Men at Work

October: w/ Trash Talk and Alpha Omega
23rd: ICC Church, Allston, MA
24th: The Doghouse, Dix Hills, NY
25th: Stelton Baptist Church, Edison, NJ w/ War Hungry, Bad Seed

November w/ Let Down, Have Heart, Ceremony, Blacklisted
15th: ICC Church, Allston, MA w/ Reign Supreme
16th: First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA
17th: The Knitting Factory, NY, NY
18th: Garden State Music, Maplewood, NJ
19th: Deer Park VFW, Deer Park, NY

Deathwish
The LOC
Bitter Rivals
Pink Pet

Homeward Bound And Gagged

Its about one in the morning and we are currently driving through Ohio, oddly enough since that is where the first entry of tour begins. Obviously we are supposed to be in the south right now but In an unfortunate and unexpected turn of events, we are heading home one week early from tour. It is the absolute last thing we had planned to do, but with a Spinal Tap-esque string of sudden cancellations by promoters at the absolute worst times (aka last second)it became apparent that we were going to be on a sort of bizarro Cannonball Run home. To put it bluntly, 2 shows wasn't going to take us the estimated 40 hrs home, especially after 3 shows over the course of last week that had been 30 hrs in the van. You know the old saying, " You gotta know when to hold em, when to fold em, when to hobble and when to say "what the fuck"* On top of that at our show last night in Kansas I played the whole set sitting down on a cinderblock, to help hold the drums in place and also because I cannot really be moving around on my foot at all right now and it has been frustrating as all hell. I certainly never want that to happen again.

To make matters worse this morning, after getting calls of cancellations while waking up in Kansas City (ps Thank you Mary and Kenny for letting us crash. Kenny had me laughing right when I needed it, appreciated greatly.) I received a phone call from an old friend about a mutual friend passing away followed with the standard "The wake and funeral were rough...." A sobering reminder of how life goes on while you are on the road and how out of touch you can become regarding friends and family.

With all that said, we have had a great time, and met and hung out with even better people and older friends, and saw sick live acts along the way and probably laughed every 15 minutes or so. Thanks to everyone who came out to the shows and everyone who let us crash. Sorry to those who were expecting to see us in the South. We will be back again though at some point. Extra thanks to DFJ, Jason Clegg, Charlie in Chicago and Convicted, Buckley and Nicole Hollis Vitale for keeping me sane. Extra Mucho thanks to Doug, Shawn, Jo and Mark. For a tour that seemed to be a black cloud in a bottle from the start we stripped the silver lining.

We are still playing Have Hearts record release show Aug 9th @ the ICC with Blacklisted, Verse, and Shipwreck. We also have some really big shows to announce for the fall too. In the meantime we are going to be working on more new songs, so hang on, sloopy.

Goodnight, Moon












*Mike Judge level

"....So Where's The 'Traz?"

There has been a lot of ground covered and days slayed since the last entry. We are about an hour outside of Denver heading to tonights show after a couple days of rest in Las Vegas (Penthouse suite @ The MGM Grand, obviously and seriously.) following our Cali shows and Sound And Fury, which proved restless since it was impossible to want to sleep and miss out on everything going on. With that said, major praise is due to Riley and Todd for putting on such a great fest and taking care of everyone. Truly a great weekend. (Only downside being my foot currently resembles a boney easel with violet purple, seafoam green, blueish grey and pale gold colors smeared across the skin due to a rowdy Anihilation Time S + F set, and very poor judgement on my part, but is healing nicely. )

Also of note for this morning, we made a scenic stop @ the San Rafael desert to check out.....what else? The scene, man. Myself and Clegg got the idea to climb down onto the actual desert since it looked like Mars with its vast but empty reddish blanket of sand. And besides.....we weren't hitting Mars on this tour anyway. We ignored the barbed wire fences and almost tumbled down the red crevices of rock and rubble but sunk quickly in since it was primarily deep, deep sand. It was around this time, we began to wonder how good an idea this truly was since we began notcing a lot of brush and way too many snake sized holes burrowed into the sides. It was the weirdest earth I have ever walked on, like a dozen acre baked, stale struedel. That's also when we noticed dinosaur sized dung piles, and creepily enough a single pair of footprints that stopped in the middle of nowhere before spotting a single sock and sandal. We ended up walking for a good 20 minutes looking for an easy way back onto solid ground and were already dehydrated. Still fearing poisonous serpents or whatever the hell was shitting down there we had to quickly jump over brush and rocks and make our way through a segment of barbed wire fence. Clegg, already a Julliard trained ballerina, gracefully made his way into between two lines of barbed wire, I was not so lucky and did a header right into a patch of it and cut myself up pretty good on my scalp. We finally made it back onto the highway but couldn't figure out where we had parked and left everyone. Right as we were feeling like we entered a Twilight Zone, Doug luckily had walked towards that direction and shouted to us from a mini mountain and we were saved.

But back to the subject at hand:

Sacramento was the first stop of our Cali dates and was held as a sort of "house party" of sorts with the gig going down in a garage in a scenic Sacto backyard. It was held at 3130 Branch and although I guess it was the 2nd show they put on, I am hoping they have continued luck doing shows there because we had a blast there, we were fed pizza and soda and kids bought a ton of merch which helped greatly after a long few rides. We have been stoked at the trend of seemingly and solely playing great DIY venues run across the country. 3 highlights for me was:

1) Getting aggravated by a fast moving fly while eating in the van and after swatting it away from me, Shawn literally punched it into the window in one shot.

2.) Omar, a dude who was running around having the time of his life double fisting Budweisers, headbanging, puking, moshing and repeating over and over. Jarrod our roadie, said he saw him double fisting some Beechwoods and when a guy went to cheers him he just grabbed his beer too and pounded that down and went back to moshulating the garage.

3) CRUICIFIED. Check them out, get into them. Great new band I was siked to finally see and they didn't disappoint.

We packed everything up and got ready to leave; unfortunately the place we were going to crash at fell through so we had to scramble. Luckily human beings such as Kimpossible exist and she invited us to stay with her since it was near our next show at Gilman Street and also because she rules. The following day before the show Kim, in a brilliant move to cement the above statement threw a BBQ for us and we noshed on tasty vegan and veg food and nibbled on some of the finest guacamole I have ever noshed. The dudes in Skin Like Iron, who were also playing Gilman with us showed up before and hung out too. We met when we played together @ The Midway Cafe in JP back in April and they were fantastic and great people, so it was cool to be able to hang on the other coast. Gilman show was really fun and was cool to finally play there.

Afterwards we went back to Kim's to hang and watch R Kellys "Trapped In The Closet" opus, because it was Sunday. We woke up the next morning and headed into San Fransisco to explore and kill time before our show in Redwood City. Most memorable for me was going to Buena Vista Park off of Haight St and walking all the way to the peak. It was a really cool spot and had an incredible view of San Fran (which is an abbreviation for San Fransisco, the Rice a Roni state. I am tired.)

The show in Redwood city fucking ruled. Skin Like Iron and Crucifed dudes came out and hung out too, which was a delight and much appreciated. Lewd Acts played and slayed and so did Streetwalkers, a new band from the area featuring Hunky Hook on the 4 banger and Tasty Toast on the 6 shooter. Can't wait to hear more from them/see them again. Check em out.

We woke up the next morning to find our Fresno show was cancelled that day, due to some farty farts destroying the bathroom there, so thanks for that! That meant no show until Tijuana, which meant another long ass drive depending on 2 shows to keep us afloat for 5 days. We decided to just drive into LA from Oakland and crash with friends down there. The theme of this entry though is that Kim rules and she really saved us took great care of us, so what's another thousand thanks yous? Thank you!

We crashed at my old, good friend Pete's house in Echo Park and are greatful for the last second hospitality displayed by this man di tutti men. Woke up and made the drive to Chula Vista to meet our contacts (you guys ruled, gracias) to take us over the border into TJ where we were playing with Reign Supreme and Letdown. Highlight for me was walking with everyone through town down to the beach, where on a dare Bob of Letdown actually jumped the border and made it onto US sands and ran around for a bit, not knowing Border Patrol was driving back towards him with a fury I hadn't seen since Chopper chased Gordy for the fence in Stand By Me. Luckily Border Jumpin Bob, made it back over with no issue. It also lead me to wonder why or how they could possibly be called Letdown?

After TJ we headed back to my friends house in LA, but unfortunately for us he had gotten food poisoning and had been sick and asleep in bed long before we arrived, so we had to all sleep in the van until he awoke at dawn. We had a day to kill before Sound And Fury so I took a quickie van sabbatical to see a bunch of friends of mine I hadn't seen in 4 years and the dudes made the drive down to Long Beach to pick up DFJ and Clegg and then to Santa Barbara for Sound And Fury, which is where I will pick up next time, Gadget.

"The horror......the horror......"

This entry comes as we all collectively clean the decadent grime of Portland, Oregon off our skin on our way down to Sacramento for the first of several shows in California leading up to Sound And Fury.

With one show cancelled and one drive day lasting 23 hours, it has been a pretty hectic week. We arrived in Fargo, North Dakota early Monday morning. Some dudes got a dirt cheap hotel room to rest up, since it turned out we were going to have to be there for an extra day. Jo and myself just slept in the van since we were pretty zonked out anyway, and wanted to cut down on pre dawn hotel stowaway shenanigans.

It proved to be a pretty dumb move on my part, because I woke up on the floor in a puddle, deaf in one ear with a sinus infection lacing itself up inside my face. Needles to say I have been spitting up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cream pie filling ever since. Me and Jo decided to take a morning stroll around the strip malls of Fargo. For those of you who mock such a place based on the movie, or just have the feeling that it would be a dead town, have got it all wrong. All I am going to say is, I counted 2 (two) Orange Julius inside their mall. So slurp that.

Soon after everyone else woke up, and we just loaded up on cheap groceries @ the "Cash Wi$e Market" (Literal actual spelling, and how!) Peanut butter and banana sanwiches make the world go round. Doug and DFJ hit up the new Will Smith movie (Justin noted that we are most certainly still smack dab in a "Willenium" and to act accordingly) Jo, Shawn, Jarrod and myself found the pool and fucked around there for a bit, and then got ready to meet with everyone else and hit the gig.

We loaded in and wandered around downtown Fargo for a bit, which was real cool. Unfortunately a few of us felt pretty ill and fatigued, especially from being in the sun all day, played great but I still felt nauseous and felt I struggled to get through the set. This also marked DFJ's last sit behind the kit for us. This also was when I realized I've been losing weight, as my shorts fell off me a couple times. Back to eating meat for me.

We went back to the hotel to hang since Justin had to catch a plane back home for Mind Eraser shows on the east coast early in the morning. (He is then heading back out to California for Living Hell and Dead Black shows, that's what's up) Everyone else woke up a few hours later and we began the 23 hour drive to Seattle to sleep since Spokane got spokancelled.

We stopped for gas just outside of Montana and encountered a family giving away free puppies outside the market. Since, none of us had acid to ingest, war paint to smear across our face, or flare guns and the fact that we weren't on a clandestine mission to assassinate a Colonel, we decided that we probably wouldn't be able to handle a puppy in the van. This was also around the time it came to our attention that the front of the van looks like a Jackson Pollock with bug guts splattered freely about the grill. A bird also made the mistake of flying right into the grill. So it could be more akin to Ted Nugent doing a Pollock.

Doug drove the first 18 hours of the drive (and before that had been behind the wheel the whole time, logging in easily 4,000 plus miles) made it to the Washington border, and took a much deserved rest from there on.

We got into Seattle around 10am and tried to catch a few hours of sleep since we had the day off. I had no such luck by choosing to sleep on the floor, however a large, but quite affable and affectionate pit bull that used me as a pillow, and sleeping bag mate, appeared to rest well. I need a dog.

We wandered around town for a while and hit up some great 2nd hand book stores in a successful search for decadent old French literature from the '30s. I had never been to Seattle before but will surely be back again. I have a feeling that a huge genre changing music scene is just waiting to burst out there.

We played Tacoma the next day, which was our first show with Mark back with us and he literally didn't miss a beat. Wild show. At one point I look over and Jo Kelly is wearing a white cowboy hat and tipping it to the crowd, and he doesn't own a cowboy hat. Thanks to Markley for showing us around and bringing us to the bar next door. There were a lot of very friendly dudes there.... actually I didn't see any women there at all. They must have all been in the bathroom doing their makeup or something.

Said our goodbyes and made the way to Portland to crash since Mark's good friends live there. We were told the area was called "Felony flats" and with a Strip club, a live peep show club a 24 hr lock n spank and a gun store all on the same corner, while a naked guy walked around, I believe it was aptly named.

Marks friends Mike and Dillon hooked it up and bbq'ed for us before the show, which ruled. Thank you again.

Got to the venue, which was an internet cafe, but ended up actually being pretty cool. An old friend of mine I hadn't seen in 5 years randomly showed up which was great. (The last time we had hung out I beat some guy up with his own bicycle, which he reminded me of but thankfully the night didn't become as ignorant) At the show we also debuted a brand new song, and it sounded killer. It has been a while since we have played new songs out, but I would keep my ears open for that and an even newer one this coming week in Cali on the way to Sound And Fury. We have some really cool shows coming up this week and rad friends to see, so we cannot wait.

P

Sweet Home Chicago

Did you know that Christopher Lloyd, Huey Lewis, and Hank Williams Jr are among some of the more notable residents of Hamilton, Montana? We just found that out after a Montana state trooper pulled us over for speeding in Billings, Montana, we also found out that Hank Williams Jr gets beaten up a lot in the local bars there because the locals apparently don't care who you are. We also found out a lot about the State Trooper's background himself. Its always nice to engage in a little smalltalk with the townfolk when you are in the middle of driving from Fargo, North Dakota to Seattle Washington in one shot.

These last few days have been brutal in terms of miles covered and gas guzzled. Upon leaving Fargo around noon today we were at the 3,000 mile mark after a week and about a thousand spent in gas. (Thankfully gas is a rock bottom 3.89 in Fargo.) We have been driving for about 11 hrs at this point and have about 10 more to go.

These last few days also have been incredible, thanks in part to the wonderful city of Chicago Illinois and some of, if not the realest people on the planet.

Friday we met up and hung with Swamp Thing in Romeo, Michigan for the first of our shows together at Static Age. I was mistaken earlier in thinking our records were being sent to Chicago. When we arrived I was told they were waiting inside. Bursting with anticipation over what the final product was going to look like since we had yet to see an actual copy, I approached the boxes in an Indiana Jones fashion expecting Spinal Tap-ish results. Thankfully the records were not "none more black," but came out perfect. It was a huge collective relief for all of us. Extra thank you to Chris and everyone else @ Static Age for receiving the records for us, we really really appreciate it. Hands down one of the best venues in the country as well. Its always cool to see shows being run and operated fully DIY by people who have their hearts in it.

Anyways, soon after Convicted rolls up to the show for the first of 3 dates with us and Swamp Thing. I've been tight with Charlie for about 4 years now and he is the definition of a brother to me, so it is always great to hang. Everyone played great as well.

We left Static Age to make the overnight drive to Chicago and stay with Charlie's friend Carey. We swear midwest hospitality is the new southern hospitality, because she opened her door to us @ 6am to spread out and crash, and in the early afternoon made us genius vegan pancakes of the blueberry and regular variety and hash browns with orange juice. Afterwards we all cleaned up and headed to the show @ the Galaxie, a very cool venue in a warehouse space in the city in a very gritty area.

I was really overcome by uplifting feelings I can't even describe without sounding like a goober at the gig and hanging out afterwards. There was a very diverse cross section of kids hanging out and going off the entire time. This was also Convicted's record release which we were honored to be able to play. We played really well, although I was in a different universe while we gug, which is a my past tense word for gig. Convicted is easily my new favorite band these days and they absolutely destroyed, and the crowd did likewise.

It was still so refreshing to see all different types of kids going bonkers during their set and no one had any bogus attitudes or drama toward each other. On top of that Chicago hardcore these days really reminds me of Boston shows from when I was 16 so I think its safe to say you are going to be hearing of more and more bands coming out of the windy city and their scene is only going grow stronger and thrive for a long time . I can also tell you on the east coast to look out for The Killer/Convicted/New Lows dates in the fall.

After the show Luke, Shaneline, Andy, Donny, and all the other brand name Chicago dudes took us out for food and drinks. Ended up at a local bar and met even more incredible people and saw a few older faces. We all can't even express how grateful we are to everyone in Chicago for coming to the show, buying merch and to everyone who took care of us. I don't want to ramble on anymore and sound like a dingus, but Chicago will be our brother city for life. Extra thanks to Carey for putting us up and for putting up with us for two nights.

We began the drive to Minneapolis a bit too late Sunday afternoon and got slammed in traffic and later pulled over for speeding later on. We showed up just in time to play a quick set before the curfew. After the gig we met with Swamp Thing for pizza at Pizza Luce and chowed down, wide load style. There was debate as to where we were gonna crash, and it was then decided to just make the overnight drive for Fargo, more on that to come. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and check out Convicted and be on the look out for them to hit the east coast with The Killer.
We are due to be in Seattle by 10am tomorrow morning, unless we find Huey Lewis house. We figure if The News isn't an active band, Huey Lewis and The Lows could be the next best thing.


P

Bon Jour Tour

Tour began without many ominous signs. Meltdown dropped off, our records and cd's weren't ready in time and Canada just isn't ready for Jo Kelly so he wasn't able to cross the border (more on that later), so we rolled up as a 4 piece, or quartet. DFJ is also filling in on drums for the first week because Mark had prior commitments he couldn't break , making this a downright different lineup. (A humorous sidenote to not having the records was that we had border security mocking and laughing at us for having cassettes).

The first show was in Chicoutimi, Quebec. None of us had ever been that far north before and were taken back by it. Just miles, or even, kilometers of dense evergreen trees, lakes and generally epic untouched landscapes and scenery.

We arrived in town and promptly collided into the first of many language barriers looking for the club. One group of gentleman outside of a place we thought was the spot were suggesting us to a drug bar instead under hushed broken English. Finally his friend clad in tribal tats and a Dissection t shirt pointed us to the right direction.

It was a bar/venue upstairs from a yacht club complete with docked yachts and a pretty majestic view of lakes and hillsides. A lot of kids showed up and it was a reallly great start to tour over all. Later on Simon and Ali who put the show on took us out to eat at a nearby diner where I had my first taste of poutine. As much as I did enjoy it, I wasn't expecting there to be such a rubber consistancy to the cheese curds and couldn't stop laughing as I was eating it. Much thanks to Simon and Ali for taking such great care of us and to their friend Dave for putting us up for the night.
Montreal show was moved to a newer venue somewhat last second and there were issues with getting gear there but beyond all the setbacks it was a really great show until 5 songs in my voice completely blew out. I was literally unable to even speak a word or make a sound. There is really no better feeling than being in a French speaking country and not be able to speak the native tongue nor have much use for a tongue at all. For the remainder of the night I spoke via quick sentences scribbled into a note pad with a pencil, making for quite an eventful night for conversation with Jarrod our road dog, at a bar down the road. Shout outs to Drew of Skin Like Iron fame, a great band out of nor cal I can't wait to play with out that way. Extra special thanks to Tremblay and Hugo for coming out and taking great care of us. Shout out to D.A.D.s Bagels for being delicious.

Arrived in Toronto early enough to walk around, get food and relax before the show, which was at a very cool, cramped art space type spot called Siesta Nouveaux. Ended up being our favorite gig so far, show was wild. I think I unplugged Shawn twice and Doug clipped me with the head of his bass pretty good too. I am also looking at my new purple palmed hand and hope that will go away soon. Met a lot of cool people and was psyched that kids came out. Thanks to Steve TOH for coming out and taking care of us, much appreciated. I have been reading the Town Of Hardcore book since we got in the van, so that had me even more excited to get up to Toronto and it didn't dissappoint. I wouldn't think a city that gave us Kids In The Hall, SCTV and the nucleus of Saturday Night Live would anyway. We will certainly be back in Canada as soon as we can.

With that said, we hope to come up as a complete band this time, getting back to Jo. After the show we hopped right in the van and had to drive to Buffalo to pick up Jo, where he was meeting up with tour via a Greyhound Bus. Unfortunately, he arrived in Buffalo @ 6pm and we didn't finish playing Toronto until 11pm. Needless to say, the poor guy was a bit numb and restless by the time we got him, maybe we can get him to post some of his stories from his day on here, but I'd just assume not remind him of what he just went through.

Currently, we are cruising through Ohio with Bad Brains blasting, heading to our show tonight in Romeo Michigan @ Static Age where we are going to meet up with Swamp Thing for a bunch of dates to Sound And Fury and the almighty Convicted who is playing
Michigan, Chicago, and Minneapolis with us. Me and DFJ give special shout outs to the Windy City and can't wait to get back over there, especially to play Convicted's release show. To close this entry out on a great note, I also just spoke to Greg Willmott and we will have our Lockin Out record with us in Chicago Saturday as well, so come out and buy it so we can get some leg room in here.

U AIN'T JO