Austin Is Wierd...

...but so are we.  Our boys Earnie Banks from Houston and Airline from Dallas came and joined us at Cain & Abel's for a Saturday night show down by the University of Texas.  Broken beer bottles were afoot, and even one of the ceiling fans was torn down by someone wearing a cowboy hat with a chair.  Some places in Austin, you won't find stereotypical Texans, but you did here.  Good times and a ridiculously large bartab helped the confusion of waking up 2 hours north of Austin in a dirt parking lot?  How the hell did that happen?

Check out Airline

Maybe THIS is the real SOUTH

NEW ORLEANS AND BATON ROUGE.

We skirted the outside of the French Quarter to dodge the trannies and such and played down on Banks Street.  Strong showing from Tulane, well done. 

Baton Rouge put us on the radio, got some true airtime for "A Song" and plunked out a live in-studio version of "Commonwealth Girl", with acoustic guitars and a sweet kawasaki keyboard that Andy couldn't stop raving about.  Magik Fox, you rock our magik socks off.

Thanks to Green Frog Entertainment for setting us up for the showcase on their Indie Lounge night at Triple A Bar, we will definitely be coming back to Baton Rouge...

Hurricane Couldn't Touch 2nd Houston Show

Maybe shoulda been cancelled due to the hurricane, the AC was down and it was probably 120 degrees 80% humidity. The bartenders had been without power for 2 weeks, hats off. We had fun in the sweltering humidity, I'd do it again.

Dallas: Sold Out, Houston: Underwater

The Green Elephant reached capacity, good sign. It's nice to have support in the Southwest, hopefully the trend continues when we leave Texas to return to the United States.

Had a gig cancelled in Houston due to power outages from the hurricane. But it looks like power is back up at our Houston show for tonight, so we shall be leaving Dallas shortly.

Our run is nearing an end and although many of us are violently ill, no one is dead. Late nights, long drives, and lots of cities have taken their toll, but we're still moving. Houston, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Austin this week. Rock on Den.

We Lost Our Gig in the Hurricane

Houston show cancelled by this:

Pics From The Green Elephant, DALLAS

DENton?

I've never heard of Denton, but supposedly there's a college here...and it Denton does have Den in it.

Fun Quotes from The Tour

Lake Tahoe, 3am

"Follow this guy on the motorcycle, he's going to take us to our money".

Denver, 4am, Under A Parking Garage

Paramedic: "We got a call that there were some dead bodies under here, you guys probably shouldn't sleep here."

UP date

It's not as easy to find internet access across this desolate cow field of a country as you would think, thus the congruent desolate nature of the blog. Well, maybe it's easy, but our priority at most stops has been finding the cheapest whisky as quickly as we can before making the next 6 hours to get to the next gig.

Everyone is alive, and we have made enough money to pay for gas and whiskey. What more could we ask for. We've made it to Dallas and have a little more than a week to go. Houston may be underwater so we might not be able to play our two shows there. Two nights ago we won the Habitat for Humanity battle of the bands in Fayetteville, Arkansas to get a $250 gift certificate to a music store, unfortunately they didn't sell whiskey.

Arkansas, who knew?

George's Majestic Lounge.  We won the Battle of the Bands. Woo...hoo...

The U.S. is FLAT

                    Denver to Albuquerque to Oklahoma City to Arkansas is a nice little drive. Truck starts to smell worse and worse.  I think someone will die.

Arvada, Boulder, Denver. CO.

3 shows to cover a grand triumvirate of Colorado college town, classy suburb, and big city.

Notes: Adjust drinking for altitude (Drew), it is a mile high city. 

Thanks Russ for putting us up, Denver rocks.  Andy's birthday saw us sleeping under a parking garage because our sober drummer left us for dead, thanks.  We awoke to paramedics who thought we were dead, boy we fooled them!

These pics are from our show at Owsley's Golden Road in Downtown Denver, one of the coolest venues ever, a maze of huge gallery-like rooms and bartenders who will tell you about the magical powers of gemstones.

Shit, we have to be in Albuquerque tonight...DRIVE!

Stupid

Tahoe IS Cold

Played south Lake Tahoe last night and camped on the lake. Beautiful.

Time to get out of California, just a quick little hop skip and a jump to DENver, 1200 miles in 2 days, easy breezy.

Santa Clara Hasn't Started School Yet? ...Ooops

Playing a show at a popular bar across the street from Santa Clara University sounds like a great time with a great college crowd! …until you get there and realize school doesn’t start until next week. Thanks Brian, for being such a great crowd.


Northern California

We've played 7 shows in the past 6 days, how is that possible? Leaving sunny southern california I kinda expected a bit of fog and coolness in Norcal, but it's been hot here.  The temp guage on the Burban read 112 degrees the other day, and we don't have AC.  Also learned that keeping a Carl's Junior chicken sandwich at that temperature for 6 hours is not the same as the heat lamps in the store, in retrospect, I blame the mayonnaise.  Don't make my mistake.  

Santa Cruz was silly, Davis was delightful, San Fran was ____, San Jose was...hot.

San Jose:

Here's what we did all day in San Francisco tho:

Backtracking a tad wee bit

SLO
Labor
Teevee

The Mystery Spot

So, supposedly this is a mystery...

Drew Blog - Episode 1

Scene opens: Morning in Drew's apartment, Connor on computer

Clip, Clip

Connor: What are you doing?

Drew: I'm trimming your back hair with my toenail clippers.

Connor: Those are scissors.

Drew: But I use them to cut my toenails.

What I've Learned

The time between an attempt to flood all the equipment in a muddy field of cilantro and this cool, sunny San Francisco morning has held 5 very successful shows.  Santa Barbara, SLO, Santa Cruz and Davis have all been conquered in DEN fashion and we've made enough gas money to get this far.  

Touring in a Suburban with no Air Conditioning was predicated upon the anticipation of the lack of any heat wave in September.  Hindsight hits like tube sock full of quarters when the car thermometer reaches 110 degrees when sitting in bumper to bumper traffic.  This happens soon after a quick stop to purchase another cigarette lighter power inverter in an attempt to run an xbox and a tv in the car (we may have spent as much money on this setup as we would have to get the air conditioning fixed, but funds are slim and priorities take priority).  We still have yet to successfully run our intra-suburban entertainment center for more than 5 minutes without blowing a fuse.

So, in support of the title of this post, here's a list of things I've learned thus far:

-some whisky is cheaper than water

-whisky is not a cure for dehydration

-whisky is not a substitute for sleep

-when faced with several half full bottles of different whisky brands, and limited car space, a blend can be made without much degradation to the taste of the whisky

-do not try to hook up the electronics on your trailer when whisky is involved (the white wire is always the ground, and even though there's a little white wire hanging from underneath the bumper of your car, if you match those colors, you will possibly end up blowing about 4 brake light fuses, driving 250 miles without brake lights, then spending only about 3 minutes fixing it when you find a mechanic who knows what they're talking about.

And here's some scenes from the road thus far:

 

Santa Barbara To SLO With No Brake Lights

It is such times that you learn to wire a trailer the hard way.  We made it, staying conveniently behind California Highway Patrol so they couldn't see our lack of brake lights and turn signals.  We can add that to the list of lucky breaks, along with Kurt's truck being salvaged from the lettuce field with no major harm to any of the equipment.  And what is it, only the 3rd day?  Last night in San Luis Obispo was the first and last time anyone will try sleeping in the Suburban, apparently it's uncomfortable...apparently.