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