MASA Records

2009-01-15T15:53:00.000-08:00

MASA RECORDS IS PROUD TO PRESENT OUR LATEST RELEASE AND NEWEST MEMBER OF THE MASA FAMILY!

HERR JAZZ "SELF-TITLED' CASSETTE EP
(all profits go to help house migrant workers in Wenatchee)

SIDE A:
1) Hey Merlin, Thanks For The Free Coffee [MP3]
2) XpunX
3) Snacks
4) Joanna Newsong
SIDE B:
5) Inconsequential & Too Long
6) Olympia [MP3]
7) Secret Track

Available for $5.00 (includes US shipping)

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For Int'l Orders Please Email Us!

2009-01-14T15:54:00.001-08:00

Playwright Tony Kushner, who was interviewed in Tuesdays program: "And Jews, with our millennial history of surviving oppression, really should have a deep sympathy and understanding. And it’s a shandah that we’re the authors of oppression anywhere on earth. It shouldn’t be the case. We should—we know better, and we should do better."

Israeli Voices For Peace
by Amy Goodman
http://www.democracynow.org (which has done an exceptional job covering this issue)

"Israel’s assault on Gaza, by air, sea and now land, has killed (at the time of this writing) more than 600 Palestinians, with more than 2,700 injured (edit: now 1000 dead, 4,000 injured). Ten Israelis have been killed, three of them Israeli soldiers killed by friendly fire. Beyond the deaths and injuries, the people of Gaza are suffering a dire humanitarian crisis that is dismissed by the Israeli government. There is, however, Israeli opposition to the military assault.

Israeli professor Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in southern Israel, the region most impacted by the Hamas rockets.

Speaking over the phone from Beersheba, Gordon said: “We just had a rocket about an hour ago not far from our house. My two children have been sleeping in a bomb shelter for the past week. And yet, I think what Israel is doing is outrageous. … The problem is that most Israelis say Israel left the Gaza Strip three years ago and Hamas is still shooting rockets at us. They forget the details. The detail is that Israel maintains sovereignty. The detail is that the Palestinians live in a cage. The detail is that they don’t get basic foodstuff, that they don’t get electricity, that they don’t get water. And when you forget those kinds of details, all you say is, ‘Why are they still shooting at us?’ That’s what the media here has been pumping them with, then you think this war is rational. If you look at what’s been going on in the Gaza Strip in the past three years and you see what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians, you would think that the Palestinian resistance is rational. And that’s what’s missing in the mainstream media here.”

Gordon attended a large peace march last weekend in Tel Aviv with more than 10,000 other Israelis. Longtime Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery was there. He called the invasion “a criminal war, because, on top of everything else it is openly and shamelessly part of Ehud Barak’s and Tzipi Livni’s election campaign. I accuse Ehud Barak of exploiting the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers in order to get more Knesset seats. I accuse Tzipi Livni of advocating mutual slaughter in order to become prime minister.” Israel’s elections will be in February.

The assault strengthens right-wing Likud Party leader and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a foremost hawk and leading candidate for prime minister. While Netanyahu fully supports the attack on Gaza, his nephew, Jonathan Ben-Artzi, is an Israeli conscientious objector who was court-martialed and imprisoned for a year and a half. He spoke to me from Providence, R.I., where he is a student at Brown University.

“I’m speaking … not as anyone’s nephew but … as an Israeli, trying to speak out to Americans to tell them you don’t have to support Israel blindly. Not everything that Israel does is holy … sometimes you have to speak firmly to Israel and tell us, tell our government, stop doing this.”

Gideon Levy is a Jewish journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He told me: “I think that Israel had this legitimacy to protect its citizens in the southern part of Israel … but this doing something does not mean this brutal and violent operation. … I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed. Immediately to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs—just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this.”

But it is. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, in Gaza opened up schools to provide shelter, since Gazans, trapped in this narrow strip of land, have no place to flee. Christopher Gunness of UNRWA told me that the agency provided the coordinates of the schools to the Israeli military. Nevertheless, at least two schools have been hit by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours. Three people were killed at the Asma elementary school. More than 30 are reported dead and more than 55 injured at the al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza.

While Israeli planes drop pamphlets urging Palestinians to leave, the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip, perhaps the most densely populated place on Earth, have no place to run, no place to hide. Calls for an immediate cease-fire are ignored by Israel and blocked by the U.S. government. It is not clear what the Obama administration will do—but the people of Gaza can’t wait until the inauguration. There must be a cease-fire now. And that’s just the beginning."

2008-12-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

lots of great exciting news here at MASA headquarters! as you can see, the site is being revamped extensively as we are approaching our 10th Anniversary and nearing 60 releases! and on top of the releases mentioned below, you might notice some new names over on the left "song bar" who we're are in talks with about winter releases! but, for now, most immediately and gearing up for these exciting times, we are stoked to tell you about some NEW releases and artists joining the family in January and February, including a 2 CDR comp of 18 friends bands:

Friends Are Relatives COMP
Various Artists "Friends Are Relatives" 2-CDR COMP
[January 2nd, 2009 release]
To celebrate our 11th anniversary we here at MASA decided to call up nearly 20 of our favorite friends and underground musicians and ask them to contribute two songs to this release. Some of these artists are past and present MASA bands, some are new projects of old MASA bands , some are friends met along the road and others are just to awesome to not notice. Contributing to this compilation is Herr Jazz, Sorry, 1985 and Alaskas [all from Seattle, WA]; Go Slowpoke, Memes, Jonathan McIntyre and Maple Nightingale [all from Bellingham, WA]; Tyson Ballew, Friedrichs Teeth and Knot Knocked Up [from Missoula, MT], Chin Up Merriwether! and Elijah Moore [Olympia, WA]; The Solvents [Port Townsend, WA] and several more TBA! Artists will be given copies to pass out for real cheap or free and the 2 disk compilation with be available for free on this site as well!

Herr Jazz "Self-Titled" CASS EP
[January 2nd, 2009 release]
Herr Jazz are an energetic, quirky and positive high school trio of indie pop-wack from Seattle, WA. The boys in the band were frequent patrons of this "hip" vintage clothing store I used to work at. One, who calls himself "Ben," was the official mascot of the store. These guys are great at sorting through multiple gaylords of used denim and will find a Big E in any giant haystack of moldy jeans. They also play thoughtful, kick-you-in-the-pants-like-green-tea sort of pop rock. The recordings have a great low-fi, reverbed out nerdiness to them. You know, smart but stinky and sitting in the back of the room with a shit-eating, know-it-all grin. Most likely to aim from the clock tower or most likely to create the internet? You Decide. 2009.

Sorry CASS EP
[February 2009 release]
Sorry like to introduce themselves at every show like this. "Hi! We're Sorry!" Ryan and Aaron have been friends of mine for a couple years, through Bellingham roots related to ex-Tri Shitties kids. Did you know that Washingotn States "Tri-Cities" have the highest doctorate degree-per-capita ratio in the country? Most people think its DC. They are wrong. I have been waiting to hear some of Ryans music for awhile now and are stoked that he finally found some buddies to play pop rock music with. The boys play fun, twee (hate to use that word these days) pop rock with clever changes, crisp guitar tones and occasional noodle-slops. This spring is the Spring of Sorry. Oh, and picnics. I can't wait to walk to Cal Anderson park with these boys on my headphones and some jacked treates from QFC.

Tyson Ballew "Fruit Trees For Cassowaries" CASS
[February 10th, 2009 release]
Tyson Ballew is a real good friend of mine. I just spent two months living in his closet in Missoula, MT while conducting "field research" on the local music scene their and setting up a local music radio show for his scene to be broadcast on Seattle-based Hollow Earth Radio. I have known Tyson for over five years and always known him to be a passionate performer, songwriter and advocate for all-ages shows and diy punk aesthetics. He always sings from his heart and he sings often of punk idealisms and small-town struggles. Though he has yet to convince me of the merits of pop-punk, its influences on him often shine through in his song-crafting and I can respect it there. I have heard much of this new album and am excited that he has finally found himself in a "professional" studio with great production and accompaniment. I am even more excited that he asked MASA to release the cassette version of this album.

1985 "Back To The Future" CASS [co-release with Brown Interiour Cassettes]
1985 "Unreleased" CD-EP
[January/February 2009 releases]
1985 is pronounced "Unifying Theories." Not quite a new MASA band and not, really, even new releases. "Back To The Future" is the full-band version of the project that was recorded near two years ago with Eli and Ashley (of Olympia band LAKE) in Langley, WA. The album has mostly been sitting on the shelf, though 150 of the rough mixes have been dispersed, and we are excited for it to get released on our friends Olympia label, Brown Interiour. Unreleased is a grab bag of loose recordings from the last six months, and features 1985 returning to low-fi, improved rambles and sentiments.

2008-12-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

2005-12-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

news from the 1985 Camp:

upcoming 1985 releases:
1) Floppy Disk Single b/w a written work... (New Year)
2) Split Cassette with Blair Harris (January)
3) EP (February)

Look for a month-long national greyhound tour starting early February! This will be my fifth greyhound tour and I am really looking forward to it!

2005-09-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

so 1985 and MINI-LiFE are home from tour. i will try to transcribe the tour journal here in the next couple of days. look for a complete redesign of the masa site in the coming weeks and keep up with news and developments with the bands via their homepages and the masa records message board. it is gonna be an awesome, busy autumn for us all! hope you are excited for the coming months of autumn weather!

2005-08-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

alright... so i just got done catchign up on some internet communications stylies and am still sitting in a hidden house off of Geary Street in cool, moist San Francisco. Carlos has been out this afternoon trying to hock some posessions in order to afford more necessary things like, well, food. hopefully tonights show will be a lot of fun at the amnesia bar with petracovich. i liked the stuff i heard of hers and it will be nice (sad to say) a bar designed for live music.... things are fine and fun, though my own finances (all 16 of them) have been dwindling down. thanks be to a familar greyhound steward behind the counter in seattle who gave me the student discount with no questions asked probably cause he recognized me as a long-time listeners, first-time caller... good guy, that dude. without his glance in the other direction, i would be sitting with about 40 negative finances and a growling stomach and a sour-sauced mood... last night was our unexpected extra SF night (since the beach-fire belly boat show got cancelled). we made the most of it mostly due to a kind, cheerful and gracious host, LX. Carlos knows LX through some computer techie connections and he is a really awesome dude. we are actually in the neighborhood he grew up in, that he recently decided to settle back into. he has the ideal home set up, it is a studio shack with a quaint alley yard, behind a larger, three-story apartment complex. this neighborhood is pretty dang cool and it is nice to be so close to a city center and not see those horrific, brown-toned new-millinial gentro-fied apartment complexes that seem to be choking so many other cities right now (see seattle, and portland especially). the sort of mammoths that like to nest on top of pit park in downtown bellingham... anyways, LX got off early and met us at the Javacat coffeeshop that me and carlos walked to after getting dropped off a few blocks down by Adam. turns out LX lives pretty much kitty corner from it... we decided we were gonna try to scheme to get onto some bill or possibly play an open mic and after coming back to LX's (and through the long tunnel that leads to the backyard where his house is), we dropped off our shit and and went to check out this coffeeshop two blocks off. I am not sure what type of music LX does, or any names of his projects but he has a lot of noise/experimental equipment and recording gear (a couple theramins for example) and two nice computers set up (he has worked for several computer companies, mostly in the game design realm, i believe, like atari and such and is now working for an arcade company -the one that put out the "golden tee" golf arcade game that is all on-line and such)... he has to drive to san jose to work, which seems to suck, but he is also a bike enthusiast and rides in the SF critical mass apparently....

anyways, the coffeshop open mic was thursday, so we grabbed the local rags and checked them out for options on our walk back. i kept finding blue nitrous tanks (which i mistook for those small CO2 tanks) and LX corrected me and made known there "purpose." we got back to the house and decided to go play an open mic later that night at a coffeeshop near Golden Gate Park called The Canvas Cafe (the place was a combination cafe, art gallery, bar sort of thing) but first we set out to go check out the ameoba records on haight street. it was a nice, short and scenic drive through the park and we spent a good hour at ameoba. i scored a couple classic NW albums (an early some velvet sidewalk record and an early mike johnson radio-promo album) and also came across some local bands in the bargain bins was searching. i found used copies of the pale pacifics new EP and also of korby lenkers "bellingham" album (which i had carlos take a picture of me holding, since i was wearing my bellingham jill brazil show... which gets me thinking, i hope john tosch comes out tonight to the show.... that'd be radical... anyways, we left ameobo and on the way back carlos pissed in the park in plain view of a roadway (like the good transient he is right now). we pretty much grabbed our guitars and we're out the door again in LX's bright read racing BMW (the vehicle lacked a back seat and the seat belts were a jungle to latch on). we got to the wide, spacious cafe around sign-up time (7pm) to find 24 people already signed up... shit. we threw our names on there and carlos acted the salesmen of our valor for the rest of the evening as we tried to vie for a better slot... after a couple hours, a few beers (courtesy of LX and his friend Michael Coyote who showed up to hang out some) and some rather disheartening performers and environs, we decide to head out for some food and come back after to see if we were still up to play. carlos talked again to Mike the Bob Marley-shrouded host of the evening and told him we had to get some food and would be back soon... our efforts to find the sushi that michael was craving and offering to buy us were soon thwarted (as every place, be it dining or excercising or dying) closed at 10pm. we eventually found a pizza place... got some young, trying-to-be-a-writer-in-a-suit-snob kicked out of our good booth (he proceeded to pout about it via body language for the next hour) and ate some very good pizza and talked about movies, music, books and the horrible songs coming through the stereo system. it was all these 80's hits, but done by crappy studio musicians. i felt gross, after sitting through some undesirable at the open mic, that it took us so long to figure out that NONE of the songs were the original artists. all i ask for is sincerity, is that too much? we walked back by the open mic to a much younger, looser crowd that would have been fun to play to, only to find out our names had already been called... we could probably have tried to "go next" but we were all pretty beat from the scene... a short ride home, a bit of discussion about technology and the fast-pace of the future and then some quiet, calm sleep.

it has been mild and mildly foggy here. the evenings are crisp and cool. not really flip-flop weather... the leaves are falling and tonight i just might wear shoes to the show. i miss getting to know people closely. i don't do that enough lately, really EVER lately, and the quickly changing faces and places of touring are certainly no help... autumn is when you start to dig into the soil, to entrench yourself with allies against the cold and i look forward to days like that again. i miss the romance of it.

2005-08-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

so, it turns out that masa records has been deleted, which is pretty upsetting. the space is there but all the files and such have been deleted. i have uploaded those that i had backed on my computer and hopefully things will be semi-functional soon. sorry to all you masa artists out there with pages deleted (for me, it really sucked as i am trying to book a tour right now but don't have a place to direct people to now, and also i had just redesigned several pages and created several new ones). hopefully we will be up and running soon. again, sorry... though, it actually might have been good timing, as things are gonna start picking up around here and with a new spirit very soon...

for now, if you want to keep up with masa artists, i would suggest looking towards the masa myspace.

2005-08-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

so, the masarecords.com site is down right now... has been for a few days, not that any of y'all might have noticed, since it hadn't been updated in a long while... good things are coming though. autumn is a time of settling and putting things in order for the winter... a lot of new stuff coming soon... i swear it.

for now, y'all should check out me (matt/1985) and eli moore (palisades) new project... listen here.

2005-06-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

New Jimes interview by Mike Force here (then click "links.")

2005-06-12T04:10:00.000-07:00

here we catch two masa artists, 1985 (disguised as wetness protection program*) and Blair Harris, in the middle of an online IM conversation courtesy of the IM function at myspace.com. the topic is "practising and polishing ones art VS. capturing it as soon as possible after its (con/in)ception." we have already missed the meat of the insightful dialogue, and enter the storyline post-climax...

wetness protection program: exactly.
wetness protection program: takes the heart away
from it.
wetness protection program: perhaps...
wetness protection program: but looking back
now.... i listen to some of my
older (a sandcastle still and such) recordings and
feel crappy that i didn't try and give the song the credit
it deserved.
wetness protection program: and now it feels too
late to approach them anymore, you know?
wetness protection program: but i just wish i had
good sounding (quality of recording, quality of
performance) captures of them.
Blair Harris: yeah I do know waht you mean...I was
thinking of this song on My Name is Blah..and there's
this riff in it that I just love almost more than anything
I've made..but the song just doesn't really go...
Blair Harris: the way I want it to and I dont relal yliek
the song
wetness protection program: and i am tending to
lean mroe towards the fence side where it is better to
polish it up first, as some people (though it sucks
bad) are gonna have a harder time understanding it
if it is roguh....
wetness protection program: yeah.
wetness protection program: if it is rough, some
people might have a hard time picking up ont he
sentiment, the emotion, heart behind it, you know?
wetness protection program: (i think it is ironic, as
well, that we are having this conversation when i am
logged into the WPP account) -editor: the irony being
that the WPP is an low-fi, improv tape series-
Blair Harris: yeah..I'm open minded to all of it...I
mean sure it's fun to make the rough cuts but I dont
think there's antyhing wrong with having a good-
quality recorded song at all
wetness protection program: yeah....
wetness protection program: i think it is good to
mix it up...
wetness protection program: or maybe have both
you know?
Blair Harris: hahah
Blair Harris: yeah
wetness protection program: and i got SOOO
much of my stuff captured in that infant roughness, i
just kind of want to do this next recording all nice
like....
Blair Harris: I mean the song is still the song, as
long as you're getting your message across and
mean it, then who cares how it's done
wetness protection program: and bring back some
of the songs i think weren't given a fair shot at it...
wetness protection program: exactly.
wetness protection program: and each song has
like its own personality...
wetness protection program: some songs fit more
naturally in the rough others not./..
Blair Harris: yeah maybe you should make like an
EP of just redone songs, rerecorded and maybe
throw in parts you'd have liked better ors oemthing
Blair Harris: like a "revisited ep"
wetness protection program: nice, nice.
wetness protection program: good idea...
wetness protection program: i do know that this
next album i want to do is gonna be sort of a greatest
hits in that fashion... bring back the old songs i like a
lot and match them up with some new ones i love...
Blair Harris: that would be awesome, that sounds
like a really good idea
wetness protection program: and even there, i
want to have a blueprints sort of precursor, with
rough sketches of it and a few months later, and with
a few firends playing on it, record it all super nice...
Blair Harris: that way newer listeners can a better
chance to hear some of the older ones
wetness protection program: yeah....
wetness protection program: though they might be
a little disappointed to go back and listen to that stuff!
Blair Harris: haha no way
wetness protection program: yes way!
wetness protection program: hey, so what should
we call this wpp we did?
Blair Harris: yeah that's a good way to go about it
though..scratch the revisited EP..just rerecord those
old songs on your new album with new songs..that's
a really good idea
wetness protection program: it has to relate some
how to things that keep you protected from wetness...
wetness protection program: but, yeah...
Blair Harris: haha hmm
wetness protection program: there will be a low-fi
tape precusor blueprint thing (for the low-fi fans) of
all the songs (also to be given to the people i want to
play ont he album so they can get used to the
songs)....
wetness protection program: and then a few
months later...
wetness protection program: so name?
wetness protection program: does the arkansas
have any getties?
wetness protection program: how about, volume four: the
floodgates.
wetness protection program: i like that...
wetness protection program:
wetness protection program: some examples? step two: the tent.
Blair Harris: that sounds good
wetness protection program: procedure three:
watergate
Blair Harris: oooh ok I see
wetness protection program: i like floodgates alot
though...
wetness protection program: you know, cause we
are all like on "on the verge" of busting out into full
creative bloom...
Blair Harris: how about.. four: the dam music
Blair Harris: haha uh
wetness protection program: nice.
wetness protection program: nice.
Blair Harris: hahah sorry
wetness protection program: no, that was funny as
fuck....
Blair Harris: yeah floodgates will work
wetness protection program: you think? or?
Blair Harris: yeah it sounds like we are all about cry
and pouring ourselves through the strigns
Blair Harris: Im pretty sure I can identify my guitar in
that recording on there..and man I am not good at
playing with peple
wetness protection program: nice.
wetness protection program: no way! i play totally
happy music!
Blair Harris: I soudned ok on some parts, but
horrible most the time..and then I got too
overpowering
wetness protection program: my heart is golden
orange!
wetness protection program: yeah, it is pretty rough
ALL around....
wetness protection program: oh well, we can do a
better one next time.
wetness protection program: yeah...
wetness protection program: you should starting USING the
masa blog!
wetness protection program: i am trying to kick all
the masa folks in the butt about that one, but so far...
wetness protection program: not so much, you
know?
Blair Harris: yeah I've pretty much lost tocuh with that
after my first entry..that's me for ya when it comes to
blogs
wetness protection program: yeah.
Blair Harris: yeah I will amke another entry though
Blair Harris: I have to fiind the address again
wetness protection program: now, if it was an LJ,
you'd be all over it
wetness protection program: blogger.com
wetness protection program: right?
wetness protection program: or:
masarecords.blogspot.com?
Blair Harris: haha
Blair Harris: yeah I'll find it
wetness protection program: it sucks cause the
only person who has really been using it, brandon
(jimes)... makes the text all super big and super
white (so people can see it he says) than i change it
back and i think he is sick
wetness protection program: of that tug of war
now...
wetness protection program: is it really that hard to
read, or?

2005-05-31T01:33:00.000-07:00

i wound up staying bellingham much longer than i expected. which was good, because out of those experiences, this was created. it is me and eli's semi-project called "crystal pastures." let us know what you think!

2005-05-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

i am still in bellingham, hanging out until the local music radio show tonight and i am excited to finally get back home to kent. i was lucky enough to catch my brother and sister at home when i got into seattle from spokane and went home for a few hours before heading to port townsend... the bellingham shows were fun, especially the jason webley show, it was a nice way to finish the tour off. i have really come around to webley and his music over the last year or so, especially when he made such a nice gesture to the gaf church his last time here. the show went well, there was like 150 people there and i was able to unload 30 1985 cd's and 40 of the local compilation (dead air, um, dead air) and people signed the mailing list as well. i was mostly giving the cd's away but told people that if they wanted to donate money to me for the intended charities on the cd', that they could, and 10 bucks came in that way... it was a lot of fun being in bellingham for some live music on friday and saturday night and now i have mostly been holed up at jamie/kristen/eli's house and me and eli have been recording. apparently we are gonna try and finish an ep today, so we will see how that goes... fun, new songs of both his and mine and they are sounding awesome... look for an attempt at filling in the blank spots of the tour journal action and also look fr major overhauls of the masa site int he next couple of days...

the moist, cool spring weather here has been fucking beautiful the last few nights, especially at night when the near full moon has been coming out to play...

2005-05-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

so i am sitting at one of the horseshoe cafe computers. fucking hilarious.

it is oddly warm outside and oddly warm in my belly, as i just consumed my first liquid charge in months. it is odd everywhere. oddingham.

the children of solvency will probably be performing a song with me tonight. these are the lyrics:

"the mermaids won the battle
the mermaids won the battle
now we are all merfolk
now we are all merfolk
the mermaid king and queen
smile so lovingly
the mermaids saved us all"

the ocean is violence to most. yet some thrive there and fear the open air.
this is the most natural refutation of balance. of dark light, in and out.

i am in bellingham and, though i made 100 bucks in missoula five days ago, i am so familiarly worrry about my ability to afford being here for the next five days. nice, nice.

2005-05-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

tour has been over since last friday for me. Very successful.
I started out with 180 cd's all packaged. I now only have 53. Sold every shirt I had.

tour again early july you can see the schedule on my myspace. its going to run about 3 months in length with a week long break somewhat near the middle.
i've begun demos for the next aheartlesssolution album. It's going to be called "mirabile visu"
mostly all full band stuff. guest artists galore on it. more news later.

just to let the 4 people that read this, when i was "difficult" in denver it was for good reason. I was fed up with playing shows that were not up to par. Coming to a venue where the people dont really know you are playing, the local band doesn't show up, there is no promotion at all, etc. I didn't feel the need to pour my heart out to the empty room.

etc. etc.
it feels good to be home. thats all i have to say.

2005-05-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

oh, missoula in spring! how i love thee! if only my family were pocket-size and i could take them wherever i go... alas.

like, i kind of don't want to leave... someday, i would like to spend some significant time here.

2005-05-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

i am in missoula, chilling at peters house while he puts posters on his wall. he has lived here since october. today was overcast and warm here in western montana. i have been pretty moody. i am glad it took this long to hit me (maybe my tolerance is going up), but i am definately getting that weird ansy, unsatisfied gotta keep moving to misery missing things feeling. it is weird and hard to describe, like a breaking down jalopy. i tried pretty hard to get onto a show tonight at this girl niki's house but even though there is only three bands playing and i pleaded with the whole "i don't need to play a big set and i can play early and between bands and don't need any money and just want to play a few songs to make something of the day" spee-ul, she "didn't have room for me." eh. she hosts the local show here at the college radio station, me and tony played on her show last time we were in town... so yeah, i should be happy about last nights show. there were tons of people and they were pretty receptive and nice to me during my set and i got to hear no-fi on their old stomping grounds and the robot ate me and the conversation. the oblio joes were my favorite, though. so much fun. i have been so drawn to traveling songs on this tour, like tom and chaz's project "the transcendentalists." four fast chords a harmonica and a bellowing plea. s'all i need... the bus ride to missoula from salt lake city (following a nice 6am sunny walk with tom from his place to ther depot) was miserable and ansy, especially the last two hours from butte montana to missoula. and then we rushed right to the show at the boys and girls club. i think tyson was super happy about the show, though. tons of kids came and i think all the bands got paid pretty well (i recieved the most money i have recieved of any show on tour yet, 100 bucks)... it was a fun show. so yeah, we just went to the movie theater tyson works at to see if we could see a movie for free and it was a no go. and then jenn had to run off to watch survivor (a family tradition or something) and now me and peter are contemplating going to the show at niki's house, which i am less than excited about, though i would love to see some liver music tonight... oh, and i wrote a new song this morning (after watching the against me documentarya nd some of the half japanese one) and we tried to record it with me on guitar and tyson on keys and peter on harmonica. it didn't work but later in the day me and peter and tyson recorded a new wetness protection program installement. tyson had to leave to work half way through, but me and peter continued to record. look for a new masa myspace account for the WPP, with music up from the blair-joshua-matt session in little rock and this one today... plus some old stuffs... anyways... i need to go ride a bike or something... cheer up spend myself... tomorrow night is day three in missoula and some songs at tyson and jenns potluck housewarming party. their place is nice... oh, and the thing i like the most about "the pacific science center" (which is probably what hawaii will morph into) is the pacify. hope you are well...

2005-05-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

okay. we are chilling in salt lake city at tom's house. we got in at ten am this morning, after one of the through the night rides that you dread for days after. the trips where you get maybe half a set and have to hold on cause the driver doesn't know how to steer smoothly and she keeps trying to toss you into the aisle. oh yeah. so we got in at ten and walked back to tom's place to eat some breakfast (they had some stolen mini pizzas and i had made some mac and cheese with fake hotdog and corn mixed in). tasty. then we walked to the temple square and did the whole mormon tourist thing. checking out what we could as non-mormons, including getting a tour of the new convention chamber thing they got. it is the largest indoor religious structure in the world or something. an auditorium that sat 21,000 a roof top with six acres of plants, a giant choir and religious leaders puplit made from the wood of a single cherry tree from pennsylvania, cheesy paitings from the 70's worth millions, drained river fountains, phonebooths everywhere amidst the class and luxury, 50-100 couples getting married a day outside thew temple. then we walked to the musuem cause i wanted to check out the transcriptions joe smith made of the golden plates. we were able to find a single page displayed. after that we walked to another holy site, a new mostly outdoor mall near the old train station. i sat near this fountain while joshua and tom walked through the virgin megastore and barnes and nobles handing out last minute fliers for the show. this fountain was the sister fountain of the olympia one that gave me the inspiration for my next rock band, to be dubbed either "soggy lazer fountain" or "pacific science center." hopefully with members of b-18, sears catalog and [mute]. it is all about creating something that is easily passed off by cool kids and other ignorantes but that appeals to the child, the pure, the innocent with moisture, symmtery, violence, rythym... anyways, there is a lot more to it, it is another unifying theory, etc... now we are back at toms house after watching the kids get pounded by a five minute rendetion from this fountain of "god bless america." (the kid seemed to enjoy the fountain more when it wasn't trying to sing and be so patriotic). tom just ate a mushroom. we are gonna go visit a utah liquor store soon and then grab some food before the show. should be a fun one tonight at kilby court. drew danburry might stop by after his show tonight...

yesterday we were in denver. got into to town at like 5pm. had to call lisa at breakdown books to get directions via city bus to the bookstore/collective. it was a smooth one transfer trip, hardly any layover. got there in 20 minutes. had to take a free bus through the 16th street mall, a hip urban shopping area like westlake that spread along the street for a couple miles. got to the book store relatively early, especially comapred to everyone else. chris, aka bad weather california, showed up about 9pm. the show started at 7pm supposedly. i played first to like six people, since joshua was beinng diffcult and considering not playing at all. so i went first. then joshua went, to about 10 people. chris played to finish the night and right before he started about 12 more people showed up. despite the late crowd, it was a fun show. i loved playing through the amp they had there. wish i could have brougbh that torquois demon with me. it sounded sweet. i can't wait to get a bio-diesel vehicle and be able to actually tour with such things in tow again.... the collective was rad, had all the typical anarcho-bookstore/collective things. they are doing a bike-in outdoor movie series this summer and i want to try and come play before a movie night, the "journey of natty gan" movie night to be exact. such a good movie. one more awesome relic from 1985. the jar got passed around and me and joshua had 26 bucks to split after the show, which was one highlight, i guess. i was just a little frustrated about the whole no one shows up on time thing (which happens everywhere) and about having to go first because joshua was being difficult.... but here we are today, thorwing waterballons out the windows at people... after the show last night we went with chris and his friend to a diner. got some pie, and fries and grilled cheeses. good times. really nice people, despite their tardiness... okay, i gots to go toss some ballons...

2005-05-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

so last night was our show in forth worth at 1919 hemphill. rick turned out to be a lot nicer and more animated than in our mishappened email contacting. the collective place was pretty big and relatively cheap for them to rent... and big... (more soon)...

the night ended well. tony gave us a ride to the bus station, but before that we stopped by a neighborhood bar near the bus station. it was pretty classy looking and a sign at the door said they only take texas id's. tony scopped the juklebox though and they had plenty of quality cuts including mazzy star, modest mouse, and plenty of newer indie hits. we sat at the bar and meet a really nice bartender who used to own a music club in town. he had picked the jukebox albums. we each got a lonestar. joshua asked if they sold food there and they didn't but, hey the dude had five deluxe sandwiches from starbucks that some dude dropped off and also some strawberries. a nice fucking meal. free. we chatted with the 40 year old bartender at molone's bar for a bit finished our beers and hit the station.

2005-05-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

alright. it is 10am, about 24 hours after we pulled into austin from little rock, and i am rocking austin style hanging out at tony presley's listening to my favorite cut from the seattle band anybody human, "one night stand." so good. in a couple hours we will drive north to forth worthand me and joshua will be that much closer to home... last night weplayed a house show at this kid michaels. really nice, really nice kid. we traded tom robbins books (skinny legs and all for still life with woodpecker). he is into a lot of the indie, west coast songwriter k stuff and had some mass rare records. and a lot of smiles. nice guy. anyways, the show started like two hours late, an every growing tendency, with michaels roommate stewart playing a few songs off the cuff. good voice and pop songs. would have liked to seen more of him the rest of the night, but he seemed to stay out back of the house with his girlfriend. then dan solomon performed, and it was really nice to hang out with him and see him throw some words down. his performance was a lot more solid than the last time i had seen him and got me kind of amped up. joshua went next and had a good set. the pa was sounding good for his style and guitar and such. than fine:fifteen (whom had arrived late on the scene due to work) asked if they could go next and tony gave them the go ahead. i guess one of them had some studying to do, though they both (very nicely and professionally) did wind up sticking around for the whole night. it was a two woman duo with accordian and guitar. good songs, interesting vocal style. poppy stuff, with some old school stylings. i went next, and it was a fun set. i think i was a little more engaging and funny than awkward for once in a blue moon. of course, everytime i feel like i just had a good set, i tend to get the least response from people. and when i think a show is gonna go crappy, it usually turns out real good. anyways, played the political songs and the tony presley/blair harris/bill clinton hit. after me, tony played a too short set of new songs and it was awesome. really, really dig the new goods. and the acoustic vibe. we ended the night with the two of us doing a cover of sunflowers by low, which was fun and rough. there were about 14 people that came to the show and tony passed around a milkjug a few times and me and josh made ten bucks each. then, michael said he would buy all our albums for 20 bucks, which was way to fucking nice of him, especially since he already bought some community beer for us all. nice kid, i tell you. he is in this band called "a bear," check it out. after the show, tony had promised to show us the austin night scene. we wound up going to two bars that were pretty near (the "hole in the wall," which reminded me of the brotherhood in olympia, and another bar that felt a lot like the 3b tavern). it was late, so we didn't have much time to explore or drive around... maybe this morning... i am drinking a lonestar beer right now. it is ten am.

2005-05-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

i don't know if i should post this, but it (however truly real/significant it is) is starting to bug me a lot. i will try and clarifiy it better soon, but here is what i rambled to a friend via email to central america today:

"today we play at belvedere park on the banks of the arkansas river, which is a lot bigger here than it is colorado where it almost killed me a few years ago. i wonder how long it took that water there in colorado that we were near when the accident happened to travel all the way here. perhaps, there is a stick or something tumbling in the current that just arrived in little rock, after traveling the last 3 years down stream and we will remeet it today... i am having an artistic crisis. it would seem that there is some famous band that started in bellingham who has a lead singer that i am trying to copy and sound exactly like. this KILLLLLSS me. i hate it so much, helen. so much. for the record, if i am any sort of rip off artist, i am a built to spill (theres nothing wrong with love era) ripp off. it was driving home from the hospital where my step father had just passed away at four am with the windows down singing llong to that album that i "found" my voice. which is simply to say that after ten years of singing horribly along to nearly every song i heard, especially while crying myself to sleep to the 92.5 KLSY easy soft favorites, that the singing part start to well, work? i guess... regardless i have been singing nearly like this since then. argh. and now people pass off my music and don't give the songwriting a chance becuase i am OBVIOUSLY trying to ride the gibbard coat tail into stardom. this is an assumption, but after six years of touring as an musician from bellingham, washington and noticing certain patterns in certain reactions to my music, i know this to be true at least some of the time. and it fucking kills me. if any of it is ben gibbard related, it is that we listened to the same artists and loved the same music while growing into our own songwriting (something i have talked to him about)... what to do, helen? despite my strong, strong allegiance to artistic sincerity and love for art that is the most unfiltered, unaltered, unperverted coming from wherever through the human artist channel and out into the world, i am seriously considering concertedly singing different, altering things in order to not sound like some dude who is famous. perverting it on purpose, sacrificing the sincerity of it in order that the song, thing to be communicated, is more approachable for a certain cohort of people hearing it. hmmm..."

2005-05-05T06:40:00.000-07:00

me, joshua and brendon are hanging out at the brand new, lush UofK library here in kentucky. it is finals week, i guess. last night was a fun park show put on by anthony and randi with some lcoal punk kids playing and listening. there was FNB dinner right when we got there which was awesome, even though we got pretty loaded up on food at the free kitchen in bloomington before we left. the show went into the nighttime darkness, and it got a bit chilly but most the kids stuck around to hear everyone played. we play with locals amanda muse and also sarah coleman. sarah has an awesome voice and a GOOD knack for punk/pop melodies. this really awesome duo from west virginia also played, pretty straight-forward punk songs with all the topical themes us liberals and them radicals have come to know. i forgot there name right now, but... anyways, brendon is driving us again today, which will be awesome since we are traveling through the hills of west virginia appalachia... this morning was beautiful, as was the drive yesterday. it seems that spring has finally arrived just in time for our shwos in the deeper, wetter, hotter south. nice, nice.... at least we have a couple more east coats dates and hopefully a visit with "the man who is jimes" tonight in baltimore... anyways, see you guys soon. oh! and i put together the tour itinerary finally. here are most of the details for where we have been and where we still have left to go. come say hi if you can!

april 15th @ Underground Coffeehouse (Viking Union at WWU, Bellingham, WA) 8pm
with tony presley, purrbot

april 16th @ D Street (1801 D St, Bellingham, WA) 5pm
with moster dudes, pussgut, glamorous transparent pat, tony presley, purrbot

april 17th @ Le Voyeur (4th Ave, Olympia, WA) 10pm
with tony presley, purrbot

april 22nd @ Club Live (2118 Atlantic Ave, Virginia Beach, VA) 7pm with centreline, sayonara tiger, the hint, action toolbelt

april 23rd @ Monarchs Tavern (39th and Hampton Boulevard, Norfolk, VA) 6pm with autumns disaster, more...

april 24th @ Ragtimes (19 W Market St, Arlington, VA) 9pm
open mic night

april 25th @ 1619 House (Williamstown, NJ) 7pm
little light, needles

april 26th @ DAY OFF

april 27th @ Devons House (329 paper mill road, Newark, DE) 8pm
with the metrosexuals

april 28th @ Charm City Art Space (1729 Maryland Ave, Baltimore, MD) 7pm with drew danburry, rhythmandfall

april 29th @ The Iron Saddle Saloon (137 E South St, Akron, OH)
with 4star radar, barium

april 30th @ Totally Awesome House (724 N. Main, Ann Arbor, MI) 7pm Totally Awesome Fest Day 3 with viking moses, grey lights, actual birds, hot meat for young lovers, more...

may 01st @ Ugly Mug Café (317 W. Cross St, Ypsilanti, MI) 7pm
with danjer danjer and viking moses

may 02th @ The Junk Shop (3659 S Hoyne, Chicago, IL) 10pm
with viking moses, shelley short, john bellows

may 03rd @ Relaxation Center (804 S Roger St, Bloomington, IN) 7pm with the impossible shapes, viking moses, odawas

may 04th @ Woodland Park (Lexington, KY) 5pm
with sarah Coleman, amanda muse, viking moses

may 05th @ Mojo Room and Lounge (4825 Belair Rd, Baltimore, MD) 9pm with Viking Moses, more...

may 06th @ Club Live (2118 Atlantic Ave, Virginia Beach, VA) 8pm
with tenwatch shindig, silent film, waking state

may 07th @ Devons House (Atlanta, GA)
with dustin and the furniture, skyland point, oxygen booth

may 08th @ TBA (Arkansas)

may 09th @ Belvedere Park (Rivermarket & Clinton) 5pm
with blair harris, the things that always explode, the american princes

may 10th @ Michaels House (406 west 37th street, Austin, TX) 8pm
with dan solomon, tony presley, fine: fifteen!

may 11 th @ 1919 Hemphill (1919 Hemphill, Fort Worth, TX) 6pm
with dan solomon, tony presley and ten tin feet

may 12th @ Breakdown Collective/Books (1409 Ogden St., Denver, CO) 7pm
with bad weather california (formally the love letter band)

may 13th @ Kilby Court (733 S 330 W, Salt Lake City, UT) 8pm
with the transcendentalists, sons of guns

may 14th @ Union Hall (208 E Main, Missoula, MT) 6pm
with no-fi soul rebellion, the robot ate me, 1985,
old shoes, oblio joes, the conversation, aheartlesssolution

may 15th @ Tyson and Jenn's House (313 S 4th W, Missoula, MT) 6pm
with old shoes, annie j and the radiant murmur, purrbot

may 16th @ TBA (Boise, ID)

may 17th @ Rock Coffee (920 W 1st Ave, Spokane, WA) 8pm
with vindikat

may 18th @ Jarrod & Emilys House (823 Hood Street, Port Townsend, WA) 8pm
with the solvents, more…

may 19th @ Bay Street Coffeehouse (1302 Bay Street, Bellingham, WA) 8pm
with the solvents, matt hopper

may 20th Causland Memorial Park (8th St & N Ave, Anacortes, WA) 6pm
with the solvents and hopefully the gift machine, murder mtn, more

may 21st @ Fairhaven Courtyard (WWU, Bellingham, WA) 7pm
with Jason Webley

2005-05-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

i know the second i start typing this brendon and joshua are gonna show up (i am currently at the library waiting for them to pick me up so we can drive to lexington). anyways, last night we played an awesome and super fun show at the relaxation center here in bloomington. the people of the house were really nice and hospitable and a lot of kids came out to the show and came down to the basement to watch the music inbetweening partying upstairs. joshua started the show off, and then me, brendon, the impossible shapes (the main dude solo, though) and odawas concluded the evening. everyone played really well and i enjoyed the local bands music. it was news to both me and joshua that secretly canadian and the impossible shapes and odawas were all from bloomington. joshua is a big fan of secretly canadian and the impossible shapes as well. everyone seemed to be drinking miller high life. bloomington reminds me a lot of what pullman would be like if the city of bellingham's 70,000 people sat next to WSU there, instead of the 15,000 locals there are there now. it is like bellingham alot, but with a big university and environs that are really similar to the oasis in the desert that pullman/moscow are. i am excited to come back again and visit. today we head to a park show in lexington, kentucky with food not bombs and kickball and skateboarding... hopefully we will ge there in time for some dinner foods...

2005-05-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

alright. well, we are what, nearly two weeks into this tour? and no update from our fairy godslands. tour has been well. a little on the poor side at times, a little on the vacant side some times, but well... we are in bloomington, indiana today and chilling at the library right now. it is a nice city, seemingly. it will be awesome to meet some local kids and see what keeps them busy. this is day four with viking moses. brendon rented a car, so it is almost like we aren't really touring together.... i mean, we are playing shows, but so much of the touring together thing is driving from show to show experiencing the in betweens and such...

we were in chicago last night. may 2nd. this nice kid alex put together a show for us at his house, where he has shows often, which was basically a cornerstore turned into a residence. with a huge living space and a huge basement show space. despite the fact that there had just been a big several day annual festival in town, and another all-ages show earlier in the evening AND it was a monday night show starting at 10pm. the first two local acts had a nice crowd (shelley short from portland originally and this kid joshua bellows), as did joshua and brendon... alas, the 1985 performance to the remaining for kids got shortened by pissy neighbors. i was a little disappointed by it but, oh well... those things happen... chicago was nice and spring-chilled, the buildings as big as ever...

oh, alexes house/space rented for 700 bucks total. wow.
more later, i hope...

2005-05-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

so may 1st was a night at the ugly mug in ypsilanti, mi which is really close to ann arbor. it was nice to finally be able to hang out here for awhile, since it has always seemed like an awesome college town and some people likened it as such to bellingham. of course, the university here dwarves WWU both in size and olden grandeur. we crashed at the totally awesome house, which though they were supposed to be all moved out, was still pretty trashed from the festival and a years worth or tornado creative enterprise. those kids are rad and i really hope they get there deposit back and that people get there things moved out and cleaned up before the landlords come a knocking. ..late sunday night (we crashed there two nights) joshua was playing some chessy riff on a guitar and we came up with a tribute song for the house... i think the lyrics were like:

"totally awesome is totally
out of debt and finally
free to float amoungst the clouds
free to finally sing aloud:
totally awesome. totally."

patrick did a verse and we tried to get jason to as well, but to no avail. that song will be recorded. it was a fun one.... the show sunday night was at the ugly mug cafe in ypsilanti with danjer (formally danjer danjer, and still a play on the first anmes of the two dudes in the band: DAN and JERmey). the coffeshop was pretty cool, seemingly located in the a building that used to be a cornerstore/gas station. me, joshua and brendon went first and everyone played good sets through dans portable yet awesomeable pa system. the show was supposed to go from 7-9pm and we thought that they were gonna let it run late, but by the time brendon got done it was almost 9pm and the owner was wanting us to get out. danjer decided to do some songs out in the parking lot (cold parking lot, mind you, as all of the east has been late winter cold while our home in the NW has been a nice mild 70 degrees. it even snowed on our way to chicago the next day). the danjer songs kept those remaining warm on the street for a good time and it was awesome that patrick and jason and some other kdis from the night before showed up to support the show and hang out. we went and chilled at a friendly house afterwards, chatting and eating macaroni with beans and peanut butter before the four of us (pat, jason, joshua and i) crammed into a pickup and drove back to ann arbor. (stopping for doughnuts and coffee along the way). jason and patrick had a lot of work to do at the house still. i would up passing out for a nap that turned into a full nights sleep and was unable to help them much with there quest.

oh, and during the day me, joshua and brendon walked around ann arbor, looking for records, books, burritos and computer access. the mission was a success. and we made it (via scenic side routes in brendons rental) to ypsilanti just in time for a drink and then the show... more soon...

2005-05-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

back to the future, again i guess... some recollections...

ann arbor on the 30th was a lot of fun. it was the third day of the totally awesome fest. the final night of music, celebrating the kids and shows that have happened there over the last year and some. it was good to see patrick elkins again, he is one of my favorite peoples. and jasons voss to, though i have this sneaky suspicion that he hates me or something. but not really, i just like to imagine that he hates me... sometimes i equate silence with distaste. its an insecurity... anyways, the night was awesome, as to be expected, and there was a lot of kids, though i guess mot as much as the first two nights (people were tiring out). we played with a handful of locals (including melting moments, actual birds and hot meat for young lovers) and it was our first show with brendon aka viking moses. luckily the hot meat set, which concluded the night, did't end with patrick jumping off the roof to his doom. he was already pretty banged up from other physical activities. the mic stand accident months ago in bellingham at the jimes show is starting to make sense these days... btw, that live jimes set (in all its naked glory) will be seeing a co-release on masa records and we're twins records. we are all way excited about that...

2005-04-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

I think Matt Fu is on the east coast. He called me via an intermediary when I was at work yesterday. And he PM'ed me on myspace, also when I was working. Have you ever gotten a call from Matt through http://www.ip-relay.com/index.htm It is creepy. Matt types words and some operator speaks them to me over the phone. Then I speak to the operator and he types the word for Matt. It is only slightly more creepy when "Matt" leaves a voicemail through the service. Well, it is Matt's words, but an operator saying them.

Meanwhile:

Jimes is playing a couple of shows in a week or so. You probably do not live where the shows are, but maybe you know somebody who does live in these cities and maybe you could tell them about the show. Neither of these are your typical rock show:

Thurs. 4/28: Totally Awesome House, 724 N. Main, Ann Arbor, MI.

Sat. 4/30: East River Bar, 97 South 6th St. Williamsburg-Brooklyn, NY.

Thursday, April 28, Jimes is playing in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the Totally Awesome Fest at the Totally Awesome House. That is the first day of the three day festival. Activities will be happening each day from noon until 2 am. Activities include workshops and lots and lots of awesome music. Semi-details here: http://www.totallyawesome.org

Then I will be riding a bus and a train to make it to Brooklyn, NY for a book release party on Saturday, April 30. My friend is publishing a wonderful work of non-fiction. Details: http://www.pubertypress.com (do not block the pop-up)

I am MCing the book release party and playing a few songs. There will be three other bands, FREE BEER, books, FREE BEER, a black midget stripper, books, free tattoos, FREE BEER, books, a pinata, books and FREE BEER. The show is at the East River Bar: http://eastriverbar.com

Of course Jimes has a website as well: http://www.geocities.com/cowjimes

These shows will feature the debut of the new Jimes. In other words, I will be doing Jimes-karaoke by singing along to a CD full of instrumental tracks. Have a good day, Brandon.

2005-03-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

hearing:
modest mouse ~ the world at large

argh. so i am kind of bumming right now. TOTALLY broke. had a fun time, but shitty performance at the DOS last weekend. wasn't able to head to bellingham this morning for a show i booked and was scheduled to play with six amazing other acts. would have been a fun bellingham time, too. am getting over a bad case of feverish delirium. time to make 500 bucks in the next two weeks before tour. really want to play some rock music right now. hawaii may exist, but it still needs to be found.

2005-03-24T02:54:00.000-08:00

GETTING AMPED UP FOR TOUR. THINGS ARE WRAPPING UP AS FAR AS BOOKING GOES... I ADVIZE ALL MASA ARTISTS TO CLICK THAT IMAGE ABOVE AND HAVE THE TIME OF YO LYFE.

-AHS-

2005-03-16T18:31:00.000-08:00

hearing:
a new 1985 song just recorded on his four-track

i would just like to take this opportunity to say that masa records would probably not exist without dan shafer. he was very instrumental and supportive in the early days and his influence is still felt from across the miles. oh, and many masa recordings (including most of the 1985 stuff and the new aheartlesssolution album) were recorded on his four-track that he donated to me, so there is that to be grateful for as well. thanks, dan shafer! everyone shouold check out his webpages and art|work.

2005-03-15T03:53:00.000-08:00

i cant sleep. i am getting so antsy and excited to tour.
so alot has to happen before i leave. i need to: finish the magazine/aheartlesssolution split. i have 1 song to write/record for the aheartlesssolution side. and 2 songs to write/record for the magazine side...

i need a job. yeah. but not too much job. just need money.

I listened to the new LOW album today. fucking brilliant. also have been taking hits off of the new 1985 EP. the RW song is amazing.
30 days. 34 shows in 30 days. fuck. killer. its going to be amazing.

i've been thinking alot lately about what i want to be doing. and i realized. its music. well i've known that. but now that i'm going on the road i want to stay on the road. so i'm going to start booking another 30 day tour for right after the tour with matt.

all i need to make is 400 dollars while on tour to be able to continue. it will happen!!!

the new queens of the stone age song is terrible. mtv is wonderful. so is salad with peas, and tomatoes.
i miss my mom i'm going to call her tomorrow.
I need to start using this thing more often.

show this thursday at 1327 ellis st. aheartlesssolution, jon mcyntire, southerly..
be there or be squared.

2005-03-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

hearing:
aheartlesssolution ~ thumbing and fingerprinting

working on some more masa pages. just wanted to say this new aheartlesssolution song is pretty amazing. i am happy to be hitting the road for a month with joshua. 1985 also just made a big decision to go from the four -string acoustic bit to six-string electric (still in a similar alt-tuning). i was just feeling trapped with the four strings and i am excited to play electric again. for tour, i am working out this set up that uses my four track (meaning i will have backing tracks) and large computer speakers for an amp. anyways, check back for tour dates as it comes together, i know we both hope to see you out there...

oh, and brandon, is it gonna make you made if i keep changing the font back? i hope you won't quit with the updates over it... i say we thumbwrestle!

2005-03-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

hearing:
b-18 ~ distraction
blair harris ~ beneath the surface

so i spent a little time creating webpages for b-18 and blair. b-18 also has a myspace account now. check that shit! ...it's warm out.

2005-03-09T13:22:00.000-08:00

What the future holds for Jimes:

Shows in April:

Ann Arbor, MI on the 28th part of the Totally Awesome Fest

Brooklyn, NY on the 30th, release party for a book written/published by my friends

Possible Jimes "Greatest Hits" Live CD

Maybe work on a solo (Jimes) album

2005-03-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

hearing (in my head):
secret stars|genealogies

so it has been a hella busy weekend visiting with a lot of masa folks and also trying to get the website and 1985/aheartlesssolution tour into gear. friday night me and mutebox matthew hitched a ride with our bellingham friends goldstar down to olympia for a show at the voyeur with bret philips (the man who recorded the hopefully-soon-to-be-mixed sears catalog record) and palisades. the show was a lot of fun and it was good to see oly friends so quickly after being there before. in the morning i drove elijah from palisades car back up to kent and hung out at home for awhile before busying into seattle to try and hang out with joshua (AHS) and go to the final jimes show of the NW tour. busses were late, missed josh, but caught the awesome jimes show (brandon's hair-do was actually pretty awesome, too bad he has to cut it so he can get a job). after that i bussed to capital hill and hung out with b-18 for awhile before bussing back to kent. sunday found me at home trying to get a bunch of webstuffs done and trying to figure out if i was going to bellingham sunday or monday morning. i was also abel to chat with blair, via the myspace IM'er which allows you to slap/kiss the person you are talking to, about coming out to record and a webpage and such. during that time i also fielded calls from matthew, joshua and eli. busy. i think me and my aunt described it best, it's like all my balls are up in the air... and they all happen to be invisible as well. wish me luck that nothing gets broken.

2005-03-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

Jimes show in Seattle on 3/5: The opening bands were great (Katherine Hepburn's Voice and The Way It Is). Plus, it was nice to reunite The New Death Show to play as Jimes. The last show I played in Seattle before moving to DC six months ago was at this house, so it was fitting. And it was a cookie party! People actually brought cookies to share. Seattle is cool. I guess it is time to go back to DC now.

2005-03-06T07:21:00.000-08:00

Jimes show in Bellingham on 3/4: This show was wonderful. Great Guy, Seattle's one and only unemployed super hero opened the show. For some reason, people loved the bastard. He has a song for sale on ebay at the moment, if you win the auction the song is about you. Search ebay for "great guy song." He is also at myspace: www.myspace.com/greatguy and he is a horrible barber. I mention this because during the Jimes set, I offered to let people cut my hair, as long as they gave Great Guy a little money, because he is broke. He made about $10 plus $5 Canadian, he also paid money to himself for the honor of cutting my hair, and then butchered my heard with scissors worse than he could have done with clippers. Whatever. At the end of the Jimes set we brought out a pinata. That was cool. I had filled it with free items from Wendy's in Olympia, but the cops shit that down, so I saved it for Bellingham. I was pleasantly surprised that the place was packed, especially with the big show happening upstairs and the drag show also on campus.

2005-03-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

Jimes show in Olympia on 2/27: Quite a night. The Punks played first...they are going places. The Geese played next, a few people even danced. Then Mind Your Pig Latoya played. The cops showed up when Jimes was setting up. A noise complaint was called in from three blocks away, it was about midnight. So The Way It Is played a quiet set in the living room and Jimes followed. A quiet electric guitar and a drum machine. It was nice. Bellingham, you are next! And the Seattle show is now a show and cookie party, so bring some cookies.

2005-02-25T02:18:00.000-08:00

hung out with matthew (of mutebox fame) today in downtown kent. goodtimes. he got pho on meeker and i got a side of rice. then we went to his victim impact panel which was an experience. he also okay'ed a MASA release of the mutebox cd. awesome. so look forward to that soon... 1985 has a show in olympia tomorrow. it will be good to see those friends... hope you are well! website should be updated in a day or so...

2005-02-19T22:31:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my first update on my new masa blog. I fear making my first entry right now because I am far too tired. Umm..so..current events:
--my cd (my name is blah) was released by masa on valentine's day.
--I had a show scheduled last night, but it was then cancelled.
--I should have some shows coming up soon
--I will morph into a walrus soon
--I have 4 new songs..and some old songs that didn't make it onto the first CD
--I am very happy to have joined masa.

anndd... that's about all for now. maybe not really at all, but I'm sleepy.

signed,
livergirl

2005-02-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

testing testing this is joshua. i go by aheartlesssolution when i play music. I'm really happy with the new recording thats out on masa. its free so download it. or stream it. i know i enjoy streaming the other masa releases on archive.org....
played the songwriter going away show for stuarts last night. was a pretty awesome bill full with my favorite local songwriters. we're all pretty good friends and it was a real sappy moment that i know, i wont forget.

talks being made for turning my tour into a 1985/aheartlesssolution tour... another 21 day tour for matt?

also, try liquid charge. if your not 21, have your parents buy it for you. its better than sparks. just ask matt.

2005-02-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

hey, so i will try to fill in the gaps from the tour diary (both DC and RNC) soon. also, i would like to welcome joshua (a heartless solution) and blair harris to the masa family, both of them just released albums on masa and you can check them out for free on line... more details soon. masa just released six new albums on valentines day. awesome!

2005-02-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks to MASA Records, I can tell you the following:

Hello, I have a new (FREE!) CD and some shows to tell you about. Analbum I recorded six months ago is ready for your ears. The soundquality is out of this world; as for the song-quality, you will haveto let me know. The album, "Jimes Less than or Equal to Music,"consists of the 10 songs from "In the Casino" recorded with actualpeople along with 5 more songs. Three of the other songs were recordedwith the "Jimes rock band" line-up shortly after the shirtless Stuartsperformance, if you know what I am talking about. A fourth song is thestudio version of "Robot Porno" and the final song on the album is thedirection I am taking Jimes in the future: lounge/karaoke stylings forsolo performance. You can download all 15 songs for free at http://www.geocities.com/cowjimes That is the "official" Jimes website. It also lists three FREEupcoming shows in the northwest. I typed them for you here as well:

Sun, February 27, 7 pm at a house Olympia, WA, 110 Division st nw,with the Punks, the Geese and Mind your Pig Latoya
Fri, March 4, 8 pm in Bellingham, WA at the Underground Coffeehouse(WWU), with Great Guy (an unemployed super hero)
Sat, March 5, 6 pm at a house in Seattle, WA, 4757 18th ave NE (secondfloor, use side/alley entrance), with The way It is and KatharineHepburn's Voice

If you want a "hard copy" of the new album, I will sell it to you for $5 at the shows. Or write me back and we can work something out overthe internet. If you can make it to any of the shows, I will see youthere, because I plan on being there. If you cannot make it to theshows, I guess our reunion will have to wait.

Things are okay in DC. I will be out here for a year from now, then who knows what's next. I have a few days left as an intern at the JaneGoodall Institute. Then who knows what's next. Have a good day, Brandon.

2005-01-31T13:58:00.000-08:00

so our bus ride wasnâ€™t too bad today and we got into Pasco around 2pm. Oliver was there to pick us up and we headed out in his pick-up truck. the drive to Walla Walla was about 45 minutes and me and Tony were grateful both for both the rides Oliver gave us to and from. we hit up a taco stand before our trip to Walla Walla and Oliver had some tongue/.it was an amazingly warm day for eastern Washington in January, probably the warmest and sunniest day we had seen all tour. the entire day and evening, in all our travels around town, that familiar eastern Washington romantic pull was hitting me hard. I need to move over here sometime and write a book or record an album or something (I am not going count the stars and mountains ASS album). we stopped by the Gillians Island halfway house and dropped our shit off. the house was super awesome and I guess somewhat legendary around town (though they hadnâ€™t done any shows there in awhile). the old tier of roommates that had started the shows and the house had all moved out and later in the evening, right before the show, we were able to meet all the new roommates as they were finishing up a house dinner. I think the best use for main, wood-floored downstairs would be to have a roller-derby rink. the kitchen, living rooms and four-staired hallway all made a nice, pretty wide circle that would be awesome to race around (especially the up-then-down stairs). we then headed over to Olivers apartment and met his roommates and dropped some things off there. it was the upper floor of a larger house and a nice apartment at that. I guess the rent is really cheap. we then decided to walk to campus and try to take advantage of some wi-fi action outside the library/dorms. the walk was beautiful, as was the campus, and it felt a lot like a warm late fall day. I was having a hard time not falling in love with the place and kept trying to remind myself that the weather was a fluke, as probably was any other glamour. we hung out up there for a bit on the big lawn near most the campus buildings. Oliver kept bumping into people he knew and eventually Kate, whom we were to share the bill with that night, walked by. we met here and walked around campus some more, checking out the new science building and the theatre arts building. the theatre stage was immense, and took up more space than all the seating in the theatre, the backstage was even bigger and quite the labyrinth. this was Olivers home turf. after that we walked to the student building, which was either new or newly renovated, and checked out the campus coffeehouse and the radio station and such. then it was time to head to the show. Oliver was gonna have to come back up to campus for an hour for rehearsal right in the middle of the show, and he wound up missing both me and tonyâ€™s sets. the roommates took off right as we showed up, a few others remaining behind, yet hidden upstairs for the whole evening. Kevin was supposed to do a set of his music, but apparently he was very sick. that seemed fitting to tony. kate was there though and she played a four songs. not before this nice kid, who came with two friends, jammed for a bit before the show and we rocked some sing-alongs. by the time I played there were six people there outside of me, tony and Kate. it was a funtime, though, and me and tony made the best of it (tony had a little harder time since this was the second time he had a poor show in Walla Walla). the kids there were nice and I gave away a few cdâ€™s and we made 1.50 in donations. rock. Oliver showed up after tony was done and, apparently, the elusive Kevin had shown up during the end of tonyâ€™s set, though he didnâ€™t feel like introducing himself and took off before we had a chance to met. we decided to go back to Oliverâ€™s house and make some food, rather Oliver make us some food. his roommates had just rented Garden State which we watched while Oliver made some dinner. I was happy to see that their household was way into the Mate (they had two gourds), as one of the roommates was from Argentina. Garden State I found a little disappointing, though I need to see it again. I didnâ€™t think the editing was smooth enough and at times the movies seem to pluck its aesthetic appeal (with shot angles, silences, facial expressions and vocal patterns and tones) from other mainstream indie hits of the last five years. I was unable to pay attention to the ending, which I heard kind of sucked anyway. there was a few subtle things I really liked, most among them the fact that the bathing suit Sam is wearing when she is swimming is two piece with a pink bottom and a burgundy top. later in the movie, when the three of them are on their mission towards the abyss, Sam is wearing a pink hoodie and main-dude is wearing a burgundy one. the dinner was much better and shortly afterwards we hit the sack.

I woke up early again, like every morning, and was able to get a couple hours of computer time in on Olivers laptop before the house woke up. we milled around a bit and then packed up and hit the road (though the bus didnâ€™t leave until two, Oliver had to be back by one for classes). the drive was filled with debates about windmills and chagrining about spoonerisms. then we said our goodbyes and massive amounts of thank yous and Oliver was gone. me and tony had a few hours so we decided to walk into the downtown area near the bus station, a charmingly latino-dominated few blocks that reminded tony of texas. we had a beer and some lunch at a Mexican joint and then went back to the station. the pasco station is a nice and new affair. right now we are in The Dalles as I type this, our voyage along the Columbia taking a bit longer as the driver will not go over 50 MPH cause his front windshield is breaking and tons of air and pressure are compromising the structural integrity. sorry. I had to say it...

2005-01-30T17:22:00.000-08:00

hey everybody... so we are back in washington state and here for a few final shows together before tony takes off south again for more shows (he is a touring maniac). um, so yeah come out and hang out:

01.30 Gilligan's Island Halfway House, Walla Walla, WA (6:30pm)
01.31 Dunes (1905 NE MLK) Portland, OR (9pm, with The Solvents... Folk The Police Night)
02.01 The Boiler Room in Port Townsend, WA (8pm, The Solvents)
02.02 ABC House (105 Sherman NW) Oly, WA (7pm, donations, with Palisades, The Solvents)
02.03 Stuart's Coffeehouse (1302 Bay St) Bellingham, WA (with A Heartless Solution, The Solvents)

tour journal: www.masarecords.blogspot.com
tony: www.tonypresley.com www.myspace.com/tonypresleyreallivetigers
1985: www.masarecords.com/mr_1985.html www.myspace.com/1985

2005-01-30T08:35:00.000-08:00

I think this is only the second tour entry I have typed that is happening on schedule, right after the shows. We have been in Montana now for two days and have had two of our best shows in Helena and in Missoula. We were on the greyhound for 24 straight hours to get here from St Paul, though the trip was not so bad and the overnight bus not to full. for the first time I took the very back, three seat by the bathroom and we were on a private line carrier, so the bus was a lot nicer. that allowed me to sleep most of the night away, which helped out. after a few layovers and transfers we arrived in Butte, MT around 4:45. the schedule said we got in at 5:45 and it turns out that we had a 45 minute layover at some casino literally two blocks away from the main greyhound station in Butte. It would have been nice to have figured this out earlier, since Tyson (Old Shoes) and Jen (Annie J & The Radiant Murmur), who set these Montana shows up, were going out of their way to come to Butthole Montana to pick us up, and we were gonna be running behind as is. Me & Tony decided just to walk to the Greyhound Station and wait out the hour there. there was not much we could do to get a hold of Tyson and Jen to get them there sooner. I decided to play some guitar and ruminate on Tony (and some dude behind us on the bus) assertion that Butte was an awesome city. I guess it reminded tony of west texas. I didnâ€™t see the lure at all. I decided to try and re-figure out the Racetrack cover I have done in the past and in the process, came up with a nice progression. I can sing â€œthe way things are hereâ€� to the progression, but it is in a different key and pretty different, so I think this is going to be a 1985 song, perhaps incorporating the lyrical theme of the racetrack song. anyways, after an hour, and a bit of watching that shitty movie â€œOpen Watersâ€� (or whatever that new ocean/shark movie was), Tyson and Jen showed up. it was really good to see them, and Emma (Jens road weary car) looked as dismal as ever. It took us a few minutes to find the interstate we needed to take north to Helena, and in those few minutes a pretty fast/witty/sharp/biting/sarcastic tone was set for the trip (I think we overwhelmed our hosts a bit this time). once we got to Helena, it took a few minutes to find The Pattern House. when we pulled up, a few minutes late, we could hear someone playing and it appeared that the show was started without us. The Pattern House is a two-story cafÃ©/coffeeshop nicely furnished and decorated, with all its glossy wood exposed frames and milk white walls. there was a lot of kids, mostly high school, who showed up for the show which was amazingly awesome. the music was upstairs, in this giant room that ran the length of the building and this guy Matt was playing to pass the time before we arrived. he played a lot of good covers and possible a couple originals and his voice reminded me of Travis Morrison, in good ways. we met Reagan, who had set the show up and whose band (Rusty Guns) was playing. Tyson had known Reagan and Ryan (lead guitarist) for a few years. We set up the merch stuff alongside the crafty display that OS/AJatRM have and after Matt played Old Shoes took the stage. It was a great, loud distorted set for Tyson and the kids appreciated his native banter and charm. the room sounded awesome and it was one of my favorite OS sets all-time. after Tyson, Jen did her Annie J thing and it her voice filled the room nicely. She has the kind of voice that you want reading you stories as you go to bed. good shit. It was my turn to go first (me and tony have been alternating) so I set up and was a bit nervous for such a large, young crowd. I quickly destroyed any inkling they might have towards me with some comment about my age, which I thought came out offensively and rude. I was looking forward to having a good set and most of the songs felt alright (I liked the way the PA handled my voice) and people seemed receptive enough. I ended with A Framing, which I had only played twice on tour, and afterwards tony set up his goodnesses. he had a little difficulty tuning for the first song, the instrumental rock out, but his banter was good and people were patient. his guitar sounded pretty dope in the room and it was a good real live tigers set. he wound up cajole-ing one of the rusty guns (ryan) up to play drums on the last two songs, the final song being the instrumental which tony rocked the fuck out of the way he does. I was feeling pretty dumb and self-conscious, like I had bungled up another of our bigger shows, but rusty guns came to the rescue with their alt-country tinged pop songs. twas good shit and all their friends, who had waited patiently in the hot room through all of us, seemed to enjoy it. afterwards, tony sold a couple cdâ€™s and I half-sold a couple and it was decided that we would go get some food before heading back to Missoula. we were trying to get back before the japanther show ended at area 5, so we could pass out some hand bills, but that was looking less and less likely. after driving around for about a half hour trying to find our state highway and kind of looking for food, we were on the road again, highway 12 our route. 12 is a mountainous, two lane highway and I was pretty much rudely freaking out the whole time and eventually just put my head down and tried to sleep (the dark, foggy road reminded me too much of that canyon where me and jonny spilled our shit). anyways, we got back to Missoula and stopped at a diner. I decided just to continue sleeping in the car cause I was pretty tired and I am not sure how long those kids were in the diner caffeine-ing up. we went back to the dorm that tyson and Jen live in and made a game plan for the the morning. me and tony took tysons room, tyson and jen took jens roomâ€¦.

I woke up early so I could try to get some work done on the computer (the last couple times I had had internet access I used it to try and fill in some show dates for us and was neglecting my responsibilities for work and such). I wanted to try and get a little more filled in on the stuarts closure, though the mess about it on the CP board was a little outrageous. I was finally able to cut my inbox in half, and answered like 80 emails, which is a good thing. tony woke up soon after and at noon we called to wake tyson and jen. after some planning and meeting, tony took off for downtown, I took off for a computer lab in the library and tyson and jen hung out. we were to meet back up at 5pm, in case our radio interview came through, and then we were to meet nathan (aka Purrbot) at the burrito joint at 6pm. turns out the radio thing was a go, and we all reconvened in good time. headed to the station, to the local show. it was good to be back at KGBA or KBGA or whatever the hell the call letters are. I believe Nicki was the DJ's name and she was nice enough to let us hang out for an hour and play some cd tracks and i even did a live performance of olive to close our interview out. she was a little sick/hungover from the night before (the talk of the town this day was the japanther show the night before at area 5). we left the station a little late and traveled down to "taco del sol" or whatever it was called. tyson and jen swore by this place and said it mopped up all over banditos in bham (oddly enough, the two of them had still not gone to casa). it was really good and releatively cheap. the place was packed the whole time we were there. nathan was there and had already gotten his goods. we had a nice meal and it was good to meet nathan and such. afterwards, we headed to area 5 and began to set things up and get ready for the show. nathan and tyson had done a great job promoting the show, so we were optimistic that it would go well, despite there being 3 other all-ages shows that night. well, at 8:30 pm we started and there were only a handful of people there. but i took a turn as the doorperson and during tysons set, people started to fill the place. eventually there was like 35 people or so and it was a great crowd in a great venue with great music and great friends. tyson and jen both did amazingly well and they charmed the audience in the end with a duet sing-along to "total eclipse of the heart." tony went next and he had one of his best sets as well. his music does well in the bigger, hard-sounding rooms, echoing nicely. i was a little nervous when i went on next, not because of the crowd, but because i had just seen three of my friends play possibly the best sets i had seen them ever have.... okay. so tyson always bugs me to play whatcom falls, which thankfully i "can't" do with the whole four-string 1985 set-up, but i realized that i had never played the song at all for him and that i should so i started my set off with the song, using tysons guitar, having not even played it in over a year and a half at least. ironically, i was able to remember the lyrics better than i usually do (usually i forget the fuck out them even though this was the first song i ever wrote). good times. in the set, i also decided to try the racetrack-esque cover of "way things are here" which felt really good to play. i really like the progression and have decided to use it (a wholey different meoldy and progression than racetracks version) couple with a somewhat like-sounding vocal melody and some of the track lyrics to make the song about the inaugeration. "whats it worth, these half-filled streets, where we push our way(s), our own beliefs, while they lead that downfall, on the districts(/DC) green mall." hopefully the track wont get mad. it sounds a lot different.... anyways, the set was fun and better than the night before, but still not feeling wholly there the way sets should after 20 days of touring and 8 years of show playing... i dunno, good times. sold a couple cds. gave a couple away... oh wait, yeha, and purrbot played after me and nathans music was shit. such good pop tunes. he accompanied his awesome vocal melodies in turn with a keyboard, a gutar and a backpack guitar. he was a nice dude to boot, which is always a bonus. i need to get this cat to come to bellingham. after the show, we kind of had to bust out of there early cause tyson had nightwatch duty at one of the dorms. i was really tired so i decided to go with tyson and jenn and jenns friend rather than rock it out with tony and nathan and crew. we headed back tot he dorms and milled around a bit by the front desk tyson was anchored, too. i had been pretty exhausted since during nathans set (i wish i could put him on my nightstand like a wind-up and have him sing me to sleep everynight) so i said my goodbyes to tyson and jen and jens friend and peter (whom it was good to see and i was glad he came to our show after his bands -my pal ghosty- set at one of the other all-ages shows). so i went to bed at tysons dorm room and woke to the presley phone call int he morning. him and nathan came by to pick me and all our shit up and then we headed to the greyhound station. the guys had stayed up all-night hanging out with friends and scheming their upcoming tour (don't ask me what one of the names they came up with was)... nathan dropped us off we said our goodbyes and then waited for our relatively short ride to pasco to come...

2005-01-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

I donâ€™t know what it is about northern Ohio, but fuck it all if we donâ€™t always miss our connecting busses. We came in form DC today through a pretty heavy snowstorm and with a driver who was worrying about his breaks freezing up, to arrive in Pittsburgh an hour later than our connecting bus left. Now we are stranded for four more hours and wonâ€™t make it to Akron till 9pm. The show we have in Kent (seven miles away) is a house party/show and it is Saturday night so hopefully that wonâ€™t be an issue. We will seeâ€¦ this is only the second journal entry that I am writing on time, so anything you read older than this I have likely wrote today, here, sitting in the oranges and reds of the wood-walled greyhound restaurantâ€¦

2005-01-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

Sure this is not the "Jimes tour diary" - YET. In the mean time, Matt and Tony did stay at my apartment in Washington DC (actually Silver Spring) for the past three nights. And since neither of them is writing here, I might as well confirm that they are still alive. Matt and Tony are touring via Greyhound. They arrived in DC on the evening of Wednesday, 1/19. We hung out that evening. On Thursday they went down to DC to protest the inauguration, I went to work. Matt and Tony had a good time with the rest of the protesters. They marched. Matt and Tony got separated. Tony watched protesters throw snow balls at the police. Protesters thought Tony was a secret service agent, so did some secret service agents. Tony met me at my apartment after work. Matt showed up a little later. Neither of them got arrested. We hung out that night too, because it is hard to get a show in or around DC, honestly. Then the show they were going to play Friday night in Philadelphia fell through and Matt had a brilliant idea. He went to myspace and did a "show search" for shows happening on Friday within 100 miles of DC. He found about 100 shows and PMed each band; that was around midnight. By 2 am he had received four telephone calls with show offers and even more PMs on his myspace account.

Friday morning we ate Chinese food, it was good. Matt went back to my apartment and sorted out the details of the probably 10 shows he was offered! Tony visited my office (the Jane Goodall Institute). I cam home at five and Matt and Tony agreed that they would play later in the evening at a bar in Sterling, Virginia, 30 miles from my apartment. We showed up and the place was fairly full. The place was also a sports bar at a strip mall. Matt can fill you in on the nice band(s) that put Matt and Tony onto the bill. Matt (1985) played first. His set was well received, by the six people paying attention. The rest tried to talk over him. Tony played next, same results, even though Tony was amplified and tried to make people go deaf with his first song. Matt and Tony got some good respect from a few people there, then the next band played. At this point I went to the bathroom and overheard the following conversation between two dudes, probably in their early 30s. "Good to see that they got a crowd out here tonight." "Yeah. I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to hearing a BAND, you know what I mean?" "Maybe I am getting old, but that last guy (Tony) was FUCKED UP." Anyway, the second band was kind of space-rock-y. A lot of people were there to see them. They were loud (their vocals were peaking/distorting...in my ears!). The bar-owner told them to turn EVERYTHING down DURING one of their songs. They kind of did. The next band played. They sounded similar to the previous band. However, what happened during their set deserves its own paragraph.

Two ladies got into a fight. This was unexpected. I would imagine most times a bar fight is going to happen, you can kind of sense that the bar is a little "dangerous" and "something might happen." The fight apparently came out of nowhere. And it was not "cool." It actually made me sad. It was quick and ugly, but also broken up quickly. The band continued to play. Then, 20 minutes later, one of the ladies from the fight ran back into the bar and attacked the other lady. This fight quickly spread to the entire dance floor. Hair was pulled, drinks were thrown and bottles broken. The band stopped playing and watched. It took about a minute to break it up. Surprisingly, men from the opposing camps did not get into a fight. Not surprisingly, Sterling's TWO sheriffs quickly showed up. The band started again and the evening continued.

The final band of the evening was a "bar/cover" band. Again, Matt can say more about this, but hopefully he will not edit my post except to add band names. On our way out, Tony went up to the lady who had been blind-sided in the fight. He said, "I would never pull your hair." She said, "um, thank you." Tony said, "and I would never throw beer on you." She said, "thank you" again.

I drove Matt and Tony back to my apartment, we arrived at 2 am. Three hours later we woke up and I dropped them off at Greyhound station. It was about 15 degrees outside. They are off to Ohio.

Hearing: the Deer Knifes: "Golly What a Day" album

2005-01-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

Friday Jan 21st (DC & Sterling, VA)

So last night was supposed to be our show with Herbie in Philadelphia, but it turns out (I guess from what Tony says) that Herbie arrived back from tour to find that his housemates didnâ€™t want to do the show. We found this early on the night of the 20th. So, I arrived back from my adventures out at the inauguration to Brandons house and soon began trying to find a show we could get on somewhere within bussing distance of DC. Instead of trying to email bands and find shows at thousands of venues, I got the idea to do a myspace show search for the 21st for shows within 100 miles of DC. about 200 shows were listed and I begin messaging the bands with shows listed. by the end of the night, about 3-4am, I had messaged about 120 bands or so. and by the end of the night we had already gotten 4 phone calls (all after one am) of people willing to help us. that was amazing. I would like to thank all those bands, if any of them are reading this. so by morning time, we had to decide between 5-7 shows that we were all 95% confirmed to be able to play. some shows were in Philly, others in PA. we decided that a show in Sterling, VA would be a good bet because it was close enough that Brandon could go to it and we were gonna try and do an impromptu Jimes set. both the bands whom we chatted with on myspace (one of which called us), Off Transmission and The Manual Hand, were very interesting, moody, often ambient rock bands and they were very nice enough to offer us an opening slot on the bill. So after eating dinner with Brandon and Katherine at a deli/convenient store in the heart of glorious Silver Springs (with all its new tall buildings and bright white lights), the three of us (sans Katherine) headed out to VA. The drive was quicker than we thought it would be and tony proved his title as the trip navigator by maneuvering us through mis-listed streets on our yahoo map directions into the strip mall that the Barefoot Pelican Grill and Pub was at. The place was a typical strip mall bar, with the prerequisite pool tables and sloppy joes and dozen or so TV screens. turns out that there was a third band on the bill, Pelesara, which we were told was a â€œbar bandâ€� and a â€œcover band.â€� we decided I should play first since it seemed that tonys guitar style fit better with the two bands we had heard and plus I was acoustic. after about a half hour of the bands loading in and setting up, I took the small stage and played a short set (eulogy, the leash, olive, november, blue-purple failure). some of the band members paid attention nicely and perhaps a few others out there were trying to listen. though the pa was big, there were no monitors and I could barely hear myself over the crowd. rarely has it happened, but even when I was belting at the top of my lungs (and off the mic a bit) on olive, I was drowned out and it felt like nothing was coming from my mouth. what a weird feeling. anyways, the guitarist for Off Transmission, who was a nice guy and who went on to play some amazing guitar during their set, complimented me about my tunes and asked me if I had heard much granddaddy. I told him I was a fan of software slump and we talked about some indie bands that we both liked. he gave me one of there cdâ€™s and then later I forgot to give him one of ours and didnâ€™t see him the rest of the night. and yeah, Off Transmission really impressed me overall. the rhythm section was really tight and stood out and the guitar leads were ambient and chaotic and driving all at once. the one thing thart stuck out was the lead singers voice, which bellowed a lot and was a bit off key, but for some reason it worked fairly well with the music. the leader singer/guitarist also happened to be the back-up vocalist and bassist for The Manual Hand and the band seemed to share the same gear. I didnâ€™t like The Manual Hand as much, but they were still very interesting often mixing some DC punk vocal styles with some hot retro rock riffs and that cool indie keyboard sound that everyone seems to be going for these days. me and tony had a few drinks before realizing that there was no discount or deal for bands on drinks, which was perfectly okay, but tony was a little upset at the end of the night that he had spent 20 bucks on whiskey sours. we continued to butt heads at the show, and I was trying to postpone discussing any issues we had until we were both sober. Our head butting was not the main attraction, though, as two ladies got in a shoving match during The Manual Hand. one of the ladies was kicked out but returned ten minutes later to muscle herself around the nicely dressed bouncer and pursue her opponent, tackling like 6 people in the course of a minute and breaking at least 5 or six glasses. all of this happened in front of the owner, an older nicely dressed dude who was sitting with a similar couple, who was there for the show that night. turns out that pretty much everyone in the bar, whether muscle jock playing pool, overweight hesher wearing flannel, or indie rock kid with black-rimmed glasses, pretty much went to high school together. the average age seemed about 27. the owner, right before we left while our waitress was sitting for a second chatting with tony while he signed his bill, decided to ream her right in front of us for sitting down which pissed all three of us off. I hate that shit. that is the single most disrespectful thing a manager can do, to discipline an employee in front of their customers. douche. anyways, we decided, after I was convinced to leave my punk principles behind, to leave a song into to the last band, as it was getting late and we had to be to the bus station at 5am. I tried to say goodbye to as much of the band dudes as possible, and my last goodbye was to the really nice bassist of OT. he, obviously, was surprised we were leaving and said that the bands hadnâ€™t gotten paid yet (we werenâ€™t expecting to get any money) and then he tried successfully to give me 30 bucks out of his own pocket. I felt like such a fucking asshole. I decided to share the conversation I had had with him with a drunk tony and brandon as we were walking out the door and that became a heated discussion between me and tony halfway home, until he passed out in the backseat. oh, I forgot. when leaving the house earlier in the day we discovered what appeared to be a bag of mary jane sitting on the stone ledge outside the apartment complex main entrance. we discussed picking it up and bringing it to Patrick Elkins, who was dealing with a bad back injury, several times as we passed it through out the day. but it wasnâ€™t until that night, as it STILL sat there in plain view, that we, well Brandon, decided to snag it. it came to the show with us and back to brandons house. and there we left her this morning as we ran out the door, late again. enjoy the reef, Brandon, but watch out for the sharp corrals, manâ€¦

oh, and before i forget, i would like to give a shout out to Wheeling, VA. which, on the morning we bussed into DC as the sun was rising bright int he misty fogs and on the snowy madness, looked absolutely stunning and classic and beautiful with its big river and its bridges and its older stone highrises... wow.

2005-01-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

we arrived in little rock Are-Kansas around 6pm. it was cold and brisk and the air is wet. we planned on walking the mile or so to the venue and quickly set out. we had about an hour to get there and our firast hurdle was crossing the Arkansas river. this was notable to me since this river, over a thousand miles upstream was the same river me and jonny were traveling along through the Colorado canyon when we hit the rockslide a few years back. the river here, though, is probably twice as wide as even the canyon we were following there. it is a nice bride and little rock I found to be pretty nice looking and seemed to have some money in it. I make the case that it seems to have some liberal character to it, which is a point of contention for most everyone the whole evening. after a struggled walk (it is fucking cold and some of our goods donâ€™t sit well for walking), we make it to Blank Generation, a rather big whole in the wall of a record store and punk mecca in the heart of white-lighted downtown little rock. Sean and Shoni are the owners of the venue and they live in the back and upstairs with their two kids, who were adorable and rather sharp for a couple of half pints. national lampoons Christmas vacation is playing when we arrive but it is soon replaced with pacman. I look through the records, many pretty independent, including a mt gigantic album I almost pick up for five bucks. it is a monday night so there is not much hope for an exceptional crowd and after a while Blair Harris, who is performing that night, shows up with her friend Steven. me and tony order some hot slices, well a whole round pie of them, and about a half hour (prior to pizza arrival) tony sets up and begins the night. the place is rather huge and it seems well-worn with past punk shows and a banged up PA. there is a leak in the 24 foot ceiling that drips throughout the night about ten feet from where we all stood. a handful and some of blairs friends show up before and as tony begins his set. it sounds good in the room after tonyâ€™s set Blair sets up with her electric guitar. she has a nice, mellow stage presence which fits her songs which soon pretty much floor me. good stuff in the line of a early cat power or S and other somber songstresses. I quickly conclude that I would love it if she released something on MASA. after Blair plays I set up and try and play a short set. me and tony sell/give away a few cdâ€™s, and people stick around for a bit to chat. our bus was set to leave a few hours later and tony convince Blair and Steven to hang out for a bit. we trek all the way across town just to hang out at an IHOP in their neck of the woods. good times were had, strawberry syrup was consumed, not enough coffee was consumed, coffeepots were destroyed and stories were shared. and then we made our way back to the busstop, having learned that we just spent what could be considered an â€œexciting little rock experienceâ€� with the kids. I really loved the blank generation and Anthony and Randi and talk to them a bit about having MASA goods there in the future. I really want to find the coolest of cool record stores in various towns and only work with one store per city. blank generation would be perfect. umâ€¦ then we left town for Lexington, Kt. another long bus ride overnight...

2005-01-17T01:34:00.000-08:00

I realized now, as I try to remember what happened just a short week ago on this tour, that it is the bus rides that blend together the most. most our rides have been pretty tame, so I suppose you might not be missing much by me leaving such details out, but there were some sights and some cities that I hope I am able to recall as this diary thing progressesâ€¦ so we headed south and east from Denver and things surprisingly never got much warming. in fact, denton was in the late 20â€™s most of the time we were there. the greyhound station in denton was a small cubicle-like office of an operation and was embedded in TA travel station. we would come to know this station well. we called Joshua when we got into to town and tony had somewhat of a time trying to tell where exactly in denton we were, but about 20 minutesa later Joshuaâ€™s arrived and we made our way back into the townier part of town. this was my first time in texas. it pretty much looked the same as everywhere, america in the night with all the corporate neon lights filling the intersections and nameless streets cross-stiching the suffocated and buried earth beneath the concrete. this is a troubling thing to me, that it is true that denton looks like little rock looks like federal way looks like corvalis looks like Spokane. it is especially true in these flat cities, where there are no outstanding hills to mark the horizon with natural features and attributes. we went to Joshuaâ€™s house quickly and met his mom and hung out for ten minutes. they both were very nice and we were offered a place to stay, but sadly tonight was another night were our bus left too early after midnight to warrant trying to spend a few hours sleeping at someones house. we said goodbye to Joshuaâ€™s mom and then made our way to mable peabodyâ€™s beauty parlor and chainsaw repair. the club, dentons only queer-run music venue, was hidden at the dark end of a small, older strip mall behind a chevron and surrounded by broken down cars. the brown and brittle earth siding was complimented by various adornments of the rainbow on the outside and a big sign which announced the false identity of the place. though a lot of beauty, there was no parlor, and though a few fake cardboard cut-out chainsaws, there was no repairperson. there was the owner, whom though I never officially met, seemed nice and had a good report with her clientele. the bands were both there, tough we wouldnâ€™t really meet them till after the show, and we wondered if people would come out for a sunday night show. I decided to go get some food at the chevron and came back with one of those pickles in a sack (first time ever) and some of those dorritoâ€™s brand jalapeno crackers. love the crackers. donâ€™t love the pickle. we still had some time before show time and though we smiled a lot at what appeared to be band members, still no go on the chatting it up. which was weird. I decided to work on some merch and finally put together the dozen or so â€œdawn treadingâ€� covers I had frantically printed out in the few minutes before leaving home. I still wasnâ€™t sure what I was going to do with the 30 copies of â€œfrom penrose to montroseâ€� I had brought, though I had enough soft-sleeves and boxing tape to do something. by this time the place was actually filling up nicely with people, aka friends of the bands. me and tony were schedule to go between the first and last band. the night was funny as both me and tony use band names, though we are solo, and the first band sounded like a solo project (sara reddington) and the last band, a solo project, sounded (a child-like fear) like some Christian emo band. anyways, sara reddington, a four piece with drums, bass, keys/vox and lead by guit/vox, began their set and I immediately thought of Dame Dulce. this band would go perfect with Dame Dulce if they ever came to Bellingham, though they had less back-up vocals and were a little more constrained than my favorite bham slop-pop band. after sara reddington, I took the stage. Joshua, the self-proclaimed â€œpromo-homoâ€� was achored as the doorman and occasionally the bartender, so we really didnâ€™t talk with him at all till 2am. after sara reddington played first (a condition they gave Joshua to play the show, as some member lived kind of far away for a sunday night show) the 15 or so of their family and friends left pretty hastily, so by the time I started my first song (as tony manned the PA â€“DIY or die!-) there were about 7 people outside of the 12 or so regulars. ouch. but I donâ€™t mind such things and I played a set of tunes (for the most part the sets have been some combination of Eulogy, Pier 57, November, Olive, Blue-Purple Failure, The Leash, Bow Interrupted and occasionally All Is Sun). then tony took the stage and had a lady or two dancing to the jewish hymn. sara reddington was loading out a bit in front of tony and we were both kind of surprised/frustrated that 2/3 of the people in the bar had just left in the course of a minute or two. luckily, and kindly, almost all the members of sara reddington stuck around for the rest of the show and they were pretty nice dudes to talk to. I went to the bathroom right after tonyâ€™s set and when I came back out, a child like fear had taken control over a table and was sitting on top of it with his acoustic guitar. he was doing â€œthat whole thingâ€� and followed the formula by asking people to come sit closer. so there we were, all 6-8 of us sitting around trying to hear ACLF over the noise of the increasingly intoxicated regulars, a few of which had to walk right in front of our parade in order to get to the cheering pool tables. ACLF was awesome, sounding a lot like what you would expect from a modern day kid asking people to scoot in and going sans PA. after his set we chatted it up and thankfully he was not of that annoying socially-awkward sect of such performers who always inevitably wind-up sounding stuck on themselves. the dude was nice, me and tony got some t-shirt action (though I wish that he had had a recording moreso)â€¦ then the drama beganâ€¦.

we had Joshua take us to the bus station and we were gonna sit in the diner for a couple hours putting together some more cdâ€™s and and merch stuffs and then catch our 6am bus to little rock. so we sit there. and then tony went to sit and hang out elsewhere and I continued making covers for â€œfrom penrose to Montroseâ€� (which I decided would just be various portions of the maps from the atlas I had in my bag that was falling apart, laminated with boxing tape (initially it was supposed to be just the map of Colorado with penrose and montrose and the death highway joining them). so I got amped up on coffee for a couple more hours and then went and joined tony. and then our bus pulls up at 6am, me and tony go out to line up. it is cold. we are the only two people boarding. we show the dude our ameripasses and he gives us the no go. turns out this was a private line (Jefferson) and with private lines you need to have an actual ticket printed out, which I knew. whole thing is, though, that the greyhound office there didnâ€™t open up for another two hours. we pleaded with the guy (since this was our only bus that would get us to little rock on time) but no go. we are pissed and frantic. we start scheming and try figuring out if there are any city buses (no) or trains (no) that could get us to dallas before our connecting bus left at 10:30am. we contemplate hitching with one of the dozens of trucks parked outside and tony briefly tries to convince a few drivers near the gas pumps. we realize that one of our only chances might be to call Joshua and beg him for a ride to dallas (40 minutes away). we were not looking forward to that notion. our other option was to convince the officeperson (once they got there) to comp us some taxi rides and we craft a story about how we and our passes have been unjustly treated. nothing at the station said the bus was a private line and we called the 800 number as well and nothing said it then. so I assume control of the spokesperson and we get riled up to try our diplomacy. the office lady comes in, we let her settle in for ten minutes and then I make the case. she gives us the dallas number (she doesnâ€™t have the authority) and discovers that the morning bus was supposed to be a greyhound bus not a private bus. I call the dallas station with our info and the new, convincing info about it not supposed to be a private line and I get a lady who is pretty nice. she puts me on a hold a couple of times (seeming like she might be able to help us) and after five more minutes of holding (and tying up the phone line for the office lady) I realize I have been transered to a national representative, who happens to quickly make herself known as a bitch. she questions whether the bus was really a private line (since they had a greyhound one scheduled) and nearly calls me a liar and treats me like shit from her corporate office somewhere in anywhere, America and then puts me on hold. after 7 or so minutes of hold, I do what she obviously wanted me to do and give in and hang up. at this time, Joshua, whom we had called earlier to see if him and his mom could be our backup plan, shows up. we have a ride and only 45 minutes to make the 40 minute drive. me and tony are exceptionally thankful and grateful as we head out. it is MLK day and the traffic is relatively bad. we try to make small talks, both feeling like assholes for having these nice people get up early and spend 2 hours driving us to where we need to go. we get to the station on time, thank them again, I toss them a 20 dollar bill on top of the ten we gave them and tell them to please go get a nice lunch. a few minutes at the Dallas depot and we are off, set to arrive at little rock at 6pmâ€¦

2005-01-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

we got up with Stephanie at 5 something in the morning and quickly made our way to the downtown greyhound terminal. we said good bye to Stephanie and prepared for our first, long bus ride together. we were to get into to Denver at 6pm or so, which was good timing for us to make it (via a ride from Alicia, whose house it was) to the house for the house show. Alicia picked us up with her mustached friend david and we were on our way. their house was in a cool/nice part of nearly downtown and I was surprised that rent wasnâ€™t more expensive. the main room (dining plus living) was long and wood-floored, which seemed perfect. we hung out for about an hour and a half and there was a liquor run and a few drinks were had. finally, we decided that though there was only five of us hanging out, we would start the music and that Aliciaâ€™s roommate, Dustin, would start the night of and then finish the night off (that way his girlfriend, who was out trying to hook up with their coke dealer, could see some of his stuff). tony encouraged him to do ryan adams covers, which he handled well, though I wish he would have played a few more originals. finally, a few people started trickling in. tony took the stage and his set sounded good on the narrow, hardwood floor. I was in the other room with internet access and a glas of wine for the first two songs. there was now about ten people. tony finished up his set, one of what would come to be characteristically short sets, by my standards, though that is the way that tony likes to work it. I tuned up and such and then played like five or so songs, by this point there were probably 12 people. Alicia had been expecting more, especially since it was a party. Dustin who was watching the mic levels (which were going through an amp of his) sat to stage right and actually did several lines of coke during both mine and tonyâ€™s set, which was fucking hilarious. coke and sparks, man, coke and sparks. though there wasnâ€™t that many people we had a greta time hanging out and chatting it up and then playing a few songs. the thing that sucked the most was that our fucking bus out of town left at 11pm. so basically we were in Denver with some cool folk for about 4 hours. I felt like an ass because of it. Alicia and one of her friends, whom were all over each other dancing and hugging and sometimes kissing (oh, the tone of sexual exploration!), made a last ditch effort to try and get tony to decide to stay the night. I, unfairly and dishonestly, said that I would love to but that tony had set up our show the next day and it was up to him if he wanted to skip it. the ladies pulled tony aside and used some intoxicating tactics to try and convince the presley, but the presley was not convinced. david, the only somber one of the bunch, than drove us with Alicia back down to the greyhound station. and that was our four hour trip/layover in Denver. we got back on the bus with a lot of the same people who were trekking from SLC and began our 20 hour busride to Denton texas, home of the legendary Grant Cross and, well, some other shit.

2005-01-15T20:25:00.000-08:00

hearing:
tony presley's traditional jewish song

we are in denver, in a predominately jewish household of drunken coke-fiends. honestly though, they are great. really nice folks. i wish we could stay past 11. we got here at 6. fuck. not much time to type.... talk more soon? tomorrow, the home of grant cross.

2005-01-15T05:38:00.000-08:00

Jan 14th (Salt Lake City, UT)

the family took me to the seattle greyhound station around 7pm last night after a sleepless and hectic couple of days of trying to tie things up on the work and home front and trying to get things ready for the tour. I wound up not being successful enough at all that and will have some home-work to do from the road. as far as merch things. I did not get stickers made. I was able to burn about 25 copies of Dawn Treading and I brought about 30 copies of the A Sandcastle Still album â€œFrom Penrose To Montrose,â€� which I had just been sitting on. Neither of the album cases/design were done for the records, minus like 10 Dawn Treading albums. gonna have to do that from the road as well. got to the bus station, said goodbye to the fam and got in line for a 21 hour bus ride to Salt Lake City. I was set to arrive at 6pm. the ride was long, obviously, and I wound up sitting to this interesting lady from Arkansas named Jacqueline. we didnâ€™t really get to talking until the morning time, and see was a chatter mouth the whole way out. we first talked about her health, as she was a 50 year old lady who had 2 to 3 brain aneurisms and whom the doctors, after riskily poking and prodding at her brain for a few year, had told that she could die at any time. she had the type of aneurisms that are almost always fatal. she also had two boys who were a little less than my age and we were soon talking at length about her feisty upbringing and her family and husbands and such. she was still a smoker. she had her shoulders reconstructed. and many more details. I was not much in the talking mood most of the time, but we wound up being friends and as we approached Utah she began to slide in religion to the mix. though not tide down to one church, she belongs to the â€œend of timesâ€� crowd and considers herself a devout student of the bible. she is against abortion and against gay marriage, though one of her sons is gay. as we stumbled through our held beliefs and passions, I discovered that she was pretty open mind about things and adhered to the â€œgod is the only judgeâ€� slash â€œit is not for me to sayâ€� crowd. she was surprised, due to how silent I had been I guess, at how much I myself was a student of the bible, though in a different school, and about my political and religious beliefs in general. Jacqueline wants to be cremated and, though sheâ€™s a bush supporter, wishes me luck in DC. she gave me her address and said to contact her if I get stuck in jail. she would not be the only one to be bringing up the end of times. it seems to be on the minds of a good many greyhounding folk these days, in part due to the recent tsunami. I myself, realized (and was surprised I hadnâ€™t come across it in my religious studies, since it is not a new idea) that it seems fitting that if one is to admit a symbolic chronology to the creation narratives (ie, seven days is not seven days, etc) than one would have to admit that the the end of times narratives most likely had symbolic chronologies as well. perhaps the apocalypse started a few thousand years agoâ€¦

tony was there to meet my late bus and it was good to see him. we were on our way. he had already stopped by Kilby Court. we got in his car, which apparently needed a break job due to the screeching breaks, that was okay though, it was a good backdrop to my introduction to Joanna Newsom whom Tony had become obsessed with. I could see why. she was very refreshing. fucking brilliant. I knew that she would be the soundtrack to our tour. Kilby is not that far from the temple and the bus station, and we parked on the main street outside the Kilby alley. what an amazing alley it is too, tucked away in a small industrial part of SLC. who would think that a bunch of quaint little houses with small yards and lazy old dogs and old wooden garages with orange light glowing out would be down the road. it felt good there, especially as we approached Kilby court. I had no idea what to expect, really, and it is probably in my top two all-ages venues I have ever known aesthetically. with its courtyard and fire pit and nice, rustic fencing. the only thing I knew to expect was the green-lit backdrop on the stage, which turned out to be that wavy green fiberglass stuff that people use for make-shift roofing, lit behind with fluorescent office lights. the night was set to be busy, as there were four acts outside of us. drew danburry, one of the nicest dudes out there, had set the show up and built the bill and did an excellent job overseeing the whole affair. he played first with his charisma and his breathy alto croon. good songs, good man. next up was The Glendale Rabashaw, which was actually just one dude whose name happened to not be glen or Glendale. his songs were really good, breathy alt-country singed folkpop. he was a nice chap to boot. the next band was The Annuals, who were a five piece with drums, bas, guitar, keyboards and slide guitar. It was hard to pinn down exactly what they sounded like, as each new verse or choruses seemed to remind me of another indie act I liked and respected. in the end, that lead to them basically just sounding like themselves and they were really good at the indie pop with a country tinge and prog-chicago style and on and on. I went on next and bust through four or five songs horribly. simply horribly. later I said it was my worst show in a couple months, but it was probably my worst show in a year. which sucked cause there were lots of kids there and some of my older Utah friends and I wanted to have a good set for drew.

I guess I should mention here, that my rib has been fucked up. I fucked it up while loading my shit into Tyson and Jennâ€™s car after our show together the week before at Stuarts. basically, I slipped hard on the snow and my left ribs landed right on the corner of my suitcase. it took my breathe away for a minute and worried me pretty quickly. the next couple of days I took small doses of some leftover pain killers and it seemed to be getting better, though it hurt to breathe in deeply, to sneeze/cough, to laugh hard and to stretch. turns out though, that when I decided to not take the painkillers for a day that the pain came back even worse. I decided I would bring some painkillers with me. so I have been taking them a bit, but it is hard to belt it out and to sing loudly, at the Kilby show I was running out of breathe towards the end of such lines.

anyways, my set sucked, but the show and the kids and the bands were rad. drew was able to give us 120 bucks, which was a great start financially to the tour, and my share doubled all the money I had (to my name). afterwards we went to this pizza place with the kids in the annuals and ate some pizza had a few beers. me and tony had been really worried where we were gonna stay that night cause our bus left at 6am in the morning and karl in provo was the only one to offer a house up, but that was too far away to get to the station in the morning. we asked around a bit before the show and then asked drew and he quickly asked his friend Stephanie and she agreed, without knowing us or having heard us, to let us crash and to get up butt-fucking early to drive us to the station AND to left tony park his car outside her house for three weeks (tony is coming back through town at the end of the tour). nice lady, that Stephanie. so, yeah. we crashed for a couple hours in her basement with a dog she was sitting and washed up and at 6am we were on the road again. these four hours were to be the only time till DC that we crashed at someones house. the greyhound was our home nowâ€¦

2005-01-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

Matt has got me "blogging" for the first time too. A new Jimes album, Less than or Equal to Music, is recorded and should be available for FREE download on 2/14/05. Jimes shows coming up in Olympia on 2/27, Bellingham on 3/4 and Seattle on 3/5. More details to follow in the future.

2005-01-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

hey everybody. so tony is on the road and i leave in a few hours. if you are near any of the places we are playing you should come out and say hi and hang out with us. tony will be on tour longer than myself, but we are touring these 21 days together on a greyhound to go visit the president elect as he recieves a royal ass kissing from some other rich dudes on the 20th. we have some songs up at our websites and at myspace. come say hi! (sorry we don't have more complete details yet)....

1985 & Tony Presley Hounding the Auger Tour:

F 1.14 | Salt Lake City, UT @ KILBY COURT (7:30pm, all-ages) with:
Jessica Something Jewish, The Annuals, The Glendale Rabashaw, Drew Danbury
S 1.15 | Denver, CO @ TBA
S 1.16 | Denton, TX @ MABLE PEABODYs (10pm) with:
A Childlike Fear, Sarah Reddington
M 1.17 | Little Rock, AR @ BLANK GENERATION (7pm, all-ages) with:
Blair Harris
T 1.18 | X Marks The Spot Lexington, KT (758 Maple Avenue)
W 1.19 | travel day
T 1.20 | WASHINGTON DC FOR INAUGERATION DAY
F 1.21 | Philadelphia, PA @ TBA
S 1.22 | Kent, OH @ House Show
S 1.23 | Ann Arbor, MI @ Totally Awesome House
M 1.24 | Madison, WI @ Gods Garage (1109 Jennifer)
T 1.25 | Appleton, WI @ The Monkeywrench
W 1.26 | Iowa City, IA @ The Whoa! Boat
T 1.27 | travel day
F 1.28 | Helena, MT @ Pattern House (7pm, all-ages) with:
Rusty Guns, Old Shoes, Annie J & The Radiant Murmur
S 1.29 | Missoula, MT @ Area 5 (8pm, all-ages) with:
Purrbot, Old Shoes, Annie J & The Radiant Murmur
S 1.30 | Walla Walla, WA @ Gilliganâ€™s Island Halfway House (all-ages)
M 1.31 | Portland, OR @ Dunes (9pm) with:
The Solvents
T 2.01 | Port Townsend, WA @ The Boiler Room (8pm, all-ages) with:
The Solvents
W 2.02 | Olympia, WA @ House (all-ages) with:
Palisades, The Solvents
T 2.03 | Bellingham, WA @ Stuarts Coffeehouse (8pm, all-ages) with:
A Heartless Solution, The Solvents

1985: http://www.myspace.com/1985 or http://www.masarecords.com/mr_1985.html
tony: http://www.myspace.com/tonypresleyreallivetigers or http://www.tonypresley.com

2005-01-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

Hi this is the first time i've engaged in blogging!! we (Palisades) have finished our cd ep and will master this weekend and make a bunch of copies next week to be available at our show on the 22nd at Stuarts with the Geese and probably Robin Cutler. The artwork for the cd was done by the more than wonderfull Jamey Braden and features an embroydered iceburd in water, or a loose representation of this. Flowers for Algernon is my "solo" project, and is also done being recorded and hopefully will be also available at the Stuarts show, this cd will feature art by myself and the brilliant cartoonist Benjamin Parrish(Benny P.), brother of Alex Parrish, singer of Dame Dulce. i apologize to anyone who has been waiting for these cds to come out for too long, i've moved "not by choice" about 5 times since we began recording last year and this has kept me scrambling to be on top of things. we have all gone through many hardships over the last few months and are relieved to be done...and excited to do more. i'll be finishing a more"low fi" record to take on tour this april, whether or not it will be "Flowers for Algernon" or "Palisades", or something else is yet to be decided. one song from this release will be on Serene's In Your Room audio zine, comp, thingy. I also promise this one and any future releases will be done in a more timely manner. I hope someone has read this blog...is this an actual blog?
more: i'm moving to bellingham after my tour for the spring since i will be a college grad i can leave olympia for a little while, then back to Olympia in the summer and for all of next year. My goal for next year? live in the same place for the whole year and tour at least once, and record tons of new stuff. if anyone wants to send me graduation checks mail them to
1208 Thomas St.
Olympia, Wa. 98502

2005-01-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

sweet! so serene joins the mix. awesome. sorry i haven't called you back serene, shit has been hella busy in prep for the 1985 tour. but we talked right about getting the album on cd in time for the sleater kinney show? oh, and if i am still on the wagon at that point i would love to be your date in the stairwell....

hey, also. any of you masa folks: please let me know what sort of links and stuff you want added to the left of this text, and i will add them. i am sure i am missing a lot, so.... okay. rock. oh, and all that early shit on here is the tour journal for 1985/cots/goldstar... look here for updates ont he current 1985 tour to DC and back.... i will try and post dates beofre i leave today....

2005-01-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

hey yall,
well here is the YHB update. Ive been living in seattle, working for people who arent quite famous, like so and so's drummer, or that dead guys sister. I wont give details, cause whats the point. But i will say, its been hella fun. I directed dennis driscolls new music video down in olympia last week. Rollar skating zombies. Look for it on his new album in 6 to 9 months from now. Also I have been designing a shit load of websites and taking piano lessons. Piano is hard but I like the challange.
If you wanna see some things I have made, head to www.stebmo.com or www.johannakunin.com
also, ive been trying to keep yourheartbreaks.com updated more than once a year, so there is some new stuff there. A new issue of in your room (number ten!) will be out next month. It will detail the travels of a two month tour including Laura Veirs, Your heart breaks, Robin Cutler. Look for that soon. And also Im releasing the MASA tape as a cd, on valentines day ay the Sleater Kinney/Trucks/Your heart breaks show at WWU. Maybe I will see you there. and also i am looking for a date for that show. I thought we could shotgun tall boys in the elevator in between bands, and that would be the date. and i have a funny add in the stranger this week. Person who finds it wins a prize. good luck. xx serene

2004-09-27T02:33:00.000-07:00

in the process of redesigning and settling back in after tour. i've only recently discovered the greyhound, not the bus, but the drink, and found it quite obviously fitting. every time i'm talking about something, i inevitably say: "when we were in...." and i talk about some city and some highly exaggerated story follows. and whenever i'm listening to someone i say: "awesome, awesome, awesome."

heading back down to california by this friday. had a great weekend. someone find me a job where i do nothing and get paid a lot for it.

COOL. THANKS. -tim

2004-09-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

we got back into washington state a couple of days ago, playing a show in kennewick on the way back to seattle. the kennewick show was just okay, not many people stuck around for matt's or my set. the show last night in seattle, however, was awesome. lots of familiar faces and good times. thanks to everyone that showed up.

we're playing in olympia tonight at le voyeur. should start around 8. tomorrow night at the derby house, email me for directions. also starts at 8 and we're playing with the inimitable jack saturn aka the online romance. should be good times.

last thing: a bic can open your kryptonite lock. -tim

2004-09-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

here's an update from two days ago. what was that, tuesday? we're in provo, ut, right now, reaping the benefits of wi-fi in karl's house where we're playing tonight. i'd update more, but then that would make the update below even more obsolete than it already is. i'd be impressed if you've gotten through all of matt's posts. get reading, sucka!
-tim

ps. edit: i've also been slow to get labrynt's very, very last post up which was sent to us via the internet from missoula, so i'm adding that, after my post, in red. enjoy!

9:12 a.m. central time, boulder, CO

sitting on the deck at brandon's apartment after a marathon greyhound ride to denver. boulder reminds me of parts of rohnert park, at least in my immediate area. winding down to the last week of tour, we'll be in kennewick on friday, which to me, is as good as over, since having lived there for three years will be like returning to a home of any kind. anything familiar is very welcoming at this point.

the last few days have been excruciatingly long travel days, and we have two more of those to go; the ride from denver to provo, ut is supposed to be pretty long, and we spend one more night on the bus leaving salt lake city to go to pasco. the shows have been pretty bad, too. the show in st. louis at the infierno room had only me and matt playing, no local acts, thus, no one showing up. there were a few people in and out, but we actually lost money on the show, since we had to pay for beer and food there and didn't sell a thing or get paid. we both played two sets, in hopes that people would come in, but i was so out of it after the bus ride and the walk from the greyhound station that i hardly felt like playing, and it was pretty obvious. st. louis is pretty effin' scary, anyway, what with the greyhound station being in a pretty rough part of town. luckily, some nice people we met gave us a ride there at 230, right before our bus was to leave, thus minimizing our time in the scary station. matt contends that the seattle station is still the ugliest and dirtiest of all the stations we've been to, which may not be far off.

before that we were in chicago, actually, blue island, il, which i'm told is still actually chicago. we played at ray's pizza with foxtale and the bee's knees, both of which were great and very nice. during our first stay in chicago, i was a bit turned off by the city, the people, the traffic, the gentrification, (mostly due to the wicker park fiasco/show). the second time around i liked the show better aside from the drunken heckler that only matt had to deal with, and the people were nicer. we got to see tosch again, which was nice, and we got to check out jamie's landmark studio. if only we had enough time to record. anyway, my point is that the first time around chicago lost me, the second, it reeled me back in. hooray for chicago.

holy shit, remember those crows we saw in the grand canyon that would make swooping sounds every time they flapped their wings? i just saw one, and it's flapping was audible over achilles heel right now.

speaking of achilles heel, i had to buy the mutherfucker again through itunes the other day because i was THAT desperate to hear the shit. best tunes on the record as of today: start without me, the poison, arizona.

before chicago we were in kent, ohio. kent state university looks nothing like the pictures, and all the kids party on thursday night. there's a 24-hour deli/cafeteria downstairs in one of the dorms and it's packed with kids at 2 a.m. the show was off-campus at julie's house-- it was well attended and we met some nice kids, as usual. mc homeless and his acapella flow was a nice change of pace to all the whiny shit me and matt do all the time. kids are smart over there, though, they are radical and know their shit, intimidating. this kid noah made some tasty vegan vegetable/tofu curry that we devoured in a second. matt didn't sleep that night. i did.

i think we're gonna go look for some wi-fi in town today so we can post this shit, as brandon's teaching class and we got bee-dogg at our disposal. heading west feels good. -tim

2004-09-12T02:23:00.000-07:00

sitting in the greyhound station here in springfield, MO. looks like we are not gonna be playing the house show tonight and instead will be high-tailing it west to denver (6am arrival tomorrow morning). we really need to be getting that way at this very moment. i think we are gonna try to pick up a show/gig at a coffeeshop tomorrow morning or evening. i want to be playing tomorrow somewhere. i added it up yesterday and though we have 10 of the next 11 days booked, we have had 11 days off. five for the convention. four missed shows. three our fault or the NYPD's and one greyhounds. and two scheduled days off for the last three weeks. huh. not as busy as i would like to be and i am for sure a little pessimistic about how effective or how much we have been successful getting our music out there. lots of fun shows for sure, and nothing to horrible overall happening, but... i dunno. for how taxing this whole greyhound thing has been, and for how much of normal life and normal productivity we are missing right now, i am not sure if it has been worth it. i am eager to do another greyhound tour, but i am thinking the 21 day passes are probably the perfect amount of time. from here on out, i want to be touring at least 60 days a year. maybe two 21 dayers and two week longs. i want to take eli out before the end of the year... so last night was st louis and the infierno room. downtown STL, on washington. an odd area that seems stuck between run-down, urban ghost town and aspiring young, professional gentrification. tons of empty first story spaces right next to ritzy sushi bars and shit. apparently this is the second time in the last decade they have tried to re-vitalize the area. it was kind of like a beautiful GQ-ing model person you might meet and then they laugh and you see there teeth are yellow and they are missing a few. BUT i was excited cause as we approached downtown from our walk from the greyhound, i realized that i had read/looked through a book a few months ago in the library all about urban st louis and its history and development of its architecture through the last century. there really is some beautiful architecture downtown, nothing too flashy but just these huge impressive structures with subtleties. what is most impressive is how all the buildings are packed up tight and right next to each other along the blocks, too the point where it just looks like a massive cube, flat-faced yet striped every quarter-block since there are actually four not one building. tall, high-rising massive wall of concrete and almost forgettable windows. overture. overdeparture. anonozine. more later. the show was fun, the 3-4 people working there were nice considering there was no one else on the bill and about 15-20 patrons over the course of the five hour night. there was obviously a little miscommunication between me and elvis, the owner/booker, which sucked. me and tim made the best of it though hitting up the dollar tacos ten times over and taking in a few of the dollar pabsts and getting replay on the cowboy pinball game 6 times in about 12 plays. we each did two short sets. tim, me, tim, me. things picked up towards the end of the night, we met some nice locals and talked about our scenes and our cities. no offense to you bham and seattle, but everywhere we go, be it rural wisconsin or scary urban downtown areas people are so much friendlier and open-minded than you. sorry if it hurts, but you should really try to smile and listen more often. we all should. (steps off high-horse). we had to catch a 3am greyhound and to get to springfield for our show here tonight, which we cant make.

friday night in chicago was a lot of fun and jaime and his posse were really nice. foxtail kicks ass and you should all check them out, as does the bees knees. the show was at this pizza place in south suburban chicago (blue island) and susan, the foxtail drummer, grew up there. her friends and family came out and there was a good amount of people. rays pizza was good. before the show and during my set (onlY) there was this really obnoxious drunk dude. it didn't bug me much at all, i was just having another rough set, but everyone else seemed to be getting pissed at him. during bow interrupted he was talking loudly on and about his cellphone and 1985 cemented its first commercial plug for verizon. the bar tender gave me a sympathy pint, which was nice, but i think she was annoyed about us hipster looking young kids coming in and taking over and scary-ing off her locals. it kind of annoyed me too, how these kids were looking down upon and getting disgusted by the hometeam when they were the out of towners. i have been hyper-aware of suchness, this notion of being an alien in an unfamiliar system and not just cause me and tim are constantly the foreigner on tour.i think alot of it had to do with the RNC and how NYorkers felt invaded and taken advantage of both by the republicans and by the protesters. anyways, after the show we went back to tim (foxtail and PAL bassist) house which was a nice pad above an old, now apartmented cornerstore. john tosch was staying there and we were hoping to bump into him. we then went and got some beers and went over to jaimes house to check out his studio and his place, he was interested in recording us in the morning as seth (PAL'er and bees knees singer/guitarer) was interested in having me and tim be a apart of this free music series he was doing. he essentially recruited artists and friends and then made 100 copies of a recording of theirs and passed them out. me and tim are gonna try to record one of our NW dates to use for it. should be awesome. seth was awesome. he gave us one of his zines and three of the cds in the series. after jaimes we headed back to tims and passed out in the niceness. woke up, got to hang out with them and tosch for a bit and then finally had a chance to experience the chicago l train and mass transit as we made our way back to the chicago station for like the 5th time.... getting ready to bus out of here in springfield, i will try to finish off the RNC shit soon. oh there was this crazy ass bar/repair shop made of wood paneling down the road from here called joes. tons of auto signs, shoes hanging up everywhere (kind of like the peanut man in bham). wednesday night stareting at 8pm, pay five bucks get free beer on tap till closing. fuck. saturday. bikini carwash from 10am till??? whoa. -matt

2004-09-10T02:24:00.000-07:00

on the greyhound again, just got done dropping people off and picking people up in toledo, OH on our way from kent, OH to chicago, IL. toledo was were we had missed our connection last time through due to the bus being late and we decided just to express-line it to NYC. kent was alright, another mostly college town. lots of rich kids, a semi-historic looking downtown. mc homeless, aka matt, set up the show and it was at his friend julie's house. about 15 people showed up or were car-pooled there. the kids around here are super on top of their leftiness, and though many looked like normal dames and dudes, many were hard core socialists or hard core anarchists, etc. ohio is another swing state this year, and we had a nice debate on the car ride to the venue over how important it might be to vote for kerry (over nader or another). i think very. tim started the show off and then i followed and then mc homeless through down some words acapella style. i am eager to hear what it sounds like with beats behind it, it was pretty good stuff. then this kid jeff played some songs on julies electric guitar and ended a short set with "a boy named sue." julie was then inspired to play a couple instrumentals and that was that. the plan was to go to Noah's apartment and cook some food before heading back to matt's dorm to crash. noah was in the middle of moving out of his apartment though due to some black rot issue and so we went to this other kids house and noah cooked up a fine vegan dish, we also went and got a vegan pizza on top of that at this pizza bar place and i hung out with the apartment dude and this girl he was trying to pick up on. got a shot of whiskey. got sick of transient associations again. played tool's "anema," sinatras "when i was 17" and princes "1999." on the juke box. tonight was thursday, a big party night, and there were tons of kids out and about and we drove by a lot of frat parties as well. after eating we headed back to matts kinda quick since we had to get up early to get a ride to the bus station. maria, jeffs girlfriend, was kind enough to give us a ride early into akron (10 miles away) so we could catch our bus. and here we are. i am looking forward to chicago tonight, i guess mostly because i know what to expect since it is a bar show and such. this last batch of gigs have been house show oriented and that is a lot more socially taxing than a bar, and a lot more unpredicitable. yesterday, when it was warm and rainy outside, the driver had the heat fucking cranked. it sucked with irony. all other days have been freezing on the bus due to too much AC being blasted. of course, i also dont have much to wear in the warmth department since i have left all my warm clothes elsewhere, including my sleeping bag. last night was the worst night of "sleep" yet. hard, cold floor. AC going.arm for a pillow, windbreaker for a blanket. the third week out is always the toughest for me. that is when i really start to miss everyone and when i get frazzled by the new city everyday transience. the fourth week, and hopefully in this case tonight, things begin to be homeward bound and it makes it much easier, plus you start to get into more familiar parts of the country. anyways...

back to jail. lots of dialogue throughout the night as frustrated detainees chimed in at the frustrated cops on the other side of the grate. for many, many hours only about 5-6 people were being moved along each hour. the funniest thing was probably the solidarity clapping and cheering that would take place when any of the female inmates, who were being detained in another big room like this, were brought into the medic area in our room. often times these cheers sounded like catcalls and it was kind of funny. we had sporadic phone access in this third cell finally. a cop would log in who wanted to make a call and then dial it for them and allow about 10 people every hour or so to make calls. i called the Legal Justice Center folks on a couple of occasions to try and get word on my one concern of having out of state warrants. i called tim as well, to give him an update on what had happened. about the only thing they told me was not to tell them that over the phone. many of the cops spent many consecutive hours passed out in the chairs outside the cells. just waiting like us to get there shit processed. i did not see my officer throughout the night at all. one time i awoke and saw a glimpse of him and figured he would be here for now and so i wanted a few minutes to call him over and see what our status was. he was gone for several hours before i saw him again. the cells were a cig smoke stained yellow. there were benches around the outside. the rooms were about 20 feet by 30 feet or so and there was at many times, more than 60 of us crowded in. it was nearly impossible for us all to even sit down anywhere and lucky were the ones who passed out length-wise on the floor first. early in the am, probably about 1 or so, things started to pick up a bit and more and more of us were being released to the next stage. everyone started to get increasingly anxious to be moved along. most people were able to see/chat with there officer to get an update. apparently the drama was that the officer had to go with all his detainees at once to booking and so it was a matter of finding the five people they arrested and getting their paper work all together. it was another two hours before i saw my office again. his named kept getting called while he was gone too, which meant that his papers were coming up if he was just there enough to get them. when we chatted he said he was a long ways away from getting everything together, so sit tight. he kept moving in and out, probably just as tired as me, he had been working since noon the day we got arrested. on two occasions i had to shout out his name so he could hear from the hallway that his papers were getting called. finally, at about 4am or so i was called out and handcuffed to a chain of four others. it was so nice to be able to move this freely. we were led to the fingerprinting area and i began to freak out here again about the whole prior record thing and being detained longer because of it. i had one bench warrant out for past court fines and another for an incident involving a BB gun and a non-moving vehicle in the spring time. they had the high-tech fingerprinting machines, no-ink, just laser-imaging and high-speed connection to a national database. after finger-printing they brought us to a smaller, yet more barred cell that put the prisoners on each of the long walls and had a middle cage for visitors, perhaps lawyers or family or whatever. on the other wall was a group of women who were at the same point in the process as us. some chats occurred about how everyone was doing and after a half hour we were called out again. it was no time for the mug shot. it was a longer walk to the basement to get the mug shot and apparently at this point we were entering the real realm of the corrections department. it was also here that we first came in contact with other arrestees and prisoners. while waiting in line the guard, older and pretty nice, spent 20 minutes scaring the shit out of us about how much we were gonna get messed with once we made it into a cell-block. i was pretty much shitting my pants, not so much from his dialogue, but just realizing i might be one of the few protesters to get left in the system for awhile. behind me was a kid who was in the same boat, as he had been arrested on friday for protesting and was released with a DAT (date to appear ticket) which gained him his release, for now, but prohibited him from returning without hard consequences. we were both pretty sure we would be there for another couple days and set loose with all the normal patrons (said to be murderers, rapists, psychos, etc). the CO's were pretty harsh and blunt, as they have to be, and they had a fun time with all us soft-skinned babies for the next 12 hours. got our mug taken, and then lined up to be brought into a cell block. after 20 minutes we were lead into the pistachio green cell block and all the familiar faces surrounded us. we were welcomed by the familiar cheers and claps. we had phones here in each cell and i called tim and the LJC folks again and again didn't learn anything. the CO's were really having fun with us, yelling at us excessively and being generally pissed off for having to deal with 1500 of us. after a few quick medical questions, we were moved across the hallway to another cell. it appeared that there were 12 of these small cells down the hallway, and the center of the passage way was the desks and working center for the CO's. another batch of sandwiches and fruit and milk was brought to us and one cell, in solidarity with the palestinian prison hunger strike apparently decided they were not gonna eat any food. apparently soy bologna exists and apparently we were offered it. some people tried it, but no one really believed it was veggie. apparently bloomberg had told the press that we were gonna be giving boca burgers in jail. that is funny on so many levels. a major thread of the dialogue between protesters and cops that week was that the cops were on our side, they had been fighting (and protesting) for a new contract and the protesters often reminded them of that with chants like "come join us" and many anti-bloomberg things. our whole cell block took to chanting, and randomly shouting fuck bush, fuck bloomberg. back in the yellow cells upstairs, there was this kid with a funny accent. when we were given cereal and milk to eat, he wanted more rice crispies, what he called in the funniest of accents "crispies." "can i get some more crispies" sounded hilarious enough, but when we all took to protesting chants he would often change the nouns in the chant to crispies, and we soon followed his lead. "what do we want? CRISPIES! when do we want them? NOW!" was some funny ass shit. anyways, a lot of chanting happened in the green cells and at times we had the upper hand. the CO's were not as easy to ignore us when singled out and yelled at and there were some heated shouting matches. i think what pissed the CO's off the most was the special treatment. everyone on their side, and our side, was completely blown away at how much off a failure the set-up to get us processed and through the system was. of course, this was the single largest amount of people arrested in one day for them ever, and we were part of the largest protest the streets of NY had ever seen. (or something close to that). that was a good feeling. so word came down from the CO's and through the telephone wires that lawsuits were being filed against the city to get us immediately released and that it was likely to succeed, apparently a lawsuit was also being filed against our treatment (both for the pier conditions and for the length of our jailtime). they are not supposed to keep you more than 24 hours without arraignment (though they claimed that normal inmates sometimes went days before it). i was never read my rights, though i think they didn't have to for some reason. anyways, this cell was the most cramped and the most uncomfortable and everyone was exhausted and trying to sleep, which didn't work to well. they started to call people out again and at a somewhat quick rate and, for the first time, i was one of the first half of people called. we were told we were being taken to see a legal advisor and then to see the judge. fuck yes (even though my hands began to sweat at this point over the warrants). we were brought to another cell in another part of the jail, these were beige and fit five of us. with me know was one of the protesters who actually got into the convention and made a spectacle in front of all of madison square garden (not during bush's speech of course he was not set to speak until the morning) throughout jail, it was kind of hinted that we were being detained so long to keep us off the streets. i dunno, it seemed like the system was just not set to handle all of us. i do know that many cops admitted that they would be cracking down exceptionally hard on thursday and they would have no tolerance for deviance. we were also threatened that if we were arrested again things would be a lot different. after 15 minutes there, my lawyer (i requested an LJC one) arrived. i immediately asked her about the warrants and she seemed to think it wouldn't come up, since they were trying hard to get everyone out now and plus she had apparently all the paper work the judge would have in front of her and she didn't see any mention of warrants. five minutes later, at 2:45pm, i was sitting off to the side in the air-conditioned courtroom watching the judge make 30 second decisions, all the same, all for conditional releases that as long as we didn't get in trouble in the next six months charges would be dropped, and two minutes later i was thanking my lawyer, thanking god after two hours of sweaty nervousness and walking out the courtroom a free man... -matt

2004-09-09T02:25:00.000-07:00

just left state college, PA and josh and renda. it was really great to see josh and this was my first time meeting renda, his fiance. she was awesome and cheerful and sincere and her positivity made me smile often. they make a great couple. i guess dairy products are big here and it was a must that we stop at Myers Dairy Farms front store to get a milkshake. i sat that one out because during our five hour layover in harrisburg, PA there were cheap frozen treats at the station store and i got myself a Banana Jamma (like a banana pudding pop covered with a layer of chocolate) and a Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream treat... brenda had sent out an email to the kids in her grad department and we were set to play a show in her living room at 8pm. no one really cared if anyone showed up and we were hanging out eating burritos and listening to music. by 8:15 or so, 4 of their friends showed up. josh played a set of songs, though he was admittedly drunk and had only practiced for a bit earlier in the day. it was good to hear his music and his voice again. he writes such good songs. tim and josh did a couple MLB songs together, too. we were picking up free wireless from someone in the apartment building and i stayed up later uploading a lot of songs to myspace for some masa artists and watching the station agent and starsky and hutch and drinking more beers (sorry for drinking too many josh and brenda). i decided to go for a walk cause the weather was wet and autumnesque and once out the rains let loose and i got fucking soaked. fucking soaked. i actually had to strip the clothes off and wrench out all the water. i could have easily filled a pitcher with how saturated my clothes were. keeping with my tradition of leaving needed clothing and such behind, i symbolically (or for practicality sakes) disposed of the 2 dollar salvation army shoes i had purchased in NYC to demonstrate in.

the night before we were in binghamton, NY and played a house show at Phranks place. Phrank and Adam (who had set the show up) played an acoustic set of their songs (the band is called Nancy and i have been plastering their stickers everywhere since). it was good, acoustic punk and very assertive. also on the bill were two indie pop kids, Justin Clifford Rhody and Matty Pop Chart, they were from indiana and knew serene. i kind of have a bad taste in my mouth for that area and those circles right now because serene was so certain that some of those kids (via this message board so many people are on) would help me out with a show and no one every fucking even tried to point me in the right direction or help set a show up. justing seemed to know who i was when we introduced ourselves but kept quite about it. i dunno, in these DIY punk community environs, you have to really not like someone to not even try to help them come to your town/area, if you are of the sorts to set shows up and such, which tons of these people were. maybe some of it had to do with me not being able to help a few of them out when they came through bellingham, i dunno... i will have to talk to serene more about it... anyways, justin and matt both had cute tunes and voices, and pretty guitar playing. i realized that this toddler (or baritoned) voiced, mellow indie acoustic thing seems to be taking the nation by storm these days. so many kids doing it. so many thanksgivings and microphones and mirahs and blows. i think it is a good thing. what a mild punk revolution. huh... me and tim switched back and forth a bit but i don't think either of us was really comfortable. after a chunk of four of my songs tim decided people were probably bored with us and finished our set with one of his songs (abruptly at that, i think he might have played 3 songs to my 6). huh. we had to catch the greyhound that night and matt and justin, though stoned, were the soberest drivers to get us there. we also played with this band rookie from columbus, ohio and they were pretty good at the power pop punk bit. i could see them playing with axes of evil at the 3b nicely... the night ended with matt and justin begrudgingly accepting the rest of the roll of transparent duct tape i had left from NYC. damn, i wish i wouldn't have given it to them.

as far as our oneonta show. shit got fucked. we showed up at fine arts 212 (a classroom) around 6pm and wanted for vic/others to show up. no one did and by 7:30 (half hour past show time) we were exhausting our options of trying to get a hold of Vic. luckily we had wireless connection in the building so we could search on the computer for how to get a hold of him. we emailed him found a home number for him and called, found his AIM and buddied him (he was "away" for a long while). asked some of the musician students practicing about him they told us to search the school website for his campus number, so we did and called him and left messages. we decided to go to the student union building and there we got some food, watched good will hunting and used there computers there and kept trying to get a hold of him. we got kicked out at 11pm cause they closed and called a cab to take us to the all-night diner in town, and possibly to a motel. right before the cab came, we decided to go back to the fine arts building and try to hang out there all night (act like students practicing). it was unlocked and we set things up with our guitars to look like we were studying. btw, oneonta apparently has an excellent music industry program, though the university was the most elementary school looking college i had ever seen. i couldn't believe it was over 100 years old. once we got back to the building we set tims computer up and signed on to AIM, Vic was on and after about five minutes he replied to me and apologized and said he would come get us. we had been worried alot about where we were gonna be spending the night and it was nice to know that we would have a place now. the place was vics dorm room. we met his suite mates, got some pizza, drank some mountain dew and played Halo on their Game Cubes. seven of us were playing on two TVs. i got my assed kicked. vic was a nice kid, soft-spoken and well-mannered. i felt bad that only a few hours earlier i had been cursing him out and calling him Chumbley (the dude in menomenee who flaked on our show). i have yet to hear the cd of vics music that we got, but i am looking forward to it. its funny, and really cool, how many cds you get on tour of the artists you play with. good times....

vermont, upstate new york and pennsylvania are all beautiful with all their rolling hills and deciduous trees. too bad falls only last a few weeks out here. i am sure they are beautiful, none the less. the hills and rivers and trees get a little boring after awhile, or maybe the stuffy, drab greyhound is tainting our appreciation of the surroundings... i dont know...

okay. back to the RNC story, i guess. pier 57 is a place of big contention and a legal case now. the cops had announced only a week before (about the same time they were bragging they were gonna be able to handle 1000 arrests a day) that they had created a temporary detention center for protester arrests. well, actually, one article in the village voice, claimed the cops had plans to keep the pier open afterwards for such violent events as the US Open. huh. anyways, it was a huge old warehouse that had stored metro busses and seen them get fixed. as such the ground was black with oil and anti-freeze and other chemicals. apparently, when all the critical massers got arrested in friday, the ground was soaking wet as well. there is more legal issues with the floor, in that a lot of people were having respiratory problems and breaking out with rashes. (let me just disclaim here that i was frustrated a lot by how whiny and wimpy a lot of the people i was arrested with were). most of these folks were white and middle class, though some of the loudest were older and not white. people were bitching the whole time, rightfully so for the most part, but often it got old to hear so and so go on about the gross sandwiches again. mostly i thought it was disrespectful to those who live this prison-industrial complex on a daily basis, and to those who have been wrongfully or rightfully imprisoned for political and non-political causes. plus, we were getting special treatment, be it the extra food or water, or the extra patience the cops had with us). anyways, people were getting sick i guess form the unavoidable floor. they had created with tall, razor-topped chain link fencing a series of about ten fifty by fifty foot pens or so. there were benches inside that could hold about 15 people total. there was water available and a portapotty in each. there were enough people in each, though, that it was tough to find room for everybody to sit (on the grease-drenched floor), let alone for people to lay down. when we arrived, they checked in our clear garbage bag with all or belongings and we were sent to various pens. it took about an hour and a half to get through the line and eventually assigned a pen. i met 30-something Carmal McMahon from Ireland, who had lived in NYC for ten years and was going to NYU for english education work. non one really knew what to expect, there were rumors that we were to be arraigned and possibly released here. all throughout the two days, the cops responded to inquiries by playing confused, but being optimistic about how long it would take. this is a strategy they use to try and keep us calm and rulable throughout the process. they have a legal right to lie to us, though we cant lie to them. i spent the first four or five hours in my first pen with about 80 people or so who kept arriving and departing. every time, over the course of the two days, someone got their name called and advanced to the next detention, everyone would clap in solidarity. no one still, or would ever, really know what process and stage was next (despite however prepared, researched or experienced they were beforehand). once i was called out from the first pen, i was taken to a desk and me and my arresting officer and another cop went through my belongings and listed them. i got a receipt of all the cops had and was shipped to the next pen, even more crowded, though a bit larger and with mostly new people. things, at times, were unruly. protest chants occurred and every time a new busload of people arrived from later protests, the whole place would erupt in cheers. we spent till about 8am in this next pen. afterwards were moved to a very large pin and lined up in rows. this pen was larger than all the others put together, and some people had had the luxury of being kept in this one all night. word spread around that they were gonna bus us to corrections now. and they used a megaphone this time to call out the names. there never seemed to be any order to who and when one was chosen. beforehand, though, they tried to pass out sandwiches (bologna or cheese) to everyone, though a lot of people didn't get one. oh, and also, we were sex-seperated. boys in ones et of pens girls in the other. apparently they decided that all the boys were gonna be moved along first (perhaps becuase their was more of us, i dunno).... oh, i forgot, they also were taking polaroids. 3 were taking at the arrest site, three more once in line at the detention center. one of each was a picture of you and your arresting officer. one picture was attached to your bag of shit.... anyways, i was put on a jail bus with a whole new group of people and we were bussed to the corrections facility. the PD officers warned us that corrections is a whole new ball game and that the officers there were vicious and mean. about 10am we got off our bus and lined up alongside of it. we were being shouted at and such and the guards were definately meaner. the bus that came in behind us had chanted and cheered the whole way there and when the head of a five person team watching over us heard them come in, he told his boys to put on there riot gear, which they did. that dude was an asshole and looking to cause trouble. we were brought single file, handcuffed in a chain, upstairs to a floor with three holding cells. we were searched (for the 3-4th time) and loaded into first cell. i spent from 10am till 3am in two of these cells. people got stir crazy not everyone could lay down, or even sit down at once these cells were so crowded. there was a shitty toilet and a sink that barely worked. in the first cell we were made to wear our cuffs for about two hours and people increasingly complained about this. for the longest time the cops were not sympathetic, but finally they decided it wasnt cool to keep us cuffed when we were locked up. a lot of people had issues with their cuffs and i know several that were gonna go to a doctor to document it. again with the random name calling and we were moved to the third tank over. outside the tank, officers were busy with paper work, by late evening, all the officers had arrived back and were sitting around waiting to get the paper work for their arrestees... -matt

2004-09-06T02:25:00.000-07:00

we are in albany today on a three hour layover before our first, and only, campus show. not sure how it will go, we are playing CUNY-Oneonta. we were in albany yesterday for a bit on our way to burlington, VT. which was a alright. i guess burlington is a sister city to bellingham. do they realize that it snows maybe twice a year in bellingham and that autumn usually lasts a few months at least? i don't think so. there is a huge lake (5th biggest in the world or something). it is called lake champlain. i am called lonely. i am having a hard time dealing with all this quick several hour at most relationships, "too lonely for these transparencies" is how i wrote it on my hand yesterday. "charming is amphibious," unrelated, lay next to it. i am listening to the lullaby, lullaby compilation that greg copied once again for me (since i lost the last one). this was one of the last albums that hit me hard in the Irving house. i miss them muchos i have postcards for them. i have no idea how anything in my life will be when i return. perhaps autumn this was probably the worst time of the year for me to leave for a month, as i wasn't doing well the months prior to leaving and am insanely upset at myself for how efficiently i push people away and out of my life. it has gotten bad. i haven't given my heart out in the open to anyone in years. fantastic. anyways, the radio bean in burlington was quaint and small. this dude mostly monkee was playing when we got there. turned out he had some early set time. we found out the show had to be done at 10pm and the fliers (listing four acts) said the show began at 9pm. carl, who helped with the show was nowhere to be found, neither was any audience greater than four heads, and me and tim decided to play the 8-9 hour, switching every three songs. carl and co, though unannounced to us, arrived and him and his posse (about 15 people) hung out outside until they went on. they didn't finish setting up until 9:20 and apparently weren't aware the show had to be done by 10pm. sean _____ opened up, these were all high school kids from Jericho (about 40 minutes outside of burlington), and played about 5 songs. than carl and co did about three songs, all pretty long and pretty two chord repetitive. both of them were goo dsongwriters though for being so young and it was really easy to sing melodies and harmonies along to their songs. we obviously couldn't stay at carls house and so we pestered the barista/bartender. there weren't really any all night diners or anything. we decided to go hang out at this club where a band called the aphrodesia (who were on a "just vote" tour and who also traveling in a huge bus that ran on 100% veggie-table oil. dope ass kids. they were from san fran and played african/worldly funk music, elaborate costumes and stage antics as well. i fucking loved them. a lot of demonstrating and protesting seems to be about confronting negativity's with communal positivity's and bright, cuture (like theatre, puppetry, costumes, music, etc) and it never occurred to me that the pinnacle in music for such revolutionizing is worldly funk music. so perfect for revolution. anyways... i wanted to talk to them after to see if they had gone to the RNCon, but tim wound up finding these two dudes whom we could stay with, they lived 10 minutes outside of town and we walked there with a cool lake breeze and half lazy moon. john and justin. not from burlington. college grads. dog named buckley. we had to leave at 5:30 am to get to the bus station on time. we took a nap at like 2:30am. nice.

syracuse was awesome. didn't get to see much of the town, liked i had wanted to (since my grandfather spent all my life there until coming to the NW to die). emily and her friends were all nice, beautiful people. i don't think syracuse lets ugly people live there. "the eaves" is their attic. and it is big. they did a nice job decorating it. they had a bar set up there. there house was amazing too. they were mostly industrial design majors. emily was a music industry major. they are thinking of moving to PDX. the whole set-up and such reminded me of the DOS in anacortes, right down to the amazing hospitality. we were the second show there. casiotone FTPA played the first with joel and emily and kats band the martha dumptruck massacre. CJ1 is playing in a few weeks. we played with tony presely and dan solomon. dan did spoken word, half comic and commentary, half set pieces. good stuff. charmingly political. tony played electric guitar and sang. he had only been doing both things at the same time for a month. they are on a 11 week tour and will be coming through bellingham in early october. i am tired. afterwards, we drank some more than made a trip to a foosball table. couldn't stay at that house so we went to another house and played atari and listened to nighthawks at the diner. i was sloshed. amazing i made it back to the eaves house without getting lost or passing out and i crashed on the second story porch. i had a hard time all night with the notion that i would be gone tomorrow and never see most these people again. this is where the loneliness started to hit hardcore. anyways... this bus is moving around too much... -matt

2004-09-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

i'm at some school in oneonta, ny right now, i'm not even sure what school it is, but we're playing in what looks to be a classroom. i couldn't care less though, because there's wireless in here and the floors are tile and stuff and i'm a sucker for the reverb. last night we played in burlington, vt, to maybe two people or something, at least i know one of them was actually listening. we made two bucks. the night before we played in syracuse, i made bad jokes and felt stupid, but the eaves was rad.

here's some leftover pictures the past few days. -tim

2004-09-04T02:27:00.000-07:00

"oh me, what have i done..." serene covers a song with a chorus that begins with that line. i forgot whose song it is, but serene does it so beautifully. during our eight days in new york city, i had few songs stuck in my head. one line, "times square hit without warning" from some gibbard song that neither me or tim can figure out right now (i sang it to the melody in lowell, MA and subsequently, and fittingly for this weeks events, got "theres a look in the faces tonight thats untrustable as the hope that you'll never return in awhile, but your always on time..."). that last line was pretty much stuck in my head the whole week and felt right in NYC. where to start.... well, after an hour of pretentious, snotty gabbing from two 10-12 year old indian sisters behind us on the bus to syracuse, the unofficial first name for the second half of the tour has been named "Dammit, that sucks." (make your suck start loud and trail off into a lower keyed whisper for proper pronounciation). so yeah, i got arrested. i was one of 80 persons left as part of a solemn march from the WTC to madison square garden. we knew we would be stopped before then, and sure enough, the cops (though we were walking quietly in two by formation down the sidewalk) wouldn't let us past 28th and Broadway. it was tuesday night, the night of 1500 (police total) arrests and we laid down in the road wearing white, holding hands. NYC lifer Mary Round (44 years young) was on my right, and John Stewbridge (25 years old) from jacksonville, florida was on my left. i would see him in various pens and concreted rooms for the next 44 hours. but that is not the beginning of the story. i guess i will start with tuesday, the preset day of creative, non-violent direct action. i woke up late and missed both the direct action refresher "courses" (one at st marks at nine am and one at another church put on by the WRL at 11am). there were many things happening that day and i made a rough plan to go to union square to check in with how the day had gone so far, then travel to the fox news "shut up" protest at four pm, than travel down to union square again and see if the WRL solemn march was on time to pass by at 5:30 on their way from the WTC to madison square garden and also to see which of the two convergence points (NYPublic Library or Madisan Square Park) was better suited for a non-affiliated or affinitated solo protester to join up with people, then to travel to that location to make the massive trek to madison square garden. if things went all right i was going to travel to st marks afterwards for updates and then to the bowery cafe (open 24 hours a day that week as a santuary) and then possible call it a night, though i had arranged to be a part of the pink slip, unemployment line that was set to snake a single file line through miles of downtown manhattan. there were dozens and dozens of smaller actions planned for tuesday by various, small affinity groups aimed at disrupting the daytime and nighttime activities of the delegates and various RNC related entertainment and business plans. because i had not planned well enough before arriving, a problem i had all week was finding out about and trying to join up in such actions. these groups were designed to be small and enclosed, as to prevent infiltration and to keep actions efficient and more easily consensus-based. for the most part, i felt on the outside of a lot of the protesting and demonstrating, though i was in the thick of a lot of it. while in jail that changed, but i still wished i had planned ahead more and connected more with a/some groups before arriving. anyways. so i checked in at union square and already people were being arrested and the police, who up to this point had been pretty accommodating, had been cracking down pretty hard. at the WTC, the word came up that the solemn march had already been broken up and 100 people or so arrested. i had wanted to march with them from union square to madison square, but it looked like that was not gonna happen. murmurings abounded that any large group of people making their way towards the garden were gonna be confronted and stopped by the police. which was contrary to their reaction to both permitted and unpermitted actions earlier in the convention. so people were arranging to move in small groups and to converge later. i decided to head up to the fox news "shut up" shouting and their was a good crowd of people taking up the block of the sidewalk in front of the fox building, as well as the sidewalk across the street and some of the the other nearby sidewalks. my estimate was about 500 people or so. (i have not had a chance to read all the indy -and mainstream news- about the convention yet, i will try to and get back to this with their numbers and words... for now i want to try to get down my story their without losing it to time or to other takes on events). plenty of fun chants to be had, anti-o'reilly and anti-fox. the police decided to give us some of the street, a bit more than a NYC sidewalks width, but people were hesitant to be penned in with their little metal fences, and it took about 10 minutes for 4/5 of the crowd to move into and feel comfortable that it was not a concession for them to rally there. the other 1/5 remained on the sidewalk. the rules for the week were that you could stand on the sidewalk if you were up against the inside of the sidewalk and not blocking traffic. it didn't take long, especially in a few of the more colorful, smaller actions against delegates for the cops to decide (illegally) that no one could just stand on the sidewalk, you had to keep moving. we weren't to that point yet at the fox rally. one person was arrested, i could not see what for, but once she was put into the police van, it appeared that she was scantily clad, or possibly topless. i stayed yelling at the highrisers for about an hour and then decided to walk to the library, as i was told that would be an easier place to affilate with marchers for the night. i got there a half hour before the gathering was supposed to start. i am not sure if this one was a permitted rally, but the actions of the cops were as if it wasn't. it didn't take long for the crowd to swell to probably 500 and the geography of the front entrance was difficult. i will probably half to draw it out, but essentially there was a big main walk/stairway up to the entrance from the front and then two side stairways that fed into a small plaza about halfway to he front doors. the architecture was awesome. anyways, people took to the vaulted plaza area and there were many banners and a guy handing out dozen of flags. people were taking his flags and then taking to the steps to display them, it looked like there was gonna be a nice wall of banners and flags to look at and inspire before we headed to march on the garden. cops were awkwardly dispersed throughout the crowd and there was no set, us on this side them on that dynamic, which can be a recipe for disaster. on the sidewalk in front of the building and stairs the cops began antagonizing lingerers and telling people to move along, so i made my way up onto the plaza area. apparently someone had already been arrested for trying to hang a banner from the the stone pillars at the entrance. people were just mulling around and their was little organization to the crowd. out of no were, the cops surged into the crowd and attacked a kid (probably for "illegally" wearing a mask or something) and chaos broke out. more cops surged in to support the arresting cops and used their clubs to violently push people away from the kid, in a circle form. tons of boos and "shame" and "let him go" chants were had (the standard for isolated arrests like this). and the cops stayed on the plaza and begin pushing people, in a very unorganized and hostel way, away from the middle of the plaza. many people were being pushed and directed right into the clubs of cops coming from the otherway. eventually, after five minutes of this, the cops had cleared to people of the plateau of the plaza and everyone was pretty much caught between the plaza and the sidewalk, on the front stairs and the two side stairs. this efficiently isolated us into three different groups. the cops on the sidewalks stepped up there keep moving get away rhetoric and in five minutes the white shirts decided to cut of the middle section of the sidewalk, isolating the protesters even more. no one, even non-demonstrators could walk along the block now. a few more arrests had taken place in this scuffle and soon the group began to reorganize on the right side stairway and corner of the block. the geography hindered this effort again and the group was now probably down to 300 people. leading the group (keep in mind the most efficient and accepted form for these rallies is to have them be anonymous, group-led, non-individualistic efforts) was this shirtless, 29 year old blonde fellow with a megaphone (illegal) who had stumbled into my portion of the poor peoples march the night before and assumed control of leading the chants. i hated the fucker. he was alone and he never stopped with his loud noise and assumed power and never passed it off. i am pretty sure he was a cop. i had been the night before and was even more so now. anyways, after having to listen to his conducting (the crowd -which felt pretty inexperienced in general- for the most part was into it, possible just out of a "something is better than nothing/we just got fucked with and need some kind of order" way) for 15 minutes HE decided that it was time for the procession to the garden. people, in a very spread out/nonchalant/disorganized way started to make its way west on the sidewalk. after two nights of massive, tight processions through the streets of manhattan, this was not doing it for me. there was hardly any chanting or few signs and it was like i was walking down a normal sidewalk with the sole bonus of hippie-stank. i cut out at the first subway station we passed and decided to head to the madison square park location in hopes of meeting up with a larger march. i was depressed to come up out of the station and find a small group of many 50 people. i did bump into kris jorgenson from provo, though and it was nice to see him. i mulled around trying to overhear where everybody was and apparently across the city, various groups were being met with aggressive police resistance. the colorful parading at union square was getting attacked over the course of the hours, in harold square people were beginning to converge and the cop presence was as well. there were two "organizers" there and they were advising people to not travel in groups bigger then ten or so. they then launched into a quick training course on direct action and decided to walk up to harold square. cops and media were all over the city and most extremely on tuesday. just as a was getting ready to set out, the lady said that across the street a march was traveling by, but she advised us it was unpermitted. she was a wuss.

during her talk i chimed in asking about if she or anyone new the route of any of the marches heading to the garden and she didnt want to answer that. as if i was a cop, the crowd was happy she didnt either. i was out of the loop. i was getting really frustrated about all the sissyness and disunity that day which was heavily augmented by the fact that i was alone. on the one hand their was these people, not willing to front-line it, scared of the cops scared of pushing the limits. on the other side were the people i wanted to be affiliated with, small groups that got up at 7am to go piss off some delegates at a breakfast, anarchists that were shouting in the faces of delegate families as they came out from watching the lion king. these people were organized and ready to push the limits. some had been in the city for a month preparing, most were staying together at various hostels and squats around the city. regardless, i was not on eof them because i had not prepared to be one. thus, i found myself with a desire to take it to the next level, but unable to without breaking one of the first rules about such actions. that of having a small group, or at least a partner, around you.

the group across the street happened to be the white shirt wearing, quietly marching solemn WRLers that i had wanted to march with for a bit earlier in the day. i ran to join up with them and was excited that there route took them to harold square were the shit was going down. i quickly learned from them (at least the three people around me, since it was a double-file line) that they were not the ones that got mass arrested earlier near the WTC site, it was a different group (i think some critical mass kids and more colorful types). i found partner to march with. mary had been arrest twice before in marches (both in new york, the first in 82 or so in an anti-nuke march, the second in 99 when the cops shot a civilian (for got his name) and riots almost broke out). and was nervously excited, anxious about the cops response to us. the cops, in a walking bike line were guiding the march down broadway. we marched like that for about 15 minutes and in that time i learned that their plan was the plan of all groups. march as close to the garden as possible and then stop and rally. at 28th street, and in about ten seconds, we knew this was as far as it would go and we all took to the street and laid down. i was not to worried about the police response as there is a formula and game plan for both parties in these die-in situations. out of nowhere it seemed, and within 10 minutes time, there was a crowd of probably a couple hundred around us (i did not see any of them marching with or around us). they began chanting in solidarity and at one point chanted the bill of rights. there was way too many fucking cameras. it was annoying. and, of course, presspassers could walk freely in the street. everyone else was quickly pushed to the sidewalks and we were told that we would be arrested if we stayed there. we were on the ground there for a bit over an hours time. lots of chatting with mary and john and this other young woman. everyone was on there cell-phones calling home and friends to let them know they were to be arrested, even mary who laughed at the idea first, being that it was a die-in. the folks on the sidewalk were eventually pushed off of the block we laid in (probably to keep them mostly out of eye-sight of us, to reduce the amount of witnesses). there were a few scuffles on the corners but most of the people stayed for a bit, and about 50 saw us till we were on the busses. there were legal observers taking our names. by the time the cops got around, finally, to plastic cuffing us and packing us up and in and on the road, it had taken about 2 hours at least. we got to pier 57 around 10:30 or so. the cops were nice at the die-in, got our first hints of how much they were being overworked (some i met had worked upwards of 40 hours straight by the end of the fiasco).... -matt

2004-09-02T02:21:00.000-07:00

matt got out earlier today. we're heading to boston tomorrow. the convention is over. bush is revered, kerry is "desperate," the race is too close to call. i got some great pictures though, which i'll put up soon. jason and i stood in times square watching this twenty-something kid stand around with a big W shirt on and a sign that said, "Bomb Iran Now" on one side and "W is my war president" on the other. -tim

2004-09-01T02:20:00.000-07:00

this is what matt was arrested for. i just talked to him and he sounded pretty tired but said they were giving them food and stuff and being treated pretty nice. i got his arrest number and he will hopefully see a judge this evening, since i hear that arraignments have been happening 24 hours (not stopping like 1 a.m. like previously noted) a day because it's been so swamped down there.

i called to cancel the show tonight and hung out outside of 100 centre street where central booking is. at 730, i finally got through to central booking and they hadn't gotten matt an arrest number yet, 24 hours after he'd been arrested. i called again around 1130 and finally got the number. it's a waiting game now. i'll know more tomorrow if he doesn't get out tonight.

if anyone is worried about me, don't be, save your good thoughts for matt.

2004-08-31T02:19:00.000-07:00

i'm in baltimore with jason. matt called me at 730, a few hours into my bus ride here and told me he was getting arrested. i've called the legal hotline a few times and will go down to 100 centre street to pick him up tomorrow. arraignments only happen until 1 am, and i was told there'd be no way for him to get out tonight, so i should just go there tomorrow and hope he gets released.

if anyone didn't know already, matt's hardcore. he was arrested during the die-in and Legal said he'd probably only be charged with disorderly conduct, but we'll see what happens for sure tomorrow. do what ever you do (ie, pray, wish, voodoo) and hope he gets out soon.

here's pictures from sunday. -tim

2004-08-30T02:18:00.000-07:00

yet again i only have enough time to upload pictures without too much commentary. hopefully the comments are working now. check out all the pictures from madison to our bus ride to nyc. we're here in new york right now, and i have a ton of pictures from the protest yesterday, but i haven't uploaded them to the computer yet and like a dumbass, i not only forgot my charger for my computer at greg's house in the bronx (i only have 13 minutes left, and it's probably not even really 13 minutes... it never is), but i also left the battery for my camera charging there, so i couldn't get any pictures of the big guns lining the new york public library and grand central station. (oh, yeah, matt took like ten pictures of his toe and i exported straight out of iphoto, so no time for editing-- apparently there was a big gash, i dunno, because i never looked too closely).
-tim

2004-08-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

travel log stardate 020042608 goldstar the long road Special thanks to pattern is movement, the silence, the new blind nationals, and the venue in Milwaukee for making my last show of the tour very fun and magical. I wish I could have hung out with them some more.

It was incredibly difficult to leave my compatriots at the bus station in Milwaukee at 4 in the morning. Matt with 50 bones to his name and rushing to catch the bus at that. After they got on the bus I had to stare at Matt on the bus and convince myself that they were going to be ok, and that it was ok for me to leave. It took about 20 or so minutes to convince myself.

Then with 2 hours of sleep I was back to Minni, Minn to stay with Adria and finally get a good nights rest. We went to the Mississippi river and watched the boats go through the locks and had a general good time. It is hard to believe one of my favorite people in the whole world lives so far from me now. As usual, the good ones always leave, don't they?

I left Minni, Minn yesterday at 2pm and arrived here in Missoula at 8pm MN time. I have driven 1500 miles in the last three days and have just under 600 to go. So I thought I'd stop off here to stretch my legs.

God damn Montana is beautiful. I am considering cashing in all my gear and buying a horse to live on the range. What do you think? Would I make a good cowgirl? Who the hell would I sing to?

Everything has been pretty smooth on the drive (knocks on wood.) When I drove through Yellowstone a truck had hit a baby black bear. I am sad for the bear but happy I didn't have to be the one to find the thing in the road.

I'm going to get some food and get back on the road. Don't think I'll make it home tonight, though.

Tim and Matt, wherever you may be, take care of yourselves and stay focused. Ash, I'm gonna need you when I get home. I am sore!

See (most of you) soon! Love, labryntina crampypants.

ps The leaves have begun to turn. Favorite tour quote: "Tim, am I going to explode?"

2004-08-26T02:18:00.000-07:00

one of the things that i've been enjoying hte most on the tour is the thunderstorms. there's one happening right now as i sit here in The Attic by myself after tonight's show. last night in ann arbor there was another storm, and the smell of wet concrete is absolutely spectacular.

i played a short set again tonight, like last night, and covered a bunch of kissing book songs because thery're almost more fun than playing my own. matt and the scratch and sniff crew went over to ott's to go see a band called trouble bubble, or something close to that. i really need s hower, so that's what i'm going to do. pretty soon. here.

the days have been short, but that has nothing to do with the time flying. i don't know who's idea it was for me to not play a show in two years and then up and go on tour for a month-- and on a greyhound no less. matt and owl have had the unfotunate burden of hearing me whine and be grouchy, sorry guys. the uneasiness of such dramatic ups and downs just kills me. tomorrow morning, when i'm rushing to catch a greyhound so i can sit on the bus for eight hours, i'll be on the opposite side of the spectrum to the relaxing evening i'm having right now, sitting next to a window listening to rain and thunder.

we head to oberlin tomorrow, fredonia the next day, then in nyc. i hope everyone's doing fine. i am, too.
-me

2004-08-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

gawd, i just spent a ton of time getting shit done and no time for me to update. sorry, hopefully tomorrow. -tim

2004-08-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

so we are on a brief one hour layover in detroit. tim is playing the station video games for the first, but promised not to be the last, time. damn, the greyhound routes and schedules are fucked up in michigan, taking all these sideways and heading hours in the opposite direction of the designated end point. and so begins our 30 day bussage. the first route slapped both me and tim hard in the face. it began with lab's dropping us off at the milwaukee station to frantically board a bus that was apparently an hour early but leaving right away at 3:45am and ended at 8pm the next evening. 16 hours. ouch. we had a four hour layover in chicago station, which was actually really nice. my whole last 24 hours though have been plagued with trying to find internet access in order to turn in my weekly article, finalize some more show details and work on the housing thing for NYC (still homeless, still worried). after a half hour of searching, i found a coffeeshop 8 city block away. big blocks. the second i stepped out of the station it started pouring down rain, the way it had when we first got off the freeway. the storm put most NW heavy rains to shame. within a few minutes i was walking barefoot through the oily lakes (wet flip-flops don't work at all) and shawled by a button up shirt i had with me. i got to W MADISON street and took a right towards the heart of chicago's financial district. it was 7:45 am and the streets were filled with suited and dressed high-rise, 200 grand earning office people, 98% of them wielding umbrellas. then there was me, trekking rapidly through them in shorts and a mesh hat, barefoot and soaked. the weather and the buildings and the thunder were surreal enough, and i felt like i was in a video. actually, the first floors of these buildings, with their 18 elevators and huge security desk and hundreds of people filling in felt like a modern version of "the apartment" with jack lemmon and, fuck i forgot, but she was hot as hell in the movie... anyways, something about the dark radiance in each. plus, there is nothing like a rain-soaked daylight urban scene in an old black and white film. or something. anyways, i walked ten blocks into this chaos before i figured out i had gone in the wrong direction. 20 minutes later i was at westgate coffee, trying to dry off and drinking the shittiest (burnt) drip i have had in some time. btw, people don't know what you mean when you say DRIP coffee out here. the show last night was fun. john set it up at this bar called "white's bar" and we played with him and his bandmate (your best friend), tim a____ and another band whom i will remember later. the place was tiny, but real cozy and though the street out side of it was a wide, three laner, it felt like one of this corner, neighborhood bars. the night ended unlike the way it progressed, but more in line with the feel of the bar, with a flogging molly cover and then more flogging molly on the juke... oh yeah, in case you didn't know, tim's name on tour is sanchez (a mispronunciation in winona). our show in milwaukee, i mean menomenee falls, fell through. after two weeks of trying to get a hold of spencer to get details for the show that "was still on," ewe wound up at a gas station in his neighborhood getting tips from a girl he went to high school with. we looked up his name in the phone book, called the number. his mom said he moved out and we got his cell number. called it several times in the next hour and some before leaving a message (didn't want to leave one off the bat because then he would know it was us). i decided we should go to a busier part of town, a hip part of milwaukee and try to find any shows and possibly jump on a bill. about two blocks into a younger, hipper strip we passed a bar and saw a few bands loading in. after ten minutes, in which i looked in the weekly to see what was happening on monday night (an open mic was our only other option). i went in to ask the booker, which happened to be a band-dude, to see if we could get on the bill. i told him there was three of us and that we didn't need much time, but that we would love to play since our show fell through. 10 minutes later, after he had asked the other bands, we were on the bill. we played with pattern is movement, the silence (apparently with members of camden who keep popping into my life) and new blind nationals. it was a fun show and all the bands were super nice. we each played 3 songs. i went first (with bow, blue-purple failure and eulogy) then tim and labrynt. be the end of the night i was pretty tired, though all the bands were real good.... the night before that we were in madison at the glass nickel pizzeria playing with freddy faggot and screaming cyn cyn and the pons. the bar/show was in the basement. the restaurant above. it was a nice place and the people were really friendly. we got free drinks but no free food. tim did score a pizza order that was messed up though. he keeps scoring these flesh-items that neither me or labrynt can eat. cyn cyn and the pons were fucking awesome. it was dancing, sassy rocking pop music with keyboards. almost like what electro-clash would be if the continent electronic music developed on split in two the smaller chunk developed separate and independently, with different resources and environs. i think the website is cyn-cyn.com ...we will be sure to get you all the websites for the kick ass people and places we met... we are now off to ann arbor to play a show at patrick elkins house. we randomly bumped into him at the greyhound station in kalamazoo yesterday as he was off to his parents and we to saginaw. wish us few trips as gruelign as yesterdays, homes -nto bus stations/rides- to crash at and luck with getting our NYC housing situated. thanks to greg for looking into that for us.... (side note to self, so i can go maybe a day without having my entire hand covered with words and numbers, hawaii = early mag experiences getting past now. library as most yin-yanger of them all. also, "maid to last forever" as description of work of the bhodishatva). oh, and for my own records, last night: bow, blue-purple, leash, journal, sailor, a framing, all is sun. or something... 12pm, Wednesday August 25th, 2004. -mattfu

2004-08-25T02:13:00.000-07:00

[this is labrynt's last post. right now, she's somewhere between minni, minn and bellingham. we'll miss her, but she won't miss the greyhound, i assure you. -tim]

travel log stardate 020042308
goldstar its almost over tour [horshit]
madison is graced with screaming cyn cyn and the pons, who we were lucky to perform with. They are my new favorite band. Somewhere between spinal tap, and devo with one of the cutest girls in the whole world, and danzig singing lead as if he were a musical major. Plus they had props, which is catchy. Nonetheless, their charisma exceeded their use for props and their originality was refreshing, Can't wait till they record.

one of my biggest concerns for this trip was that I would miss my weekly swims in the lake, but madison provided a beautiful lake at sunset with sun rays coming through the clouds and the whole thing to myself because it was cold according to the locals. sissies. It was perfect.

on the way to minominee falls for my last show which is outside of milwaukee. then I go visit adria in minni, minn and take the long road home. 2,000 miles of myself and the planes of the midwest around me.

this is I spy signing off. over and out.

2004-08-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

matt and i are sitting in the memorial library at the university of wisconsin in madison. the show last night was very sparsely attended, at least until the touring acts were done playing. regardless, i got some free pizza (the benefits of being able to eat anything, including dead animals), but the pizza was sadly turned into asphalt pizza as it was left on top of the van as labrynt brought our new friend christian home. screaming cyn-cyn and the 'pons were the shit, no lie, and freddy was awesome and terribly hospitable.

we've been in search for free wireless, but dunn bros. router was down and i thought it'd be a good idea to reset the router and not only did that not solve the wireless absence, but it also brought the hardwired computers down.

just spent 500 bucks on fucking greyhound tickets because our dumb asses didn't buy them in advance. really have to start watching the cash flow now, seeing as i don't sell shit, like, ever. except for, of course, the wonderful kids in great falls, right. i don't really know where labrynt is right now, i think maybe somewhere on state street busking for some extra cash. -tim

2004-08-22T02:12:00.000-07:00

the slim creeping beautiful. winni, minni. we played on an island, latsch island, in the mississippi. i think that river is trying to seduce me. kansas city, me and jeff's drive to to tulsa, winona. i am pretty sure i was conceived in saint louis, delivered at swedish. we are listening to clamdust trying to attach ourselves to something familiar as we follow the river back to 90. the mississippi, though a state as well, is not the arkansas. this i keep repeating to myself. it got creepy. it started friendly, familiar. i felt really comfortable on stage, on the island. i am not referring to the performance thing either, just very physically comfortable regardless. i felt like letting go and, because of it, played a very sloppy, gelatinous set. it felt good, though. i played bow, blue purple, the leash, olive, eulogy. joe, jaime and then mike byrd. then tim and labrynt. the kids were very friendly post-show. lab sold a few cd's, i gave a few away and we made 20 bucks in donations. we got several offers for a place to crash and several for post-show hanging out. we decided to go to this cafe called "the acoustic cafe." it was a nice cafe, quaint and friendly. good size, alright food. it was there that the calm within became apparent. this is the way i was feeling a few weeks ago in bellingham, saturated with a foreign divinity. one idea about this feeling (which comes in pulses, flashes, waves) is that it is a premonition of the permanent soak that is after-death. a blip of iridescence/incandescence to our color, our sliver of the color spectrum. it is a light, warm possession. regardless, it didn't feel creepy until tonight. we went to a green party gathering. alex took us there. there were speakers, some music, drinks. polly, the coordinator, was happy to hear our story and wanted us to share it with the group. i asked her if i could play a song instead. we wound up each playing a song, probably taking up too much of their time. i stumblingly told of MASA and the reason for our trip and how beautiful their city was (i guess people flock here from distances in the fall cause there are soooo many green trees turning red orange brown) and how beautiful their togetherness was. it came out rough, as did olive but i felt compelled to share it. afterwards dwayne, who happened to be the county commissioner, offered us a place to stay, 16 bucks and wished us well. we gave him cd's of ours. joe got this brilliant idea to squat, or at least visit the auditorium of this junior high was being renovated. so we went. the door that was usually open, was locked. we found another way in. it was dark, bare and that echo was there, the imprint of a silenced location that was used to heavy people traffic. apparently, there was something else there. the pictures we took as we fled had what appeared to be "orbs," round spots on the picture that weren't there otherwise. supposed psycho-kinetic energy. we fled because there was a loud bang from a distance down the hallway. we heard it twice. we fled fast. tim snapped some shots as we fled laughing. after that, winona wasn't the same. i felt a calm, quiet around me, labby felt something in her back. we went to jamey's to hang out and say goodbye. he wasn't home but we hung out in his very nice, quaint apartment for a bit. he had two nice cats, wood floors, high ceilings and plenty of plants. we left shortly after, found jamey at a bar on the corner. lab, who had stayed in the van came in and said she was ready to go NOW. we pulled jamey out to say goodbye and as we packed up, him and a few friends started a drunken clap circle with indian chanting. if things hadn't been getting weird, it would have been simply funny, but present circumstance made it kind of dark and foreboding. i left feeling that our new friends were not on my side as they had appeared. a sick colony tie-casting there spellings on us. i am getting tired. i want to write a musical autobiography. as in, a recounting and fleshing out of my entire life through the exclusive personification of the songs, albums and musical acts that aurally periodicated my existence. as in, all the characters in your life story are the artists and bands you listened to. your relationships, your reactions and interactions with their music... admiration is a lazy, patronizing distance. inspiration is a personalized tribute, an empathetic activating response to another. fuck admiration.
1am, Sunday August 22nd, 2004.
-mattfu

***
travel log stardate 020042108
goldstar the incessant spilling tour [horshit]
When I lived in Chicago there was a magazine being made and distributed in pure DIY fashion called Lumpen. When the makers of this zine would make their deliveries they would do it in pure John Cleese style: jogging raising their knees high and chanting something while wearing white plastic paint coveralls. The ritual of the deliveries in my neighborhood became as dear as head butts by Wesly Willis as a strange wicker park phenomenon. Well, these kids have opened an art gallery and this is where we performed. www.lumpen.com I ran into Miss Florida Butter, my old downstairs neighbor who performed a story with hand drawn illustrations. I always wondered what happened to her. Unbeknownst, I ended up performing with her. There have been so many strange synchronistic moments like this on our adventures it is uncanny. I love that we drove all the way to Chicago to play with two northwest artists.

Today we played in a park along the mississippi river. There were clovers in the grass, tall beautiful trees and eagles soaring above them.

Crashing the green party party with a gillian welch cover afterward was a nice treat. Just one short and sweet song.
-labbypants

***

10:21 a.m. sunday

we're driving from the rest stop we stayed at about 25 miles from madison. we drove there after an odd night in winona. it didn't start out as odd as it eventually got, but i have pictures to prove that there are ghosts in an old school there that joe took us to. whenever i think of the school, i think of that part in the sixth sense where the kid that sees ghosts sees those three people hanged. everyone was spooked after that. we went to jamey's, a guy that played the show with us outside on the banks of the mississippi, and we sat in his living room with his cats as he was across the street listening to a band cover bruce hornsby.

we met some really great people there, and some endless nw connections, as alex, our guide for most of the evening, showed us around. we showed up at the winona county's green party "party," where each one of us played a song and the county commissioner (we've come to the consensus that we have no idea what he does, but matt seems to think he's like a delegate or something) gave us all the cash in his wallet and wished us well. nice people in winona. the green party was interesting, it was nice to see activity and people involved and active.

but the green party was before we went to rascal's and jamey's and the last thing we experienced from the winona scene was an impromptu native american drum circle chant as we packed the car to get the hell out of there. i wasn't as creeped out as the rest of my crew, but the contact creepiness was more than enough. we left at about 130.

matt just pulled a completely illegal u-turn whilst listening to al green soulify the car with his soulful souliness. my back and neck hurts from sleeping in this van. touring isn't all fun and games, boys and girls. i'm looking forward to free pizza today, hopefully. next stop glass nickel pizzeria. i need to brush my fucking teeth.

a few things i keep forgetting to mention. matt's designated quote of the tour, which happened way back in minni, minn:
me (singing): "i seen fire and i seen rain..."
matt: "this isn't james taylor, this is ben harper."
labrynt: "you can tell it's james taylor because beneeeeeeeeeeeeee."
-tim

2004-08-21T14:03:00.000-07:00

we just got done eating at the acoustic cafe here in winona, minn. the highway we took to get here ran right along the mississippi, which is absolutely breathtaking, almost as good as when owl and i were driving through mississippi in the summer a few years ago. lush, thick greenery like a wall on the side of the road.

the show in chicago last night was okay, i only played three songs, and it was an odd crowd that was a little too cool. but.... whatever. the show today was good on latsch island, awesome punks in this town. awesome town, actually. god this entry is staid, maybe it's because everyone's waiting for me to finish this so we can get the fuck out of here.

i'll try to be a little more verbose and entertaining next time.
-tim

2004-08-21T02:01:00.000-07:00

we are flying on 90 west to get to La Crosse, WI to hit 61 north to Winona, MN. we are set to play a big afternoon/evening hang out gathering in a park on the mississippi river today hosted and attended by winona punk kids. or, winopunx. we are an hour late. hopefully they will be receptive to our indie inclinations and not be disappointed when we don't sound like against me. last night was chicago and chaos and fun. i played bow interrupted, blue purple failure, eulogy and olive. the show was at this cool art gallery (none on the walls, though) called the buddy gallery. it was all-ages and most people were drinking. it was on milwaukee street , in a gentrified hip neighborhood. i had a piece of cheese pizza, normal style but tasty. the evening began with an hour and some quick show and tell slide show presentations that were mostly pretty funny. especially one of stick figure drawings and readings from the instructions a kidnapper left for this girl he intelligently buried under the ground for a week. bill, who set the show up, couldn't be there that evening and edmar was a gracious host, though he didn't know what to do about the order. there were six acts, yacht, thanksgiving and lost robots (a local screamy electro dance duo). edmar left right when the music was supposed to start and i decided we should just go first and get out of the way. i guess i seemed pissed off or nervous or something. i need to fix that. sometimes when i am trying to be quick with my shit on stage, i come off that way. for the record, i wasn't pissed, i just wanted to get or songs out of the way quick so that there would be time, and people enough, for all the other acts. i was a bit nervous. the crowd was, musically, right up our alley. CJ1 was there (a term john schroder coined and john tosch brought to our attention). tim played 3 quick songs well, labby did 5 or 6 i think and did nice. no cd's sold, but i gave away a few 1985 dawm rtreadings and MASA comps to seemingly interested folks. john put us up, despite moving in a few short weeks. he was awesome and hospitable and hilarious, with a dry delivery throughout. we left today around noon and saw wrigley filed on the way out. twin cities visit with grandma was good, fritz seems extra worried about her health and would like to see her go to a nursery home. she , of course, opposes that. it was good to be there again. i only saw her, fritz and adam though, as we got there at 7pm and left at 12pm the next day. we were supposed to go back up there tonight, but i feel bad about dragging tim and lab's two hours north out of our way... anyways, approaching winona northbound via the mississippi now, gotta give KTMae a call to get directions to the park... 4pm, Saturday August 21st, 2004.
-mattfu

***
travel log stardate 02004200
goldstar "geekout"
the incessant search for objects tour [horshit]
when I recorded "I wish you all the happiness you allow yourself", I listened to two albums extensively. One was the 3 disc 69 love songs set by magnetic fields and the other was Sebadoh's "Freed Weed". Whenever I was at a spot in the recording process where I was stuck or frustrated I would pop in freed weed and it would always inspire and enllighten. The influence of that album may not necessarily be audible, but is alive and well, buried in the heart of it. After driving 14 or so hours into Minni, Minn I find that Sebadoh is performing at bar in Minnni, Minn. It just so happens that this was our only day off and I was able to not only see Sebadoh play, which I thought would never happen, but I also got to give Lou Barlow a copy of the goldstar cd and tell him that he was a major influence on the recording- which I never thought would happen; the possibility never entered my thoughts that I could give him credit personally. Thanks for the nightgown, Lou.
-labbypants *

2004-08-19T01:59:00.000-07:00

1 am, Thursday August 19th, 2004.

so we just left great falls, MT and a 50â€™s style diner with nacho cheese fries and 20 kids in the fluorescence of a thrift store basement and a set from old shoes and pants. we have a mascot. his name is Jack Trimble and he is 20 years, he is a teddy bear. contrary to what you might hear from labby or t-dogg, the name for our tour is horseshit. not "the horseshit tour" or "summer tour horseshit," just horseshit. and you have to say it right, with a certain guttural, old man cranky sass. i keep spilling things. a lot of things. we have played two shows so far, both set up by tyson ballew. the first was last night in missoula at an art gallery called area five. victor, the absent owner who is often accused of persistent flakiness, has been letting kids have shows there often. which is kick ass. it was like a cleaner, bigger show-off gallery. with art. i would kill to have a space like that. we listened to transatlanticism today and i was reminded of cardinals tour last summer around this time and falling in love with that album and back in love with you. what a year. i mean really. sets so far:

KUGS: blue-purple failure, journal, a framing, all is sun.
MS, MT: eulogy, blue-purple failure, bow interrupted, olive, way things are here, a framing, all is sun.
GF, MT: bow (interrupted), blue-purple failure, the leash, way things are here, olive, A Framing, all is sun (edit), eulogy.

those are estimates. i begin with the improv-ing eulogy in missoula because it turned out to be a positive song about getting past past pains and plagues and it continues to have the line "and yeah colorado hurt, but so does every other place you'll go." it was the last song we recorded when i was down with bob in oly last week. it was a three chord riff i came up while we were sound checking and then at the end of the day we had an extra hour and i suggest we try the riff and i would improv lyrics. we wound up doing two takes and decided to keep them both. so the new album (called where tomorrow lets us breathe, currently being assembled and designed from out here on the road) ends with this song. in between the takes is 15 minutes of delay and feedback (all ambient style) created by bob.... all the seats in this van make my back hurt. we made five too many extra top ramens last night and by morning they had turned into a medusa monster of noodle glory. we are aiming to hit the twin cities by suppertime. spend the night there with my grandma, consider giving Jack back to Adria and then head out to chicago in the morning. i forgot how much driving, my four hour shift from spokane to missoula was the first driving i have done in 7 months. we are having fun. this was a great way to start the tour out.
-mattfu

*** travel log stardate 020041908
goldstar the journey is the destination tour [horshit]
patron saint jack tripple. fields of sunflowers. listening to friends songs driving further and further from home. driving hours through the mountains at night and seeing only one car. a wolf, deer, a giant bat, and hawks swirling the sky playing in the wind. lack of sleep. delirium. green tea and laughing so hard my stomach hurts. cory, jake, and the kids of great falls, monatana. our very own traveling radio station. Area 5 attic paradise in missoula, montana, with stenciled wall paper patterns on pink walls. the wind in the grass like waves. the dry air. ranch settlements in the valleys of the plains. sleeping in the van in a rainstorm. almost there.... minni, minn
-labbypants

***

on the road to the twin cities after the show tonight in great falls. the crowd was amazingly young and receptive, i had a great time. we're listening to pedro the lion right now, and i'm kicking myself for not having brought achilles heel with me, and i'm embarrassed at how much i can't stop talking about how great it is. last week (was that last week?) i was driving back south from northern california and listened to it a few times in addition to a new favorite that i'm digging a lot that i didn't realize i would dig, the long winters when i pretend to fall. good shit.

the great falls officemax was a fucking gold mine, though, what with the treasures that it's given us, including what's enabling this post right now, a dc/ac converter that lets me plug my computer in, and also enabling the pedro the lion coming through goldie's speakers. something was missing from the drive yesterday, and it certainly was not the prog rock rush was providing on the local eastern washington radio stations.

we traded a 7" for a mug because matt left his in the freight elevator. old shoes was awesome tonight, and played a really rad song that once i get around to it, will show up here and i might work on a cover. that is all. over and out.

-tim 2:13 a.m. thursday

2004-08-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

i wrote this in the car yesterday: we got out of seattle this morning around 10, right now we're in the car on i-90 on our way to montana. last night's show was all right, i was too nervous to enjoy my rancho burrito before the radio show. after the show we had to help matt clean his room out, and we didn't get back into kirkland until about 130, and we stayed up until 4 to get my cds finished, which look great, by the way, thanks to rick for the design and alison for all the cutting and pasting and burning work. you can buy one soon, i promise. 8 songs cheap, 5 bucks.

today, i'm sitting in the raven coffeehouse in missoula. the show last night was a lot better than the radio show, and i even got a drunk guy to compliment the songs. i didn't sell anything, but so it goes. the place we played at had a bunch of kittens wandering around, and as soon as i get around to it, i'll have a picture of the cute little bastards up here. old shoes was great, and some guy named scott channeled the spirit of elliott smith, too.

we're waiting around until we go to great falls, where apparently they don't have any fred meyers, but they do have radio shacks. i need to buy a bigger memory card for my camera (which i will pay you back for soon, owl)!

last night there was a big thunder storm passing through the area, it was amazing and loud and flashy. we slept on the floor of a house with one of the most disgusting bathrooms i've ever seen. but i'm not complaining.

a few more shows have been confirmed and details are slowly coming, keep checking the masa site for the dates and details.

tour diary

2004-08-02T01:53:00.000-07:00

from tim (via infinite regress): i went to bed at about 230 last night because i took a ton of time setting up the 8-track and the mixer and everything, woke up at 8 to get started recording. replaced drum heads, but the music store around here has awful hours, so i wasted a good portion of time waiting for them to open so i could give them my money for drum heads and mic stands. got home and spent three hours or so tuning drums, and i still think they sound like crap. how the hell are you supposed to tune drums? it's frickin' hard.

i'm laying down tracks tomorrow, FOR SURE. i lost some bucks playing texas hold 'em. i'm gonna get back though. here's ALL the g.i. joe PSAs, i think. even quite a few that i've never seen.