SXSRest.

Hey all,

Yet another episode of the Loblolly Blog. Its been a crazy week but I'll keep it nice and concise.

You couldn't have asked for better weather during SXSW. It was sunny with a high around 74... perfect for bike riding. Which is the way that I started out the week. The Austin Social Ride guys teamed up with SXSW people and put on a massive bicycle ride that was full of hills, stop lights, hanging out graveyards and good ol' fashion intoxication at the end with raffles and give-a-ways and other such great things at Mellow Johnny's (which is Lance Armstrong's shop in Austin [for those of you who don't know]). The only bummer was the part where every time I would walk into the store literally 5 people would come up to me and start asking me if they could, "Try on a pair of glasses in the case" or "What size is this Masi road bike" or "Could you tell me where my asshole is? I'm too drive to drunk." The excuse was, "you look like a bike guy." Granted, I am, but honestly, I was too drunk to even help them anyway. And also, as a side note, every establishment I walk into I usually have at least one person ask me for help... no matter what the subject matter is... and sometimes I answer them. Anyway... some pictures of the craziness.

Nothing like starting a ride off with some marching band tunes...
With piccolo, of course.
The excitement builds. I'm pretty sure this is everyone's FF (falacio face).
Tons of bikes! And we were at the end (of 600 people).
Cuddle break at the capital
Bike pile! We tried to stack them but they ended up toppling over. ArtFAIL.

After the after party at Mellow Johnny's Erik and I continued our ride to Flipnotics for some more brews and were hunkering down for the evening when we got a call saying that there was a free show at Stubb's where the Walkmen were playing. So, with my beer legs on, we sped through traffic like lightning and got the Stubb's with plenty of the time to notice that still had two Lonestars in my bag that we had to shotgun before we actually got into Stubb's (tricky... because the police station is right across the street... but we pulled it off). We got inside and met up with our friends and had a might fine time. Except the fact the first hour of the show consisted of two guys sitting on stage talking about absolutely nothing... bloggers... the worst kind of people. But we still have fun.

This was taken right before Erik and I started a dance party to Ratatat.

We then only stayed for the first two Walkmen songs.

A fine night was had. But with every good night there always comes a terrible morning, which sometimes results in you cutting a chunk of your finger off while your washing dishes. Bummer.

This made it extremely hard to play any of the shows that I had that week... but luckily I didn't have to wash any dishes at Dominican Joe because I was running sound the entire week for all of the awesome bands that played. We booked around 80 bands to play in a 4 day period. We had an inside and an outside stage to that we could bounce off each band immediately after one another. Oh, remember when I said that the weather couldn't have been more perfect for SouthBy? Well, it was... until Saturday... on the day that I booked all of the music. The temperature ended up dropping down to 38 degrees during the day and threatening to thunderstorm. So, in order to pull the show off we had to cram all of the bands on the inside. Which, somehow, worked out perfectly. Everyone was really fun and appreciative (except for a very diva like drummer) of the day and I left with a smile on my face. Unfortunately, I missed the only day that had all of the shows that I wanted to go to but I still got to see Cheap Trick the night before so I couldn't complain.

Maybe the highlight of the week was when my friend Marcus had an after hours show at his house where a great songwriter from Denmark played called The Migrant and a string metal band played called Judgement Day and my friend Josh and I had a freestyle battle between one another... here are some reviews:

"I was laughing so hard that my cheeks hurt the next day."

"Somehow, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was going to go to hell after hearing it."

"I knew it was inappropriate the entire time it was happening but I knew it was ok."

There it is. Keep an eye out for our hip-hop group, Androgynous Fart, and our EP comin' out this fall ya'll.

After the craziness of SouthBy, things have started to wind down. I've, yet again, packed up my stuff and moved my tent into the backyard of a friend's house to try and sort my life out only to find that after 3 days the dog wasn't going to have it.

Backyard+Dog+All of your belonging+Rainstorm=TentFAIL.

Nothing like coming home in a rainstorm to see all of your shit strewn across the backyard and a huge hole in your tent. The good knews: The Arrested Development DVD's came out ALRIGHT! This is why cats are nice... all they do is lounge around and watch porn on the internetz.
'till next time.

Cheers,
Luke

Snow! End of days! Calamity!

It snowed in Austin yesterday. Some may consider this the end of the world and some may just considering a once in a blue moon happening. Me, you ask? How do I see it? I see it as a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast the different ways that people react to snowy weather.

Now, being from Maine, I know a thing or two about snow. School doesn't get canceled unless there is more than 8 inches, business doesn't close unless there is more than 2 feet on the ground and still snowing and people stay in their houses once the snow drifts get high enough so you can't see through the second story windows.

Here is Texas, half an inch of snow falls and mayhem ensues. Businesses close, children look on in awe, Christ makes an appearance on a frosty window, sirens wail and cars pile up in the hundreds on the highway. The drivers don't know how to drive when it start to rain so how would they be able to deal with a little bit of snow without incident? Simple answer: they can't. Even on dry pavement, you hear people burning rubbah (squeal them piggies! oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnn, light 'em up!) while starting from a stop light or coming to a sudden stop behind a row of cars stopped at said stop light. Now add a small layer of ice and snow... and this is what you get.

This picture was taken outside of my apartment.

If anyone is going to go to hell... it will be Texas drives.

On the positive side of things, people get really excited about the snow down here and have a lot of fun playing in it (what little there is to play in). I saw many pictures on the interwebs (via facebook) of people making tiny snowmen and carving their names in the snow with there own urine and then destroying said snowmen with said urine. Its a great country.

The other great thing about snow days is that kittens start to get really cuddly because they don't want to go outside even more than you don't want to (and besides... they're not allowed to).

"Iz cn playz guitarz?"

Nothin' like a good face sit (look close.. my left side burn [no, my left! not your left!] is actually her tale, anus on my ear and all).

But no matter how hard you try, this blissful state cannot linger on endlessly. 24 hours later the snow will be gone and the 30 degree weather will bump back up into the 70's and the population as a whole will have a massive runny nose which will runoff into the Colorado river... gross.

Before (Yesterday).

After (today).

Ah, Texas, how I love thee.

Nashy-Nash, Nashvegas.

Alright arrogant aggressive analytical assholes (no offense, it's only for the alliteration),

I'm finally going to get back to doing this blogging thing but with even worse spelling and grammar, more stuff about random life, joyful news, depressing news and everything in between. So, with that said, we go on to the big things that have been going on.

This past week Katy and I spent on the road getting to and from Nashville to start working on the new Bearkat record. The story goes as follows:

Day 1 (Sunday February 14th [Valentines Day]):

We decided to get up bright and early that morning to try and get a jump on our 14 hour drive to Nashville. I woke up at about 6:30AM and after showering (about 10 minutes) and curling my mustache (about 20 minutes) I walked out the door of our apartment to be greeted by a very familiar grade school dance memory:

"LETS GET READY TO RUMBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

ya'll ready for this?"

Now, if you use basic arithmetic, you can deduce from the figures above that the time was about 7AM. The next thing you might do is ask a question: "Who plays this obnoxious song at 7AM on a Sunday morning?" I have an answer for you: runners.

Apparently, we had missed the memo that the Austin marathon was happening on this particular morning and the route went perfectly around our neighborhood... thus trapping us helplessly in a claustrophobic situation filled with short shorts, un-aerodynamic/gaudy costumes, well wishers, whistlers, chanters, hecklers and people who had just happened upon the event. As you could imagine, our morning got a later start than we expected.


"GO RUNNERS!!!!"

After watching a couple thousand fit (and unfit) people run by, we dislodged ourselves from our neighborhood and jumped on I-35 North to finally start our adventure and hope that our luck would change. Which, it did! We made a Whataburger breakfast pit-stop in Waco (narrowly avoiding conflict with an underpass full of crazy homeless dudes [apparently, they hang out under the same underpass... but, then again, I've never actually been to Waco... so who knows]) and got an extra breakfast platter! Granted, it was a mistake and the lady who served us was probably swiftly disciplined... but we felt like our luck was on the up and up!

One gas tank later... somewhere in the middle of Arkansas... this happened:

Really? REALLY?! (you can just barely see the flakes)

As soon as it was time for me to switch over and drive the second half of the journey... it started to snow. I don't know, it could just be me, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to snow anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. For the rest of the drive I had my eye on the temperature gauge in the car, anxiously waiting for the temperature to drop below freezing. I imagined it like this: at 33 degrees everything would be fine and we'd be driving along just fine on the wet roads and the BAM(!) at 32 degrees we would slip hopelessly off the road into a 20 foot snowbank that mysteriously been plowed onto the side of the highway. Luckily for us, this fantasy of mine never happened (its amazing the way your brain processes things).

We arrived safely that night in Antioc, TN where my good friend and fellow Mainer Jeff Elwell (see earlier posts for pictures of him) keep his fine household. We chatted for a bit, talked about his cruise to the Caribbean, pushy Jamaican vendors and Jimmy Buffet theme parks and finally laid our heads to rest.

Day 2 (Monday February 15th [Drive by Tracking]):

We woke up that morning to find the car covered in a thick layer of ice and about 2 inches of snow. This wasn't at big of a surprise to me considering the conditions we drove in with the previous night. It brought back all the memories of waking up early in the morning and letting my car warm up for 15 minutes while I scraped the snow off of my windows. Luckily, Katy had just come back from Maryland a couple of weeks before so she had a ice scraper in the back of her car. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that nobody knows how to drive in those conditions at all. People were sliding around on the roads (imagine the scene in Bambi when he's on the ice slipping around... that's how Tennessee drivers are in the snow and ice) from either going too fast or too slow. Cars were getting caught going up small hills and then trying to back up and turn around, then getting stuck in a ditch, or worse, flipping their car completely over and bursting into flames (yes, this actually happened).

We eventually made it into Nashville proper and met our friend James for breakfast. You may remember James from past posts but we'll re-introduce you to him.

"WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" (note the look of bliss on both of their faces)
Me overseeing the fun. Luke "Someone has to make sure nobody loses an eye" Kalloch.
Some people have all the fun.

Not only was he joining us for breakfast, he was also joining us in the studio that day to lay down some sweet piano tracks!

We got to the studio and, honestly, we had no idea what to expect. The producer's name is Mark Nevers (best known for his recent work on the newest Andrew Bird record "Noble Beast"... other credits include some Silver Jews, Bonnie Prince Billy, Vic Chesnut and a little OK GO). Mark is a very quite guy with a house full of recording gear (my kind of guy). He calls his studio "the Beech House".











It looks like your run-of-the-mill Nashville residence but it has its very distinct qualities. When you first try and walk onto the property you go to open the front gate only to find that you run into it like a brick wall and then sit fiddling with it for a minute hoping that nobody else is watching you as you foolishly find out that it literally bolted shut and there is a side gate that you have to walk into. Here is the said demon gate.

You wouldn't want me to guide you through a labyrinth... I wouldn't even get you in (rimshot)!

After you regain your self respect and muster up your courage you can enter the house and find a magical place chalk full of recording equipment and music instruments and snaggle toothed cats named Lulu.

Katy doing her best Lulu impression. Which isn't fun. Some people (or animals) can't help but have that face. Nice going Katy.

The place was also full of amazing musicians. Mark had hired a bassist (Matt) and a drummer (Ben) we were probably two of the sweetest people you could ever meet... and also great musicians (as was to be expected). Its always a toss up when it comes to studio musicians... bassists are usually always nice but drummers almost are always on the douche side of the spectrum or the really really nice side. Luckily, Ben was on the latter side.

The tracking went ridiculously fast. We didn't go through any of the tunes more than 3 times before we had a solid arrangement and were ready to track it... and we didn't do more than 3 takes before we were done with a song and moving on to the next one. All-in-all we tracked about six songs in six hours... the whole vibe just felt so comfortable and fun... I can't really describe it. My only complaint is that I got dicked out on the booth I was recording in.

Katy's room. Music stand, chair, notepad, the works.


Ben, James and Matt's room. Probably the homiest of the bunch. TV, Andrew Bird and Vic Chesnut 2" tapes, plants, paradise.

My room. Washer and Dry. Small Efficiency. 400 a month.

While everyone else got to hang out in a nice and comfy room and could see each other, I got stuck into the laundry room... but I wouldn't have it any other way, really.

So, we ended the first day wiped out and a little bewildered on what exactly had happened... but that didn't stop us from going out and seeing a show, dancing to some sweet motown music and running into people you haven't seen for a very long time. I ran into my friend Jess Rice who I knew from Boston (BURRITO MAXX!) and then later in Austin... and now she lives in Nashville and works with James... small world.

Day 3&4 (Feb. 16-17th [Overdubs, mixing and ice cream])

The title pretty much describes what happened in the studio those days so I'm going to go into the social aspect of them.

After recording on the 16th, we decided to take it easy and stay in at James' apartment and nest. So we went out to try and get some apple cider and rum... which turned out to be quite the chore because all of us are indecisive and couldn't decide on a rum to get and when we tried to get some apple cider we couldn't find any so we did what any good American would do... buy some artificial Apple Cider packs throw them in a huge pot of water and rum, call it good, cram three people onto a full sized bed and watch a movie (in this case "I Love You, Man"). I wish I could have taken a picture. It would have been such a nice moment.

The next night consisted mostly of me demonstrating my ability to eat massive mounts of ice cream. James' downstairs neighbor is also his really good friend (and another talented musician) Adam Popick (spelling?). We made two trips to his place the night: one of them to say "hey, lets watch a movie" and another one to actually watch the movie. On both occasions I had a pint of ice cream in my hand and on both occasions I arrived with them full and left with them empty. This is a pretty common occurrence for me but I have a feeling that it disgusts a lot of other people, bringing forth vomiting or uncontrollable gagging and in some cases the people watching develop lactose-intolerance. True story.

Days.......... the rest.

After three days of recording in Nashville we had 6 roughly mixed songs on a CD and a lump of joy in the pit of our stomachs. We bid our farewells to James (they are always bittersweet... I wish we lived in the same city) and made our way southward to my Dad's woodsy solar powered retreat in southern Alabama where the universe is at peace, chickens roam happily with wild turkeys, geese play with dogs, manure is made from human fecal matter and there is always a project to be done.

On our way there we stopped for gas at a very curious fill-up station on the border of Mississippi and Alabama. The outside looked like any ordinary BP but the inside had rocking chairs, old men with canes and dirt floors (well, almost). I wanted to get a picture of the place without being too suspicious (which really just made me look even more queer and suspicious) but only came out with this photo.

Photo Fail.

The day and a half we spent at my Dad's place were very relaxing. We at lots of food (which included going out to a catfish restaurant where they had Karaoke and very curious patrons [you'd think at least they would be used to a handlebar mustache!]), talked and worked on a "project" (which usually includes manual labor [you've got to make use of those young bodies while you have them around!]). The project this time was riding on the back of my Dad's John Deere Tractor (which has a name... but I can't remember it) and loading wood in and out of it. It was good fun. As you can clearly tell.

"YAYYYY! WOOD!"

But I couldn't help but think it would have been twice as fun with James there... so through super sophisticated image manipulation technology, I made my fantasy possible.
"YAAYYYYY! BONERS!" (yes, I know it just looks like James is sitting on top of Katy)

And now... for ride from Alabama to Austin.

Alright. That about wraps it up. I'm really really really going to try very very very hard to write on this thing more often to I don't have these mammoth entries that usually peeter out near the end... much like this one. See you next time!

Cheers,
Luke

Some people have been asking where the final blog for the tour is? Well. Here it is.

It.

Cheers,
Luke

Long Drives and Lazy Eyes.

Back again...

In this chapter of the "... US tour of North Cornwall..." we study the persona of "the business man." At the show in Sacramento we encountered probably the most stereotypical sort of smarmy club booking agent as of yet: Jerry Perry. Let us examine the man. A tall, solidly built man (just in case shit goes DOWN) dressed in casual clothes (but not without a blazer over top of it to make things seem official) who talks very quickly (to keep you from following along to exactly what he's saying) in money jargon and name droppery (to display their importance) through the gaze of his lazy eye (solely to creep you out). Its these kind of guys that I have a very hard time trusting. Don't get me wrong, they're nice enough but I feel like they always have other motives to everything that they have to say. They're driven by money. The polar opposite of me. For example: when he found out that we (in essence) were "one band" he cut down the set and most likely cut down the pay... even though we are two acts. His smooth talking banter went right through my head at first and I agreed with "Yeah, yeah, yeah" and "Totally". After a couple minutes of thinking about it, I figured it out and kicked myself for it. I can't help it. I'm a sucker.

Needless to say, the show was awesome because we got to play with these guys:
Agent Ribbons: a fine punk/jazz duo from the Sacramento area. I was really excited to play with them because I had heard them after a couple of friends went to a show in Portland where they were opening for Cake. I got to listen to their record and I fell in love. When I was looking at the Old Ironside's calendar a couple days before I was confused/surprised by what I saw. They were really nice and put on a great show. Hopefully, we'll be able to put something together with them on the West Coast again... hopefully.

We also decided that Sacramento was really really weird hang. It kind of reminded me of Houston in its layout/architecture but they had a couple of strange areas. Apparently, it was an old mining town during the gold rush in the mid-1800's and they had a section of the city that was built like an old western town called "Old Sacramento".
We originally went there to try and find a cafe but the one we had searched out had gone "out of business" (an 19th century business doesn't hold up in a 21st century economy). I think the best part of our trip to this side of town was when I went to deposit some money/make change at a store-front marked "Wells Fargo & Co". I walked into the building to find that it was a museum... not a bank. I felt like a dick just sitting there was my deposit in hand while a tour guide sat bored waiting for someone to entertain. He didn't have change for me.

The fanciest part of town was definitely the Safe Way that went went to. They had their own water tower on top of the building and a shimmering silver stallion on the outside welcoming everyone into the grocery. Why they needed this... I'm not sure but I felt really good about buying my pint of ice cream.

A terrible pictures... but the water tower was above the Safeway sign.

The next couple of days were... kind of a blur. We left directly after the show in Sacramento and drove through the night (without incident... mostly) to Flagstaff, AZ where we met up with a fellow Mainer Owen Ludwig. We were extremely beat at this point. We were supposed to play a house show but we would have ended up playing really late that night and we had another 12 hour drive the next day and the show was already booked solid with other bands... so we decided to opt out and crash for the night. Luckily, Owen (being an amazing host) let us sleep in his bed for the night. The best part was sleeping with the 19 year old cat the came with the room he was living in. She was the most cuddly thing you could ever image (probably because she couldn't move fast enough to get away from our loving hands). In the middle of the night she curled up right between the two of us and purred really loudly. This was great but on the other hand I was extremely scared that I was going to roll over her and crush her brittle old bones underneath my 160 pound frame... that would have been tragic.

We left at 5:30 the next morning for OKC, OK for a show that we weren't really sure about. It seems to be a developing trend now that my uncle Josh will booking a show through the magnificent classifieds website known as Craigslist that I will have no idea whats going on with it. After the 12 hour drive, passing through the panhandle of the much missed Texas and surviving gail force winds at a gas station somewhere in New Mexico....

we made it to Oklahoma City (I was singing the theme song to the musical "Oklahoma" the whole time... except I only knew the first word "Oklahoma" and then trailed off with the rest of the melody). The show turned out to be great! The bar was full of people (most of whom were a bunch of bros and bro-ettes stumbling around in their pressed shirts and tube tops seeing who could sneak into the bathroom next) and we got a great response from the ones who were listening to our quiet folk music. The band we played with was called Olina:
They were awesome! And probably some of the most wonderful people that I have ever met in my entire life. As it turns out, the band is relocating to Portland, OR so hopefully we'll be seeing them again when we head out there in July! They had a couple of friends (Steven and Katie) who let us crash at their house for the night with on their inflatable mattress with their Labradoodle named Choco. He woke us up the next morning by jumping onto the bed and trying to cuddle with us... this has been a great tour for finding amazing animals!

We're on the home stretch now. We pampered ourselves last night and stayed at a Red Roof Inn... one last good nights sleep until Maryland. Talk to you then.

Cheers,
Luke

Comes through the door with all his chains just rattling 'round.

I would like to preface this blog with, "I'm an idiot and I lost my battery charger for my camera so I can't take anymore pictures and have to steel them from Katy but we both know that we forget about her camera constantly." That said... lets move along.

After spending two GLORIOUS days in Portland we had a really hard time leaving. The other thing that made it hard to leave was that we were dreading that night with a great passion. After the show in Eugene we had to book it out of there so that we could make it down to San Francisco the next morning. Why did we have to drive through the night to get there? Well, we had a little slip up (mostly my mistake) where we booked the Eugene show for 10PM and the San Fran show for 11AM the next morning without looking at how long it would take us to get from one point to the next (it's an 8 hour drive... just to let you know). Oops. The plan was simple: drive through the night (driving in two 4 hour shifts), get to San Fran, playing the show, crashing on a friends couch for the after and then go exploring. Simple enough right? Well, here's where another snag of poor planning came in. We decided to tour the north in the winter. As you saw from a previous post, we had done some tough traveling from Chicago to Minneapolis but that was flat and pretty easy to navigate and they treat their roads with plows and sand and salt... California, on the other hand, is mountainous and they don't do a single thing to the roads... bummer.

The story begins with Katy taking the first shift with driving and me sleeping in the passenger seat until my shift. This lasted for about... oh, an hour before Katy reached over and grabbed my leg asking, "Are you awake?". Of course, I had the smart ass response of, "I am now" but was taken aback to see that we were in the middle of a little snow squall on the highway. My initial reaction was, "Well, SHIT." Our pace when from zipping down the highway to almost a crawl as we tried to avoid sliding off of the road. We had breaks in the weather which we could speed up a little bit but the snow kept coming back... and not only that but there was some INTENSE fog where you couldn't see ten feet in front of you. What the fuck California? Pick one type of weather or the other!

After Katy's shift on driving it was my turn to take the wheel and brave the elements. At this point, it seemed to have died down and it looked like smooth sailing from there... but oh, were we wrong. It got 10X worse than before. We apparently had just missed a huge front that came through the mountains that had dropped about 8 inches of snow on the ground. Since California doesn't treat their roads the only thing that kept them clear were the tractor-trailer trucks speeding down the highway splashing powder and slug everywhere.

The only thing that California and Oregon allow you to do in this inclement wintry condition is one thing: chain up. Before and after every mountain pass they have "chain-up" zones where you're allowed to pull over and throw massive chains around your tires. Being from the Northeast, this is EXTREMELY illegal and really bad for the roads so naturally we didn't have any heavy duty chains hanging out in the back of the wagon with all of our equipment. We switched to the AM weather emergency station to hear what we were supposed to do. It said that all vehicles were required to have chains on their wheels unless they were 4-wheel/all-wheel drive sedans/trucks/etc and if you didn't you would be turned around at any chain-up check-point. This got us very worried... Katy owns a Volvo V70 which has a traction control option but no 4-wheel drive option (like the numerous amounts of V70 X-countries we have seen on the road) so we feared we would be turned around at the check-point. As we arrived at the check-point we didn't even have to stop as the guy waved us on to our almost certain death. I'm not sure what this guy was thinking... maybe: "Oh, they made it this far, I think they're worthy to pass" or "Oh, what the hell, this'll be fun"... whatever it was he was thinking he obviously had a severe lapse in judgement because our car did not pass any of the rules that were required of us....

We pressed on bravely through the wintry mix at a terrifying 15-25 miles per hour through the night hoping that we would make it through the mountains without slipping into a gorge or being run off the road by an 18-wheeler. Eventually, we notices the time and decided that it wasn't worth it to make it to the gig... our lives are much more important (sorry, Coffee Adventures). We pulled in to a small mountain town where they were just starting to clean up the roads and parking lots of snow... so we drove around for about an hour waiting for a grocery store parking lot to free up so we could steel a couple hours of sleep.

We woke up the next morning to a little bit of sunshine and beautiful view of fog filled valleys and snow capped mountains as Katy coasted her way down the mountain to the flat lands of Redding, California... it was here that we tried to figure out what we were going to do for the night. It wouldn't be worth it to go all the way to San Fran since our next gig was in Sacramento... only a couple of hours away... so we tried to find some friends to crash with in the area. We eventually found her friend, Jenny... who lived an hour outside of San Fran. When we arrived at her house we were greeted by some warm and welcoming people we knew we had made the right choice. They fed us dinner and we talked about all music things and whatever else came up in conversation.

Jenny then took us out on the town to show us what it was like. I so turned out that her friend was hosting an open mic that night over in San Rafael. We decided that we would go there and see if we could snag a slot and advertise the show in Sacramento. There were some great acts... a lot of hip-hop guys there, a girl who sang songs a capella (changing keys every other verse) and the most adorable father/son act (by father/son... I mean the father was probably in his early-mid 60's and his sound was late 30's-early 40's) who played old country tunes. The crowd was so supportive and fun! We had a great time playing and I think we may have made a few fans... open mics... you always surprise me.

After a good rest and a shower we're now read to head up to Sacramento and play (what is looking to be) a pretty kick ass show with Agent Ribbons! And then we're off for a couple of REALLY long driving days headin' back to the east coast... I'm sure I'll have some good stories about the south-west :)

Cheers,
Luke

Road Eating: Part 2

I would like to start out this blog with saying that the Northwest is probably one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been to in my entire life. The rolling hills of eastern Oregon... the winding mountains outside of Seattle (which even at night are a beautiful sight)... its all amazing. So, with that all said and done... we move on.

We continue to amuse/amaze ourselves with our ingenuity in the road eating department. After our 12 hour drive from Utah to Washington we found ourselves (yet again) without a place to stay and stomach grumbling like a water pip ready to blow. We pulled ourselves into the (what turns out to be) very convenient chain of grocery stores known as Safe Way. Now, we were getting rather bored with our dry style died so we decided to mix it up a little bit and through some protein in there. We picked up a couple of cans of tuna and a steel a few packs of mayo and went to work opening and draining the fishy deliciousness in the Safe Way parking lot... but not without a couple of confused looks.
Along with our make-shift gourmet meals, Katy has also developed another interesting procedure for brushing her teeth when there are no bathrooms to be found in the immediate area. Instruments that you will need:
1. Toothbrush (optional [a finger works just as well])
2. Toothpaste
3. A Cup
4. Some sort of liquid (be it water, cranberry juice, orange juice, coffee... etc)

Katy uses an electric toothbrush but doesn't use the electric part. She's got good form though.

After walking around the busy streets of Seattle and playing a wonderful house show with the Autumn Electric we made our way down the coast to ye ol' Portland, Oregon. I've been waiting the whole tour to see this place and I'm so glad that we have had so much time to spend here. I'm also really bummed that we left our bikes in Maine because riding around here would have been worth carrying them along for the whole trip. We spent the first day walking around the downtown area trying to find food that we could afford. We ended up stopping by a burrito place that I got a fairly decent burrito at but Katy ended up getting a tiny corn quesedilla for way too much money (she had a sad face on for the rest of the night). We burnt about 7 hours in downtown Portland waiting for my old high school homeroom buddy Alycia Canavan and her husband (who are both some of the most amazing, funny and charming people you could ever meet) to get down with their dinner so that we could crash out their house with their adorably curious cats! As we sat catching up about the 6 years we hadn't seen each other, the cats were rummaging through our stuff and slowly starting to warm up to us. They didn't sleep with us on the futon that night but they did spend the night staring at us while we slept... only mildly creepy.

We spend the next day hanging out on Portland's "East Side" where all of the cool kids hang out. Its a neighborhood filled with young kids who aren't sure what they want to do with their lives so they spend their time scattered among the many cafes and thrift shops around the area talking their philosophies and buying their used clothing and nick-nacks. As it turns out (to our surprise and maybe disdain), we fit in quite nicely with crowd of tragically hip:

These were taken immediately after we walked by a shop window and saw each other arm-in-arm marching down the street. We both simultaneously laughed at the ridiculousness of it all (I think it was the yellow glasses Katy bought at Buffalo Exchange the day before the really put it over the top or maybe me being a totally hipster prick.... either one...

After a day of walking around and taking in the sides of Portland wonderful east side we went to the venue (Mississippi Pizza) to take in the amazing event that was happening before our show: Portland's Weekly Spelling Bee! We first got there and were surrounded by 30 somethings with their small children doing adorable tricks for us (staring, rolling, running and staring some more) as we sat waiting for the spelling be to begin. We started to get really excited at this point because we thought we were in for an amazing treat of cuteness on stage (I asked Katy if she had her camera and she said, "Yes, but I think I'll take the pictures... it won't be as creepy"). Turns out, as the start time got closer, the contestants were all hyper intelligent adults reciting the spellings of words that I didn't even know the meaning of (which isn't really saying much...). I would just like to point out that I am the worst speller in the world so any attempt to spell a word turned out to be a monumental FAIL (for example: the word would be "elephant" and I would spell "aeroplane"). After the first few words I gave up.

My set that night was riddled with feedback and all the wonderful joys of running your own sound. Luckily, by the time we got to Katy's set we had it all figured out and could just sit back and get into it. We also had a special guest in the crowd. His name is James and he is the drummer for the band called Bombadil. This was pretty exciting for the both of us because their CD "Buzz, a buzz..." has been a staple of our tour listening for the past month. His girlfriend lives out in Portland (he's from Durham) and was spending his off-time hanging out with her and graciously offered us a place to stay at her house that night... which turned out to be a pleasure not just because of them being incredible human beings but also because of the animals which lay inside to greet us.

This is Sampson

Sampson (who has one of the most powerful tails I have ever felt against my leg) was the only animal that I got a picture of but I can assure you that they have two sassy cats (one of them is a drooler... mmmmmmmmm) and another dog who has the most adorable face and an immense amount of patience. I love animals.

We woke up the next morning and James made us a delicious batch of potatoes and zucchini/onion scramble to send us off with (along with a preview of the new Bombadil... no, you can't have it) and here we are... in a cafe waiting to head out to Eugene, OR dreading the all night drive we're going to have to take tonight to get to San Fran (get excited for that blog)... Oh, Portland... I'm going to miss you.

Cheers,
Luke