The Final Stop: Eugene

It was a long drive to Eugene. We played at Tiny Tavern, a charming little beer bar full of college kids and homeless people alike. People came in off the streets to hear us. The place was completely packed. We played like we it was the last thing we would ever do. Best set of the tour. Best set we ever played. Best feeling ever. We were done. No more shows. no more states. People came up to us saying we were the best small time band they'd ever seen. That night, we believed it.

We drove straight back to Portland that night.


The end.

San Fransisco

Left LA showered, fed, and happy. San Fransisco was next up. I (Emily) have family there, and we were be able to stay at yet another house that night. The cool, misty fog felt great after the heat of the South. We played at Pissed off Pete's, an new Irish bar. It went well and smoothly, and there isn't a lot to write about because of that! Hannah was sick or something... Sore throat... But she kept going. You have no choice but to keep on going when you're on tour.

One more city to go.

Los Angeles, California

We drove into the city in the early afternoon. The final destination: A house show at a friends of a friend's house. LA is, in my opinion, like magic. It has this feeling like everything is happening right now, every day anything can happen, but also feels like everyone on the street is judging you. Image is everything. It's like ten cities in one. It is almost like going to an amusement park where everything is novel and entertaining, but you wouldn't want to live there.

We got lost for a while, but found our way eventually. Thank God for the iPhone and Google Maps...

The house belonged to Dan and Annie, two awesome people who were totally hospitable. And they were into pinball machines. I mean seriously, real arcade style pinball machines. Dan collected them. There was also one of those Whack-A-Gator things, some other arcade games, an electronic darts machine, etc. The show was kind of like a Pinball-Punk-Party attended by entertainment biz guys and gals who were seriously into pinball machines. There was also a local band who played called Cannonbll Fun. It was their last show, and they did a mighty fine job. The night was overall pretty mellow, we played a good set, there was a Pinball tournament and a $.99 raffle.


PICTURES:
-A few of the Pinball Machines
-Hannah's High Score! (Unbeaten all night!)

The Story of Phoenix

With a long drive ahead of us (what's new?), we leave the oasis of a real house for the heat of the desert, with spectacular home made breakfast burritos in hand. It's hot. And humid. We arrive at the Willow House, a cafe/venue at 5:30pm. We can't believe our luck. We are problem free for the day! An easy show for sure! Jokingly, Hannah comments "with our luck it probably closed down last week or something." Not five minutes later, do we see the sign on the door, announcing the closure of the Willow house as of YESTERDAY due to unpaid rent.

The next thing we know, a young guy shows up on a bike, guesses who we are, and offers to help us find another place to play for the night. It's hot as hell outside. We check with a place called The Trunk Space, which is a little Venue in town, but they already had stuff going on that night. Something about the opening of an Abraham Lincon art show...

We tried a couple more places with no luck. It's getting late...

This guy, (named Ian) lead us to another place called The Fire House, where an open mic is about to begin. Better than nothing, right? The space is really cool, the venue is outside. There are tons of people there who seem genuinely excited, everyone was really nice. We signed up on the list with the guy who was in charge, (his name was Ernesto),

Then things get messed up, again. A local band goes on before us. Ok, cool... Open mic night, right? So they'll play like 5 songs and get off? Nope. They play for AN HOUR. Then we are supposed to go on, but another band shows up and starts telling us they "booked" this show. Uh, sorry... how do you "book" an open mic? They kept saying how awesome they were and how everyone wants to hear them play. So modest... They hadn't even signed up on the list. We had.

So we go on. I'm using The Hand That Bleed's amp, and I don't know the settings well. Something was fucked up but I didn't know what. We play a set that the crowd LOVED but we HATED because of the fucked up sound. We sold more records that night than we did anywhere else. The Hand That Bleeds, bless them, played only 1 song so we could get out of there and "out of the way" of the other bands. I felt, even though we only played 5 songs, that we took up too much time.

We packed up and left for LA. Fuck Phoenix. There was pink lightning in the sky, but it wasn't beautiful enough to make us ever want to go back.

We slept in a rest stop somewhere between Phoenix and LA, out underneath a sign that read "CAUTION: Poisonous snakes."

Albuquerque, NM

Waking up in a house felt nice. Our show for the coming night was in Albuquerque so we didn't need to drive ANYWHERE that day, nor did we have to wait at a mechanic's shop. It was a relaxing situation to be in, and we took advantage of that by heading out on the town to see places and eat stuff. We were taken to Frontier, a restaurant that serves breakfast burritos. They were sure tasty! Then we did some shopping here and there. One of the places we went to was the Buffalo Exchange... this plays in later so hold on. We found some weird burger (sort of) joint later on, and got a milkshake. It was the worst milkshake we had ever seen, but it was super cheap. We then went back to the house where everybody made TONS of food. Potato salad, chicken, veggies, uhhhhh what else... Hannah and I made cherry cup cakes (mostly Hannah though), ummm there was more but I can't remember right now. Then we went to the venue.

We played a show that night with a local hip hop band, and a DJ. The space was cool and the lighting was sound reactive. The turnout was alright, but there didn't seem to be much of a punk or music scene at all. The funny thing was, one of the guys in the hip hop band was the guy who worked at Buffalo Exchange and was Hannah's cashier. AND she was totally wearing the shirt she bought. Also, a couple other girls who worked there showed up in the crowd. I don't know if it's true, but it made Albuquerque feel like a small town. Afterwards we hung out, sang songs, did all sorts of stuff until the sun came up.

-Emily/MSM

Hostility and Hospitality in Santa Fe, New Mexico

I'll Make this post brief. We played at a cool live-in art space called Humble. Unfortunately there were no other bands booked on the bill, so there was no local draw. We hit the town before the show handing out fliers and promoting to the local youths, and ended up with a crowd of a dozen or so people show up. (Much of which was family of Orion, guitarist for The Hand That Bleeds, the band we toured with.) Frustrating situations lead to a high tension atmosphere for us, and although we played a satisfying set, the night went sour shortly after. This might have been the lowest point of the tour for some of us, but for others, it was the best part.

We left Santa Fe that night and headed straight to Albuquerque, New Mexico, which was only about 40 minutes away. In Albuquerque we had a place to stay with Orion's brother. We rounded off the night with music, Monopoly, and delicious home made Pisole. (Probably spelled totally wrong, sounds like (Piss-o-lay.)

Picture: Painting by owner of The Humble done during the show.

-MSM

Grand Junction, Colorado (We are way behind in posts)

After leaving the Boing Collective in SLC, we head South to Colorado. The ride down felt like it lasted YEARS with nothing but the same rocks on either side of the van for hours and hours. Finally we crossed into Colorado, where there seems to be more Liquor stores than people. This night is the last night on the tour that we did not have a show scheduled, so we had a free schedule for the most part, but we did want to make it as far South as possible in order to have a shorter drive to Santa Fe the next day. We decided to find a campsite for the night somewhere near Grand Junction. We lucked out and found a beautiful campsite surrounded by water, trees, and strange sounding animals. We pitched some tents and ate some ramen noodles, made some 'smores, and had a really good time. It was good bonding with the band we were touring with, The Hand That Bleeds. Another plus is the campground had SHOWERS!!! We thoroughly took advantage of that.

Again, more pictures and video will be posted later, but here's a few pictures of our journey around this part.

SLC PUNKS

Pictures:
TOILET FROM ARTOPIA.
SARRAH AND HANNAH.
EMILY'S BLOODY FACE.
THE BOING COLLECTIVE WHERE WE STAYED THE NIGHT.
BIKES INSIDE THE BOING COLLECTIVE.
SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS AT BOING.
CHARLIE, A COOL GUY WHO TOOK US TO BREAKFAST.
BLUE PLATE, THE RESTAURANT CHARLIE TOOK US TOO.

On the 11th, we went to Salt Lake City, Utah. The good is that the space we played at, called Artopia, was the sickest little place. SLC was pretty impressive, and the people we met were incredibly hospitable. The bad was we had no local acts on the bill, and the show was not promoted. There ended up being only a handful of people at the show. We made the best of it though, starting a pillow fufht, and we played a good set. In the middle of one of our songs, a dude came flying into one of the mics and hit Emily in the nose. We got it on video, and a couple pictures of the blood that followed.

We stayed the night at a place called the Boing Collective, which was an old rundown house filled with hippies, travelers, bikes, and had lots of character. The next day, one of the guys who was at the show the night before (named Charlie) took us out to breakfast at Blue Plate. The food was great, and after interneting for a while at a coffee shop later on, we headed back on the road. Monster-Sized Monsters PS, more pictures are to come... but later.

Two Days In Missoula, Montana

(The above photos were taken from the bridge in Montana where we pulled aside to wait for the tow truck. Taken By Hannah Armstrong.)

We were anticipating arriving in Missoula, Montana very much. Although our two original shows fell through before we went on tour, a good guy named Dane, who both of our bands have become friends with through music and photographs set up a show for us at Union Hall. We played with this rad band called Knot Knocked Up, an all girl percussion/experimental band with feminist screaming poetic lyrics. It was way different and cool.

We were actually ON TIME for our gig, despite breaking down AGAIN about 75 mil4s away from Missoula. We were once again towed into town, but made it to the show OK. After the show was a little crazy, dramatic, and indescribable. Each person sort of did their own thing, and spirits were low. With the van troubles hanging over our heads, everyone was stressed. We did manage to make it to the river in Montana to go swimming, which was really nice.

Our second night in Missoula we did not have a show. It was more low key, with some people going to Knot Knocked Up's trailer home, and Hannah visited her grandfather who lives in the area. We finally got the van rolling on Monday morning. It needed new lugs on the front drivers rim, and we put new tires on it while we were at it. We left for Salt Lake City revived, refreshed, and with much improved spirits, for the most part.

-MSM

More Pictures!

Fort Missoula Two (Made from music equipment, Sarrah is inside.):

Swimming in beautiful Montana:

Spokane

Friday morning: I wake up to a knock on the window of our rental van after having about 3 hours of sleep. Damon is in the driver's seat to my left, Emily is in the back. We're in the parking lot of the mechanic shop where our van is being fixed. We roll out, as to not embarass ourselves for sleeping in the parking lot and head to a rest stop about 5 miles up I-5. Emily, Sarrah, and I laid our sleeping bags in the grass and slept for about another 3 hours. We returned to shop and waited things out, found an internet cafe and a free bbq breakfast. Van was fixed at about 3PM and we headed for Spokane at 4. A rad sunset and some sick-ass lightning later, we arrive at our destination to find that our show has been canceled due to a lack of bands and a sound guy. Headed over to Rob's house (from one of the bands we were supposed to play with) and stayed up all night playing johnny cash covers and salsa dancing. There was a mandolin and a bass made out of a washtub and a stick. It was intensely mind-blowing. We're not sure of it was the change in altitude or what, but none of us could sleep. Except for our drummers, who can sleep through anything. <3 -H/MSM Ok, I have to talk about this BBQ breakfast thing some more. And Longview and Spokane. WHAT IS WRONG WITH LONGVIEW? As Orion put it, everything that happened felt like it was out of some Twilight Zone episode. Right across the street from the mechanic shop there was some community BBQ or something for FREE. It was bizarre but everyone there was super friendly, and all seemed to know one another. Spokane was weirder. It seemed like nobody there ever slept at night. We went to Sherries and took stupid video of stuff like pickles and mustard (which I will post later.) I was REALLY REALLY disapointed we ended up having a cancelled show that night, we were supposed to play the Zombie Room with some death metal bands. Damn. -Emily Galash

One City Down; Seattle

Yesterday was frustrating. Barely into Longview, Washington our van broke down. While getting towed (thanks AAA!) we realized that dinosaurs haven't existed yet, but they actually will exist so far in the future that they will develop time travel, accidentally go too far back in time, and not know how to return to the future, getting stuck. And that, my friend, is how and why the dinosaurs died off. It wasn't a meteor.

But that's a different story. Anyway... After many failed plans, laughs and fights, we rented a van, left ours at the mechanic, and drove up to Seattle. We played at a record shop called Bop Street Records, which is a pretty neat place. Then we left as soon as possible to get to Chop Suey, where the band we are touring with (The Hand That Bleeds) had a show. While they played we explored downtown Seattle. It has so many cool record shops, nearly one on every corner, but the live music scene feels less free and creative than Portland's. This will be a fun learning adventure for us I feel.

-Emily Galash