February/March 2010 Tour, Day 2

I got a really good night’s sleep, which was nice. I woke up and worried about if I had slept through a gang of hoodlums breaking into the trailer and stealing everything, but they obviously hadn’t. John came down soon after I woke up and threw his bag in the back. I got up and made myself another sandwich, and then went upstairs to the room for a shower. On the way up, I passed by some rooms that had their doors open, and I noticed that some families were completely set up in this motel permanently. Like their place was fully furnished and they had their own rugs and art and stuff in these motel rooms. The people also looked like they were in real bad shape. Too bad.

Everyone was asleep when I got to the room, naturally. I took a shampoo-less, towel-less shower, and used a tiny motel towel to dry myself. I went back down to the van. Peter came down later and wanted to clean the mold out of the van, so he began doing that with some mildew remover and a sponge. I was sort of worried about the bleach, and the fact that we were going to be driving all day with the fumes, but then I realized that I’m punk as fuck and I didn’t care. We cleaned out a bit of the van, and then got impatient and packed up and left for our drive to Pasadena.

I decided to start up the tour journal again, I don’t really know why. I think I told myself that I wasn’t going to do it this time, because I easily get behind because I’m lazy. But, I felt compelled, so I started. Peter’s parents bought him this beefy power inverter which can handle 2 outlets and 2 USB outlets, and up to 400 watts, so if I wanted to I could run my computer all day in the van. I also have my iPhone which gets internet as long as I have cell phone reception, so I can check my email and surf the web. Touring ain’t what it used to be, I guess. Lucky for me.

We drive into Pasadena and have a few hours to kill, so Ryan parks the van in this upscale So Cal shopping area, and we walk around. John stayed in the car to do some HW; he’s taking the online Health class that I took last year, the poor fuck. We walked around and we separately passed like 3 groups of canvassers, which was kinda funny. There isn’t much to do, so we head into a Barnes and Nobles and I sit down in the café to do some computer stuff, but we decide to leave a few minutes later and just head over to the Old Town Pub where we’re playing (or Olde Town or Old Towne, whatever).

This place is almost impossible to get to, and Ryan and I are constantly screaming at the GPS on both of our phones. We drive around this area for 15 minutes, and eventually Ryan parks the van and everyone except for Ryan heads out to find this place on foot. We still can’t find this place at all, so John goes into a shop (this dimly lit “Desert Bar” … really? A bar for deserts? Fuck So Cal.) and asks where this place is. She says “Oh! Yah, follow me.” She leads us THROUGH the bar towards the back, and through 2 doors, and into the back alley and then into this small super-hidden plaza in the middle of the city block and there it is. This little plaza had green and white Christmas lights and a fountain and a bunch of trees, so emerging into this place from the back of a bar was kind of like entering Narnia. I go in the bar, and it’s like 6 o’clock, so no one’s there. It’s a cool little place, even though the stage is really small. The bar tender says we can load in whenever we want to, but Ryan is still with the van, and there’s no rush, so I head back out.

Peter then tells me that Ryan took the van and went to a free clinic because he was feeling like shit. This was kind of out of the blue, so I had a little wtf? Moment, but then got over it. We hang out in the little plaza for awhile, and then decide to check out The Container Store on the corner of the block, because we had never been in a store that just sold containers exclusively. Finally, Ryan and the van meet us outside the store and Ryan tells us that he has an appointment tomorrow morning at the clinic. The band decides that it wants food, and no one wants to eat at the nice restaurants around here, so we drive like 5 miles to find a McDonalds. I should probably mention that I’m not a real big part of the “we” here; I’m not really hungry, so I don’t care. Dollar Menu is king and will always prevail.

Ryan asks me about the venue, and I tell him what’s up. He’s getting kind of nervous, because there weren’t any bands there or any way to find the place, so I give Noey a call. Noey is the promoter, and he’s from the pop punk message board, so of course Danny knows him and gave me his information and she gave him my info. I call him, and he says the show is starting later than anticipated, and that he was on his way to the place. We head back, too.

Parking in downtown Pasadena is downright impossible. There are 2 alleys that you have to follow to get to this bar, and we don’t want to block them while we load in, so Ryan parks in this red zone on the main street really far from the place and load in. It’s a total pain in the ass, and I ask the bassist of the first band if I could borrow his bass amp for the show. It’s kind of small, and I want to actually be heard tonight, but our bass amp is as tall as I am, and I don’t want to drag it 4 blocks. He says it’s no problem, and then says that touring bands usually don’t do so well here, and that we should probably pass around a donations jar or something. He also thinks that we’re playing second, which is not what the flyer for the show said, and they were about to take the stage, so I go to tell Ryan that this might be the case. The rest of the band was setting up merch in the back of the bar in the outside area, and I tell them what’s up and then go off to find Noey to ask him about it as well. We introduce ourselves, and then he says that we’re playing last, which is what we thought. We talk a bit more, and then the first band, Reagle Beagle, starts playing.

It was a pop punk show, and this band was sort of your run of the mill pop punk band. I thought they were alright. I talk to Ryan in the back and he thinks it’s funny how much bands like this rip off the Queers, and after the band was on for over a half hour, he mentions that pop punk bands should play for a maximum of 22 minutes. Makes sense. The bass amp of the band is pretty quiet, so I thought about asking the next band for theirs instead. I walk by where all the gear is sitting, and see that their amp is pretty small, too. I asked them as they set up if I could maybe use it anyways, but they said that they’re leaving right after the show ends. This was getting stupid, so I just went and hauled out bass amp in; it wasn’t a big deal. The second band, The Simplisticks, was a 3 piece pop punk band, and the lead singer tried really hard to sing like Billie Joe. The first line in one of the songs was even “I know what you’re thinking. This guy sounds a lot like Billie Joe.” The songs were mostly about drinking and smoking pot. They pimped our donations jar out, which was nice of them. I picked up their CD, it was $2.

After those 2 bands played, like 2/3 of the crowd left. This sucked, but oh well. We played a decent set, but Ryan was getting visibly pissed off at John who was drumming not so greatly. The stage was small so I got stuck in back again. We played a shorter set, and a couple of guys at the bar got into it, so that was cool. Ryan said that he heard someone say “that was badass” at the end of one of our songs. We got a decent amount from the tip jar, but no one bought any merch. One of the guys at the bar said that he was going to tell his friend to go see us in Tucson the next day.

Noey met up with us at the end and offered us a place to stay, which we needed. We followed him out to his place in the San Fernando Valley, and I recognized most of the places we were driving through. We got there, and it was a nice place and Noey was extremely hospitable, even to the point where he said we could raid his fridge. His brother was also there, who was decked out in super pop punk garb. Half of the band slept in his daughter’s play room, and Ryan and I slept on the couches in the living room. Halfway through the night, I moved to the floor, which I found to be more comfortable, because I am crazy.

February/March 2010 Tour, Day 1

The beginning of the day is spent packing and preparing. Danny was a little bummed that I procrastinated so much, because it meant that it was less time with her in the morning before I left her for a month. But, she helped me a lot and reminded me of all the things that I would forget, which was very helpful. We went to CVS, and I got a small one-burner camp stove, and a food bin, and some other supplies. The lady at the checkout said “You guys going camping?” to which I replied “No, I’m going on tour. But, I guess it’s like the same thing.” Last tour I didn’t bring any food with me, and sometimes going to fast food restaurants all the time would hurt my brain, stomach, and wallet. So, this time I stocked up on tons of food in cans and bags. We’re heading to The South as well, so I got a palette of bottled water (which I also froze to cool my cooler). I had mentioned doing this last tour, and half the band thought it was a good idea, and the other half thought that it was “totally gay.” But, I don’t really care as long as I can get by easier.

Ryan picked me up around 1, and Danny and I said our goodbyes. Ryan saw all the crap I was bringing and shook his head and told me he was going to charge me “rent” in the van. I knew from last tour that there was plenty of room in the back for lots of crap, and the more things that we could pile on top of each other, the better. Last tour it rained a lot and the bottom of the van got soaked, so anything that can be stacked on top of anything else will be saved this time around. Ryan and I went and picked up John, and we headed down to the Annex to meet with Peter and Brendan.

Ryan was pretty stressed out because he had been recording 4 albums at once, and also almost went crazy mixing and mastering our new album. Also, the CD plant fucked up on our CD and they’re a week late, so we’re getting the CDs shipped to Austin, which sucks because we have literally TWO 7”s left. At least we have a bunch of shirts to sell, but we don’t have any stickers. Bummer. We got to the Annex, and Peter and Brendan were sitting there waiting for us. Ryan had to take care of some work really fast, so the rest of us hung out outside. Everyone was in good spirits, which was good because riding with Ryan (who wasn’t in good spirits) was a little lame. We take a look at the back of the van and it’s completely covered in mold, so we throw away anything back there that is remotely wet or covered in mold, which is pretty much everything. A few pillows, shirts, towels, and a sleeping bag. We packed everything back up in the van and the trailer and headed out towards Fresno.

The ride was pretty uneventful. Ryan said that he was getting a lot of positive feedback about the album, which was good to hear. He also said that Middah entered us in to see if we could get picked for Warped Tour, which John was excited about, but everyone else in the band agreed that it would be a total nightmare. Ryan explained that it really doesn’t take anything to get on Warped Tour as a side-stage band, but you’d be literally competing with NOFX and be in the sun all day and play a shitty short set and not get paid a dime. We’d be way better off doing a short tour on our own. Also, Warped Tour is lame.

We get to “The Lamppost” in Fresno fairly early, about 6-7, and I go inside to scope it out. It’s an extremely small bar, and at the moment it looks like no one inside is under the age of 40. The bartender says that we can setup and play anytime we want to, but we need to let him know so that he can move the benches out of the way. Uh, ok, I guess. I go back outside and report. It’s early and none of the other bands are there, so we go out in search of food and a Walmart or something where Ryan can buy a new sleeping bag. We stop at Panda Express and head inside. I don’t get anything (obviously), and John asks the people there for some hot water for his Cup O’ Noodles. He apparently didn’t care that the water wasn’t going to hot enough to cook the noodles, and we all stared in amazement when he opened a small can of mini hot dogs and dumped them in his lukewarm water and crunchy Cup O’ Noodles, and ate the whole thing. Wow.

Afterwards, Ryan finds us a Walmart on his new Droid’s GPS with awesome voice guided step-by-step instructions that keeps losing connection and blurting out a “GPS Singal Lost,” which was a riot. I don’t usually find myself inside Walmarts, it’s kind of insane how much of a small city it almost is. Ryan and John pick up a sleeping bag, and I find this knife for 1$ that turned out to be terrible, but whatever.

We get back to The Lamppost and the other band Asiago is there. We played with them at the Hot Dog Heaven show there last month in Los Banos, and I was glad to be playing with them again; they seemed like a cool bunch and they were one of the better local bands I think that we’ve played with. The guy from Quote Your Pulse records was there, too. Shortly after we get there, a DJ shows up and starts setting up his equipment, so I guess there was going to be a DJ as well. He starts spinning these mashups that are pretty crazy, like Sublime and Lil’ John or NWA and nu-metal stuff and country. I guess that’s what you do if you want to appeal to/offend all audiences. We miraculously setup all our gear in the small space we had, but we had to completely block the front door to do so. This was most likely a fire hazard. I borrowed the bass amp from the bassist in Asiago, because the Atom Age bass amp was too massive.

We’re about to go on, and the guy who booked the show wanted to say a few things first, but we weren’t sure where he was, but we waited for him anyways. He turns up a few minutes later, and takes the mic and says (paraphrasing) “Thanks for coming out. My name is Doctor Claw and I’m going to perform a few songs for you before the Atom Age go up, I hope you like them.” So, we put down our instruments and watch him perform 3 rap songs with the DJ supplying him with his beats. Kind of unexpected, but this was the first show of the tour, so I didn’t really mind. I just thought it was funny. Afterwards we retake the floor and go into it.

We played fine; I could hardly hear myself through the Asiago bass amp, and after the first song we had to turn it up pretty much all the way. I stood behind everyone and didn’t have a mic and could barely move because the space was so small, but that was fine. Our set was short, but nothing went wrong and I thought we sounded pretty tight for our first show. There was hardly anybody there, I think just a handful of people that weren’t in Asiago or from Quote Your Pulse, but we needed a warm up show. We sold a few shirts after the show, and got a small amount from the bartender which was more than we expected. Not bad.

Asiago came up after us. They were the only other band, and I liked them and remembered a song or two from last time. They didn’t have their album out yet; I would have picked it up if they had. We got invited to stay at the singers house, but it was over an hour in the opposite direction which translates into “far enough to equal a motel room in gas money.” The band wanted to stay in a motel which is the first time that I had ever heard them express interest in paid lodging. I was fine with the van, but I think that Peter had scared everyone else into not sleeping in the van because of the mold. Sissies. We found a suitable motel and Ryan said that someone had to sleep in the van to protect the gear. I volunteered, because I was already cozy with the idea of sleeping in the van, and also I didn’t have van defender duty once last tour, so I felt sort of obligated. Plus, I wanted to make myself a sandwich, which I did as soon as the band went up to the room. I got out my sleeping bag and went to sleep.

The Rest of the November 2009 Tour

Basically I stopped writing about this tour, but there was only 2 days left of it, so there wasn't much. Here's a small recap of those 2 days.

We drive down to San Diego and get to the pub we're playing. They're really anal about keeping the underage members of our band from coming inside, even when loading gear they are making sure that they're not lingering. Pricks. Travis and Ryan had shown up to the show, but they thought that the show was seriously at 8pm, so they had been there for awhile. All the shows on myspace say 8pm as a default, and bar shows usually don't start until 9-10ish. They were already pretty drunk and had brought some friends. The Bombpops played, and they were really good. We played, and my friends and their friends were super drunk and going crazy. Travis afterwards made everyone buy a ton of merch. Ryan bought 4 shirts. One of the girls that they brought flashed her tits to the band to try to get free merch, but I was inside at the merch table and didn't see it. She just came in later drunk and demanded that I give her a free shirt because she showed her tits to Brendan and John. I didn't give her anything. She also flashed her ass to the whole band later on, but I looked away. They offered us a place to stay, but we went to Jen from the Bombpops place to crash instead. We watch some 50's mafia/romance movie thing and go to bed.

The next day we sit around and watch some TV and watch Evil Dead or Army of Darkness, I can't remember. I manage to completely wreck my computer by deleting the partition table, but I use some Linux magic to restore it. We played in Oceanside, and we hung out on the pier a little bit. The show we played was at this bar with saw dust covering the floors. Brendan has this awesome idea to Rick Roll the entire bar because they have one of those internet jukeboxes that can play any song, but the song never comes on and steals his money. The first guy that played was this super super SUPER wasted guy who played really sloppy acoustic guitar and really wanted to be Bob Dylan. We played, and I think it was fine. The band after us was this Orange County punkish band with a very charismatic lead singer who was kinda doing the whole Gwen Stefani/No Doubt thing. They were fun. We went back to Jen's place and I forget what we did, maybe just went to sleep. And then we drove home the next day.

Day 8

A construction worker woke me up, and I heard him saying “Hey you! You on the floor!” and I sleepily said “Huh?” “I'm taking the extension cord that you're things are plugged into.” “Ok, sure. Go for it.” And then I fell back asleep. I woke up later and realized that I probably should have asked the guy which outlet that extension cord was plugged into, because almost none of the outlets in the building worked. I went around plugging random things into the outlets around the building, and none of them worked. So I guess we were without power, which was fine; all my stuff was charged.

I decided that I should take pictures of this place, because it was pretty bizarre where we were sleeping. There were people passing by on the sidewalk, and my sleeping bag was in full view of the front windows, so I wondered if anybody had seen me sleeping in an empty store. I woke up past noon, so it was probable. I haven't used my camera yet on tour. I don't know why; I just never bothered to pull it out of my bag. So I snapped a few photos.

I was being a little loud (something that was easy to do given the massive echo chamber we were in) when I was trying to find an outlet and taking pictures, so some of the other band members woke up. Ryan is always the last one to get up, and Brendan was in the van, so Peter, John, and I got our stuff packed up. Peter was getting a little anxious because he would rather hang out in Sacramento than a construction site, so he wanted to wake up Ryan and leave. I went out to look for a coffee shop or something where I could eat something and wake up. I wandered around and found Heavenly Donuts, so I bought a box of a dozen donuts and brought it back to the band who were more than excited to have them. Ryan woke up and we headed out of there.

Sacramento wasn't that far away, so we got there pretty quickly. We were set up to play R5 Records, which was a regular looking record store. Brendan and I went in, and we looked around, not knowing exactly where they were expecting us to play. We asked the person at the front desk, and they said that they were going to move some couches out of the way or something. Ya, ok. The rest of the band finally came in, and Ryan was wondering where the local bands were that were supposed to open for us. He made some calls and found out that they had dropped off. Bummer. There was no one there, so we just decided to save Ryan's voice and not play.

But we had a backup plan. Ryan had been contacted a few weeks prior about playing on the UC Davis college radio station. He thought that it wasn't going to happen, until he got an email today from the DJ saying that we could play today if we wanted to. So that was pretty convenient, and we drove out to Davis, which wasn't that far away from Sacramento. We had some time to kill, so we got some food at Del Taco (a place I've never been before. It was pretty gross).

Finding a way into UC Davis was a pain in the ass. It's a college campus so there are bikes everywhere, and we almost hit a few of them in our big van plus trailer. We were given a gate code that we were supposed to punch in, but we searched and found several gates which all apparently had different gate codes than the one we had. We eventually found the right gate and went in to the campus. Finding the radio station building was equally difficult and frustrating, so I hopped out of the van and asked students for directions. We finally found the building and I went in to see what we were expected to do. College buildings and usually all labyrinths from hell and this one was no different. I found the radio station which was in the basement of the building, and it was the biggest college radio station I had ever been in.

I searched the place and found “Calamity Janie,” the DJ who was having us on her show, and she followed me out of the station to the van to tell us all where to load in. We pulled around the building, and we told to load our gear down stairs. This wasn't as bad as I thought, but still a bit of a pain. We got all our gear in, and sat down on the couches in the station office. There were 2 DJs doing their show while we were hanging out, so I decided to smear my face on the DJ booth window while they were trying to banter on air. They both started cracking up and I ran back into the room where the rest of the band was sitting before the 10 second delay hit.

The station had stickers and posters of punk bands all over the place, so that was cool. We put up some stickers, too. We were all sitting on the couch killing some time, when Atom Man came on the radio, and the band's faces all lit up a little bit. I've had a bunch of experience with college radio (Miranda, my ex that was living with in Tacoma, had her own punk show on her college station, and I've had a few other friends with shows), so it didn't really phase me that much, but the band thought it was kind of weird. After the song ended, the DJs introduced us as a “pop punk” band, which is something we don't really feel we fit into, but it's better than “ska” band, which we get almost as often.

Their show ended at 8, and Calamity Janie's show started. I asked her what the schedule was, and she said that we would be playing from 9-10. I didn't think that we had nearly enough material to do a full hour's set, so she said that we could play for as long as we wanted and then maybe do an interview for the remainder of the time. She didn't really seem like she cared too much or had any idea, so neither did we. We setup our gear in “Studio A,” and the soundguy did a thorough check of the mix, so it seemed like we were good to go. We were told that we would have to censor the songs on the air, which really wasn't a problem for us, but a few of our songs have some pretty blatant swear words.

We started at about 9:15, when the people in the sound booth kept giving us thumbs up signs, which we weren't really sure if that was the “go” sign or not, so there was a good 10-15 seconds of dead air, which I'm sure is about on par with regular college radio. We went into our set, and Ryan broke a string in the first second of the first song. My instrument cable also cut out for about 10 seconds as well. I had tuned my bass just before we went on, but for some reason my A string was way way off. I checked it on my tuner pedal in between songs, and the pedal said that my open A was fine. It was lying to me; there was no way in hell that string was on tune. So I played the next 2 songs only on my E string, something that I was a little proud that I could pull off. Before the set, I had raised the bridge a bit because of my bass' neck problems, but that shouldn't have affected an open A string. Ryan told radioland all about how my intonation was off, but it was my tuner pedal that was broken. I tuned to Peter's A string, and played the rest of the set fine. On “Kill Surf City,” Ryan usually says “When no one gave a FUCK” when there are no instruments playing, but he said “When someone licks your BUTT” instead, which was extremely great. Peter said “fuck” a few times in the backup vocals, but I don't think that anyone caught it but me, so hopefully no one gets a violation.

We finished at about 9:45, because we wanted to maybe get some interview time in, but Calamity Janie didn't seem to want us to do that. I know that college programs have to throw in a few PSAs and announcements during their show, so she probably had to cram all those in at the end. They handed us a CD of our performance, and told us that it would be available online as well. Calamity Janie came out after her show and said thank you and that we did a good job and blah blah blah. The next show that was going to be on that night was going to have a live bluegrass band on, so naturally I was curious about who they were. It was this family band, one of those traditional bands where everyone in the family plays an instrument. I've seen some stuff like that before, and usually the kids are extremely talented because of pressure from their parents. We're talking child talent like child chinese violinist talent. I asked them what they were playing, and they handed me a set list, thinking that as a punker I wouldn't know any. I knew a few of the songs, and then I brought up some bluegrassy stuff and wondered if they had heard of my dad's show. They hadn't, and I think at that point they were getting tired of chatting with me. After the conversation, I kinda pieced together some things from what they said, and I concluded that they were probably playing bluegrass to promote the master race.

We started loading our gear up the stairs. I picked up Peter's amp case, and after about 3 steps, the bottom completely fell out of the case because it wasn't screwed on correctly, and his amp head dropped about 3-4 feet onto the linoleum floor and bounced. I looked at it, and it didn't seem like any of the tubes were broken, and there was no rattling inside, so it seemed fine, and I went outside to tell Peter what had happened. He was a little mad, but seemed to be OK.

We made a quick drive back home, and dropped John and Brendan off at John's house where they were both staying for the night. Ryan and Peter dropped me off at home, and I went in my room and Danny was asleep in my bed, and as far as all of you people know, I crawled in bed and fell asleep.

Day 7

We had another fairly long drive to Redding, CA from Portland; so Ryan said that we should leave by 11. I woke up at 10:45 and took a shower. I found out that I had left my towel at Chris' place (big surprise), so I borrowed one from Walker Death Ray. Their house was pretty gigantic, and there were people walking around everywhere, and a few of them told me that they didn't live there. I got out of the shower at 11:15, and no one had woken up yet. I wasn't really worried about it, because if we were really pressed for time then someone would have set an alarm.

I got a call from Danny, who was a little upset with me because I have been a bit neglectful of her on tour, which is always going to be true to some extent, but she was right because there were a few specific things that I should have done for her that I didn't do, and some nice things she has done for me that I had not fully appreciated. It made me miss her a lot more than I already did, and I felt awful that I upset her. I'll try harder to keep her in mind. Tour is brain consuming, but I do think about her, and I should let her know that I do.

People finally did get up, and we left shortly after. We were in a hurry, so we didn't say a proper goodbye to the Danger Death Ray guys, but I said bye to Walker and gave Ryan a hug. We got in the van, and John took the wheel because Ryan couldn't drive through Oregon. We stopped at Subway/Little Caesar's and got some food. Peter, Brendan and I got 2 pizzas, 2 breadsticks, and a 2 liter for the road. I once again spent most of the drive writing in the tour journal, until my laptop battery died. Peter was singing some Elvis Costello, and I asked him how much Power Pop he listened to. He didn't know what I was talking about, which surprised me because by the music he listens to, he should have known Power Pop by now. So I let him borrow my iPod and put on the Rhino D.I.Y. Power Pop comps for him. Afterwards he said that he had heard most of that stuff, and then gave me shit for the Plan-It-X stuff I had on my iPod; he had been going through my iPod artists.

I tried doing this thing that the band does in the van that always seemed a little weird to me, but they swear by it and says that it makes them feel reenergized, among other things. So I tried this “taking a nap” jive, and I couldn't really get into it. I would nod off and wake up every 5 minutes. I was lying down and I felt the van pull over and saw that we were in a parking lot. We were stopping at a Guitar Center for some supplies. So I groggily walked into GC because I needed some bass strings. Peter and I were talking to the sales guy and I was still a little foggy and I asked Peter “Wait, what town are we in?” Peter said “Medford” and I said “Huh? … oh.” The sales guy I think was getting a little tired of me, so I just got the cheapest bass strings that they had and we left.

Immediately as we cross into California, it stops raining. Thank god, I was so fucking tired of the constant rain of the North West. We get to Redding and pull up to the Eatery, the pub where we're playing tonight. The band is excited, because this place gives bands free food and a free place to stay. I go inside on venue recon, and see that the first band has already started playing. I think we're playing second, so I tell the band that we should probably hurry up and load in. Ryan asks me a few things (things that I should have asked the bartender) but I don't know the answer. I realize now that I'm not very good at venue recon. Oh well. We hurry up and load in. The first band is this hardcore band that plays “Radio” by Rancid and “Minor Threat” by Minor Threat as their last 2 songs. I like the Minor Threat, and it seems like I'm the only one in the room who knows the song (which was sorta weird to me) and I start singing along and the lead singer gestures for me to go up and join him. I blow him off, because I have gear to setup.

The crowd is pretty small, and there's not a lot of people at the bar, and the place doesn't really have a great vibe, so I think we just want to get it over with. We setup fairly quickly, and the way John set up his drum set, I didn't have room to be on the side of the stage that I'm usually on, so I'm over by Peter for the first time. I usually can't even see Peter through Ryan and Brendan during the set, so this should be a different perspective. We played alright, but the small crowd was mostly stationary. “The Witch” had become part of the set now that I had learned it, and it's really fun to play, even though it's a cover. Not the greatest set, and I think that my bass amp kept cutting out because we were forced to daisy chain power strips, and the entire band was playing out of 1 outlet.

We were playing on the floor, so loading out was really easy. Afterwards we all ordered our free food. I got tofu tacos and a side of garlic parmesan fries. The food wasn't good, but it was free. We hung around the bar while the last band was playing, but then I started to get an awful pain in my stomach. I could feel the “Matt Stomach Fuck” coming on, which I knew was about to get way way worse, and I knew this night was about to take a turn for the worst. It did get progressively worse and by the end of the night I was visiting the bathroom every half hour or so. Bad and unfun.

We talked to the opening band, who were also on tour. They were on a 6 week tour, but next year they were tour from January to June. For 6 months. We all thought that they must be out of their minds. The lead singer said that he was homeless back home, and that being on tour was always better than being at home, so why not? Ryan said later that that is a really good way to destroy a band, and I think I agree. The opening band also talked to us about the Bombpops, and Ryan said that we were opening for them in San Diego, and later told me that I would like them and that they were really good. Cool.

Peter was taken by the owner to see where we were staying. It was a different place than the last time that The Atom Age came through, and significantly shadier. We were staying in an under construction storefront that was completely empty. We all got our bags out of the van and went in, and the only light in the place came from these floor construction lights. There was one outlet that worked, and a power strip that we all plugged our phones/computers into. The bathroom didn't have any lights, which sucked even more because I had my bad stomach ache. The place was completely empty, and the wood floors and bare walls gave about a 3 second reverb to anything that we did. The place looked like it used to be some sort of clothing store, and Ryan, Peter, and John stayed in the dressing rooms on the floor, because it had carpet. I setup near the back of the place where there was also carpet. Brendan slept in the van to keep it guarded, which is a really good policy to have, and he volunteered for it. We were playing the next day in Sacramento, and so we were asking Ryan if he knew where we were staying that night. He said “Are you guys kidding? I'm staying at home in my bed! The show ends at 8, so why wouldn't we just go home for the night? The lack of common sense in this band sometimes astounds me.” Way awesome! I texted Danny and told her to meet me at my place at about 10 or 11. We all stayed up pretty late watching stupid youtube videos (at least we had WiFi) and I finally fell asleep at around 4.

Day 6

I woke up and decided that breakfast for the band was in order again. I used what was left over from yesterday to make a eggs, potato, and bell pepper scramble, and more French toast. The band was asleep when I started making it, so I assumed only a few members would be wanting some, but everyone woke up and thankfully I made enough for everybody. The band was surprised how I could just lie down on the floor and be asleep in 5 minutes, and that I was lucky to be able to sleep so easily and soundly. Ryan needed to be in Oregon to deal with insurance for the car accident a few days prior. He needed to be there by 5, so we needed to leave pretty fast. I tried to do all the dishes, but people were already packed and ready to go, so I did the most that I could and then hurried to pack up everything, hoping to remember everything.

It was a lengthy drive back to Portland, where we were playing again tonight, and I spent most of the time in the van trying to make up the days I hadn't yet logged in the journal. It's hard to write in the journal when there are other things to do, and I usually try to write in the van or when there's nothing to do at the place we're crashing. So while we were at a cool place like Chris', it was pretty difficult to be motivated to write in or to concentrate on the journal. But I caught up a little bit, but at the same time I seem to write a lot so I was still not caught up.

We got to Portland just in time for Ryan to make it to the DMV. There was a little bit of chaos when Ryan couldn't find the papers he needed and we needed to find them in the messy van while we were double parked in the middle of downtown Portland, but everything got sorted out, and Peter, John, Brendan and I waited across the street at Starbucks. After the whole DMV thing is done we go and find some food. The band wants Panda, but there is almost nothing that I can eat there, so I head over to Quizno's across the way. I bring my food back to Panda Express and the manager actually gives me shit for bring in my food and sitting at the table with the rest of the band who has bought food. Jerk. We kill a bit of time there and Ryan gets a call from Middagh who says that we'll be playing with Big D And The Kid's Table at the Plea For Peace show in December. Cool, it'll probably be the first bigger show that I'll play, so that's a little exciting. We need to leave to go to The Know, the bar where we're playing, so we do.

The Know is a smallish place, it has a decent sized stage, and the floor area is small so it'll force people to not be so spread out, which is always good. It's also extremely dark, maybe 2-3 light bulbs lighting up the entire room. We show up fairly early, so we check our email and hang around. The bartender gives me 4 drink tickets per person, good for a beer each, so I suddenly find myself in possession of 20 beers worth of tickets that I don't know what I'm going to do with. I remember that I got to use the tickets last time at the snack bar for food, so I ask the bartender if we can use the tickets for the bar food menu. She gives me a weird look and says “Uh… I guess. We have small microwave pizzas and bigger ones like Tombstones.” Sweet. I told Ryan about it and he thought it was sweet as well. Ryan ordered a Tombstone pizza later on, and the bartender told him that no band has ever used drink tickets for food. Well, we're a hungry fucking band. My back has also been absolutely killing me from sitting in the van all day and then having a super wide power stance on stage. It got so bad that even walking around hurt a little, let alone unloading gear.

Danger Death Ray was playing with us tonight. They opened for us at my first Plea For Peace show, and I saw them again when they crashed at Danny's place for the night in San Jose. So it was good seeing them again, they showed up and I said hello to all of them. I like them, and I got their CDs in San Jose, so it was good knowing that I would enjoy one of the other bands tonight. The first band tonight was an acoustic duo, and it was getting towards the time they were supposed to start and they were nowhere to be seen. Ryan Death Ray was letting me use his bass amp tonight, and while we were getting it out of their van, he told me that the acoustic duo were notorious for being a little bit flakey.

They finally get there, and then proceed to take the longest setup that I've ever seen a band take ever. They had one of their friends do sound, and it was instantaneously obvious that he hadn't a clue what he was doing. They couldn't get the mics to work, and Ryan (who is a professional sound engineer) finally went up to fix it. The sound guy fucked with the levels for what seemed like forever, and did things that I could not understand at all, like tell the band to not put their guitar's soundholes next to the mic, and then wonder why he couldn't hear the guitars at all. Then they couldn't get the monitors working, and we and Danger Death Ray were starting to get a little bit impatient, because it was 9:15 and they were supposed to start at 9, and the show had to be over at 11. Dave Death Ray started yelling at them “People having been playing acoustic guitar and singing for hundreds of years without monitors. You're playing an acoustic set. You don't need monitors.” They never got the monitors working and finally started. Their soundguy was messing with the levels the whole time, and both of them switched from singing with their mouths on the mics to singing 3 feet away every 10 seconds, so it went from inaudible to feedback just as frequently. The lead guy bitched about not having monitors between every song, and we were glad when they finally finished.

We were running out of time, so we decided to share gear all our gear with Danger Death Ray to save time on setup. My bass has lived in the trailer this whole tour, and it's been really cold in the North West, so my bass has suffered and as a result, the neck was a little weird and there was an enormously noticeable buzz after the 5th fret on any string. We got our stuff together asap, and went into our set. Another good show tonight, the crowd got really into it, so we played Blitzkrieg Bop at the end of the set and people went nuts for that song like usual. It always seems a little weird playing that staple punk cover, but the crowds always lose their shit over it, and it's a lot of fun to chant “Hey Ho Let's Go” with the crowd. Some guy jumped on stage and sang most of it with us, something that I usually hate when people do, but everyone was going crazy, so I guess it fit in.

We jumped offstage and Danger Death Ray jumped onstage. Ryan said we made some diehard fans tonight, and I was hanging out at the merch table while a few people were telling us how much they liked us, so that was good. I like positive reinforcement, and when people tell me I do a good job, no matter how drunk they might be. Danger Death Ray was having bass troubles, and eventually Ryan Death Ray asked me if he could borrow my bass. I said “No problem” and handed it to him. He thought his amp was acting funky, and he said his tuner wasn't working, so he tried to fix it while Dave played a Lifetime cover. They finally got it all together and started their set off with “Silly Little Smile,” one of my favorites by them. I thought they sounded fine, but they seemed a bit distraught at the technical difficulties and the time constraints. In my opinion it was a good set, even Ryan (who usually doesn't censor himself at all about shitty bands) said that they were good, so that made me happy to see some love go their way.

The bar wasn't charging cover, something that they said that they would do, so the bartender decided to give us a little money out of her tip jar to help us out, which I thought was a little too much, but I wasn't there when that went down. We loaded up the van and headed to the Zombie House, home of Danger Death Ray, to stay the night. Danny said that their place was big, and she wasn't kidding. There were 3 couches in the living room, and I took the smallest one that no one else wanted to take, because I'm used to sleeping in a ball. It actually reminded me a bit of Colson's couch. I caught up a bit more in the tour journal, and then handed Ryan the computer to play his video games, and went to bed.

Day 5

I woke up before everyone else, as usual, and really wanted today to start off right, but little things kept making me falter, like my laptop wouldn't charge (turns out the battery came just a little bit loose, locking it back in solved it), and other little things like that that kept me irritated. But I was committed to changing my luck, so I decided to cook the band a big breakfast. Brendan and I went down the block to Safeway and I got a bag of potatoes and some thick toast. We got back to Chris' and I started making hashbrowns, eggs, and French toast. It all came out pretty well, and while I was cooking it I talked to Chris a bit about the new Teenage Bottlerocket album, and he showed me a signed picture that one of the Hextalls guys left for him on his refrigerator. Ryan and Peter were sleeping, so Brendan and John had my food, and I think it was the first time that John had ever had French toast, and I think it blew his mind.

Today was actually pretty uneventful; I stayed inside all day until the show that night. Ryan went and got a haircut, and John was trying to find a place that could repair his broken lug on his snare drum, but besides that, we just sat inside all day and people played, yet again, more Xbox. Peter was told that he was probably going to be singing lead vocals again tonight, so he spent almost all day practicing the set over and over again. I don't think it was that necessary, and he caught a little bit of hell from Ryan who told him to stop because he sounded fine, but Peter actually got pretty mad about it, saying that he wanted to be perfect tonight and that he's sorry if he just wants it to sound good. I admire Peter's dedication, he cares a lot about how he sounds, not only in this way, but he does things like changes his strings almost every other day and warms up backstage every night. Practicing for literally over 6 hours seemed to be a little over the top, and this is punk rock we're talking about here, so I think I was on Ryan's side on this one. Chris made us dinner, which was really good. Macaroni and pasta sauce, and he made sure that I got some pasta before the meat was stirred in. It was good, I was disappointed that I didn't get to have seconds because there wasn't any left that didn't have meat in it.

We're playing tonight at the Funhouse, which is a bar in Seattle that I've never really been to. It's 21+, so while I was living in Tacoma, I never got to go there even though sometimes cool bands would play. It didn't take too long to drive there, and we loaded in the small back room. The Funhouse was a cool little place, but it was hard to find a place to set up merch. We grabbed a folding table and chair from the back area and found a place though.

The backstage was a little room that was covered in probably thousands of band stickers. It seemed like everyone in the entire bay area hits up this place for a show; I recognized a ton of the bands. Danny had told me to look for the Pillowfights! sticker, and there was more than one. I don't remember if it was my idea or Danny's, but I said that I would put an Atom Age sticker next to the Pillowfights! one. I was kinda weird about doing it in front of the band, though. I didn't want to bring them into my mushy cutesy life, I try to keep that at a minimum around them for their sake. I don't think that anyone else in the band has a girlfriend, so once again, I don't know the rules of rock and roll. I know. It's stupid. At the end of the night as we were leaving, I slapped a sticker next to the Pillowfights! one and took a picture and sent it off to Danny.

Peter was practicing backstage for the set like he'd been doing all day, and he wanted to know if I wanted to do “The Witch” which is a Sonics cover that The Atom Age used to do. So we jammed on it a few times through, it wasn't that hard at all, just a modification of the 12-bar blues and a tempo change here and there. I had learned it way back when Peter wanted me to know it when I first auditioned for the band, and I remembered the backup vocals for it, as well. Backstage there was also a huge cooler stocked up with tons of PBR, but I don't think that any of the bands tonight drink, so Chris (who had shown up) helped himself. For some reason, it's a little disappointing hanging out in bars every night and not drinking anything even though there are free drinks. I wasn't really tempted by the cheap PBR, but I would have liked to have just one decent brown or amber beer available on tap. It's not a big deal at all to me, but if I spent 10 days in a banana factory, I would be tempted just to eat a banana, even though I'm not the hugest fan.

For a Monday night, it was a respectable turnout. The first band didn't gather that much attention from the patrons, so it looked like most people were focused on their drinks at the bar. We played second of the three bands, so we loaded the gear on stage and quickly set up. Ryan decided that his voice was doing a lot better, so he said that he would be able to sing after all. Peter looked a little bummed out, but he was in good spirits about it, saying that at least next time he would be well prepared for it. Ryan did his usual “Hi everybody, we're The Atom Age. We play 21st Century Rock 'N' Roll. This one's called Turn It Around,” and there we went. We played “The Witch” and it was really fun, I think that it fits The Atom Age sound really well and I played it fine, and Peter sang it so at least he got in a little bit of lead vocals. There was something up with the low end of the monitors or the subs of the stage, and it made my bass sound all wobbly, so I kept thinking that I was out of tune, but I guess I was fine.

Our set was good, a big improvement over last night. A bunch of people that were sitting at the bar came and watched us, and we drew the attention of most of the place, so that was really good. Not as good as the house show or the awesome Port Orchard show, but still very good for a bar show on a Monday. Merch sales were above par, too, it seems we made some fans and turned some heads, which is what we're all about. Satisfying. We stuck around for the last band, and I agreed with Chris when said that they seemed like they would sound good on record, but live they were a little low energy. They came up to us after the set and said “We hate following bands like you, you have really good energy and we're pretty low key, haha.” They were cool dudes. I don't think that they had anything for sale, and I was too busy loading out the gear through the cloud of pot smoke behind the bar to double check, but I would have liked to maybe pick something up from them.

On the way back from the show, we hit up the Wendy's drive-through (clearly). Ryan's ordering, and he asks me last what I want and I say “5 Jr. Cheeseburgers, no meat, and make sure they put them in the microwave so the cheese melts.” I knew that he would respond with this before I even opened my mouth. “There's no way that they're going to get that right. No way.” He apologized after the drive-through people gave the rest of the band the food, and he said that, if I wanted, we could go to another place. I said that it was fine, so we went back to Chris'.

More Xbox, and Ryan finally downloaded this demo of some action first person shooter that he'd been wanting to play since he found out that I have a really good laptop for gaming. So he took that over and I sat and watched the rest of the band play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare until I said “Hey, you know what looks pretty good right now? This floor.” (this is an inside joke between Rory (my roommate back home) and I, but the band didn't know that). I grabbed a pillow, laid down on the floor, and within 5 minutes I was asleep.