Home. What a crazy couple of weeks....
-Flew on Virgin Airlines for the first time ever. Fantastic. Absinthe and video games in the sky. This is how I will fly for now on. The idea of having to get on a Southwest or Frontier flight after that makes me want to vomit in their inferior air sickness bags.
-Dragged Shane with me to Los Angeles for the Undertow reunion. Got to see Mark, John, Murph and about 800 old friends that i haven't hung out with in 15 years. No one really changed a bit more swollen and bald. Note in the photo i had just jumped into the crowd and no one caught me. I landed on my skull and now i look like Homer Simpson. rad. Luckily I have Nate newton and Dave Verellen making sure i am not dying there...
-Made an ass of myself in front of Jay Bennet. Hung out at the new LA Cha Cha a couple of times. Creepy how much it is like the Seattle Cha Cha. Mark's apartment is right down the street from it in Silverlake. Had great breakfasts at a place called The Coffee Table. Kinda a dumb name for a coffee house.
-Played a great show at the Che' Cafe in San Diego with Unbroken and Swing Kids. I figured this would be the best show of the two reunion shows. Small intimate and intense. Dave from Unbroken threw up on the floor while playing. punk.
-Played a way awesome show in Pomona. Tons of friends, people, bands. Really an excellent time. Turned out to be best show of the tour. Got to see Chris, Jose, Half. Smoked a bit. Saw the Chula Vista Lench Mob. None of them had changed at all. Got to hang with Dave Mandel. He is now a professional photographer for MMA. Hung with Nathan a bit. I love that guy.
-Ate a bunch of In-N-Out Burger. It's
christian but I don't mind supporting them. They are crazy christian (New Testament and Jewish Tanakh quotes and all that ) so that's cool...
-Drank bad decaf coffee, played Grand Theft Auto on my DS, listened to Sigur Ros and pretended to sleep on my Virgin Airlines flight home. The stewardess offered shane and I first class seats but it was unclear if we were supposed to pay so i declined. Still my favorite airline. fuckers.
-Got to hang with my sweet pregnant wife, Chris. The baby kicks like crazy when i sing to her through Chris' belly. Everyone's a critic.
-Got in the van and drove to Eugene to do a short tour with Shining Ones, Hemingway and At the Head of the Woods. I sang and played guitar with Hemingway and then sang for a 40 minute Shining Ones set every night. It was great but i got real ill...
Eugene, Or @ Epic Space w/Scrolls, At the Head of the Woods, Hemingway, Shining Ones
Eugene is a place i always want to have cool shows. Sometimes that works out like playing with YOB in a basement to tons of kids but sometimes you play Samurai Ducks to no one on a Saturday. Tonight was great. James (At the Head of the Woods) played an awesome set on beautiful keyboard and organ drones with some excellent guitar work. His set up is a sight to behold. Three organs, a gorgeous vintage SG with three humbuckers an iBook and tons of pedals. An ex-member of Elemental Chrysalis who plays really amazing stuff. Buy his albums. Hemingway played a shorter set on all these shows. the first song on our upcoming cassette split with Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death, All Clean Necks, a 5-10 minute noise/drone piece and ending with our song that is on the upcoming Hammer Smashed Jazz comp, Your Actual Left. Shining Ones on this tour played our whole forty minute set of gloom and doom. Real rough emotional heaviness. I am really enjoying signing with these guys... Scrolls played next which is all of Rye Wolves backing this guy, Scott. It's real out there and totally worth checking out. They have some crushing riffs and some real quiet strange moments. Scott is just an intense guy and it's hard to nail down what he is doing some of the time.
After the show we ate at Burrito Boy and slept at Robin's house. I thought i was feeling sick this night. Burrito Boys fucking rules and it's 24 hours. Take that, all of Seattle.
Portland, Or @ Plan B w/Brown, At The Head Of The Woods, Hemingway, Shining Ones and Rye Wolves
We got up and drove into PDX pretty early. After a quick nap at James' place we drove to Exiled records and i picked up some Yellow Swans records i didn't have and put some Dead Accents releases in the store. So if you are in PDX go buy our cds and tapes there. That store is dangerous. We got to the club and i met the booker, Chris Control. He is actually a pretty good friend of my wife's from back in Baltimore. Nice fella. Anyhow, the club did not sound good, I didn't feel good and no one came to the show. Jeremy Brown of Tecumseh played solo tonight. It was a highlight for me. Rye Wolves played last and did not feel like playing much. The music was great but they really need to turn those amps up. Like a lot. It was so quite I thought there was something wrong with my hearing. I was pretty ill by this point. They had some tech problems but all in all i really dug what they do. They just have to turn it up real loud. real loud.
Seattle, WA @ Josephine w/Sanguine, Mamiffer, Bill Horist, Dried Up Corpse, Hemingway
I was feeling a bit better at this show but I was really really tired. It was long. Sanguine, which is Andy and dan of Shining Ones doing guitar drone played first. it was pretty cool for a first live attempt. Andy sang along with the deep heavy drones and did a good job. Kid's got a good voice. It slowed to almost stopping at one point and that would have been a perfect way to wrap it all up but then they went on another ten minutes. it was a bit much but all in all it was pretty good. I hope they do more. Mamiffer played next. I love these two (sometimes three). Faith and Travis do really great minimal work and it's always impressive to watch them. You deserve to hear them. Buy their record and see them live with ISIS this summer. Bill Horist played next. Bill is incredible at what he does. His strange textured guitar tinkerings really open up your mind to what a guitar is capable of doing. Lot's of weird stuff shoved on and under the strings to make a variety of clanks, drones and noise. Even dub drums beats. If he were to play for 25-30 minutes it would amazing. he played for almost an hour. just too long. too long. Maybe not in all venues but a noise show at Josephine... doesn't work. Dried Up Corpse is Stan Reed of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer's new project and tonight he played with William Rage of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer. So it was pretty much Blue Sabbath Black Cheer. A bit more full on all the time with none of the subtlety but totally amazing. Brutal. Thick. Amazing. An honor to play with them... Hemingway played last. For about 15 minutes. It was a long night and we wanted to make a huge sound and hold it. I hope the people liked it. You can read a review from the great Abraham Moses
here.
Bellingham, Wa @ Jinx Artspace w/Abodox, Shining Ones, Hemingway, Harlot, Moons and Goochers
So tired. Bellingham rules. Small, closes at 6pm. Weird bars that range from shitty tourist bars (bayou on the bay) to sketchy dives (can't remember the name but the beer was cheap and the pull tabs paid). The jinx artspace is great. tons of kids and a very cool vibe. A black metal band of kids still in high school (maybe middle school" called Harlot was playing when i walked downstairs. Good guitarist. The drummer was pretty rad but he needs to open up his playing a lot. That high hat is not to be used as a crash.) We got the best comments that night. After Hemingway i heard "What the fuck was that?!?!". He sounded pissed at having heard us. No drummer. A six foot wall of amps and screaming from two full grown adults. One of which is probably the same age as most of the audience's fathers. After Shining Ones a kid told me that "...I like dress the way you do and scream that grim." I dress normal. I was being told this by a kid who dressed like Nausea did 17 years ago. Weird. But it was cool. Pete from Abodox (who ruled the night. Best players in Seattle. Nathan, Blaine, Pete and Ben owned that town.) told my that i "Grimmed" everyone out. Kinda nice. After they played i needed water so before Moons and Goochers played Shane and I went to find water. Everything was closed. On a Saturday night. We walked all over Bellingham and got back after Moons and Goochers finished. I heard they ruled though. Next time for sure. Killer people in that band.
Seattle, WA @ The Funhouse w/Samothrace, Shining Ones, At the Head of the Woods and Sworming. It was a rough night for me. My voice was gone. I was sleeping on the bench seat between bands. Everyone played real well. Samothrace was incredible. Shining Ones had Shane playing improv bass and james playing organ. It was okay. Half of Dan's equipment (actually all my stuff) wasn't working for our set so the guitar was not there... it went pretty good though. Nice response. I was so tired. I think i was asleep the second Samothrace got done. They are quite amazing. Thanks to everyone that played with us or came and saw us. It was fun.
-back to the frame shop, the bitchin burrito kitchen and the illustration machine.
-up next: Koala drawings, my Wolves in the Throne Room poster, a split with myself and Al Qaeda, Wolf Eyes Dried Up Corpse and Black Dice on Sunday @ the Josephine, a poster for a golf tournament (faux), artwork and logos for Passage Between and new music on Dead Accents.
-thanks.
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