05|20|09 US Tour: Dunes – Portland, OR (April 20th, Day 19)
I had been looking forward to Portland for quite some time now. Everyone I met, who had spent time there, seemed to adore it. It’s liberal, quite pretty, has a great music scene, it’s mellow and bohemian, and yet still metropolitan. When I started booking the tour back in November of last year, I was having a tough time, though, getting anything at all booked. I must have sent out 25 emails and all I got back was deafening silence. You can imagine, then, how stoked I was when my friend Andy from Actors&Actresses suggested I get in touch with a good friend of his, who worked at a cool little club in Portland, called the Dunes. I got in touch with her, she liked our music, and so we booked the date. Or so we thought… (Read the rest of this story…)
05|16|09 US Tour: Nebraska to Washington (April 12th-15, Day 10-13)After playing in Columbus, Nebraska, Evan and I had a few days to press all the way to the West Coast. It was going to be a ferocious drive, for sure, but we had kept just enough time aside to take in the famous Yellowstone National Park. A pity, then, that once we got within a few hundred miles, that we found out that almost all of the park was still closed, due to snow. Of the many entrances to the park, only one was open, and after talking to a few locals, we decided it wasn’t going to be worth going at all. Aside from the fact that only a small portion of Yellowstone was open at all, the weather was so rainy and foggy, that we wouldn’t have been able to see much of anything, even had we tried. (Read the rest of this story…)
05|02|09 Flickr slideshow: IndianaEvan and I had a few days of rehearsals in Indiana right before and after SXSW. Needless to say, Indiana isn’t much of a happening place, culturally, so we just decided to kick it Indiana-style. You know… just boys being boys, really. A bit of quad-biking, outdoor shops, shooting guns (45’s), going to batting cages. Taking in local flavor, so to speak :). You can view the whole set here on my Flickr page or just click and expand the above slideshow.
05|02|09 US Tour: Micek’s – Columbus, NE (April 11th, Day 9)
When we arrived in Columbus, Nebraska, I was already worried. But when we walked into the bar we were meant to play that night, I was petrified. I walk in, look around, everyone stares at me, look around some more, walk out of the bar, and sit down on the curb. “They are going to f’ing lynch us”, I thought. The crowd that had gathered in the early evening were a rough mix of locals, seemingly in their 40’s, who were listening to an acoustic covers band playing “Knocking on heaven’s door”. Holy shit, dude, seriously? What were we doing here? And were we going to make it out of here without an incident? I could just imagine me singing about sex and love and depression and my mother, and some biker dude stabbing us in the face and calling us fags. (Read the rest of this story…)
05|01|09 Getting stuck in New OrleansAll apologies for being so late to post about New Orleans. Evan and I actually stopped there in late March on our way back from SXSW, but, until now, I haven’t found the time to edit the photos and write about our experience there. After showcasing at SXSW in late March, Evan and I decided we were going to take a bit of a detour back to Indiana. Most of the midwest is ridiculously drab, and so we figured it might be worth roaming through the south before heading up north again. We had decided early on that we wanted to stop in Memphis in order to visit the Gibson Guitar Factory, but once we got on the road and studied the map, we realized we were pretty much passing right through New Orleans, as well, and we were not going to let the opportunity to visit such a legendary town pass us by! (Read the rest of this story…)
04|29|09 Cowboys: the cure to anti-culture-shock!So, poor Evan has, for the most part, been suffering a severe case of anti-culture-shock ever since he arrived here from New Zealand. The States, in many ways, is very similar to New Zealand. Both are fundamentally based on the Anglo-Saxon culture; both are very young countries; have similar landscapes in many parts of the country (Washington, Montana, and Oregon are painfully similar to NZ’s South Island); obviously we share a common language; and so on and so forth. Of course, there are many differences, but compared with countries like Egypt, Spain, Japan, et cetera, New Zealand and the United States definitely feel quite similar. So when Evan and I drove through Wyoming and passed cowboys and horses, Evan nearly leaped out the window. Finally a genuine piece of Americana! I guess you can always count on a cowboy to save the day :).
04|29|09 Flickr Slideshow: Glacier National Park, MontanaAfter our shows in the Midwest, Evan and I had to cut westwards across the country in time to perform in Washington and Oregon. We did, however, have just enough time to cruise around Montana and take in some of its breath-taking scenery and national parks. Most of Glacier park was still closed due to snow (as was Yellowstone), but the main access road was still open and allowed us to see some cute deer and a stunning mountain sunset. You can view the entire photoset here on my Flickr account, or just take a look at the above slideshow.
04|29|09 Flickr Slideshow: Talimena Scenic Drive, Arkansas to OklahomaSorry for being so late about posting these photos. During our trip from Indiana to SXSW, Evan and I decided to take a scenic detour, which ended up being one of the most memorable drives of my life. The views were stunning, the weather perfect, and I ended up having to pour Minutemaid Orange juice over the break pads (see photo) to cool down our breaks, which we managed to smoke out within the first 10 minutes of taking the Talimena Scenic Drive. You can view the whole photos set here on my Flickr page or just use the slideshow above.
04|27|09 US Tour: Mixtapes – East Moline, IL (April 10th, Day 8)
When we pulled into East Moline, my first thought was… oh dear, this isn’t going to be good. The town is part of the quad cities, and lies right on the shores of the Mississippi river, bordering Illinois and Iowa, but it’s far from a picturesque place. East Moline, like the rest of the quad cities, struck me as very poor. The houses were small and run down, and the downtown area was more of a ghost town than a flourishing riverside community, with a few small shops flanked by a greater number of boarded up windows and neighborhood bars. (Read the rest of this story…)
04|27|09 How touring affects who you are
This is a journal entry I wrote a few days ago, whilst staying in Olympia, Washington. It’s Sunday evening now. Evan and I have spent all day in 70 degree sunshine exploring the Olympic peninsula, including the Hoh Rainforest and various isolated beaches. I’m feeling tired now, and a bit sad, even, that our brief holiday in Olympia is drawing to a close. The first ten days of the tour were immensely exhausting: we played shows pretty much every day, and spent many hours on the road. Looking ahead, now, our days and nights will once again be filled to the brim with driving, setting up, playing, packing down, finding random places to sleep, getting up early and unrested to spend as much as 12 hours per day on the road. (Read the rest of this story…)
04|16|09 US Tour: Ames Progressive – Ames, IA (April 9th, Day 7)
I’ll be keeping the Ames entry rather short, as there wasn’t too much to report really. The show was sweet, but very poorly attended, unfortunately. Everyone there, however, was super sweet, expecially Nate, who pretty much runs the Ames Progressive, is working really hard to build up a scene in Ames, and who’s house we later crashed at. Thanks Nate, you’re a real gem! (Read the rest of this story…)
04|14|09 US Tour: WNUR 89.3FM – Evanston, Chicago, IL (April 8th, Day 6)
Playing live-to-air on WNUR’s airplay show was such a privilege for me, as it’s my alma mater’s own college radio station. During my years at WNUR I was always a tad mad at myself for not getting more involved with the station, but it seemed like a very elitist and mysterious club to me, and, at the time, and I might have just lacked the confidence to approach the people there. Odd really, since I knew numerous people who DJ’d there, such as my friend Nick, and one of my favorite room mates ever, Matthew Teti (what ever happened to you man!?). (Read the rest of this story…)
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