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Tour Journal – From Hollywood to a Ghost Town
Saturday night in LA was great. We always have a blast at Bar Sinister, and this show was no exception… The place was packed! We played our longest set of the tour and would have kept going if we could’ve. After the debacle in San Francisco we needed a show like that…
We had the following day off, so we got to hang out in LA. Tony hung out with his hot aunt, Jordan and Eric wandered the walk of stars, and I stayed at the hotel and watched football all day… which was great. The Steelers kicked ass and I got some time to veg out. Sunday night we moseyed down to the wax museum with some friends, but got there as it was closing. So we crossed the street and went to the Ripley’s Museum instead, which was basically like paying someone $15 to let you look around at articles on Wikipedia. Really, most of the exhibits involved manikins stationed beside wall-plaques that spelled out why the manikin should be worth looking at.
Today we started toward Salt Lake City, where we’re playing at Area 51. Along the way we saw a billboard advertising a place called “Calico Ghost Town.” We decided to stop, pulled off of I-15 and drove toward a 50’s-style diner called Peggy Sue’s. And the air was thick with bees! Like, thousands of them, literally. They were everywhere. I pulled up to the diner, baffled by the swarm of bees. We got out of the van, fearless adventurers that we are, and I asked a random guy what the hell was going on. Apparently, a truck carrying bees had been through, and some had escaped. It was crazy! No one was stung, and I can only hope that the bees were able to start new, happy lives in the desert. We got directions to the ghost town from a waitress and made our way three miles to the front gate. An older couple was manning the welcome station, and I believe they might have been the nicest folks I’ve ever met. We talked briefly about our band, and it turned out the guy was a guitarist that had done a lot of touring as well, mainly with old-style country bands. He waived the entrance fee and told us to have fun. And we did! The little mining town is definitely a tourist trap, but it’s still cool, and has one hell of a history.
After leaving we made our way back to Peggy Sue’s Diner for shakes. The waitresses were all great, and the shakes were to die for. Good stuff. Then it was back to I-15 east at eighty miles per hour. We’re at a hotel now, and tonight we’ll be performing at Area 51 in Salt Lake City!
-Andy
Calico Ghost Town:
We just had to:
Shakes at Peggy Sue’s:
Tough Guy:
Tour Journal – A Turd in the Hall
We made it to San Francisco with time to spare. Found a hotel not too far from where we’d be playing, checked in and headed to our second-floor room. We ascended the steps, started down the hall… and that’s where we saw it: the turd in the hall. Little did we know that this nugget of feces would be the perfect metaphor for the rest of the evening.
After a couple hours of relaxing we made our way to The Retox Lounge, a small, gritty rock n roll club that seemed to have promise. The promise was a lie. When we started setting up our gear I noticed that none of the mic stands worked. I mean, they could hold a mic, but they damn well couldn’t be adjusted to suit my height. But I looked past it, determined to have a good show. But seconds later, when the sound-man asked me for an xlr cable due to his not having enough of them, I knew we were in trouble. That trouble came to a head 7 songs in to our set… We were at the end of Regret when the synths and vocals went away. The PA had died. The sound guy scrambled around for 10 minutes to get it working, and eventually did… kind of. We tried one more song, but after we kicked in we had to stop because the monitors weren’t on. I asked the sound man what was up with that, to which he responded, “oh, did you want those on?” That was it. We told him to forget about it and did an unplugged song before saying goodnight. The fans in attendance were great, and found the whole thing as funny as we did. We truly have the best fans in the world.
Today, while leaving the hotel, we found yet another turd in the hall. Go figure.
-Andy
Backstage (in the van) in San Francisco:
Car on fire on I-5:
Some of the turds:
Tour Journal 9-16-2011
The trip to Arizona was long, but I didn’t mind at all. We spend a lot of time in cramped quarters, so some overnight time behind the wheel when the guys are crashed out is kind of nice. Our version of alone time. We had a good show in Scottsdale, met some really great fans who had driven a good ways to see us. Paul, the guy who owns Thunderstorm Books and published my last two novels, came to the show and brought copies of my latest novel, ALL THE DARKNESS IN THE WORLD, which I had sold out of at DragonCon. He and his wife took Tony and I out to eat and we had a blast… It feels good to work with such good people. We stayed with our friends Jeremy & Kara (she sings for the excellent goth band Reliquary) both nights we were in town. We ate at a cool little Mexican place that let us borrow their decorative sombreros and pose for photos with their donkey piñata. There were also several hours spent by Jeremy and I playing Call Of Duty.
We left for San Francisco late last night, and stopped to see the Cabazon dinosaurs, which you might recognize from the Tim Burton film, “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.” It was late, so we had to use the van’s headlights to take decent photos. I got tired around 8:30 this morning and had to pull off at a Walmart to sleep for a couple hours. Now Tony is driving us through a pretty valley on I-5, and I need some more sleep if I plan to jump around like a lunatic on stage tonight at the Retox Lounge.
-Andy
Bella Muerte:
Pee Wee’s big ass dinosaur:
Eaten alive!:
Tour Journal – Jordan Gets Cuffed!
So we were staying with our close friend Veronyka in San Antonio over the weekend. It was great… we got to stretch out in front of a big TV and watch movies, sleep and eat as much as we wanted. Everything was going smoothly until the night Jordan decided he needed to call his mom to say hello. He’d taken a shower, grabbed his phone and walked outside. He took a seat on the curb in front of a nearby home to make the call. In less than five minutes he noticed red and blue lights heading down the street. The cop car stopped in front of him, and two large police officers got out and asked Jordan what he was doing. Jordan was confused, but told them where he was staying and explained exactly why he was outside and what he was doing. They didn’t buy it, started hassling him for an ID. Jordan admits that he got a little snippy with the cops at this point, because they were trying to make him put his hands on the car. Eventually they had him in cuffs for no good reason. He didn’t have his wallet on him, and explained that he had showered and that it was inside. The cops suggested that maybe he was lying about the shower and that maybe he had been swimming illegally in a neighbor’s pool. This suggestion was too ridiculous to merit any response. But eventually he talked them into knocking on Veronyka’s door so we could retrieve the ID.
We were all inside trading notes on goth bands we’re into when the doorbell rang. Veronyka had no idea who would come calling late at night, but we figured that Jordan might have locked himself out. She went to the door and was surprised to see the police. The rest of us went downstairs to have the cop explain that he needed Jordan’s ID. We went looking for it, rummaging through Jordan’s bags with no luck. Eventually the cops let Jordan in the house, in handcuffs, to try and find it. But the whole time they were inside Jordan kept pressing them for any reason he was in handcuffs being interrogated for sitting on a sidewalk on the phone. The cops kept saying things like, “welcome to Texas,” which didn’t clarify anything at all. The other thing they were completely fixated on was that Jordan didn’t have any shoes on. “You were outside in a neighbor’s yard with no shoes.” “You were outside in the middle of the night with no shoes.” “You didn’t have no shoes on, bro.” All of these things were said over and over and over like a skipping record. And I still can’t grasp the significance of bare feet. Is there a “no shoes, no service” law in Texas? Is there a statistic that shows that shoeless people are most likely to commit felonies? Was there a recent crime-wave involving shoe theft in San Antonio? Or maybe these guys’ dads work for Nike… I don’t know, but they wouldn’t shut up about the lack of shoes.
Eventually Jordan found his ID, dug it out while still cuffed and flipped it to one of the shoe-obsessed officers. They called him in, lied about a possible outstanding warrant for Jordan, and eventually left. We all spent the next hour laughing.
-Andy
Jordan being set free before my eyes:
Tour Journal 09-13-2011
It’s nice to be stationary. After a few crazy drives that led us from Atlanta to Austin to New Orleans to San Antonio to Bryan, TX (in that order) we got to spend the day at a close friend’s house in San Antonio. The show in Bryan last night was about as small as the town, but we still had a great time. But the GPS told us the drive there from San Antonio was only 2 and a half hours, which had us smiling. Well, the GPS hadn’t counted on Texas being on fire… we hit a detour that added a half an hour to the drive. We saw miles and miles of black-ash covered ground, burned-down buildings and several community centers and businesses with hundreds of boxes of clothing and food laid out for those who lost everything to the fires.
I was tired on the drive back to San Antonio. Very tired. Tony sat up front and helped keep my head off the steering wheel, and at one point we were listening to Dr. Dre and Eminem. Tony was saying something about how great Eminem’s verses were and my sleep-deprived brain came up with the brilliant response, “yeah, that guy is nutty.” Tony immediately started laughing at me, and I tried arguing my point before the haze in my brain cleared a little and I could see my statement for what it was… mouth garbage spewed from an overly-tired dude. In normal, everyday life, I never use the word nutty unless I’m describing peanut butter or a candy bar. But we made it back to San Antonio without dying around six thirty in the morning and I was dead to the world in no time.
I woke up around 3pm and we went for lunch a little while later. Came back to our friend’s house and watched A Serbian Film, which I liked quite a lot, though I don’t recommend it to the squeamish. This evening I tried to get some more sleep but ended up staring at the TV. But the relaxation was nice, and will no-doubt help with the long drive to Phoenix where we’re playing on Thursday at Chaser’s. I feel good and I’m ready to get behind the wheel!
There’s a great story about Jordan almost getting arrested tonight coming soon… stay tuned!
-Andy
Tony deals with an ass attack:
Bella Morte goes 3D:
Live @ DragonCon by Rachael Hill:
Tour Journal 09-10-2011
Not every show can be perfect. Last night in New Orleans we ran into sound problems. We don’t know what happened, but somewhere between soundcheck and taking the stage the sound-man got his lines mixed up. We had to stop the show at one point so he could figure things out. Stuff like that is very frustrating… We always want to put on our best show, whether we’re in front of 1000 people or 50. It’s hard to do when the stage is screaming with feedback.
But we had a fun night regardless, and made some new fans along the way. I’m writing this on my phone in the van while Tony drives us to San Antonio for tonight’s show. I started driving last night and only made it an hour before exhaustion forced me to pull over at a rest area to sleep. I rolled down the window before crashing, and was informed by Jordan that I let an angry flock of Mosquitos in the van. Luckily, none of my blood was taken. Jordan must taste better than me, and I’m ok with that.
-Andy
View from the backseat:
Danger in the ladies’ room @ Subway:
New Orleans boobage:
