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

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!)

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

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

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

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

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

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.