January 19th - Birmingham at the Nick
We haven't exactly hit our stride at the Nick, but this show was better than the last. I always hated the Nick growing up; playing there at 18 with no concept of how the bar-level music biz worked was really frustrating and left me with a permanent distaste for playing in bars. 10 years later, now that our peers are all "of age", playing somewhere like the Nick is really fun. We get free awful beer, get a decent cut of the door, and get an excuse to stay out late and feel "alive" like we did back when.

January 21st - Muscle Shoals, AL at the Muscle Shoals Music Hall
I'm convinced that "hardcore kid" is the new "jock" for smalltown America. It's the same outlet for mindless agression that football was a generation ago. The kids who would have been pounding the shit out of each other on the field are now pounding the shit out of each other in the "pose pit" or whatever the fuck you call that ninja shit they do at hardcore shows. After riffing on ninja themes for a while in mockery of their antics, we progressed to Chuck Norris, then more specifically to "Walker: Texas Ranger" which led to the birth of a new phrase: "It's Walker Time!" meaning somebody's gonna get their ass kicked. Use it if you dare. Halfway through the second song, I had the senses shocked out of me by a poorly grounded microphone. I saw flashes of blue light and I swear the house lights dimmed to about half brightness. I was pretty dazed through the end of the song. Darryl's equally stunning shock followed a minute or so later. It is quite hard to sing with any real pizzaz when you know the mic is out to get you. The show was somewhat disappointing--our playing was half-hearted (probably due to the mic condition) and we reduced the initial 300 or so onlookers to maybe 50 who were glued to the walls. I guess our band emits some sort of fashioncore kid repellant. These kids were interested only in getting their fix of chugga guitars and cookie monster vocals and it seemed deviation from that formula would only be tolerated by those too lazy to leave the room. And how are we supposed to compete with fights and free blowjobs? Yes, there were many a fight at the show and also reports of a girl giving out free blowjobs. She never asked us. The good side was that we got a cut of those kids' money, so we got enough for gas and then some. The guy who put the show together was quite nice and after we got paid, we split for the long drive to Memphis ahead. On the way we pulled over and I cut down a sign proclaiming "Jesus Loves Babies" which will soon adorn one of our practice room walls.

January 22nd - Memphis, TN in a basement
Start the day off with the usual Memphis time-kills: record stores, music stores, great BBQ--all the things our hometown is lacking. The morning started out quite pleasantly, but by early afternoon there was a brutal wind blowing us about. We could tell something was up. As the day progressed, the temperature kept dropping and by "show time" it was measured at around 27 degrees with the wind chill surely approaching 0. We played at what is obviously a drug house. What we thought were new kids arriving for the show would go inside for 5 minutes or less and then leave the scene. The proprietors came down and cranked up what we presumed to be their ironic Camaro. A new patron arrived and they shut it off after backing up approximately 2 feet, went inside for the transaction, then both parties left the house. Upon closer view of the Camaro occupants, it was evident that their car choice was much closer to genuine than ironic. We spent the first two hours on the scene freezing our respective genitalia off under sleeping bags and blankets in the van.

House shows can sometimes be the best shows. You've got an intimate connection to the people you're playing for and it's usually not hard to pack the place out. When you play in a one-car garage, it is especially easy to pack out. Unfortunately this one-car garage had only a roll-up door separating it from the elements, so it was quite cold inside. By the time we played, the temp had to be closer to 20. We played bundled up and with numbed extremities. It is a very odd sensation to play guitar when you can't feel your fingers since it is those digits which actually control the sound. We played quite well, reedeeming ourselves from our performance the night before. Then we endured another brutal dose of cold air as we packed up our shit outside and loaded the truck. We went back inside to watch the last band and then rushed back to the warmth and shelter of the house we were staying at. We chatted with our hosts for a while and hit the sack.

January 27th - Nashville, TN at the End
The road to Nashville is like many others: long and long. Why is it that the cities that are closest on the map take the longest to reach? I swear they are stretching the interstate as we drive along. What seems like 30 minutes results in a net of 10 mere miles toward our destination. After the three longest hours in recent memory, we finally reached the End (both literally and literally). We arrived fashionably late, a good two hours after load-in, but would be outfashionablylated by another band who arrived towards the end of the first band's set. They beat us by a good two hours. It was truly deflating.

"The Music City" has always rubbed me the wrong way for its undercurrent of market- and profitability as a measure of legitimacy. Like anywhere, I'm sure a lot of it has to do with where you look, but every time I've looked at Nashville I get back the feeling that if I can't pack out a show and if I'm not endorsed by a major musical instrument manufacturer or two, I might as well be picking up trash along the interstate. Fortunately, this Music City experience would be my first taste of what I'd call a normal rock scene in the city, but first there was the matter of the opening band...

The opening band had been tacked on to the bill as a live showcase for "several industry executives." They were showcasing new material for the boss-man. It was Music City bullshit all the way. This is the kind of band that substitues professionalism for artistry and ends up a finely-crafted hollow shell. Listening to them is like listening to production without music--it's all flash and technique and little if any substance. To illustrate their level of "professionalism" one of the guitarists had a pedal board with only one pedal on it! Were it not for the singer, the music would have been tolerable even if deathly bland. Said singer decided to heighten the deep and personal expression of his hollow tunes by pantomiming along as he sang to illustrate the anti-grand artistry of his non-vision. I expected him to break into christian youth group sign language routines to complete the transaction. The guitar player did truly shred and as a tribute/mockery I stepped out in front of the monitors and did my best Slash posing during the final song. The good news was that they packed the place out. The End is the perfect-sized small dive--the kind where 75 people feels packed and 150 feels overstuffed. We were well into overstuffed. The better news is that part of said band's agreement was that they'd perform and then leave with no door cut. So the three scheduled bands got a cut of the money from all those goat-ropin' normals--free Dairy Squirt for everyone!

Sensing the opportunity to truly offend and to clear the room of unnecessary oxygen depleters, we took the stage second and commenced to slay. The crowd thinned to a perfect 75 or so in no time. We played well, as did the other two bands, scored our cut, and hit the road back home. Arrived back at home around 4:30--just in time for 3 or 4 hours of sleep and a full day of delicious work.

February 5th - Recording at Zero Return
We left Friday night for a sleepover at Zero Return and to start work on our new record the next day. On the way, we had to jump off an Elvis impersonator whose look was made authentic by his oily black hair, gold Vegas sunglasses (at night of course) and an immaculate 70s Lincoln. Unfortunately, he did not thank us "Very much." We arrived at Zero Return around 11 for load in and slumber. We loaded in and started talking shop with our host, the studio's proprietor Rob. Oddly, the conversation between four musicians at a recording studio had nothing to do with music but rather with BioDiesel. Yep, we talked truck and diesel and vegetable oil for a good hour. It was quite fascinating. Rob is involved in the Atlanta area's BioDiesel organization and of course pitched us on converting our Blue Beauty into a lean, mean vegetable-oil-burning machine. Apparently it is quite simple, requires no engine conversion, an the BioDiesel fuel costs about 15 cents a gallon which sure beats the $2.00 a gallon we're paying for petrodiesel now.

We set up, tuned up, replaced strings, drank beer, and retired for the night. If ever a loft could be considered a dungeon, our sleeping quarters were just that dungeon loft. Not bad for free though.

We awoke and recorded the basic tracks for Red: the New Black, Losed, Instant Fence, and the Unmoved Mover. Thanks to the help of SuperEngineer Jim Marrer, we were able to record everything live in the studio's main room. Unfortunately, this live recording concept leaves no room for fixing mistakes, but our mistakes were minimal and everything was nailed within the first four takes. More on this story over the coming months.

February 10th - Mobile at the Cellblock
Another long, awful drive to Mobile. We arrived at the club just in time to set up, wait around about 30 minutes, and play. We were the only band without a designated singer, so the band that brought the PA failed to consider our needs for mic stands. After several minutes of failed remedies for this problem, a solution was McGuyvered: microphone duct-taped to broomstick duct-taped to metal pole cemented in a bucket. If there was any doubt we were still in Alabama, the sight of this solution made it quite clear. Singing into this contraption proved difficult and many mistakes were made due to its presence. I'm used to being able to look down over the mic to see where my fingers are, but the broomstick, which was protruding vertically beyond the height of the mic, made this impossible. Every time I tried, I'd get a knock in the middle of my forehead reminding me not to try it again. Errors aside, it was at least fun and those people don't know our songs so they probably thought the sour notes were part of our "style."

After the show, we drove to Pascagoula to stay with Brad's Father-in-Law at his office. We took the conference room and had a quick sleep. We had to be up and out by 8:30 so as not to interrupt his business, but that's the cost of a free place to sleep.

February 11th - Baton Rouge at the Darkroom
With our 8:30 boot-out and only a 3 hour drive ahead of us, we had the day to kill. To start it off, we breakfasted at the Gator Diner at our host's expense. A free breakfast starts any day off right, and was greatly needed. After dining on grease, biscuits, and grits, we hit the coastal highway towards Biloxi that would lead us poking back to I-10 and eventually to Baton Rouge. We couldn't resist the kitschy lure of the casinos, so we stopped at Casino Magic to blow through $10 each on quarter slots. After 15 minutes inside the most cheerfully decorated den of depression we had encountered in quite some time, we emerged reeking of the "fun." Darryl was the big "winner" losing only $1.50. I burned up my quarters with amazing speed on some hot pepper taco bullshit machine.

Drive, drive, drive. Nothing new. While pining for a Mountain Dew, Darryl coined the phrase "Death to false Caffeine." Surely you will see that one again.

We stopped off in Abita Springs, LA in hopes that the Abita Brewery would host us in a tour of its facilities. We had no such luck, but did end up at their brewpub for a few hours sampling away. We left there with several hours still to kill and pressed on towards Baton Rouge in hopes that we'd find something interesting to do. Instead, we found traffic and a whole city which was either closed down or didn't open until 6pm. After another wonderful round of traffic, we stumbled across a mexican restaurant which seemed just right for us for dinner. Once inside, we realized that it was mall-mexican and was terrificly overpriced, but we decided that our dinner at "Casa Malaria" (really Casa Maria) was sure to exceed the fun of sitting in traffic again. When the staff is college-aged white girls you know you're in for some dog chow. But it was happy hour and we figured a cheap beer or two would make up for the inflated meal price. The day had finally been wasted and it was time to move on over to the club.

The club was great. It had the appearance of a modified Sizzler which was highlighted by the fireplace in the middle of the main room. Full of It was scheduled to be on the bill as well, but a late exam had stalled them so they we rescheduled to play last if they ever arrived. We played quite well and when the Full of Its finally arrived, so did they. The show wound down around midnight and we were off to stay with Fred Weaver, who was also on the bill for that night. We arrived at his house to find that it was a working recording studio and a chaotic mess, so we felt right at home. Fred gave us a quick tour of his junkatorium the highlight of which was a decade-old petrified PBJ sandwich.

February 12th - New Orleans
New Orleans is less than two hours away, so we had another full day to kill. We woke around noon and our host cooked for us his famed "Freggs" which were basically a scrambled omelette and were certifiably delicious. As we ventured into the bathroom the night before to "toil," we had noticed a quartet of figurines of the most disturbing nature. They were bipedal cats with giant breasts, rosy cleavage, and bulbous asses and each was adorned by a different theme of sexy dress--the aerobics cat, the secretarial cat, the recordist cat with tape machine and microphone, and the roller-skating cat. Darryl decided he needed to own a set for himself, so we made a trek to the dollar store to purchase our own. The middle-aged man who checked us out proclaimed "ahh, 4 sex kittens" as Darryl placed them on the register. He joyfully replied "Yeah, I can't wait to get these home!" The figurines were creepy at best, but so, I'm sure, was the sight of four dirty single men heading straight for them in the store. On the way back to Fred's, we imagined the board-room conversations in the revision phase of creating the sex kittens: "This one needs more cleavage"; "I can't see enough panties here"; "This cat's just not turning me on enough"; and on.

We headed back to Abita Springs in hopes that we'd make it for a brewery tour with the Full of Its, but our kitty quest had set us back too long and we missed the last tour of the day. We headed back to the bewpub and had beer for lunch--delicious AND nutritious!

We headed on the New Orleans, the town that some centrifugal nutjob had to have designed. What was their addiction to U-turns and driving in circles and why can't I just take a freakin' left?!? We made it to the Quarter to waste the early evening as our show wasn't until 10 and they had double-booked the hall we were playing. There was a wedding reception going on in the evening so there was no point in us arriving early to load in (not that there ever is a point). We ate dinner at Coop's, a bar/eatery renowned for their gumbo. If every there was a true New Orleans culinary experience, we thought this was it. The gumbo had an unfortunate sea-sludge appearance and had a taste which was a bit too earthy, though it matched its mudlike appearance perfectly. We did munch on alligator bits which were the texture of tendons and tasted like licking the hull of a ship.

We arrived at the hall around 9 and still an hour early. The mix of slow-jam wedding receptors and dirty punk kids who had arrived early for the show was definitely an interesting one. At show time we realized that the hall was on the second floor of the building and load-in would be facilitated by a staircase of and extremely acute angle--like loading our equipment up a ladder. The show was fine and the people there seemed to enjoy us and Full of It.

After load-out (or maybe fall-out), we pulled out for the long overnight drive home. Nothing much to report there except a moderate deliriousness starting around 4am which facilitated the listening to of "80s hits" and the yelling about how terrible they were. We were hoping the DJ would call out their number so we could phone in and request the Fat Boys, but we were stuck with Springfield, Stewart, Journey, Idol, the Police, and much more aural drivel.

February 19th - House Show in Starkville, MS
As a band, our short history with Mississippi has not been a good one. Granted there was only one other experience, which should make us a mildly-frustrated 0 for 1, but that 0 was one cold, foul-smelling, sleepless number. Next up - time for redemption for one of the few states it is possible to look down upon from Alabama.

The trip started off with two offsetting events--the installation of a CD player and the discovery an oil leak. The CD player is a revolution in insanity prevention which will give our trips more of the tone that a spring break beach trip might have as opposed to a ride to shoulder work on a prison bus. Yes, good ol' rock-n-roll beats tire hum and wind whistling any day of the week. But this fine luck could not last with us. We soon discovered that on our last trip we had leaked over 3 quarts of oil and had left a incriminating trail of oil as we backed out of the driveway. Doubts surfaced as to whether or not Mississippi would get the opportunity to redeem itself.

After an oil filter tightening and a few stops to check our fluid level, the Blue Beast had proven her petrosoundness and instilled in us again the tentative, false confidence that gets us from point A to B inside her warm, meaty belly. Surely enough, we arrived in Starkville after a mild bout of directional confusion and found the house we would be rocking that evening. A den of darkness awaited us. Starkville must breed a sense of night vision into its residents as neither lights nor light switches were to be found in most of the house. We loaded our gear into dark, featureless piles and set about the first order of business: location of the free and presumably shitty beer. But none was found.

We rocked a large foyer, one of the few lit rooms in the house, with the flashing lights of what was sure to be the lesser half of the Starkville Police force (it took 7 of them to pull over one white male in a Mustang). Our primitive "stage lighting" surely enhanced the experience and none of us could believe the cops didn't shut us down. We were fiercely loud and they only front-yard's distance away.

Post show excitement covered all the bases: free beer (found!), free rice and cornbread, and a whole mess of social excitement from our hosts. Chat, chat, chat goes the band. Usually that's when I get bored and leave since small talk is not a talent I possess in the least, but the free beer along with the threat of having to listen to the band after us kept me in close proximity to the yammering. Our hosts were fine folks, and after some mild begging we made out of there with gas money plus.

Of special note is the fifth of Jack Daniels full of human hair which we encountered on the way out. Even I cannot describe it to you or even attempt to discern its meaning. It was beautifully haunting and disgustingly creepy.

OK, Mississippi, you're 1 of 2 now.

February 25th - the Nick in Birmingham, AL
Another Nick show, what can I say? I'm not certain that we're getting any better at playing there, but we are certainly getting better about not giving a shit when we play there. As I've stated before, the Nick has always been a source of intimidation for our band. Used to be that a certain clique of bands could play there and get press for it and generally be accepted but while we were friends with most of this "in crowd" we were always shunned when it came time to pick opening bands. When we did get an offer to play there, it never failed that it was the worst experience we could imagine. Staying up til 2AM on a weeknight to play for 5 people is not my idea of fun. So we blew the place off for the greater part of a decade thinking this would always be our luck there. It is great to come back and have the it packed when we play. Our exceptional cohorts Gainer and Model Citizen made it a full night of great local music.

March 11th - No Name Bar in Tuscaloosa, AL
A Friday night show in Tuscaloosa, the closest college town to our home base, and we're not expecting much at all. We're not used to the college music atmosphere where good music is secondary to the availability of beer, where a kegger trumps a show 10 times out of 10. So it's bar shows as a rule in T-town, and this is a new bar and one of which we carried only mild expectations. It had a real sports bar/basement/cafeteria feel which was unnerving, but all our friends were there so it couldn't be all bad. We were greeted by our kind hosts and shown the hospitality of an onstage keg just for the bands which was a welcome sight indeed. The show kept hanging around in promise as the hour grew later and later, and during this delay the large space filled in quite nicely with patrons. Thankfully they came for the show and weren't just college meatheads intent on getting trashed and watching sports. As the opening band closed its set, it became apparent that the keg was tapped and another keg was hauled in to sate our uncontrollable need for disgusting Coors Light. To erode our skunk-drunk metal-up-your-ass image considerably, all our friends were drinking from the keg as well so we aren't quite as hedonistic as blowing through a keg by the end of the first band may make us seem. We were last as usual, and our set went quite well; but after our planned 8 songs, the boisterous crowd wanted even more. We were coerced into giving 2 encores and the crowd was treated to 2 songs which we hadn't practiced in the better part of a year. The songs went surprisingly well considering the lack practice, but we were exhausted and happy just to get off the stage when they were done. The show ended at a true college town hour and after our drive home we hit the pillow at 4AM.

May 13th and 14th - Recording at Zero Return
So much has happened since my last writing. We played a lot of local shows trying to raise money for recording and reporting every detail of those would have been excessively boring to even our mothers. In quick summation, we played at Cave9, at the Plaza twice, at the Nick, and at Sakura; we shared bills with the likes of Lightning Bolt and Akimbo; we played as Dan Sartain's backing band. I bet that almost sounds interesting doesn't it? See what great fun can be had by the use of a quick summation rather than lengthy dissertations about each event? You get all the glory and none of the numbing detail. Just wait until my MTV-style quick-cut wordplay is perfected. Then, my friends, these writings will become orgasmic.

To fill in the sidebar of our experiences, I will unleash this detail: one morning we awoke to find showered bits of broken glass and a gaping hole where our lovely CD player once rested. We were back in the dark ages of tire hum and wind whistles as road accompaniment, but now a new CD player has been born into the loving arms of our baby blue dash.

On to reportable events of moderate interest. We finished writing the songs for our record and headed over to Zero Return Studios in Atlanta for a two-day rock-n-roll recording bash. Again we talked vegetable oil and BioDiesel with Rob, the studio's proprietor, who has gone from playing a mad scientist on record (with Man... or Astroman?) to becoming one in real life (the days we were there he was experimenting with pressure cooking the water out of vegetable oil and warning us not to smoke near his Methanol, a highly-combustible substance which produces flames that burn so hot as to be invisible to the eye and of which Rob has a full oil drum sitting right in the driveway). Our second trip to the studio was much wiser than the first. We brought food in order to avoid the cost and limitations of having food delivered to the studio twice a day and we decided not to stay up playing Tony Hawk until 4am the night before the session as we did last time. The extra rest would prove to be quite valuable for the 12-hour workdays ahead.

We blazed through the tracks, recording most in the first or second take. We're all playing live in the room with no edits, so getting it all down in only a few takes is a feat we're quite proud of. So now our record is complete save a few minor details and embellishments and is stored on 2" magnetic tape awaiting a final mix which we'll go back for some time in June.

May 21st - Athens, GA
It started out innocently enough--first as a plentiful supply of our favorite snack, then as a giant, almost glowing mass of sugar and artificial colorings, and finally as a glorious technicolor brain resting atop (and hopefully melting down onto) mile marker 189. Since the rebirth of the 'burban, we've always kept it stocked with a 5 pound bag of Trolli Brite Crawlers. They give us the soul fuel necessary for the rock we dish out. But our tradition of gummy wormage had not been tested in the summer heat and the heat ended up winning that contest quite handily. First the gummy mass fused just slightly, creating a sort of gummy Medusa with one central core and worms hanging off in all directions. So you'd have to pull a worm off the mass to snack. This was a fun and interesting challenge that we all enjoyed. But summer heat struck again as the truck sat outside the studio and this time the blow was fatal. The gummy Medusa had become one solid melted mass of sugar at the bottom of the bag. Now we had the gummy loaf. Jokes of slicing it like bread kept us entertained, but once we took a bite of it we realized that the gummy loaf was disgusting and inedible (unless you enjoy the texture of fishing lures). So a new plan erupted--a plan to mount the loaf on top of a mile marker and let the sun's heat turn it into a rainbow of lava melting down the sign. We pulled up to mile marker 189 and Darryl got on the hood to crown the sign. It looked great and we can only imagine it getting better as the summer sun works its charms.

The rest of the trip to Athens wasn't nearly as inspiring. It was the usual 30 minutes sitting in Atlanta traffic combined with the same rest stop we always stop at combined with intermittent declarations of our hatred for the city. Once we got off 85, morale improved and we took in rural scenery--a stark contrast to the past hour of sprawling megalopolis. We arrived, checked in to the show, and embarked on a search for food. Taco Mac was the closest, so Taco Mac won. My $2.00 burrito was sub-Taco Bell quality and lasted for only four bites reminding me why bringing food is such a good idea.

The show was a six-bander starting with an indescribable (and not in a good way) duo of aural assaulters, then another band played rock n roll of lower quality than i'd like to hear, then we played our music at a lower quality than i'd like to hear, then Hot Snakes part 2 took the stage, then a band from Texas whose spastic singer wore homemade bloomers with frilly fringe played, then our hosts took the stage. Unfortunately it seemed most people were there to see a quartet rearrange and replicate the Hot Snakes because the crowd thinned significantly after they were done. At around 2:30am we trucked it out of town. Right outside of Athens we were stopped by up to three cops to test our whiteness (and our sobriety I suppose though I could detect no action toward that end). They told us we had a tail light out and that we'd keep getting stopped until we got it fixed and so to avoid that hassle we should fix it right away. Oddly it was the first time anyone's ever mentioned it to us in the year and a half we've been driving on one tail light. So we passed the paper bag test and were free to leave. We hit the pillow right at daybreak.

June 11th and 12th - Recording at Zero Return
Our final trip to Zero Return and I couldn't be happier about it. I'm really happy with the results of our efforts and also really happy I won't be spending any more time there for a while. Recording's fun I guess, but my brain gets bogged down pretty quickly and by the second day I just can't think clearly at all. We did a few touch-ups on day 1 and mixed on day 2. I don't understand how you're supposed to mix a record, even when given a whole day to do it. After about four songs we all realized we couldn't hear above a certain frequency and we just coasted to completion on our weathered ears.

I wasn't prepared for the amount of down time day 2 would bring. Just listening to the mix a few times to get your cues takes 30 minutes and if you're not directly involved, that's 30 minutes spent doing nothing. Fortunately, there is a pocket reference book in the control room to provide some infotainment. From its pages we gleaned that a butt is a unit of measure equaling 126 gallons (which facilitated a few jokes) and that dickite is a mineral which rates very low on the hardness scale (a fact which facilitated even more jokes). When combined, these new facts facilitated even more potent jokes such as "I've got a butt full of dickite."

Our engineer Jim Marrer is one of the most interesting people I have ever met in my life. He's someone who is kept pretty hip by his work at the studio, but also someone who has a very old-school outlook on life. He is also a connoisseur of sweet tea. I would estimate that he drank 4 or 5 liters of tea a day--none of them casually. His tea has evolved into a very specific and scientific process. Fill a laboratory beaker with 1 liter of water, microwave on high for 10 minutes, let it sit for 30 seconds, drop in four bangs of Lipton, let steep for 10 minutes (I'm actually guessing about this step, but I know it was at least 5 minutes and probably no more than 10), stir in some unknown amount of sugar and you've got sweat tea. This tea is poured over a cup full of ice and allowed to slow ly become diluted as it melts in the heat of the control room. This process turns his extra strong brew into a real thing of beauty.

As we finished up on Sunday night, I finally asked to sample Jim's potion. I allowed a few minutes for the ice to melt into the tea and as we began our trek out of Atlanta, I started swigging away. That is easily the best tea I have ever had in my life--both extra strong and bitter and extra sweet. We made it home in record time and thankfully in silence. Had I heard another note of music at that point I feel my ears would have started bleeding.

Cheers to all for a job well done and hopefully our record will be out soon for all to enjoy.

June 18th - Lenny's in Atlanta
We trucked it over to Atlanta again. This time it was for a show. I have seen way too much of that city in the past few months and knowing this time will be our last for a good while made the trip a lot more enjoyable. Aaron went with us this time. The last time he went with us to Atlanta, the burban died a gruesome and sudden death and we were forced to participate in a cavalcade of waiting by the highway, riding with strangers, and then all cramming into a truck for the ride home. Fortunately Aaron did not curse this trip.

We showed up at Lenny's and realized it is a place we had played about 6 years ago when it was called Dottie's. It can be disheartening to work for such a long time at something and improve tremendously but end up back in the same place you started. But our Lenny's experience turned out to be much better than what we remember from Dottie's. For one there were people at the show and as an added bonus those people seemed to really enjoy us.

And we had a fan. A guy walked up to Darryl and said he was really disappointed that we didn't play Reeling and then commenced to sing Floating Digits to him. Now that does not happen very often.

July 8th - the Pilot Light in Knoxville
Ladies and gentlemen, we have met Arby's #1 fan--all 50 or so brain cells of him.

When we're out on the road travelling the interstate highway system to and from shows, we always seem to settle on Arby's. It is the one place that nobody has a problem with and where you can always depend on medium-quality food at inflated prices. There are never any surprise toilet rushes with Arby's as there are with your McDonalds, Taco Bells, and even Wendys.

We usually try to eat at least an hour before load in to avoid any surprises which may be brought on by the immediate strain of carrying equipment or of playing the show. This time, dinner presented itself about 10 minutes outside of Knoxville. We try to stick to populated areas to avoid the "country funk" that can breed on long, lonely stretches of highway. We thought we were close enough to Knoxville to ensure city-like fare, but apparently we were not close enough.

The guy in front of us in line had the worst collection of tattoos I have ever seen. If prison tattoos are usually done with a straight pin, I don't see how his could have been made with anything more precise than a coathanger. The first one we noticed looked like a child's drawing of tigger assuming a classic quadrapedal bulldog stance. The Tiggertat had a had a big, arched back and looked thoroughly disfigured, deformed, and retarded but very happy. Then our eyes panned down to his "kanji." To give it a real name is certainly going too far, maybe we should just call them patches of blurry black lines. They looked at crosshatching attempts gone awry. He also had some lettering on his knuckles and I would have loved to know what was spelled out on them. Dipshit! would fit quite nicely.

So there we were in semi-rural Tennessee with this guy in front of us and we were expecting to be ignored at best. A leer would be understandable, some sort of "faggot" remark and chuckle would not have been too out of the ordinary. Instead he turned to us and talked our ear off about the Big Montana. He urged us to buy a few Big Montanas for ourselves and bragged that he had driven 40 minutes specifically to be in that Arby's right then. He described to us his house on nine-and-a-half acres, how there was a McDonalds at the end of his driveway and how "the girls there" always want him to come in and eat but he don't wanna, how there's a Krystal in his town but he's sick of it, and how he drives for miles and miles just to eat Arby's. He left with two bags full and we were glad to be rid of his company even though it was quite entertaining while it lasted.

Another oddity of this Arby's was discovered when we asked for Arby's Sauce and got Smithfield's James River Barbecue Sauce. This was discovered to be no accident when we realized that even the vat of Arby's Sauce had been filled with this semi-repugnant mess.

On to the show. The Old City of Knoxville is a great place to be bored out of your freaking mind. We discovered this when our walk for fun ended within one block in each direction. It is totally isolated area of no more than four city blocks which is ringed by railroad tracks, destroyed buildings, and general dilapidation. The club was great, the girl who booked the show was great, and we played pretty well too. Inside the club's bathroom we came across one of the greatest sentences in history...

"I cheated divorce by fisting a crow."

Late Summer Update:
Late summer was filled with the monotony of being a local band. Lots of plain shows, mostly at the same place, and for the same people. But during those shows we worked in a bass player, which we haven't had in many many years. I was really drooling for low end, having been away from it for so long, and I'm glad it has reunited with us again. We also did loads and loads of behind-the-scenes stuff getting ready for our new record to be released and patching together a crumbling tour that was to follow.

One instance of note during this period was the creation of the three shirt challenge. Jason, the new bass player, is constantly being "Newstedized" by the old-timers in the band and one such incident was when I made fun of him for changing shirts three times in one evening. After accusing him of being less-than-hetero and predicting that he would pack like a girl on tour, we crafted a blood oath called the "the three shirt challenge" which states in harsh, archaic wording that neither Jason nor myself are allowed to bring more than 3 shirts on our 9-day trip. Sounds easy until you realize that the shirts will be sweat-drenched every night of the trip. I predicted that we'd both be buying gas-station t-shirts within a few days and we allowed for an amendment to our gentleman's agreement which stated that additional shirts could only be worn if they were both mesh and sleeveless.

September 16 - Nashville at the Springwater Supper Club
As I stated before, Nashville has never been my favorite place to play. I don't know if it's that there's too much going on for anyone to give a damn about you unless you're really somebody or just a general colorless, odorless scene funk. We had heard good things about the Springwater on past trips and wanted to make sure we got a chance to play there this go around. It's funny the images your brain conjures up for places unknown and how consistently wrong they are. This place is basically a roadhouse with a BBQ joint attached. It is a total dive, which is usually my kind of place.

As we arrived, Darryl's old friend from college was there to greet us and direct us to the nearest "good" food. It is a shame that we could not press charges for his irresponsible use of favorable terms when describing this place. It was Cuco's quality divided by 4--sure to wreak intestinal havoc at the most inconvenient time as our innards rise up in revolt against this disgusting intruder. The refried beans could have doubled as a pureed soup, but with hard chunks of beans hiding beneath the murky surface. At least the chips were dayglo green.

It was on the return to the club from U. S. Border Cantina (you've been warned!) that Jason introduced us to Max Cavalera, singer for the Brazilian band Soulfly. It started with "Back to dee preemeteev!" and devolved from there into a superhilarious diatribe featuring "dees one's called...(fill in various anti establishment catchphrases)!" and "fuck your politik!" yelled at full volume. When we arrived back at the club, it was time to unload al the gear from our truck and haul it onto the back porch which served as both the staging area for all the band's equipment and a hangout for a group of pot-smoking drunkards who would yell intermittently at or over the band playing (I could never really tell). The lead genius of this group decided it would be a great idea to flick his cigarette at Brad's drums and though it didn't burn a hole all the way through the tom head it landed on, it would set the stage for later fun.

We got up on stage, played our set. It was good, but nothing special. With two songs left, I see a large patch of what used to be a tom head come sailing towards the front of the stage. After a futile attempt to flip the tom over and use the bottom head it was decided that the tom should be thrown to the side of the stage and the set should proceed with a minimalist drum set, resulting in maximum badassery. I must applaud Brad for his fine skill in making do--even I couldn't tell that he only had 3/4 of a kit to play. We turned down a few offers for lodging, opting to trek on to Louisville where reliable accommodations were a certainty. We arrived at the Casa Patterson around 4am.

Sept 17th - day off in Louisville
This was one of the days we were just never able to fill. It sucks to have day 2 be a day off, but that's what we were left with. Our host, Jamie, was supposed to have the day off from her record store job, but was called in at the last minute to pretend to be a store patron while Cameron Crowe and Orlando Bloom "shopped" during their interviews with MTV and the Oprah Winfrey show. The two were in town promoting a new and terrible-looking movie called Elizabethtown. As bored youths often do, we wandered towards the area to participate in the spectacle of stars descending on this otherwise quiet town. The store was closed for 2 hours while the stars "shopped" and we were hoping to be there when it opened back up so we could look for records. We parked the truck on the block behind the store and while approaching crossed paths with none other than 95-year old Kurt Loder of MTV news fame. Jason was assigned the task of walking by and yelling "Loder!" at him, but chickened out and settled for a cheesy photo instead. The photo catches Jason in an ecstatic "thumbs up" and Kurt with a tired, puzzled look as he makes fun of Darryl's polaroid skills. We wandered around for a while, bought some Skullsplitter beer at the liquor store across the street (featuring a "real" photo of a viking!) and meandered back to the truck. Lo and behold, we were blocked in by the Elizabethtown bus which had clipped another car as it attempted to maneuver the narrow, crowded streets--presumably with Mr. Bloom on board. After 30 or so minutes waiting for a police report and for the bus to make its 30-point turn in retreat, the area was finally cleared and we could leave.

Jamie's boyfriend Ryan had just returned that morning from a 2-week Canadian tour and by the time we returned to our place of refuge, he was up and well-rested. We had been promised a trip to the Vietnam Kitchen (immortalized in the Black Cross song "VKHC") which offered largely vegetarian fare of Southeast Asian origins. Half of us got some sort of wrap thing with "mock duck" and the other half got a noodle bowl with tofu. The mock duck dish had the unmistakable taste of pine sap and the noodle bowls tasted exactly like Fruit Loops.

We spent the evening back at our home base getting drunk on Skullsplitter and some other random beers. Once we were significantly tipsy, we walked down to the skate park which was only a few blocks from where we were staying. I really could not believe my eyes when we rounded the corner and saw a giant, full-fledged skatepark in front of us which was available to anyone 24 hours a day-- no fence, no waiver, nothing. Brad and I were mesmerized by the site of a guy who was attempting to drop in on the 12-foot half-pipe for the first time. He'd never dropped in before, and his whole family (including a uniformed marine who was videotaping it) was there to cheer him on. As time passed, a crowd was starting to gather to watch him bust his face for the first time. After at least 10 minutes, probably 15, of him standing at the top of the ramp on the board, he finally did it. "All you gotta do is just lean forward" he kept being told, and that's all he did. The board stayed at the top of the ramp and he just leaned right over it and fell 8 feet or so onto his face, sliding to rest at the bottom of the ramp. We immediately felt shameful for having participated in what had to have been the last moment that this kid would ever have full motor skills. Surely he had at least broken some bones in his face, maybe he was even paralyzed. He laid motionless for what seemed like an eternity, though I am sure it was only 30 seconds or so, and finally rose up and walked off like nothing had happened. While we were enjoying this spectacle, Darryl went to skate in a different area and was laughed at by little kids.

Sept 18th - HYAMP in Huntington, WV
On the way out of Louisville, we swung by whole foods to stock up on frilly munchies for our newly acquired vegan and our vegetarian-in-training. Lots of tofu jerky, tofu pepperoni, and tofu turkey lunch meat, plus some dynamite bean dip and hummus. The trek though eastern KY was nothing sacred--just miles and miles of the same old highway that grows in any good southern state.

We reached Huntington with plenty of time to kill, stopped in at the club to check in, and then embarked on a search for warm, greasy food. Darryl and I found ours at Geno's Family Fun Center, which from the looks of its exterior held within it's walls the ultimate West Virginian dining experience. Half of the building was a pizza parlor serving a brutal pie which approached the quality found on the lowest level of your grocer's freezer. It was served on rectangular styrofoam plates and accompanied with nearly undrinkable water. The "fun" half of Geno's was a game room which was drenched in wretched yellow light. West Virginia's finest rednecks were out in full force, having a blast with their sister/wives and niece/nephew/kids.

Once we had received our full yearly allowance of minerals through their drinking water, we were off to the show. The HYAMP is a giant space where they host big national touring bands with seeming regularity along with small local shows to fill in gaps in the calendar. This would most certainly be the latter, and if you've ever been to a small show in a giant venue you know just how much (un)fun that can be. Truthfully, it wasn't bad, but playing is a space like that makes 30 people look like 3. The band that played before us was both drunk and retarded and was one of the most enjoyable bands i've seen in a while. They were fat, sweaty, and shirtless, with unibrows, fu-manchu mustaches, and of course dicks drawn on them with bright blue marker and they'd play stupid songs about how your cooter smells--what's not to love? We played OK, sold some stuff, and then headed off with our host to Squalortown, USA.

I had forgotten how life was in those care-free college days, before we had any standards for living. I now remember quite clearly. Our host shared an off-campus apartment with two other people, all three of which seem disinclined towards any kind of cleaning or sanitation. Piles of cat shit? Check! Fruit fly infestation? Check! Hot, stagnant, and disgusting air? Check! This place had it all--more than we could have imagined in fact.

Life on the road has its challenges and chief among them is the pursuit of someone who's dumb enough to offer up their house to you for the night. Usually you can tell what you're gonna get by examining who is offering it to you. Crust punks and people who like to talk to you endlessly about nothing at all are told "Oh, we already have a place to stay." Girls (excluding female crust punks) are almost always told "We'd love to!" because girls are assumedly clean. But you can never tell. Sometimes your kind, gracious, and apparently clean host lives in squalor. And once you find that out, you're stuck. You can't just say "We actually have higher standards than this, so bye." This was one such case.

Upon our arrival, the room we were to sleep in was populated by our host, the four of us, a mascaraed Ron Jeremy look-alike with two presumably underage dirt hookers in tow, the singer for the band I had so enjoyed, an inebriated skinny kid who had been eating face with one of the dirt hookers on the car ride over, the bass player of said previous band, and his girlfriend. Other than a small circle in the middle of the room, all the available floor space was occupied. Sounds like a recipe for fun, no?

The singer talked our ear off for a while with some contrived story about how Joe Montana liked to stuff Super Bowl rings up his ass. Suddenly I lamented the loss of the stage which had kept him in a confined, controlled environment rather than talking your ear off trying to be funny. The room's other inhabitants seemed to enjoy it, but maybe they were just being polite. I doubt that very seriously. When he could see that we didn't care so much for his Joe Montana ass ring story, he upped the bet by asking us direct questions about Joe Montana's ass. Barker responded with a straight answer which caught him off guard and ended the diatribe. It was something like "I don't think he could really do that" and it was that which finally made me laugh.

Now that funny time was over, it was time for LAMK or Live-Action Mortal Kombat. This is in the same crowded room with only a few feet of open floor space. At first they acted out Mortal Kombat moves, hurling themselves against the wall and striking laughable poses. Then, it degraded into real fighting. So there's one ritalin-deprived fat kid against an inebriated skinny kid. I bet you can't guess who wins. These fools were throwing each other on to the ground, into furniture, and into other people. The bout culminated when the fat kid slammed the skinny kid's head into the ground a few times. It was really pretty scary and surely the kid was concussed. Barker was out in the stairwell on the phone with his love interest and missed the whole thing. It wasn't long before Brad and I realized that we had someone to call too.

So we hung out in the stairwell for a good while as the attendees slowly decided one-by-one that they'd rather be somewhere else. Darryl stayed inside after we left and was the only one of us to bear witness as one of the dirt hookers decided she'd rather not have a shirt on. I'm still unclear why this decision was made--whether it was a dare or just something to do to pass the time--but the shirt, it came off. There was no full-on boob, but plenty of skin. Soon, the mascaraed Ron Jeremy and the two dirt hookers left for presumably "greener (toke, toke)" pastures. A friend of our host showed up to cook us rice and beans, but none of us were interested in eating anything that was prepared in that kitchen.

Sept 19th - day off in PA
We awoke surprisingly early, packed up with a speed matched only by those with significant military training, and hit the road in search of excitement. We went out to the truck and brushed our teeth with bottled water (to avoid issues of purity in both the drinking water and the environment) and then headed for the shortest road out of town.

Traveling the width of West Virginia holds few surprises. The first 10 miles look just like the last, but you can count on a good old fashioned cross display every few minutes. Surely we saw a dozen primitive Golgothas on our journey through the state. It's as if crucifixion sites grow in the wild there, feeding off the putrid water and miner's air.

Maryland was a welcome relief. It was nice to get back to a state whose highways were not totally devoid of scenery and nice to finally get rid of those creepy cross displays. Our destination for the day was Pottsville, PA, the home of Yeungling Brewery which lies in close proximity to the United States' uberBrantleyville--Centralia. We drove all day, stopped in to a beer store for some interesting swill, and checked ourselves in to the Fort Motel for a night of drinking, showering, and TVing fun.

Our state seems very conservative, at times regressive, but we've found from our travels up north that the blue states can be just conservative in different ways. In Pennsylvania, for instance, beer for home use can only be purchased in cold 6-packs from bars or in warm cases from beer stores. The beer stores close early, so unless you want to be gang-raped by paying bar prices for a 6er, you best plan ahead. These northeastern states are also home to a host of low-rent regional beers, which we try our best to procure at each juncture. This time Brad spotted American beer. At $7.50 per case, it was a sure winner. We were able to scam enough ice off the hotel manager to cool them down so we get totally rowdy on them.

Between three of us, we polished off at around 15 beers though none of us felt more than a minor buzz. We were supposed to have a show in Pittsburgh, but the club had closed a week before. Surely the show wouldn't have been as much fun as chugging Americans at the Fort Motel was.

Sept 20th - in NYC at the Trash Bar
The day before had been sacrificed to driving in hopes that we could jam as much fun as possible in to this day. We awoke early and made the short drive into Pottsville. We had been there last time we passed through PA, but didn't show up in time for the Yuengling Brewery tour. This time we were smart enough to call and find out there was a schedule in place we needed to work around. We arrived at the brewery only a few minutes past the 10am tour start. We quickly caught up to the group and wandered our way through the house that blue-collar beer built. After the tour, we got free beer. And some of it was even good.

So we found ourselves pretty buzzed when we left the tour at 10:45 and pledged to keep it up until we had to hit the road towards New York. We hit the beer store again to buy a case of Premium Yuenglings (not the crap they sell down south) and some ice. We iced down the beers and trekked a half hour or so to Centralia--or what is left of it. A fire has been burning underground there since the 60s, forcing demolition of the entire town save a few who stubbornly remain. Acrid smoke rises from tears in the earth caused by heat and the depletion of the coal seams beneath. One of the most active areas is the site of a former neighborhood which has been transformed into a barren post-apocalyptic landscape filled with deep gorges, trash heaps, smoking vents, and what remains of nature. It is here that we, as the fine Alabamians we are, gathered to drink before noon and bask in the glory of God's formerly green earth. A local yank-neck stopped by and talked to us for a while about Centralia's glory days and its path of decline. Then we played baseball with the remaining American beers and Jason tried to roundhouse one off a stump. Hilarity ensued.

We hit the highway towards our dreaded destination, New York City--the city that toilets forgot (or maybe remembered?!?). We arrived at the club, found suitable residential parking, and hauled our gear around the block and into the club. None of us had eaten, but we arrived just in time for happy hour which promised free band beers for an hour--score! Then we realized that the bar offered free tater tots on the hour if you asked nicely--score and score again! After our nutritious dinner, we hit the stage ready to rule the face off the dozen or so innocent bystanders that still remained. To supplement our sheer rock power, I addressed the "crowd" all night with the thickest fake southern accent I could muster. As a surprise element of our unending onslaught, Jason fell down on stage. After the last song, two ladies of seemingly loose morals remained. They took the stage and demanded a sing-a-long. We played Maximalist Anthem sans vocals and the two of them crooned along, alternating between an operatic singing style and the singing style a wolf might have in the process of being mangled by farm equipment. We bolted out of the city towards sunny Long Island to procure a bed for the night. Luckily the motel we chose had hardcore pornography on display in the office. It's a shame we weren't able to use it.

Sept 21st- fake show in Brooklyn at the Red and Black
This was another show we lost in the final weeks leading up to tour. We were scheduled to play in upstate New York, but the show which had been firm for several weeks suddenly turned to mush. At our show in Birmingham the day before we hit the road, a longtime friend of ours who does touring on his own said he had some contacts up north that he could talk into helping us fill the sudden holes in our tour. He was able to weasel us onto a seemingly unrelated bill at a bar in Brooklyn with the catch that we'd have to play first and for no money. More on this later.

We left our posh motel on Long Island and drove back into Brooklyn to find residential parking for the day. We set off in search of the club we were supposed to play that night and found that it was only a few blocks from where we had played the night before. Once we had our bearings down, we set out to infiltrate the city of New York and burn it to the ground by way of our mere touristic presence. By miracle or insane coincidence, I spotted an old friend of mine who had just moved to Brooklyn a few weeks before with his wife. I had been trying to get back in touch with him for years, and just happened to look across the street in a city of millions and see him standing there. So now we have a place to stay for the night, a purpose for playing (so our two friends can see us) and a city map which we borrowed from them. We located the nearest subway station and were off to colonize the New World.

We did the all usual touristy New York stuff: Brooklyn Bridge, record shopping, Central Park, falafel, searching for toilets--the complete package. With the day done and the city surprisingly still standing, we called our invasion off and retreated back to the relative un-bustle of Brooklyn. It was getting close to show time, so we made our way to the club. Brad was wise enough to suggest we leave our gear in the truck until the show promoter arrived, just in case there was some sort of miscommunication since we didn't book the show ourselves. We pulled up to the bar, drank our free band beers, and chatted with my long lost friend who had arrived to see us.

Finally, the promoter arrived. It was an hour after he told us we'd start, but we are well versed in the art of fake show start times and didn't think anything of it. Turns out the deal was that we could play before the show and it was too late for us to play by the time he arrived. At least we got free beer.

We lugged our sleeping accoutrements through the subway and down a few blocks to our place of refuge for the night. It was great to have a clean place to stay that was free, and even better to have some new company to spend the evening with. We went out drinking, shot the shit for a while, and stumbled home to bed.

Sept 22nd - basement show in New Brunswick, NJ
Since New Brunswick is only an hour from NYC, we decided to fill the day with a trip to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. It was an extra hour of driving and a good bit of back-tracking, but it was well worth it. The Mütter Museum is a medical museum housed at the Philadelphia College of Physicians and we had heard rumors that it was stupendous. The first exhibit was about the medicines and medical techniques used by Lewis and Clark. It was pretty much snoozers, and I wondered if we had been misled about the amount of fun to be had at Mütter. There were lots of wax recreations of inflamed genitalia, some horrific old medical implements, and a giant stuffed bear. After winding through the exhibit, which is set up in traditional snaking style, the path opens up into a giant two-story room full of the coolest shit you've ever seen. Wall of skulls, conjoined twins, deformed infants in formaldehyde--oh my! There was also a decomposed corpse just hanging out in the middle of the room. It was glassed in, but it was still incredible to see in person and at such close proximity. Her skin tissue had turned almost completely black and had turned into a waxy, soap-like preservative. The preserved Feti were totally disturbing. Most were grossly disfigured, like one born without a head--just a small wad of flesh atop its shoulders. And some whose skulls had been smashed in due to improper use of the forceps. I could describe the spectacle of Mütter all day, but just do a google image search for "mutter museum" and save me the trouble.

At Jason's request, we located the Relapse store in hopes of maxing out on metal. Once metal had been maxed, we hit the New Jersey Turnpike back up to New Brunswick.

The show was in the basement of an old house that has held semi-legendary shows for many years. From the tales of our host, it sounds like the punk rock torch is passed from each tenant to the next in hopes they'll keep the basement shows alive. We hauled our gear down the street, around back, and down a treacherous, winding staircase into the basement. Pretty soon, the keg was tapped and we were underway. We played a great set, and with some good bands for a change. We met some great folks, sold some stuff, and then set out to fill our bellies with the finest local cuisine.

Several people had been telling us all night that we had to eat at this special place. We couldn't decide if it was a dare or a place that the locals were just busting with pride over. Either way, we found ourselves agreeing to be led to the legendary Grease Trucks.

The Grease Trucks are a collection of 4 or 5 food trailers circled in a parking lot at Rutgers University. You know, the kind of trailers you'd see at the fair except that instead of selling candied apples and cokes, they all sold minor variations on one theme--the "Fat" everything sandwich. There was the Fat Darrell, the Fat Bitch (which Rutgers had made them change to Fat Beach), the Fat Elvis, and on. Most of these started as foot-long Philly cheesesteaks onto which a variety of toppings were piled. The Fat Bitch, for instance, was Philly steak, cheese, chicken fingers, french fries, mozzerella sticks, and marinara sauce all packed into one sandwich. It was surprisingly delicious. Their old policy was that anyone who could eat 3 sandwiches in 30 minutes won the naming rights to that sandwich. Apparently (and scarily) that was too easy a task and they've since upped the requirement to 5 sandwiches.

The great thing about house shows is that once you load in for the show, you're done. There's no pack up and find a place to stay involved, you're already there. Plus there are always people around, and if those people are quality folks, a great time can almost certainly be had.

As you have gathered by now, we are experts in finding the least desirable local beers and procuring them for our enjoyment. We asked the locals to buy us such when they went on a beer run, and we ended up with Golden Anniversary beer. I have no idea how they were able to make it to a golden anniversary with such a tasteless beer.

We hung out on the front porch drinking Golden Anniversary and talking with our hosts for a good while and then went to bed. Darryl woke up in the middle of the night to facilitate the rejection by his body of the Fat Darrell he had ingested earlier. Though the rest of us managed to display a greater intestinal fortitude, he was rewarded by the sight of a semi-nude girl.

Sept 23rd - in Richmond, VA at Hollywood Grill
Good people make the world so much more enjoyable. There are good people in Richmond and we're fortunate to know a few of them, so we were excited to get the chance to play there again.

Our time kill for the day was a brewery tour at Dogfish Head way down in southern Delaware. We got there ahead of schedule and had an hour to kill in nowhereville, which proved to be a terrifically unenjoyable task. The tour was ok, but the beers were excellent. It was the only brewery tour I've ever been on where they get you drunk before they show you around. Sounds safe.

We decided that the easiest path to Richmond would be heading south through the Virginia keys all the way down to Newport News and then back-tracking a bit to Richmond. Sounded like more fun than the prospect of sitting in DC traffic again. The trip took a bit longer than expected and we were all kind of nervous that we might miss what could be the best show of the whole trip because of some silly tourist diversion.

We made it to the club just in time, set up our gear, and rocked it. The show was great, and the space was just small enough to be pretty packed when we played. It's always a good feeling to look up and see an actual crowd.

We stayed with Jason's friend Randy who must be ranked as one of the top 10 most hospitable people in the world. He whipped us up some asian dumplings and we sat outside shooting the shit until about 4 am. Oh and he has a Russian tortoise named Moses which will live for around 150 more years.

Sept 24th - Greensboro, NC at Gate City Noise
Randy had promised to make us some steaks for lunch, and we were very glad he made good on that promise. While we were waiting for food, I read over one of his ninja books and learned several semi-lethal punching techniques including the sword hand. Then the whips and throwing stars came out.

Pretty soon it was time to hit the highway again for our last stop of the tour. Randy's hospitality had been our diversion for the day, so we had to go straight to the show. We were fortunate enough to get totally lost in Greensboro and waste a good half an hour or more driving in a giant circle. When we finally made it to the show, we were informed that there was no early load in, meaning we'd just load in right before we took the stage, so we had an hour or so to kill. We found a veggie asian restaurant across the street and decided we'd kill our hour eating.

The show was pretty uneventful. We played well, but nobody seemed to care. Fortunately we had planned ahead during the time we slayed before the show and stocked the cooler with fresh ice and the few remaining Yuenglings. We waited out the last band of the bill in the truck, sipping our Yuenglings and gathering the mental fortitude required for the overnight drive home. Luckily we made it home safely just before daybreak.

Nov 4th - total bust in Cookeville, TN
We drove to Cookeville, TN, where a good small-town show had been promised to us by a band we'd met last time we played in Knoxville. Small-town shows can be a lot of fun, and this one sounded like it would be one of the good ones. With promises of 60-100 kids and plenty of gas money, it would be worth our effort if it were only half true. So we loaded up the Blue Bird and headed to Cookeville.

We arrived around show time and were greeted by the band we were playing with and really no one else. Then we realized that the "show" was supposed to happen in a trailer, a trailer in a neighborhood. And in a trailer next-door, lived the kid's dad. We were greeted with "Plate Six? Ah, I kinda hoped y'all wouldn't show up." And this is how it went. We decided that rather than lugging our gear into the house where we would be almost instantly shut down by the cops, that we would just drive off instead. And we did. I guess the kid almost got his wish--we did show up, but then we were nice enough to unshow up.

On the way towards a hotel and a case of cheap beer, we came up with a new agreement under which everyone who books a DIY show should be held. When you show up to a scene like the "show" in Cookeville, the guy who "booked" it is basically saying "Hey, Fuck You!" First, we decided that these people should be forced to be honest and have to actually say that to you. It's impolite to try to hide it. If the message is "Hey, Fuck You!" then let us hear it and get it over with rather than masking it in some story about how we could play, but the cops might shut it down and my dad might complain and we tried calling all our friends but they are at a high school football game. Just say it. We roll up, the dude says "Hey, Fuck You!" and we pull away. Isn't that a nice, clean transaction?

But then we decided that this agreement swung too far in favor of the "booker" leaving the band with no consolation but his honesty to them about the situation. So we modified this plan to include a swift paddling of the balls. Paddles can be wooden or plastic, can have holes or be solid, but they must have the full band name written in Old English typeface in all caps burnished in them. It goes like this: band shows up, "booker" comes out, and in compliance with the full regulations of the DIY ethic he drops his pants and spreads his legs a bit. One representative for the band is then allowed to whack the shit out of his nuts with their paddle. Then the band gets back in its van and drives off.

Nov 5th - Charlotte, NC at the Milestone
We arrived at the club way too early in Charlotte, so we decided we would drive across town to the UNC-Charlotte campus in hopes we would stumble across some fun-related fun and maybe a suitable place to eat. Unfortunately, we found neither. We did stumble across some waspy outdoor mall which held nothing we could either afford or stomach. We contemplated filling our guts with gnarly Taco Bell , but everyone soundly objected. Surely we could find something more lower-middle class between whiteland and ghettoville, so we hit the highway back towards town. Lots of Wendy's, lots of Bojangles, lots of Taco Bells. All were rejected with spirited howls and plenty of cursing. In desperation, we took the last exit before we were to get off to go back to the club. It was near the airport, so surely there was a wide variety of food. We were determined to find something there, and we did. It goes by the name of Taco Bell. So we drove for a solid hour through Billy Graham's Bible wasteland only to reject one Taco Bell for another. And fortunately we picked the one that was both extremely expensive (near the airport) and that charged 75 cents to use credit (none of us had cash). Ever spent $8 on 2 tacos and a coke? We have. By then we were elated with displeasure, and our dining experience served to stoke the fires of glorious hatred which were raging within.

We arrived back at the club, still way too early. The posted 8pm start time had magically become 11. We had nothing better to do than get drunk on Sparks. The show was ok. We probably played a bit too tipsily, but I think we pulled it off. The Sparks did spark an uninhibited rage in Brad, who destroyed a cymbal stand after the show and shoved it into the wall. Thanks, Sparks.

Nov 18th - Atlanta, GA at Lenny's
We've always been the responsible band. The band that shows up when they tell us to and as punishment for following instructions is forced into a state of excruciating boredom for 2 or more hours until the show gets underway. We tried to be responsibly on-time at this show too, but fate would not allow it. We had planned to leave at 5:30, but Jason hit a snag with some equipment which needed to be borrowed and wound up sitting in traffic for a while. We didn't leave town until after 7:30, which would put us arriving at the club some time in the middle of the show.

When we arrived, the band before us had only a couple songs left and then we were on. Things were hectic, but we played well and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Halfway through the set we were asked to turn down because the cops had arrived. This is a rock club that has shows every night of the week. Weird. Unfortunately the cops weren't around when a Beat It-style fight erupted in the parking lot. It's a shame that the fight wasn't nearly as well choreographed.

About midway through our set, Darryl started getting requests from a 60-something woman for us to play some AC/DC. This lady looked like she got lost on the way to the roadhouse and wound up in the punk bar, but she was making the best of it trying to dance to anything. She was really mesmerizing to watch, and every couple of minutes her routine would start over and you'd see the same dumb dance moves in basically the same order as before. Darryl asked her to come up and sing AC/DC over our songs, a trick which had worked well in NYC a few months earlier, but apparently she doesn't sing--she just dances. She danced non-stop through the end of our set, to the house music inbetween bands, through the entirety of the last band's set and on in into the dance party which followed the bands. It's easy to laugh at people like her, but when I'm 60-something I sure hope I am cutting up the floor at a dumb punk show instead of sitting at home knitting.

We left the show and headed to the house of some friends that we were staying with. It was 2-ish and they called to order chinese food which didn't arrive until well after 3 and by that time we had totally forgotten about eating. It was the best food I have had in a long time. We ate a bit and then went to bed.

We awoke the next morning around 11 to a girl walking around in panties. As a bonus, this girl was also going to take us to eat a discounted lunch at the cafe where she worked. After the long process of teeth-brushing, eye-wiping, and sleeping bag-stuffing we were ready to follow her to work. The walk was probably around a mile and it was just warm enough to make it a very pleasant trek. We arrived at Casa del Crap and the waitress/friend/panty girl informed us that all drinks were free, but we had to pay for food. Orders of mimosas ensued, giving the morning an unpleasantly drunkish tint. After we had lubed up our digestive tract with the greasy fare, we hiked back to the house and loaded up the burban to leave, but the burban had other ideas.

We tried to crank it, but it just wouldn't turn over. And all those cranks were draining the battery down. Success seemed impossible, so we called AAA. After 10 minutes of so of looking at the engine and fiddling with assorted parts, Darryl cast the demons out of the engine with a divine stick and the burban started right up.

The studio where we had recorded our new CD was right down the street and I wanted to stop by and give them the finished disc. Fortunately superengineer and superbadass Jim Marrer was there to give us sage advice on the art of coaxing a stubborn diesel engine into turning over. This stroke of luck would prove invaluable later in the day.

Nov 19th - Tallahassee, FL at the Beta Bar
On the way out of Atlanta, we were warned by the highway signs of a 1-hour delay heading south. We avoided this delay by getting off the interstate and taking back-roads around the delay. We ran into a parade, had to turn around, and ended up wasting the hour we saved. The rest of the trip to Tally was uneventful except for a gas station stop in Tifton, GA. Again the burban refused our commands to start. We tried and tried until the battery was worn down too far to be effective. We got someone to jump us off, but it didn't change our luck. Then we called on the wisdom of Jim. We bought some starter fluid, sprayed just a bit in the engine's sweet spot and she cranked right up for us.

The 30-minute delay in Tifton put us behind the clock on a schedule we were already cutting close, but we arrived at the club in Tally and everything was just fine. Our hosts there took us to a mediterranean place in a VW Golf (6 adults and a wheelchair--believe it) where we were introduced to greek fries which maximumly kicked our asses. Potatoes sliced like pickles, fried and seasoned = yum.

The show was pretty terrible, but we played and had fun. The bulk of our fun came from laughing at the band that played before us. We knew well before we heard a single note that they were going to be a laugh riot and we started compiling a list of the clues. Combo amp, merch girlfriends, Parker Fly, bass rack, computer print-out set list, and the drummer had a personal oscillating fan (to play 6 songs!). We compiled over 20 clues which were proven true on note 1 of this sad act. Imagine Fall Out Boy with less talent (is that possible?) and modeling amps and you'd be close.

The drummer was the best. It was clear that this awful band was just a pose vehicle for him and that he was secretly compiling show footage which would be mailed to every Warped Tour band in hopes of landing a "real" gig. First, the queer had a fan as noted. He also set up his drums at a particular angle so that his rack tom and cymbals framed him perfectly and afforded the crowd max view of his rockage. This dude also had to have some sort of hardware endorsement. He had a simple, small club kit which was dwarfed by giant stands to which each single piece of his kit was attached. Floor tom legs? No thanks, I have this giant megastand to mount it to. Mount it to the cymbal stand? Ha! But what would I do with the giant double-boom cymbal stands? This dude was way full of himself, and showcased it by twirling his sticks at every possible moment. I am not kidding, any break at all that his left hand got was filled with a raised-arm and a twirl. He twirled the stick at least 75 times in the first song along, I shit you not. He was hilarious, the band was hilarious, and we all had a great time laughing.

Then we took the stage and absolutely cleared the room with the exception of our hosts. Such is life.