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