No Salt Lake City for Recon this winter

As we were on our way out of Cedar City, our drive shaft fell off, so we called AAA. Ended up only being a U joint, but it took a few hours to track down the part. By the time we were back on the road, the show had already started. I've always wanted to check out Salt Lake City, too. Oh well, nex tour. We're gonna go hang out in Vegas and then head to Reno. Bye!

one more thing

Just found out that on top of everything else I'm missing because of tour, Tech N9ne is playing at Northern Lights while I'm gone. Whatever. No better reason to miss stuff then to be on tour. It's worth it. Still don't really want to talk about the Starkweather show.. yeeaarrghh.

Back in Action

So, Tuesday I arrived in the haunted Denver airport where I awaited the rest of my band. Finally, the Recon van pulled up at the passenger pickup area, with Mike holding a sign out of the passenger window that said JORN 666. I jumped in the van and we proceeded to visit with these awesome dudes Mark and Matt who let us use their shower and charge our cell phones and crap. We stopped by a pizza shop that sold 'chicken wangs' and 'cheese dicks.' We then met up with Palehorse at the venue, which is a drop in spot for homeless teens during the day. Great show, good times.
Mark and Matt then let us crash with them, which was awesome again. We woke up and left around seven thirty, to find that our van had apparently been parked in a LANE OF TRAFFIC. I guess you can park there at night, but have to be gone by 6 AM. Our van was already partially hooked on the tow truck when we ran up to it, with Mike in the lead. Mike pleaded with the guy a little bit and then started flipping him off. The tow truck dude then yelled out 'fuck me?! Fuck you!!' We then realized that the parking authority truck was stopped behind us, so Mike went to talk to the parking lady. Meanwhile, the dude was pulling our van up on the flatbed with the tire all crooked, fucking it up royal in the process, and Paul went to yell many derogatory terms at the truck driver. Anyway, the parking authority lady saved us and we escaped with some expensive fines, but... if that dude got away with our van, gaurantee he would have fucked it up on purpose.
We hit the road and embarked on what we thought was going to be an eight hour drive through the mountains. Turned out to be ten or eleven hours, so we got there right in time. The 'SUHC' venue ended up being in a real small AA/NA meeting house, which ended up being awesome. Good turn out. Good kids. Now we're spending Thanksgiving in Utah. Tomorrow we head out to Salt Lake.
read this! (it's not the book of mormon)

Friendships carved in stone...

First night of tour was last night. Show was a little strange, in that it was basically divided between a bunch of high school trendy bands and us, including respective audiences. Virtually no one from the other bands even stuck around to check us out. I'm not saying we're some great awesome bringer of light, but that's just rude. We watched your bands, stick around another half hour, even if you think we're terrible. I think it goes without saying at this point that the tour hadn't met up with Palehorse yet. Anyway, the five or ten kids that stuck around ruled, brought much mosh, and spent a lot of money at our merch table. They also gave us the gift of conversation and a neatly handwritten price sign for our merch table.
Set list:
Revenge (as per request)
Thirteen
How It Ends
New Jam
Grapes
This is Real
Inrto/Nowhere
And then the diehards wanted us to drop something else, so we pulled out the first half of Self Pity.

Highlights from the evening:

• While walking around the corner towards the club, I heard someone in the distance, hidden amongst the shadows accross the street, playing "Iron Man" on an electric guitar out of a practice amp. Badly. He kept messing up and then starting the riff over, which would have been cute if it wasn't so creepy.. because all that was accross the street seemed to be a park.
• Finding two Jack Chick comic books at a Thruway stop.. in SPANISH. They would have been awesome additions to my collection had I not already given them to Antwan before realizing the full nature of their contents.

Now.. let me explain why the next three nights will not be documented here. One of my favourite people, my Grandfather, passed away earlier this week. The wake and the funeral are Sunday and Monday, and I have to be there for my family. Family comes before shows. If you call yourself "hardcore" for the right reasons, you probably already know that. I was going to do the Saturday show, but it was too far to drive myself home from overnight. Wouldn't have been too bad had I been getting normal amounts of sleep lately, but I hadn't, so I probably would have passed out at the wheel and then crashed in a sea of holy fire on the way home.
Anyway.. I was already really stoked on my bandmates, but they all proved to still be awesome over the last few days. They keep asking me if I need anything, keep telling me not to worry about the shows I'm missing (Tony is playing bass, a la the CD lineup), and other little things that prove that they're real friends. I don't want to get all namby pamby on here, but it's comforting to know that you have some good friends when something terrible happens.
Anyway, Tuesday I meet up with my band in Denver. Big shout out to my Dad for buying me a plane ticket! Especially since I'm broker than broke right now. I am missing Sheetz and my friend Raia, but there's always next tour. Looking forward to Tuesday, especially since now I have even more reasons to want to be on the road. Coming home is going to suck more than normally, because the day after we get back, my Dad and I were originally planning on driving out for my Grandfather's birthday.

Anyway, in summation:

• Tour will begin as normal on Tuesday.
• My bandmates rule, NH.
• I miss my Grandfather.

RIP V.F.D., 1913-2006

Recent Recon adventures

Ok, once again, I have to make up for not posting regularly:
THURSDAY, TWENTY-SIX OCTOBER
Recon show in Long Island. My first time to the mythical land. We played with something like ten other bands, but the show went pretty quickly. One of the bands featured a special appearance of the singer's dad, who happened to be Dee Snider. They played "We're Not Gonna Take It," with Dee Snider and his son singing. Pretty posi. Pile ons, of course. Full Blown Chaos played "Territory" by Sepultura. It was tremendous. Remembering Never was triumphant.
SATURDAY, TWENTY-EIGHT OCTOBER
My first time to Maine. Also my first time driving the van, and my first time ever driving with a trailer. And there was tremendous wind the entire time, so I ended up driving like a pansy. I could blame it on inexperience and the weather.. or maybe I'm just a pansy.
We got to the show, which was at a college. And about five minutes later, a transformer exploded and the school lost power. Weeeeeoooooooo. A new friend of ours moved it to his basement while his parents were out of town. In the end, the show just ended up being Gaining Ground and us, which was fine and glorious. Also, basements are great. Then we were graciously allowes to sleep upstairs, after a feast at Applebees. Victory!
THURSDAY, TWO NOVEMBER
At Valentine's. We shredded. Relentlessly. In other words, I don't remember anything of potential interest to anyone but myself.
MONDAY, SIX NOVEMBER
At Valentine's again. My cousin came out. We got the van back from the shop during the show in tip top shape. Great times all around.
FRIDAY, TEN NOVEMBER
Oneonta State College campus. Awesome time, lots of friends came out, we played real good. Last show before tour! Tony ran in place during the last song. Vince in Stone came with us. We were all supposed to crash in town, but Antione Fischer and I ganked a ride back home.

Someone please tape or tivo the History Channel special on barbarians hosted by Terry Jones. It airs Monday the 20th I believe.

How did I not hear about this earlier?

(mac nerdery)