them. But just incase, I’ve been fasting. Yup, out of pure boredom mostly – and a dash of forgetfulness – I’ve got it down to one meal a day. Tracing all the way back to last Thursday, where I spaced out a meal between 10pm Wednesday night, and no food until 12am Friday morning. Thursday was my bitch, folks. Anyways, I’ve been on the one meal a day plan for awhile now. I’ve managed to eat very few things outside of Tikka Massalla and Nihari. Weird huh? If I had my choice I would stop eating American food and live off that stuff. Freaking incredible! Unfortunately, I probably won’t have it again for at least a month and a half. On the Brightside, I found a bunch of Cocoa here at JR’s house that I had forgotten about…speaking of JR, he just reminded that I once invented the word “fuckle”. It was an accident, but it’s a good word. Now you’re wondering what it means? Ha! I don’t have to tell you. Maybe some other day….

Anyways, I’ve been staying here at JR’s and it’s nice and peaceful. Lots of tea and Indian food. And reading. I’m still reading “The God Delusion” which is quickly becoming one of my favourite books. Dawkins is pretty damn pissed off. Yet it’s a rational (almost) pissed off. Anyways, that is packed and ready to go along with “A People’s History” “Memories, Daydreams, Reflections”, “The God Gene”, “Five Patients”, “My name is Asher Lev”, and I believe a few others. I also packed those cocoas I was talking about. They’re freaking great. I’ve only seen them at a small place in the town my parents live in, but I have to wonder where else they might exist…

Basically I have a bag with sweaters, t-shirts, cocoa, books, and underwear (boxers for those curious). And then the laptop bag with the computer, the iPod, the camera, and some other technological BS that I don’t really need, but I buy. I’ve decided that I’m going to start a photo gallery for those interested in living vicariously through a touring bunch of middle class dorks! Judging by the venue we’re scheduled to play in on Friday, it should be interesting (more on that next blog).

So as I said, I may or may not be on within the next 3 or 4 days. I don’t know. I probably won’t spend much time online because I don’t feel like it. Other than that, I’ll be on at some point. So keep an eye open for links containing photos, or an external blog. So anyways, goodnight, goodbye, and I’ll see you all in a few months. Bye bye.

Jako