Its nice to be cold again (4 days in Maine... watch out... its a long one).

Take a good look at these pictures... this is the band that will be playing all of the New England and New York gigs. Ain't we just cute? The most amazing thing is (as my Uncle Josh pointed out) that we all represent different decades in the band. (Picture to the Right [from left to right]): Josh (bass, vocals): 12 years old Krista (keyboard, vocals): 21 years old Dan (drums and solo falsetto vocals for any Smashing Pumpkin's songs): 49 years old and Luke (guitar, vocals, blogging): 36. We almost had to kick Dan out of the band because of his age... he turns 50 the day after they leave us on the tour going down south.

We spent a total of 8 hours practicing in a paint dust filled tent storage area in rural Maine together and pulled off 14 songs altogether as a band. Some new arrangements and all sorts of good shit... which is impressive. I was expecting the worst. Krista and I had made a practice tape for them and had sent it up a month before hand hoping that they might play along with it and figure out the parts. After many sleepless nights and frustrated phone-calls from my uncle (Josh: "I don't understand this chord chart at all... I can't follow it!" Luke: "Well, did you listen to the song?" Josh: "No..." Luke: "Well, you have to use your ears... haha") we put it together and brought it to an open practice rehearsal at the restaurant that my mom works at called "The Samoset" (their slogan is "Southern Fair with a Northern Flare").














It was one of the funnest gigs that I've ever played. It was exciting. It was sloppy. It was full of faces that I knew. And I got to play a new guitar that I traded for my old computer (but I won't get into that because I'll totally geek out over it). It was great throwing Krista into the madness of all the local chatter for both the hilarious and completely overwhelming factor. There is no better way to get to know a bunch of Mainers than to just sit in the middle of them and listen to the completely ridiculous things that they'll talk about and how they talk about each others families ('cause, fuck dude, if you don' undahstand ya family ya just like all them othah flat landah's, Christ almighty). Thanks Chad and Erin letting us play (and desert).
The next day Krista and I headed into town to check out the sights and were greeted by one of the most unfortunate and embarrassing things that will probably happen on this entire tour...

Ugh.

Most sights were steeple-less church, the back parking lot (or BPL [where everyone goes to smoke the pot]), the secret back parking lot (or SBPL [where people go to do coke {and its not much of a secret anymore}]) and the Maine Coast Bookstore and Cafe (where people do their caffeine). Especially me. I had to show off my new latte art skills for them.

After seeing the many sights of my hometown, we went to the first gig of the day, which was the Common Ground Fair. I want to throw this out right now... it was fun as hell. Let alone playing on the "big stage" we were at the biggest organic farmer's get togethers in the New England area. While navigating through the clouds of patuli, dreds, hacky sacking circles, ultimate frisbe games and b.o., you could find some of the finest craft moccasins, belts and other great independent products. And OF COURSE, all organic foods!

We had the greatest opening band, too. King Pirogi. Yes, that's polish. And yes, they were a polka band.

Our set went pretty well. Though, I was distracted the whole time by the kids that were sliding down the hillside on pieces of cardboard. I couldn't help want to jump off the stage and take a run down the slope... but unfortunately, I have too try and maintain a professional demeanor most of the time. On the other side of the metaphorical hill, a little boy named Theo heard that I wanted to slide down the hill (because I HAD to announce it to everyone) and offered to take a slide down the hill with me. Amazing.















In return for Theo's act of kindness, I totally navigated us to the one pot hole-ish thing in the hill and we totally took a digger... as you can clearly see in the picture above and started kind of a pile-up. I don't think the parents of these kids were very happy with my antics but... oh well.

And to really live the country fair experience we loaded in and out of the back of my uncle's pick-up truck (in true hill billy style) and since there wasn't any room in the cab of the truck, Krista and I just tale-gated it for a the entire way (me playing my guitar while we went). We got a lot of smiles, a lot of grimaces and a couple of old people shitting themselves in the fear that we would fall off the back of the truck careening down the dirt roads at 10 miles an hour.
After the show we pretty much went straight to the next one which was later that night at Schooner Landing (or... "Schoon-dog" as the locals call it) where we would be sharing the bill with the Johnson Boys and Mr. Jon Nolan, who dropped out at the last minute for our two gigs together. Here's the note that my uncle left on our car before the show that night:

Incase you can't read this, "Luke 2 piece of news: We need all our PA gear (Dan and I have loaded in) can you go get the PA? Nolan cancelled. Sick. Fuck."

Now, you have to understand that Schooner is a very interesting place. My friend Neila described its physical attributes quite perfectly: "Schooner isn't JUST a bar... it's a bar perched precariously over rushing water." I couldn't have said it better myself. The clientele there is a different matter. Its pretty much a highschool reunion every night for four continuous generations... all the people you want to see and even more that you don't want to see. Its the only place where you can get hit on by your sister's older friends and it will be alright. Its also the only place where you can bring your kids and have your grandfather's friends hit on your kids and it'll be alright. Its a bit of a void... but we all love it and it has a great performance space.
After playing we were all bombarded by the locals (and none locals... two wedding receptions where happening at the same time) and their drunken jibber-jabber. It was good, I got to see people who I never thought I would see again or talk to... I caught up with my friend Sean about his black metal drumming, another dude named Sven who is living in Florida now doing art gallery stuff and my friend Jessie who I went to school with and is now dating my sister's best friend. Weird stuff.

The set went over really well with everyone. We had a Mr. Josh Russell (who as you can tell from the car note above, has an amazing old school way of tracking people down... no matter where you are with or without communication, he will find you) on bass slowly getting more inebriated as the set went on... you could almost trace the alcohol level in his blood between each song... lots of jumping around and being a rockstar (as he surely is). I love that guy. I have a lot of thanks and props to give out to him for booking a lot of the gigs on this tour because of my lack of connections for a lot of poeple in the Northeast anymore... but luckily through him, I'm getting to meet a lot of cool people over again and make some great friends... but anywho... enough of then mushy stuff.

When I went to upload these photos onto the my computer I found that there were over 100 pictures taken! And videos!? I didn't even give my camera to anyone!? Well, the mystery was solved when Krista told me that my friend Christine had ganked my camera and went crazy. There were lots of pictures of people who I didn't know and of people dancing. At least I got it back before anything crazy happened.









Successfully having rocked some faces off, we packed up and went home to have a good night's sleep in our L.L. Bean sleeping bags (on comfy beds) and have a good (but too short) re-uniting cuddle with my cat Murphy (honestly, I was really excited to see her. I was interested to see if she would remember who I was... and fortunately we did and we went back into our old habits... me teasing her with gallons of orange juice, her rubbing her head up against my leg, me lifting her up back the bottom of her tale, her giving me her pissy ass little stare from across the room and me cradling her like a baby when she doesn't want to be cradled).

Me about to give murphy a noogie.

Then next day held some cite seeing with Krista. I had to show her around the hometown of Round Pond: Where the town drunk used to live, where the co-op is, where the bateshacks are, where you can pick up your Mary-Jane and where the pirates come into port.


















We then went off to have a bar-b-que (not really a bar-b-que for all of you people in Texas and the south) down by the shore in South Bristol where my uncle and Clem (of the Johnson Boys... who we played with at Schooner) made a makeshift fire just out of reach from the fingers of the oncoming high tide. Delicious burgers were grilled by the professional hands of Mr. Clem Johnson and boat rides were given by my almost 6 year old cousin Isaac but only after a quick dip in cold ass Atlantic Ocean.


















There's something about a child driving a boat that makes me feel so much at ease. And somehow he fell asleep at the wheel (apparently, the noise puts him right to sleep) and we went barreling toward the rocky shorts of Maine. Luckily, Krista took the outboard motor and turned us right back around to safety while Josh sat at the bow of the boat and quivered in confusion and fear and I haphazardly slipped on a life jacket (backwards, at that) expecting the worst. Thanks Krista.

The gig later that night was a great one. The Johnson Boys totally killed it. At Schooner the night before they had to compete with the rowdy late night drunken crowd but tonight they could use all of their dynamic mastery (though, less their drummer this night) with the advantage of an attentive room full of people. Krista and I totally fell in love with them.
Our set was full of idiotic banter, backfired jokes, improved songs drinking towns sponsored by PBR and me staring a song off with the capo on the wrong fret and then switching to the right one on the middle of the song... yup... sometime I ain't too smaht. But the room was full of great people who were a very attentive crowd. Thanks everyone... it was really great! And thanks to all of the friends who brought us up to the top of the world (top of munjoy hill) to look over the skyline of Portland.
Unfortunately, our sleeping arrangements fell through that night so we were all set to sleep on the streets of Portland but the travel gods have been kind to us and sent us Anna Maria (the owner of the Northstar Cafe) who offered us the office space above her cafe to crash in... WITH a shower and bathroom facilities. Thanks Ana... you're amazing.

Ok. I think that's it. I'll leave you with this photo of me being a Banana Republic model. Catch you later.

How the hell did my legs get so short?!