Schwagstock

Well. Today just started off with a bang. Not 20 minutes after I typed “goodnight” on the previous entry Tim, our bus driver woke me and told me he needed my help. Tired, I figured he was having problems with the credit card getting gas, or perhaps the GPS had malfunctioned… so I got up, life of a tour manager right?

I walked out into the front lounge to discover a state cop inspecting our registration tag. He asked to see our bill of sale, and proof of insurance… no problem, I had it all, I was prepared. I rule.

What I wasn’t prepared for was for this cop to come back and inform our driver that for some reason his license had been suspended by the state of New Hampshire and he was now under arrest. Nothing starts the day off right like the driver of your bus driver having to post bond at 8 in the morning. Oh did I mention I had to drive the bus? It was almost surreal, I just accepted it as it was at 8am…. No sleep, in this weird state of non-panic at the whole situation…. I just climbed behind the wheel, and drove down the road for a bit until we decided the cop wasn’t going to mess with us again. (P.S. it would appear that it is New Hampshire’s fault, not our guy…his insurance was indeed paid up, and his license should not have been suspended.)

I woke up the next afternoon to our guitarist Jeremy franticly giggling the door handle to the back lounge. We discovered earlier in the week that the knob has a tendency to not work occasionally. Jeremy discovered that he was locked in and for awhile remained calm and just tried to finesse the door open, but when that didn’t work, the pounding and calling for help began…. I’m not gonna lie…I heard it…. I thought it was a pretty humorous situation based on the events of the day thus far, and I chose to continue to sleep and let someone else get the door open. (Thanks Brett!)

The gang and I hightailed it to Missouri and Schwagstock which turns out to be two things. One, it’s a crazy hippie festival with all sorts of vendors, people with glowsticks, and just and overall very cool, very chill environment. Two… its in the middle….of fucking…nowhere. In driving though backwoods Missouri to reach Schwagstock I took note on how the things you see in movies about rednecks and backwoods people that you think are just over-exaggerations are very much NOT over-exaggerations. I’m really not sure we passed one house that wasn’t a trailer that looked like it had been just been missed by a tornado, with two or three cars abandoned on the lawn in disrepair. We actually witness three guys in wife-beaters and cowboy hats lobbing empty beer cans over the top if their trailer home in some sort of hick Olympics. Gold medals all around for that.

In all reality though, the Schwagstock gig was very cool and Jeff and the guys sounded great. We had a great time walking around the festival, and had a very low key laid back night on the bus just chatting about life, and nothing in particular. This has been my favorite night on the road so far…. We have tomorrow off, so hopefully ill find some internet and get to post this thing. Until then though, im looking forward to putting on my headphones, playing my hour and 10 minutes of rain noise on my iPod and falling asleep. Goodnight (hopefully for more than 20 minutes this time.)

States Visited: 3
Times Brett has Slammed Her blackout Curtain on me: 4

Day One.

Its quarter after six in the morning.

I write you from my rack at the back of the tour bus. I don’t actually know when this will really get posted. Tonight was the first night we had internet since the tour began, and I don’t know when ill get it again to have a chance to post this. If I had gotten my ass in gear, I could have written a short blog already, but you know me.

We played Chicago tonight, to a pitifully unresponsive crowd. Luckily we had a few fans in the crowd that made the night worth it for us. You never can really tell how a crowd is going to react to the band, sometimes the small crowds you think are gonna suck are the best. But lets rewind for a moment.

We start this tour on Thursday morning at 6am. I stood in my living room and looked around, making sure I had absolutely everything I needed. I look at Brett and said…lets go on tour. Seven hours later, we had finally picked up the whole band from all over the state of Connecticut, and had all the gear on the bus. We then proceeded to drive to Pittsburgh, PA. Pittsburgh is one of those city’s that everyone knows, but doesn’t realize how much it sucks. There’s really nothing to do in Pittsburgh, and to be honest, its not really a very nice city.

We had our first crazy bus experience as we pulled down a street and approached a bridge which I quickly realized we were not going to fit under. Flash to me running up the street and informing a cop that was directing traffic that we were about to back up and turn around on this very narrow road with an unusual amount of traffic for 9:30pm. Tim our bus driver was a fucking champ though and turned that thing around like a pro. The Town Tavern was just like the Town Tavern in NYC. Very hospitable to us. A decent room to play. But a crowd that just didn’t care. Highlight of the night: Wee Man from MTV’s Jackass was at the bar… no shit. We ended the night we many shots and drinks. As most of the band filtered off to sleep, I stayed up until we reached a gas station to fill up the fuel tank. This is the part where we get locked outside of the bus, so pay attention.

Basically our door is broken. The whole way to Pittsburgh, every 5 minutes its comes ajar and someone has to get up and slam it shut. Very annoying. We’ll because its just Tim that night driving while were all asleep, I rig the door so that its tight and wont open while he drives….so tight that its nearly impossible to get the door open when you want to get out. As we step off the bus, I walk towards the booth to pay, when I hear that horrifying sound of the bus door shutting. I froze and turned around slowly… Tim had accidentally shut the door. It was not going to reopen. After borrowing a wrench, 30 minutes, and a badly mangled door later, we were back on the bus, and I was asleep by 4:30am.

Chicago found us a much better room, and a much better setup, but not too much better of a crowd. Jeff and the guys just had fun with it though, throwing in some new covers, and just having fun with the set.

We did the after party on the bus, and that where you find me now, finally back on the road, very tired. Goodnight.

States Visited: 2
Times Brett has Slamed Her blackout Curtain on me: 3