notes from the road...day four

DAN!
Last night we played at Dunes bar in Portland and had a great show, hung out with the bartender Mark and had a great time and saw our friends the Unit Breed play. Then Joe from Unit Breed offered us a couch to sleep on at his house. He wouldn't be there, but his roommates (all girls) kindly offered us access to their home. So I laid down on their couch and fell asleep as people hung out upstairs, listened to music and generally mulled about. Then I woke up to screaming. Angry screaming. I heard a girl yell something about "spray paint," a "refrigerator" and "get out of my fucking house!"
It seems Dan was spray painting one of the housemates' stencils on the back of his jacket (it said "cock rocket" with a picture of a penis) in their kitchen. Unfortunately the spray paint can exploded, paint was spilled and when one roommate came in they saw spray paint on the floor and the refrigerator and they assumed Dan had been adding a bit of his flair to their kitchen. She was no happy. No one was. I laid in my sleeping bag while everyone was screaming at eachother, roommates said "fuck this! I'm moving out!" Meanwhile Dan attempted to scrub the paint off the floor and fridge, while the girl who was REALLY pissed (pictured with the refridgerator in question) yelled "You're lucky we don't crack your heads open!" Then she punched the wall, knocked over something big and stormed out of the house with a slam. That was the point where I got up, rolled up my sleeping bag and got ready to spend the night in the van. I apologized and hearded Dan and Brian (who had paint all over his hands) out the door.
So we were kicked out of the house at 3 or 4 am and forced to sleep in our van on the streets of Portland. I slept in the drivers seat, Brian slept in shotgun, Lee slept on the back seat and Dan and Alex shared the middle seat. I woke up around 8am and we drove to The Holiday Motel, where I'm writing this from. We slept till 1pm and then Lee and I drove to some record stores and ate some delicious hamburgers. Tonight we're playing at The Towne Lounge with Oh No! Oh My! and The Ocean Floor. Should be a good show, I think.
CURRENTLY WATCHING: Deadwood; then Lost, Heroes and Battlestar Galactica.
P.S. Dan says he's sorry.

notes from the road...day three

dan bush here, alex says hello. what happenned yesterday? we saw a huge and big mountain of snow and got exited, so we pulled over and had a lil snowball fight. it was adorable. alex is off the meds and doing alright. thank bob almighty for the noni juice. that was not an innuendo. so we drove a while and then drove some more and after that we drove on. eugene oregon. i love you gene! we played at a restaurant/bar called the samurai duck, which of course is a variant on the duck theme pervading the whole town. this one refers to the somewhat japanese food on the menu. we got hamburgers, but Lee's teriyaki looked delicious. he said it was ok. the samurai duck is a heavy metal bar. we kind of stray from the typical "accepted" metal style. they clapped politely at the end of each song. it was weird. before the show there were some local kids hangin out spitting from the balconys, which of course is what they do there. they bought 10 bucks worth of badges and were too young to get in to the show. im sure we will be myspace freinds forever. ummm there was another pancake house here but we did not eat there. also we made Brian go in like 5 motels to haggle for the cheapest price. it was somewhat cruel but effective nonetheless. a nice lady talked to us about law for the people and her dog over breakfast this morning and we spent the day shopping at the record house, eugene jeans and the eugene flea market. i got an original red crayola record on the cheap, bitches! its easily the most important thing thats happened all day. so we drove to portland where alex and i quickly got lost on the streets while Sean, Lee and Brian shopped at jackpot records which was hmmmm, overpriced and 2nd avenue, which had some good records but was way overpriced. thats just what i heard. now were sitting outside the club waiting for anyone to show up and i'm bored enough to write this thing forever. but mst3k is on, and i've been converted.

notes from the road...day two

Well we're on the road again and headed to Eugene, Oregon for a show at The Samurai Duck. We're playing with a band called The Filthiest People Alive, so yeah, perfect match.
Last night was great! The Rantouls blew everyone out of the water, great (GREAT!) bubblegum music. We love them. The Time Flys jumped on after them for three songs. Truly an awesome show. We played last, but strings were broken, guitars were out of tune and we were a bit rusty, but we had fun nonetheless. People danced and that's all that really matters. We played for a long time I think, I can never tell. Plus we started around 1:30 am, so it was a late night.
This guy hooked up his guitar to the PA after we were done and was playing trippy-sort of music I guess. I accidentally unplugged him in the middle of a song. Twice. Whoops! His friend got angry at me because I couldn't figure out how to get it back working. So he started moving all of our stuff and I said "Guy, please don't touch that."
Among other highlights of the night was a gun shot across the street from the house we were playing at and a car crash that happened down the block. We heard a car hit something and then a geyser shot up out of a fire hydrant and created a small river in the gutter. We walked down and watched the water shoot up in the air. It was spraying all over the car that crashed into it. Many people gathered and posed in front of the newly created attraction. Our camera didn't have batteries so you'll just have to imagine how cool it was. Also, a guy peed in this mud puddle in front of the house and we watched a girl slip into it, two seconds after Dan said something about stepping in it. On a related note, I accidentally stepped on Dan's hamburger a few nights ago, again, two seconds after he said "I'm going to cry if I drop this hamburger." He dropped, I stepped, Dan got angry.
We stayed the night at Laurel's house last night. After we woke up, we went to eat at Lois the Pie Queen's shop down the street. The food is so good. I bought french toast and hashbrowns and some bites I just sat back a relished in the tastiness.
Inserting breakfast pastry. Warming the syrup. Yum.
Also, on our way out of town two little kids shot cap guns at us from their front yard. We survived.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Nazz's first album

notes from the road...day one

We're finally on our way after much fiddlefucking.
We left around 1 pm on our way to our first stop, Los Mothballs' living room in Oakland. We're playing with The Rantouls tonight, a band we love very much. So that'll be a blast!
In the van we have Lee, Dan, Alex, Sean and our pal Brian. It's packed full of cookies, so we're happy.
We just picked up 200 copies of our new 7" single from Bill Smith Records in El Segundo. It was awesome! We got to see people throw balls of wax into a machine and come out with a real live record. Then they'd cut off the excess wax around the edges and throw it in a trash can. The workers just stared at us as our wide eyes went from one machine to the next. Lee tried to talk to the guy pressing the vinyl but he didn't speak english. He was able to tell him that he presses 300 records a day. Pretty neat and a great start to our tour!
Then we went and picked up 50 copies of our first 7" from Kyle Kapow at his work. Money changed hands and we were on our way to Jack in the Box for one last pit stop before the long drive to Oakland. Dan bought mozerella sticks.
So begins our 44 day tour of the United States. We'll be recording an album in Minneapolis, playing a barbeque at SXSW and then making our way towards New York for the Radio Heartbeat Powerpop Festival. Fun times.
More to come...
xoxo,
thee makeout party!