NOURISH THE BLOOD

So now it's been over a year since the last post

2008-04-06T08:36:00.001-07:00

I don't remember why I stopped posting at first. I think I was getting real annoyed with all the spam comments, or something. I know I actually had fun stuff to do at home for awhile. After that, I probably just got apprehensive of the task of trying to catch up for months of "crazy stories" around that time. Then, I probably forgot that I had this thing for awhile. Maybe I'll try to play catch up, soon.

catching up... (tour wrap up!)

2007-02-03T16:54:00.000-08:00

OK, so, I've been realllll behind on finishing up the rest of the tour stories. We've been home for over a month now. SO, first of all, I forgot to mention before that we saw a house, not a mobile or modular home, but a house, being moved down the road in front of Walter's On Washington.
OK, so, picking up where last we left off. We drove through to Georgia on our day off, once again playing catch up with the tour, trying to get a hold of Matt Miller at various points throughout the day. Finally, maybe two hours away from the Atlanta area, Matt called me back. Apparently the new phone isn't doing so good to him on the voicemail notification. Much thanks to Matt, Danielle, and Trainwreck for letting us crash at their apartment after midnight with two hours notice. Only got to see Danielle briefly the next morning, as she was already in bed that night, like normal people.
Woke up to enjoy my glorious nine thousandth birthday in the city of Atlanta, GA. What we saw of it was pretty awesome. Being around friends on my birthday was great. Matt took us around town, took Ryan, Paul, and I to this amazing vegan soul food restaurant called Soul Vegetarian. Definitely check it out if you ever have the chance. Hooooly shit. Tried to get ahold of my friend Elisha, but I lost his number, and he didn't check his myspace until the next day... damn. I haven't seen that kid since the twentieth century. Ryan and I went for a walk while the rest of the gang went to get pizza (still guided by tour guide Miller), and Ryan bought me a delicious coffee-related drink for my birthday. Thanks buddy!
Ultimately, it was time to head to Augusta, and say goodbye to Matt and Trainwreck (Danielle had long since gone to work - www.yesithurts.net). Much thanks to Matt and Danielle for everything (Matt even mailed our postcards for us!). It was so good to see them again, especially since they don't live in the Empire State anymore.
Augusta was pretty awesome. Wandered around the town a bit, it was kind of wierd. Found a pizza place that was reallllly far away and took twenty minutes to hook up two cheese slices, ouch. But the show was great. Definitely top three Recon sets of tour, as far as I'm concoined. Chris got everyone in the room to wish me a happy birthday, this dude told me about how he drove three hours each way to see us even though he had to be to work at five in the morning, we played awesome, and there was much rejoicing. We stayed with a couple of girls who were very nice to let us strangers abuse their apartment. I slept in the van, comfortably falling asleep in the glorious weather.
Next day was Big Johnson City, TN. Finally got to meet my man Tyler, who I'd talked to probably a million times since the Save Yourself days. Played a little Galaga 3 at the club...I didn't even realize there was a Galaga 3. The side of the cabinet had some crazy latin stuff on it. There was a cafe accross the street from the club, that Ryan and I checked out. We realized after a few minutes that it was actually technically a church, as people filtered in for the night's AA or NA meeting or whatever.
After the show, we drove straight to North Carolina to the new house of Eric and Erik. We'd been looking forward to reuniting with our North Carolina friends ever since we left them last summer, so this was a big deal for us. Such good times, such good folks. Tara baked me a birthday cake, but left it at home forty-five minutes away. Damn. And I bet it was DELICIOUS. Of course it's the thought that counts though; it certainly warmed my cold black metal heart that she would bake a cake for me.
Next up- Virginia! Pulled up to Club Relevant, and, of course, it was another goddamn church! This place was pretty classy though, huuuuge inside, so many rooms.. there was a "green room" with computers and wifi and a big tele with an N64 (so of course Tony brought in GoldenEye), delicious free cookies made by Priscilla the cookie maker.. we got to see our good buddies in Loss of Reason, which is always awesome. This time, they played instead of just hung out, and their new stuff is actually pretty awesome. Not just awesome like 'hey it's my friends, check them out,' but actually some pretty legit shit. And our friend Dyanna once again took awesome awesome pictures of us. Great times all around.
Began the ten hour drive home. Stopped at a WaWa. Pretty awesome if the gimmick hasn't worn off, and let me tell you that for us it had NOT. Oh yeah, Chesapeake Bay Bridge at night? What a rip off. You can barely see anything. They should charge less at that hour.
Got to Tony's around eight in the morning or something like that. Soooo tired. Everyone found somewhere to crash for a few hours, and then off to Northern Lights.
Scurvy dropped off Stillborn Fest, which means that Heal These Wounds got added, which ruled. Those guys are great. Great dudes and great tunes. Mike shreds ridiculously and gloriously all the time. My friend Trisha baked me a delicious vegan birthday cake. End of tour.
I would have made this post longer, and I'm sure I put it off for so long because I was intending to write a goddamn book, but, whatever, it was last year already. I feel like I should say something in closing... well, it was awesome to see so many of my friends (the rest of you displaced new yorkers, there's always next time..), make so many new friends, see so much of the country, play thousands of miles away and have kids going nuts and already knowing the words.. it's great to be back home and see my family, but besides the family thing, I'd much rather be on the road. Don't get me wrong, I love Albany, and seeing my few close friends is cool, but.. can't wait til next time.

birdbeast

2006-12-18T11:04:00.000-08:00

Back on the road. I'd like everyone to be aware that when we were in California, we listened to Dr. Dre, in Texas we listened to Pantera, and now as we begin our twelve hour drive in Louisiana, it's all Down and Crowbar.
Tomorrow's my birthday. I'll be nine hundred thirty four.

another shitty motel, another back to the future marathon

2006-12-17T14:36:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night was at a pavilion in a park in Victoria, TX. The people who set up the show let us crash at their house and made us pancakes. Then we headed to Houston and played at this awesome bar called Walter's on Washington. The atmosphere there really brought me back. Felt like 1996 and it was great.
So, Friday we head over to Louisiana and our van broke down again. AAA takes its sweet time to get us, no one can look at us until Saturday morning, familiar situation. So, we missed our show in Baton Rouge.
Saturday morning, a shop checks out our van, and it turned out to be the same thing as before, bad fuel pump already again. At this point it's starting to look like that piece of shit shop in Tonopah didn't really fix us up right. That sentiment is solidified when the mechanic here in Louisiana discovers why we have a problem filling our tank. There was a fucking PING PONG BALL IN OUR GAS TANK. WHAT THE FUCK. That could only have been placed there when the tank was dropped previously, which was at the shop in Tonopah. I don't know if they thought this would be funny, or what...
Part had to be ordered, can't get out of here until Monday. So.... no fest for us in Florida, no show in Alabama.. Hopefully, everything works out Monday, and we can make it to our show in Georgia on Tuesday.
PS, I hope everyone had fun at the Starkweather show last night...

Electrical towers span mile after mile

2006-12-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

Monday in Laredo was pretty rad. Hung out with Gabe from Five Families for a bit, then grabbed some food, then headed to the show. While we were setting up, I overheard some kids speculating on whether or not we would play "Nowhere." That was a trip. We stayed with some nice death metal kids. We heard an ice cream truck in the morning.
When we stopped for gas, we had a mad scientist van decorating party. Due to traffic and being confused about the show's whereabouts, we got to the show a little late, but still in time to play and everything. Kids went nuts, some kids sang along to the intro. This has to be the farthest South I've been, or probably anyone else in my band has been, and there were kids singing along to our stuff. Definitely among the top two shows of tour. So many kids told us "good set" after we finished. People are soooo nice down here.
After the show, we stayed with this REALLY nice family. The two brothers insisted that we take their rooms, and they slept in the livingroom. They even fucking cooked us breakfast. So amazing.
Today is shorts weather day.

bouncin cross the nation while you home watchin letterman

2006-12-11T15:55:00.000-08:00

So I've been procrastinating again, not because of having bad news, but because of not being bored enough to type up a blog entry. The past week has been pretty awesome.
When we got to Las Vegas, we drove to the house that the show was at. I'd been assuming it would be like house shows in Albany, a party house rented out by a bunch of hardcore kids. On the contrary, this was at a dude's family's house in the suburbs. The kid and his parents fed us and then cleared out the living room and set up the PA. The first band, Set Afire, was pretty solid, and definitely had a Troycore thing going on. This was fitting, as we finally caught up with Alzadie. We played, Palehorse played, show was over, we went and crashed out at another super nice house. This house was home to a couple of the kids from Wyntch Mob, some other kids, and this girl named Mary who supplied us with a delicious feast in the morning. We had Sunday off, so we chilled at the house for a spell, while Mary and I challenged each other in Mario Kart DS for like three hours. Honestly, the best match I've had in any sort of competitive videogame for quite awhile.
Eventually, after weekend commuter traffic died down, we left in the early evening to head over to lucious Southern California. We stayed with Andrew from Winds of Plague, who has a fucking NICE house. There was supposed to be a drunks vs. straightedge Wii Sports Tennis tournament, but it became a big party with a bunch of Andrew's coworkers and some irrelevant Wii Sports matches. A few of the dudes went to the "must-see" Tits Beach, but I was kinda beat, so I stayed behind.
When I got up the next day, I was trying to check my voicemail, but couldn't get a good signal. So, I stepped outside, and it was like goddamn May outside. It was like a perfect Spring day. Sooooo nice. When everyone got up, we checked out the mall a bit, hit up a Chipotle (which is goddamn delicious), and then headed over to our show in Rialto.
The show in Rialto was cool. Our friend Jenn from Tennessee came out. First three bands were all very Christian and talked a lot about salvation in between songs. Not really my thing, but whatever. It was around this time that I realized that the venue was Christian. We played, Palehorse played. I put on my eleven year old Starkweather hoodie when we were loading out and got a few compliments, which paved the way to much talk of musical nerdery with some nice kids. One kid kept asking me if I'd seen various bands that he never got to see because he's a. 20 years old and b. is from the West Coast. My answer was an unchanging "yes."
We stayed at Andrew's awesome house again. The next morning, Andrew took Paul and I to this awesome Mexican Restaurant called Chico's. It was fucking delicious. We rode around some more, visited John from Winds of Plague at work (actualy.. maybe that was before Chico's), and rode around some more. We stopped at Nick H from Winds of Plague's house, where John from WOP was now decorating the house to look like The Nightmare Before Christmas. We met Nick H's mother, who was a goddamn riot.
The show in Upland that night was pretty cool, until a fight broke out three songs into Palehorse's set, stopping the show early. Andrew, John, former WOP merchguy Eli (who apparently had largely disappeared shortly after their summer tour, only to rematerialize for the show), one of our friends from Las Vegas (which was another long long drive), and my friend Victoria came out, good times, good times.
The next day was a day off, so we stayed with Andrew again. Highlight of the day was going to the beach at 11:00 at night, and calling people from back home to tell them I was standing in the ocean.
Thursday morning we said goodbye to luscious California, and headed to Phoenix, Andrewzona to play at a record store/venue called METAL DEVASTATION 2. Pentagrams and death metal logos all over the place. Pretty awesome. We thought the show might be a dud, but a few kids were singing along, and we sold a great amount of merch, considering the small crowd.
We ended up staying with Mike, the old drummer for Where Eagles Dare, who filled in for Most Precious Blood one time. He and I nerded it up for a couple of hours, talking about 90's hardcore.
Next day was a house show in Espanola, NM. Best show of the tour, so far. Absolute mayhem. The band right before us, Excruciation, played "Hollow" by Integrity. Now, let me explain that I've been on a big Integrity kick lately. When we left for tour, I was thinking 'man, it would be awesome if a band we play wit on tour covers something off of Humanity is the Devil.' And if you've seen us on this tour, you probably heard me check my levels with a riff or two from "Hollow." So this was about the best cover someone could have played. I was in the van when they started playing it and ran inside to sing along. By now I was beyond stoked.
We played and it ruled. I didn't have my contacts in, so I couldn't see shit. More kids singing along, to more songs than usual. We stayed with this dude David, then we left early in the morning for Texas, Mike's homeland.
First TX show was in Lubbock, at a youth center run by a church, apparently. Show went well. We stayed with Mike's uncle.
Sunday was Mike's birthday. We drove a thousand hours to San Antonio Diaz, to a pretty cool spot called The Sanctuary. There was an awesome record store next door that reminded me of Music Shack. I tried to sleep in the van for a little bit. A van with a huge trailer parked near us, some dudes got out, sang and played tamborine for a while, then got back in their van and drove off. We played well. We played an extended set, trying to stall while we waited for Palehorse, who ended up showing up so late that it was too late to play.
A bunch of Mike's childhood friends came out (some of them driving seven hours each way!), and we had many offers of places to stay. Unfortunately, none of them could accomodate our trailer, so we had to suck it up and get a motel.
Today we play in Laredo.

No Salt Lake City for Recon this winter

2006-11-24T18:38:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-23T14:59:00.000-08:00

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...

2006-11-18T18:45:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-11-05T11:54:00.000-08:00

(mac nerdery)

Busy week

2006-09-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

But I had to pass this on.

My back hurts

2006-09-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

...from trying to lift Scott's dog over a fence. How the fuck did he get over the fence in the first place? Why did he do it on the day I had to watch him? Why does Scott's apartment smell so awful? I'm taking a shower and then going to bed. It's two in the afternoon but I'm not concerned at this point.

Links for you:
Theories of the 2004 election being rigged. I know some of you* will find that interesting, even though you already knew it.
The possibility of Sam and Max appearing on the Wii. Much more interesting.

*I think there may be three people that read this page.

Lrkfst

2006-09-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday was Larkfest. Just means that Lark Street is more crowded than usual, there are longer lines for slimmer pickings of improperly cared for pizza, and there's a bunch of loud noises. On the plus side, there are fewer crackheads, you might see some people you don't see regularly whom you would actually like to see, and one of the loud noises at yesterday's event was Rick Whispers. That was fun, but the bass was overpowering in such a way that I couldn't hear him very clearly. PS. Rick Whispers is a rapper and my pal.
Actually, maybe Larkfest is going on today, too. Who knows, I don't pay attention.
The new Ren and Stimpy episodes, made by Spumco without the supervision of Nickelodeon, are absolutely insane.
Oh yeah, so after fighting through a crowd to get back to civilization while being tortured with the sweet sounds of Everclear yesterday, I decided to make my way to the plaza, so I could appreciate the city without the ridiculous crowd. That's where some of these photos come from: my adventures in the plaza on that fateful day.
Time to go grab a dresser and then pick up Ricco from the train station. BYE

Shmog shmost.

2006-09-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

I know how to party on a Saturday night: cleaning the apartment. It's a little better looking than it was previously, which isn't saying much.
Ricco sent me these pictures:

I want to go to Sheetz. This winter, mark my words, it will happen. I shall not be denied again.

Frosty.

2006-09-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

So, I've been trying to watch an episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show every morning Monday through Thursday. I need the Zelda box set for Fridays, obviously. I feel no shame in reliving 1990 to the best of my ability. As much as is practical, anyway.
Look, I took a picture of some foliage and shit. It speaks volumes, son.
I haven't been sleeping properly. Last night I did some catching up, though, and slept like fourteen hours. It was glorious.
I think I had more to say, but I'm too scatterbrained. I'll post more interesting things later on. Not necessarily later on today, but later on, later on.

Life is OK

2006-09-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

Eating breakfast while watching The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. I'm set.

River down to Stillwater

2006-09-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

Recon had a show near Hamilton, NY today. It got cancelled yesterday. SO, INSTEAD, we played a house show in Stillwater, NY. It was fun. We played a new song. Like new new new. Like we wrote it before the show.
Later.

OK

2006-09-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

I've been terrible with this. Trying to catch up:
Sunday, Aug 20th:
Played with Hatebreed. I'm definitely feeling the new lineup. It was good to hang with Matt Withdrawn again. So wierd how those dudes are one of (if not the) biggest hardcore bands ever now. I mean, it's not wierd, because they're easy to get into and have worked really hard for a really long time, but it's wierd if you know one of them from way back, and now kids want him to sign autographs and shit. Not wierd in a bad way. I'm definitely happy for those dudes. If you're OK by Matt you're OK by me.
Let's see... played a surprise show a week later in Saratoga. I mean surprise as in I had a bunch of messages on my phone when I got out of work telling me to get to Saratoga so we could jump on this show. I guess Folly asked us. Anyway, evening ruled from that point on.
Let's see... what else. This isn't as good when I don't do it regularly, when things happen. Right now, I just feel like saying "and then a bunch of shit happened between then and now."
I'll be back. Sooner than later.

Shadowrun

2006-08-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

Apparently, there were two US versions released of one of my favourite SNES games, Shadowrun. The later release apparently has some censoring. Makes me wish I did some investigating before I sold my extra copy. I'm curious as to which version I have.
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=687355&sid=3ab795a965acbd9bfe33f8b9b134325c

Bleeding Through

2006-08-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

So, this past Friday, Recon had a show booked with Hatebreed, Bleeding Through, Strapping Young Lad, Full Blown Chaos, and Heal These Wounds. We arrived at the show to find that Hatebreed had cancelled. Bummer! I thought a lot of people would leave, and I'm sure some did, but there was still a huge turnout.
It was good to see Bleeding Through again. I had forgotten how chill those dudes are. Brandon is a pretty posi dude. Marta is A O K, too. Hadn't talked to her in a couple of years. And I'll admit it openly, they killed it Friday night. Really good set. Their songs aren't bad. Makeup or whatever aside, that band and the people in it are all pretty solid. I think I may have forgotten that over the years. Hopefully it won't be another two years before I run into them again.

Photograph the police, get arrested

Found this on slashdot a few days ago..

2006-07-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Deja vu 'recreated in laboratory'
"In deja vu, this second process may occur by mistake, so that a feeling of familiarity is triggered by a novel object or scene."

Tour Finale and shit

2006-07-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I fell a little behind on the tour journal.
Tuesday night we left the comfort of Eric's Kentucky home, to drive through the night to Lorain, OH. We follow our directions exactly, locate the club, realize that we can't park on that street at the moment, and park around the corner. A couple of us jump out to go scope out the place. And then it clicks that we have at least ten hours before load-in, because it's seven o clock in the fucking morning. Haha.
We went to some diner, and then went to Ohio Beach, and swam in some dirty water. I slept for a while in the van, and had some strange dream that really tweaked me out at the time, but now I can't recall what it was about. Some girl told us that the only mall was really far away and had nothing in it. After killing all the time we could at the beach, we sought out the mall, to try to assassinate the rest of our boredom. It wasn't far at all, and it was pretty huge.
The show ended up being pretty awesome, because we saw and met Winds of Plague, For The Fallen Dreams, A Love Ends Suicide, and long time Recon pals CDC. This began the final and awesome leg of the tour, in which we pretty much just hung out with the aforementioned bands.
This was the second show on tour where we tried to skip the intro and got muscled into playing it at as an encore.
After the show was a clusterfuck of trying to figure out how to best and most safely make it to Auburn, NY, the next day. We ended up driving through the night until we couldn't drive no more, and then passed out at the first motel in the State of New York. Only downside is that we made our final pass through PA without seeing any Sheetz.
WEDNESDAY:
Woke up, yada yada, drove to Auburn, Winds of Plague KILLED it, did a lot of broing down, had my first NY pizza in several days. Alisha (Chris's lady) drove four hours to the show and missed most of our set. It was so awesome to see her though. I just feel a little bad that she didn't get to see the whole thing.
THURSDAY:
WOP hooks us up with a show in Saugus, MA. Which is on a line from Auburn with Albany directly in the middle. We crash at Tony's. Excessive comfort. Head to MA. Boston traffic is ridiculous. We arrive at the show and have ten minutes before we are to play. I think it's safe to say that we killed it. I was in ridiculous mood when we played, and it is, for better or for worse, documented on www.returntothepit.com and www.spinkickphotography.com. I can't explain any of those faces. I ripped the end of my strap off.
The last three bands suddenly have thirty minutes among then to play. What the F. WOP kills it again, and one of their dudes did the same thing to his guitar strap as I did to mine.
FRIDAY:
We end up not playing the Sworn Enemy show in Utica. We end up commandeering our way onto a WOP, CDC, ALES show in Saratoga. It was an awesome homecoming, a lot of our friends came out, it was great. Sketchy Wal Mart parking lot barbeque afterwards. I refused to purchase anything from Wally World. WOP crashed at my place. Best houseguests ever.

MUCH THANKS TO ALL OF MY NEW FRIENDS:
Eric, Erik, Karl, Brad, Tara, Sarah, etc... too many to name in NC, Kari, Anthony, Rachel, DYANNA, Jenn from AL, Eric Edge (good to finally hang), Kelli in Auburn, all my new friends in Winds of Plague, A Love Ends Suicide, For The Fallen Dreams, CDC (even though I personally didn't really bro down with any of those dudes), Chris WOP for enduring my useless videogame knowledge.... I know I'm forgetting people. Sorry.
MUCH THANKS TO MY PRE-EXISTING FRIENDS:
Mike Mulholland, Paul Dove, Chris Roberts, Tony Diaz, Justin Louden, ROB, ERIN, Kelly L One One Eight, Dan LOR, Clarence LOR, Ian LOR... again, I'm going to forget people, so I'll just stop now.

Mike did a better job of documenting this: blog.myspace.com/mikewtf

Louisville

2006-07-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday we drove to Memphis to do a sightseeing tour of the neighbourhoods mentioned on the Three 6 Mafia CD's and then play at a spot called The Rally Point. Show went really well. We thought no one was going to be into us, but kids started dancing as soon as we played. We skipped the intro, and then a few kids asked for it at the end of the set. So we ended up closing with the intro.
We then drove about nine hours through the night to crash with displaced Glens Falls native Eric Edge, who now lives in Louisville, KY. We had Sunday night and Monday night off, so we've just been hanging here in Louisville. Tonight (Monday), we drive the remaining six hours or so to Lorain, OH. We're taking Eric with us.

NC, AL

2006-07-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

Ok. Wednesday, we played at the same skatepark in North Carolina. Show was good, we finally got to meet and see Deathblow (awesome band and dudes), we got to see Eric's band Element of One, this awesome band called Alarmed played, and I got blueballed for the second time this week on a Cro-Mags cover, by Iced Out. Had a talk with Aaron from Element of One about seperation of church and state, went to Denny's, and we got hooked up with a basement show for the next night with the help of our new friend Teddy.
Thursday was AWESOME. We were supposed to go cliff jumping or quarry swimming or something, but we ended up sleeping until 3 or something (again at Eric, Eric, and Carl's), then vegging out in front of I, Robot and Catwoman (bleeeagh), then heading off to 9 Dragon and then to the party house for the show. That's fine, last time I swam in a quarry I almost died.
Met a bunch of cool people at the house, then played one of the most fun sets this guy here has played in a lonnng time. I feel a little bad about a lot of furniture getting broken, but everyone went off, we opened with Thirteen as per Eric's birthday request. Brad and everyone else passed around a donation pitcher (thanks everyone for the donations!), and we sold a good amount of merch.
We left a few hours later, at like 4AM or something, and it was a hard thing to do. Can't wait to hit NC again.
On the nine million hour drive to Alabamarama, Chris and Tony saw a sign about sharks, so we took what we thought would be a short detour in Tennessee to an aquarium which ended up being an HOUR out of the way each way. And the aquarium was in some wierd fake tourist town, we were all half asleep, and when we finally walked the mile and a half from the parking spot to the aquarium, we saw that it was really fucking expensive, so we just walked back to the van and cursed the town.
When we finally got to the show, we were actually on time thanks to crossing the international time zone line or WHATEVER. A lot of kids were telling us that they had been looking forward to seeing us, and were buying shit before we even played. I took this as a good sign. I was right to do so. Kids were singing along, going nuts the whole time, it ruled. We ended up doing REALLY WELL in merch sales, which is awesome and great and glorious for a poor hardcore band such as ourselves, Recon.
Crashing at a hotel tonight. Wireless internet. Yeah son.

Gas stations in the South have many condiments for your coffees.

Lit by the glow of late night Mario 64.

Fuck Gatlingsburgh or whatever the fuck it's called

I don't, no.

Nope.

RECON tour update

2006-07-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

OK.
Sunday, we left for Pennsylvania. Stopped to get gas, hit the highway, and about five minutes into the drive, someone pulls up and tells us that our trailer door was open. All the way open. How we missed this, I'll never know. And the fact that no one mentioned this at the gas station was kind of wierd. So we pull over, nothing is missing, and the padlock is even still chilling on the ledge. Awesome!
Back on the road. Half an hour later, we start overheating again. This was sort of expected. We stopped to get more coolant. Mike and Paul go to Stewarts. Stewarts has no coolant, and instead of suggesting the Sunoco around the corner, they send Mike and Paul through the woods to Home Depot, who of course didn't have coolant. So five years later, they come back, we go to Sunoco, and we get coolant. Everything is fine now. We get back on the highway, and not five minutes later, we hear a small explosion. We pull over, and apparently, part of our running board detached from the van and shredded the outer layer of our rear passenger side tire. FUCK. This was a new tire, too. Anyway, we call AAA, we get towed, we find a place that's open on a Sunday that can squeeze us in (though they didn't want to - the tow truck driver had to talk him into it), and we check out the mall while we're waiting for the tire to be replaced. At least two "hey, that guy is / those guys are in Recon" sightings in the mall. Yada yada, we get on the highway, try in vain to make it to the show, but Ben from Hangmen calls us when we're still three hours away and tells us that the show is almost over.

Oh yeah, and for the tow truck, everyone except for Mike got to ride in the van while it was on the flatbed.
We stopped at a gas station in the middle of Pennsylvania, and ran into the couple that told us about the trailer door. We changed direction and started heading towards Virginia for Monday night's show. Drove through the night, ended up in Virginia Beach around quarter to seven in the morning. Hung out all day, stole power from an outlet on the side of some building to charge our various gadgets, went swimming, saw sharks, got sunburned.
Played the show in Virginia Beach, Dan and Clarence from Loss of Reason came out, good times. Ian couldn't make it, but his girlfriend Diana did and took awesome pictures of us. We ended up staying with this girl Kari who was very hospitable. Ran into Johnny Cage is a Fake at the show, good times. Folly played as well, and they helped us get onto a show the next night in North Carolina which ended up being AWESOME. Now we're playing the same place the following night. A lot of shows are still getting added last minute, which is awesome.
I seem to have LOST MY FUCKING PHONE. Sucks.
Tonight we're staying with some dudes from North Carolina who are also very hospitable.

2006-07-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

So, after getting two hours of sleep on Thursday night, went to work, and left early to make it to Tony's house on time to get to the CD release party. We should have left Tony's house around 4:30, but due to something I don't know about on the Glens Falls end of our operation (probably something stupid with the van), the rest of our band didn't get to Tony's house until about 6:30. Thankfully the show started late, so it was all working out. Until we had to pull over for a while when the van overheated halfway to the show (the show is just outside of Albany).
The show was GREAT, all the bands were awesome, In Unrest ended up making an appearance as well. Everyone was really supportive of us, we sold a lot of CD's and shirts, people gave us delicious baked goods, it was awesome all around. Thank you so much to Rob and Erin for all of the support always. Too bad it was getting kind of late to be playing DS with the aforementioned Rob and Erin at the end of the show.
After the show, we made it about ten minutes away from the show before running out of gas. I will make no attempt to explain why this was able to happen. Some state troopers reluctantly stopped by to see why we were stopped in the middle of a traffic circle, though, and then took Mike away to buy a gas can and some gas. Thankfully, they brought him back.
About three hours of sleep later, we start calling mechanics. There was no room at the inn, until Ernie's Quality Auto of Green Island came through and took care of us. Van is all set now, but we had to cancel today's appearance at the Edge Fest.
I just slept for about seven or eight hours, and when I woke up, Tony's furniture was all moved around and I was informed that there had been pizza, but that Mike ate all of it. And then went to the mall, so that I could not murder him until my rage subsided. Tony did save me a piece of pizza.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Altoona, PA and then THE WORLD.

Hey it's time for my lunch break.

2006-07-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

First Host and Parasite show is tonight. Should have been the second, but hey, these things happen.
Host and Parasite is Jon Ricco on guitar, Josh Coletto on drums, Josh Turner on vocals, and myself on bass. Our songs are really short, and tonight we will only be playing six of them. But To Hell and Back, Irepress, and Tides are also playing, and the door price is something like $5, so it's a worthwhile investment. I might duck out early in order to pack up and do some last minute things before tour. Tomorrow, I leave in the morning to go to work, and then won't be home again until after the Recon tour.
Hey it's time for my lunch break.

Links

2006-07-03T11:02:00.000-07:00

I added some. Let me know if you want me to add yours.

Starkweather in Dunmore

2006-07-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

So, not this past weekend, but the weekend prior, I drove out to Dunmore, PA, to see Starkweather, one of the best bands ever in the history of bands. I left my apartment around 7:00 PM, which was pretty risky business, as the internet said that the show was scheduled to start around 8:00, and that the drive would require three hours. Usually, the internet is wrong about both of those things, but when I started to realize that it was suddenly right about the driving time, I started to worry if it would be right about showtime.
I made it into town shortly after 10:00. Fuck. I was full-on panicking at this point, especially when there was no bands playing upstairs. I started wondering if I missed the whole show. Looked around inside, didn't see any Starkweather dudes. I asked somebody who had played, and I was told that the show didn't start yet. SWEET. Except that this meant I had a long night ahead of me.
The apparent technical difficulties were just getting resolved, and the first band started around 10:30. They played Korn covers. Thankfully, I saw Todd from Starkweather at this point, and he directed me outside, met up with Rennie, good times were had.
The second band was a step up. Not really my thing, but they really tried. I mean they had really expensive equipment, played really tight, and tried to do something a little different with their timing, etc. I can respect that.
Starkweather started shortly thereafter, probably around 12:30. AWESOME set. This was my second time seeing them with Vincent Rosa on bass, and he thoroughly impressed me. The last time they played, back in November, was riddled with disaster and technical difficulties, ending in an abbreviated set. Everyone was dead on, all the little fills and nuances, everything. It was a little hard to hear Todd on my side of the stage, but it was alright. They played most of Croatoan, plus Murder in Technicolor. Glorious. Word is that a new new song would have been played at the end of the set, were it not prevented by Harry's kick pedal falling apart.
Dunmore was a weird town. Hung out with the Starkweather dudes for a little bit after the show, then when I finally hit the road it was about 2:00. FUCK. Between getting lost once or twice and stopping at a couple of rest areas to catch some sleep, I made it home at about 7:00 AM. Had to get up around 9:00 to meet up with Host and Parasite (one of my bands) for a recording session. These missing hours of sleep have yet to find me.

Hello

2006-07-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

I reserve the right to get bored with this shortly. I'll try to keep this updated with interesting* crap in case anyone is going to read it. If feasible, I'll try to document tour adventures here.

*probably not interesting at all