The Invincible Czars' Tour Journal

October 19, 2007 - Berkeley, CA - The Starry Plough

2007-10-23T21:24:34Z

We woke up late… as usual. No one wanted more banana pancakes but me so Phil, Bill and I walked to grocery store where I bought an orange and whole sprig of broccoli. I ate both raw while walking around. Then we found a bigger grocery store where we all bought some food. Adam had gone to get coffee with his friend Trish who lives close to the Fishtank. Tommy did some laundry up the street.

Then we went into Berkeley and spent too damn much time at Amoeba records and Rasputin Music. Both had some great selections. I was excited to see My Education’s albums in Rasputin. I tried to be frugal and I actually bought a Phish album!! Ugh! I’ve never been a fan of these guys but Philliam played their first album (from 1988?) on the way to SF and it reminded me a little bit of… us! The music was less improv based and more planned. The playing was fantastic of course. I liked it so well, I bought a used copy at Amoeba. Even I’m surprised about this but I have to admit, it’s really quite good.

Tommy wandered again and eventually found his way back to us in the UC Berkeley area. We went to the Starry Plough and it didn’t seem as… magical to me this time. I

remember the first time we played there that it was all new to me and Berkeley seemed like such an awesome town. This time it just seemed more like another venue in an semi-residential district. Still, the Plough is a great place with very good food, drinks, music and sound. Mojow opened and had the best outfits yet (they wore different ones every night) – matching camouflage suites with Vibration Army logos on the back and Peace Symbol arm bands.

We had a good set and I tried to savor our last show with John joining us on A Glezele Vayn. Another really good improv on that tune. We wound up exchanging single note licks between Phil, John, me, Bill and (for the first time ever) Tommy! Our quiet section got so quiet that in the end we were all just snapping for several bars. We also had a good run on Bald Mountain. I love playing in the East Bay. More than anywhere else, the people here GET what we’re doing. I’d love to move the whole band out here – it’s just too damn expensive. During Philliam’s solo in Deeksha, I started slapping my own but on the snare hits and stood near the end of the stage – eventually some of the ladies from the audience (who’d already started dancing) began to slap it for me! I thought this was so much fun that I teased them into doing it again later in the set. J

I also finally met Cameron (cubehead) from the NoMeansNo forum. Another reason you gotta love the Starry Plough is that they love NoMeansNo! They even had two posters of NMN in their back office. Speaking of the office, I must mention that Tommy did such a good job on wardrobe on this trip. We brought a little iron and countertop ironing board so we could keep our kurtas looking nice and he had them pressed for us every night. They look terrible when they’re wrinkly. Someone at the plough yelled out to ask us if we ironed them before we played so I introduced Tommy as, “Tommy Holton on wardrobe!” and he received a massive applause.

Now – remember what I wrote about Christine from Chief Beef? Well, we met another really talented lady musician - Jenya from Fuzzy Cousins. I’m not trying to say that women are not good musicians – they are! It’s just that we don’t see/hear many of them in the underground rock world. Fuzzy Cousins is just Matt Lebofsky and his wife Jenya. I liked them even BETTER than 3 Piece Combo – mostly because of Jenya. She and Matt harmonized almost ALL the vocals and she sounded so good! But the best part was her drumming. My gosh, she could really play. Her beats were interesting and she played like… well, like a guy! She hit hard, played good beats and was very coordinated. She also played a bit of bass and did several songs standing at the front of the stage with a single drum and singing. That single drum stuff was impressive as hell. She was using just about every sound one could get from a single drum. At one point, she was singing, playing bass with her left hand and hitting tiny little bongos with her right hand. This is not to detract from Matt – his tone was great and I was HIGHLY impressed with his abilities on Warr Guitar (like a Chapman stick – it’s the instrument that Brian Kenney Fresno plays). Anyway, I was really impressed with them.

Though not quite as highly attended as expected, people were super enthusiastic and we had a very good time. Not much else to tell. I did get to chat with Wally and Nat from Mirthkon – who are pretty much favorite non-Austin band in the USA right now. Wally actually started Mirthkon back in Houston and Sarah Norris had played in one of these early versions! Tommy also kind of knew Wally from Houston – and Brian from Bat Castle definitely knows him. Small world.

We went back to the Fishtank, hung out and talked with Aaron and then I fell asleep.

October 18, 2007 - Sacramento, CA - Speakeasy

2007-10-23T21:22:30Z

Not a lot to say about the next morning. I’d been joking daily about how, “Tomorrow, Phil’s making blueberry pancakes.” Each morning, I had upped it a notch. Chocolate chip pancakes, Belgian waffles, cheese blintzes and chocolate éclairs. Unfortunately, Papa Davidson doesn’t have any recipes so Tommy and I finally made some banana whole wheat buttermilk pancakes.

We just kind of hung around and then left for Sacramento around 5 PM. Aaron from Giant Squid had warned me the night before that Old Sacramento (a historic and touristy district of Sacto) has become hard to get people to come to shows. I learned why when I drove us there – it’s like a maze getting down there and even worse trying to get out. In the end, this did hurt the show. Even though the headliners, Radio Orangevale (who were VERY very good), had been featured on the cover of a local music paper, they had almost no one there to see them. They told me the same thing that Aaron had said – it’s just become difficult to get non-tourists to come to Old Sacramento.

We met John and Moriah and Tommy, Phil and I ate pizza with them. We got all the dirt on Estradasphere, John’s days in Santa Cruz, their marriage, etc. etc. etc. They are a pretty cool couple and after a few nights of playing together, their positive energy was rubbing off on me! I’d felt disappointed that we’d had such a mediocre night in SF the night before but hanging out with John and playing with him on stage was a real treat and probably worth the whole trip. J

The Speakeasy has a crazy old disco dancing floor that is used as a stage. It also has mirrors all around – which was cool because I didn’t need to turn around to see Tommy’s signals – I could just look up at the ceiling or to the side and see him playing. However, it made the sound in the room rather awful for louder band like us. Mojow sounded really good. I was also very excited to hear John throat sing Tuvan style in one of the songs that night. Amazing. Tommy had a special treat – since they didn’t have a drummer for the evening, Tommy sat in! He did 4 or 5 tunes with them and did fine. He had to play to a looped track of John’s beatbox beats – not easy when you’ve never done it or rarely do it.

On the drive back to Oakland, Adam and I talked for almost the entire time about the future of the Invincible Czars. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed at the fact that almost no one from the Estradasphere shows in april had come to see us in most of the towns we’d played. In fact, on this tour, we did BETTER in towns where we didn’t play with Estradasphere. But there are a number of factors at work there – a lot of resources that Estradasphere and other bands have are either not available to us or prohibitively expensive (booking agents, labels, national publicity agencies, etc.) Normally, I at least have a bit of time to dedicate to publicizing our tours but this time I did almost none because I’d been working every day and night on our Nutcracker CD right up until the day before we left. Between tracking, mixing, working with Kennon the artist and scheduling the whole upcoming release AND the dates we’ll be playing, I just didn’t have time to properly publicize this trip.

But we learned a lot out here this time. We know we can and like playing shows like we did in Flagstaff where we can go all night and even be the only band. Though Northern California was tougher than ever, Arizona was GREAT and easier to re-visit. Also, we made a really good connection with the people at the Steve Allen Theater and the people who do the Tomorrow Show there.

October 17, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - The Elbo Room

2007-10-23T21:21:35Z

It was late drive back to LA the night before. We arrived back at Jeff’s place around 4:30 AM. I couldn’t believe Bill drove all the way back from SD after driving there and being so tired the whole time. I got some real shut eye on the way but it’s tough to sleep in the back of the van when moving because the rear of the van sort of whips all around and I usually am jolted awake with terror by a careening lane change, staring out the windshield at a horrifically normal scene that wouldn’t phase me at all had I been awake for the initial turn.

Anyway… so we slept. We woke up and I went to the local Whole Foods (and I promise not to exercise my lack of intelligence here or engage in unclear yet disappointing motives by mentioning Whole Foods, its employees or anyone else) for some food. It was the only grocery store I could find just driving around Santa Monica. We cooked the loaded up and headed north to SF. I know that (the) 101 is supposed to be the most beautiful way to get from SoCal to Northern California, but I like the drive through the San Joaquin Valley – especially passing by all the fruit and nut trees out there. Although gas prices started going up up up as we neared SF, we never paid more than $3.11 a gallon the whole time we were in the Bay Area (compared to last time when we wound up paying something like $3.70 at most).

So we didn’t have to deal with tons of traffic until we crossed the Bay bridge, but that’s to be expected. We arrived at the Elbo Room and unloaded. John and Moriah were already there. We learned that there had been confusion between a few parties as to the order of the night. The club had the order listed in the exact opposite order of what I had suggested. I guess this was because Matt, the booker, and I hadn’t clarified that and thought each other understood the order as specified. No big deal - Matt’s a super cool guy and we switched the order around but if left us headlining. GAH! However, we chose to do it because it meant we could play longer, which we like. The only bummer was that a lot of people who came to see us just didn’t bother to even come in when they learned we’d be last. It’s weird that SF is NOT like Austin in the sense that people will go to a show and PLAN to stay at least to see a few songs by the final band, if not the entire night – even on a weeknight.

TANGENT – I forgot to mention at our night in Flagstaff that the door man for the show, upon learning that we were from Austin, immediately called us “poor bastards” for living in a city that had been ruined (I guess by population?). There seems to be a sense of that IN Austin, too. However, I don’t feel like Austin has lost any of its character. Some people say that Austin’s “golden years” were the 80s. Some say it was the 90s during thec tech boom. Others say the 70s. I think it all really depends on your age as to when you think Austin’s glory days were. It seems to me that in spite of Austin’s growth, it’s retained its character. The whole Keep Austin Weird thing is kind of hokey… but it IS indicative of the desire of people there to retain the city’s personality. It seems like it’s probably somewhat easier for a city like SF to resist having Wal-Mart or other Home Depot come in and set up multiple huge, giant big boxes because there just isn’t that much room! Austin is just like any other Texas city – plenty of room to sprawl. Austin’s got its fair share of Wal-Marts, home depots, etc… but it seems to also have a pretty good sense of balance with this. Big companies are constantly trying to muscle the locals out. We can’t stop huge companies from coming to our city, but we can choose to support our local economy and people do still do it. For anyone who thinks that they can find a better music scene in the US, I think they should consider some of the stuff that exists to help musicians in Austin that I don’t hear about anywhere else – like HAAM, Sims and the Austin Music Foundation. If these things exist in other towns, I don’t know about them. Anyway, point is - nothing lasts forever and although there are plenty of people who say Austin isn't as great as it was in the 70s or 80s or 90s are missing the fact that our city, like all cities, is dynamic. Many things change - population is one. The skyline is another. Yet Austin remains unique and I love it. END TANGENT.

Before the show began, we all went for food. Phil, Tommy and I all went for Indian/Pakistani and Adam and Billiam had Japanese. People in SF are interesting. They have the whole bohemian thing like Austin yet they’re very fashionable and proper like yuppies in Dallas. It’s an interesting mix of those two worlds with a whole bunch of its own flavor. Lots of personality. Nice cool air.

So anyway, Austin Lucas was great. He had a very good voice, his band was well rehearsed and they were on. Apparently he used to work at the Elbo Room but moved to the Czech Republic and was touring the US with his band who were all Czech. The Elbo has a little backstage area but there’s nothing to keep anyone from going back there except a door. The club provides bands with a certain amount of beer and bottled water in a cooler back there. They put in a pretty good mix of beers, which is decent of them. Usually, it’s just a cooler full of PBR or Lonestar – cheap stuff. Since I don’t drink beer, it don’t make no nevermind to me. However, it was irritating that people NOT in the bands kept coming back and taking all the good stuff out before any of the bands could even finish dealing with their gear. I’m not sure of the exact situation, but at some point, Adam got fed up with it and actually took the beer out of one of the guys’ hands and put it back in the cooler. HA! I thought that was pretty bold. But hell, that’s kind of how you have to be in the world of bars. No one’s really policing anything and people who know it will take advantage. Anyway, this didn’t popularize us with Austin Lucas’ crew because I think the guy Adam took the beers from was one of Austin’s band.

Anyway – Austin, if you happen to be bored and you google yourself and find this, we thought your show was spectacular and no hard feelings about the beer. J

Mojow played second and sounded great just like they did every night. John Whooley is the real thing. I think he may be the most accomplished musician I’ve ever shared a stage with… more on this later. 3 Piece Combo was also good but I missed a lot because they were playing while we were preparing to go on. 3PC is one of many of Matt Lebofsky’s bands in the Bay. Matt is a longtime ICSer and a prolific music writer. 3PC reminded me a bit of Shellac.

We finally went on around midnight (not even that late by Austin standards!) and though the place had significantly dropped since the great influx of people who were there to see Austin Lucas (That’s why I thought he was supposed to be the headliner), several of people stuck around for us and for the first time EVER, someone in San Francisco danced to one of our songs… albeit only for a few moments during Iron Fist of Stalin.

San Francisco is even tougher than Tucson and Austin. I can’t put my finger on it but people there are not remotely rowdy – even when I toured with Golden Arm Trio, San Francisco just seemed sedate. Still, we played well, the sound was good and I was glad to see so many people we knew stuck around – like Aaron from Giant Squid and several of our friends.

We played a pretty long set and in the end we even had John Whooley join us on stage to play “A Glezele Vayn”. That was awesome! He just started figuring out lines and playing right along – no rehearsals or anything. He had some great soloing, too! This was also the first night that we started gathering around Tommy’s drum set and all playing a different drum. That was really fun and totally “in the moment” but I liked it so well that I directed us to do it again the next 3 nights in a row.

John also played “Working Song” with us. Phil and I had a particularly good exchange of crazy percussive thwacks on this one. Adam was not feeling great about the show. His amp had started farting out – I still don’t know if it’s his head or his speaker. This just got progressively worse and was even more noticeable in Sacramento the next night.

My second cousin had come to the show and planned to leave no later than 1 AM (now we’re getting closer to Austin standards!) and I was surprised to see she was still there at the end of the show which was at about 1:30. She said we were so entertaining she didn’t want to leave. Cool! That’s what I like to hear from people – and I did hear it from people. Aaron from Giant Squid said it was the best Inv. Czars show he’d ever seen. In spite of the lower than expected turn-out, the venue seems to really like us and was positive about everything.

Afterwards, we went to the Fishtank in Oakland where our friend Lisa D. lives. We were to stay at the tank for 3 nights (and did). Aaron Seemans also lives there. Aaron is an accordionist extraordinaire and plays with the Fishtank Ensemble. Sadly, I think he’s the only member who still lives in the Bay Area at all. Aaron also does his own solo thing under the name Duckmandu and has recorded and excellent solo accordion version of Dead Kennedys’ “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”. John Whooley actually sang bass in Aaron’s opera “Opium” during their days at UCSC in Santa Cruz… so Aaron’s pretty connected the Estradasphere guys from their days in SC.

Anyway, we stayed up a bit and then hit the sack.

Addendum to OCT 11 - Tucson

2007-10-19T20:03:02Z

Dom from Dearling Physique was apparently not happy with my mention of him in this journal. He writes:

Dear Josh,

When I'm bored, I'll browse Google to discover what fascinating things other bored people might be saying about me. This evening I came across a tour journal with your bands' name on it. Your motives, while unclear, are disappointing. What nonsensical blogger credentials qualifies you the right to spread information obviously not established as true? The circumstances resulting in your poor decision to publish false things about me can be warmly summarized in a variety of colorful words. However, common sense suggests that I analyze. Answers are not born from assumptions. You don't know me, and I don't know you. The extent of my services offered to Br'er were tastefully met after three months of hard, hard work. In return, I was granted with sickness and hardship leaving me with no choice but to remove myself from the tour at a minute's notice. All individuals involved in this lengthy process, including the boys of Br'er, we're swiftly informed. What is truly unfortunate is how a good deed with the best of intentions can be judged as worthless and re-communicated as deceitful. Intelligence is a gift to be opened before speaking. And though you may lack such things, you may forgive your mis-education having now learned how not to make friends.

Dom

So I thought I'd post my response here to clear this up for anyone reading:

Dom,

hey sorry you didn't like what I wrote on our tour
journal. I certainly didn't mean to offend you. all
I wrote was that Br'er told us you had screwed them
over and that I got the impression you weren't going
to show up. The whole thing was just really
mysterious. Here you'd contacted me a while back to
try to get some shows together, it didn't work and I
never heard from you again. Next thing I know this
band of young guys from Philly are telling me that
they let someone they didn't even know book them a
tour on the opposite side of the country and that they
were highly unsatisfied. They also said they doubted
you'd show up. the venue knew nothing about whether
you were going to show up. I knew nothing about
whether you were going to show up. If you had, we
would've just gone on later. It was nothing against
you... just seemed like a pretty screwy situation that
Br'er was in and that's what I was trying to
communicate.

Ultimately, I could only go with the info I had at the
time. Br'er was obviously pretty green when it comes
to travelling and playing music so I can see how their
impression may have been skewed. Obviously the shows
you booked for them happened. I don't know why they
thought you'd dicked them around. All I knew was
that they predicted you wouldn't show and you didn't.
What else can I gather from that?

J

October 16, 2007 - San Diego - Scolari's Office

2007-10-18T19:43:22Z

We woke up too late to really do much other than eat breakfast and head down to San Diego. We ate at Tacos Por Favor in Santa Monica – tasty. Then we then left immediately for San Diego. The drive from LA to San Diego was lovely. We stopped for gas at the swankiest service station that I’ve ever seen. I think that Southern CA must be the model for every suburb or newly developed part of every town in the rest of the country. In spite of it’s clean look and beauty it’s kind of… generic - like Plano with palm trees.

We arrived way early… but we missed the traffic. We checked out their Salvation Army and I bought a used copy of Ozzy Ozbourne’s re-mastered “Diary of a Madman”. I’m not a fan of Ozzy but I AM a fan of Randy Rhoades. We drove to the harbor and checked out the outsides of all the boats and ships that have been turned into museums and wandered around. It seems we were just slightly too late to do any of the cruise tours. Eventually we made our way back to the University area and ate some food at Ranchos.

At the venue, word was that Action Friend (the other band) was stuck in Phoenix and probably wouldn’t make it to the show. Though it wasn’t good news, we were at least excited about playing a double set. Scolari’s doesn’t have a stage and I wound up standing next to Tommy’s hi-hat… this was deafening. It was the weirdest sound I’ve ever experienced… I kept adjusting volume on my amp. I’d be too loud, not loud enough, too loud… etc. The drums would seem deafening, then just right… then suddenly I couldn’t hear Phil anymore. Meanwhile, the vocals were coming through the PA with NO MONITORS and they were loud and clear the whole time. Who’d have thunk it?

About half way through our set, Action Friend did finally make it to the place. They were good but tremendously loud. By the end I was kind of glad they were done because my ears and head needed a break. ☺ They told us that their van had broken down in Phoenix and they’d missed a few dates. Apparently the transmission was history. Gah! So they’d rented a van and left theirs in Phoenix. Sounds familiar…

San Diego wasn’t exactly a high energy kind of place and the people Scolari’s reflected that. We wore our new Chairman Mao shirts that were given to us by Mike, Bill’s brother. He brought bunch of stuff like that back from his business trip to China. There was a fellow there named Tom who had the Roy Orbison glasses – he told us he is legally blind. I think he was on the prowl because all of us got the impression he was coming on to us. The weirdest part was when he told Phil that Phil looks like he’s from Iowa. Weird because he is. When we arrived, Tom had asked me to light his cigarette for him because his lighter kept getting blown out by the wind. After I helped him with it he told me he couldn’t see but that he bet my face was handsome. I told him I had to go to the bathroom.

We also met Troy from Cattle Decapitation. It was odd because we’d brought them up in a conversation earlier that day about over the top band names. He was a really cool guy. Everyone at the place was super. It’s just too bad it was so dead. In spite of that, people were enthusiastic and we actually sold more CDs than any other night so far! One guy was a friend of an LA cumbia band and asked if were going to play LA. I told him we just did and we talked about playing LA. I told him we’d love to play with his friends in LA sometime because we never do very well there on our own. In fact, I told him we don’t really care to spend a lot of time in LA and he was shocked. He said, “why?” and I thought back to the little rant I’d made in the last journal entry about playing LA.

Bill slept in the van for the entire length of Action Friend’s set but that was probably for the best as he drove us back to LA – arrival time was 4:30 AM! We stayed at Jeff’s again.

The place was kind of dead – and even the employees and other regular patrons said it’s usually not like that… I don’t know whether to believe that or not because that’s what every venue tells a band when the night is slow – especially when you’re earning a percentage of the bar as pay.

After doing these last three dates (SAT, MON and TUE), I think I did just about the best I could do with the planning/booking. We didn’t have to drive much, we had free lodging and great weather and although the shows were not well attended, at least we didn’t lose a bunch of money by paying to play or driving really far. Filling MON and TUE is always challenging. This was much better than driving 5 hours to some nowhere town where people would ignore us. I guess what I mean is, I knew that MON and TUE would be mediocre pretty much no matter where we played. At least we had the opportunity to play to enthusiastic (if small) audiences without spending a lot of money or wasting a lot of time.

October 15, 2007 - Los Angeles - The Mint

2007-10-18T19:40:46Z

Another late-ish start. We ate breakfast around noon and then drove around the area.
We saw the house where Bill lived as a teenager. This is a weird place where, as Bill says, if people left a house and no one else bought it, it would usually just become an abandoned shell and eventually fall to pieces. I imagine that living out there in the high desert must be a little like living in the wild west of the movies. This is the REAL desert – not like northern Utah (my home state) where there’s at least SOME green in the landscape. This is a true dustbowl. Orange, yellow and brown are the only earth tones out there (in that order). It is hot and dry as all get out. Bring your mentholatum!

We came through Victorville and Rancho Cucomonga where we encountered some serious smog/fog coming down in the valley. Fortunately, the terrible accident that had happened on “The Five” on Saturday had been mostly cleared so we didn’t have trouble getting into LA. However, Adam and I teamed up to burn up our extra time – first we overshot the location of the venue by about 20 miles (which means about an hour’s worth of time in LA) only to find that I had written the address down incorrectly and that’d we’d actually been closer to the real location when turned around. Argh!

So we finally got to the Mint and then went for some Kosher food since were obviously in that part of town. I even saw a Kosher Subway while walking to a Wells Fargo. We went back to the mint and Tommy and I checked out some nice Moroccan shirts that we really liked but… I think we’re about to get some new Indian stuff from India so we passed.

The Mint was a really cool room. It’s a bar/restaurant that hosts a jazz jam on Mondays. The booker, Casey, was willing to have us and John Whooley’s band Mojow and the Vibration Army for an earlier show. The annoying thing about this place was that they require you us their backline. This was great for Adam but no so hot for the rest of us – Phil was going into a direct box that bypassed his effects and foot volume control. I was playing out of a really nice Rivera combo but didn’t get used to its controls. My volume was totally squirrelly as a result. My louds were too quiet and my quiets were to loud. Also, in the middle of Cue the Tie Fighters, my effects power supply went bonkers and I learned not to plug it into a certain outlet on Bill’s power strip. Tommy had the WORST of it though, playing on a semi-cheesy Mapex set. He told me later that he didn’t have one bit of fun up there. Bill didn’t even have an amp. I don’t think he heard a single note of his keyboard for the first 4 songs. Phil and I did have a fun lick-trading (settle down!) improv in the Working Song (geez, we’ve played that a lot). Also, Invaders went swimmingly in spite of the fact that we were struggling with our sound in the early part of the set. More than any other show on the tour, I wished Leila had been there to sing so I didn’t have to. Of course, this is unrealistic since she doesn’t know our songs well enough yet to perform them. I am not a fan of my own singing but I have wound up doing it because I’m the most coordinated when it comes to moving my mouth and playing my instrument at the same time. Anyway, the vocals came through loudly and clearly and it kind of rattled me. I don’t like to hear too much of my voice on stage. Still, I thought we sounded good vocally on the tunes where we sang – Ounce, Run to the Hills and Invaders.

In spite of the technical troubles and the fact that it wasn’t our best show, we still had a good time and played well considering. We were psyched to see Josh and Steve from the Steve Allen Theatre. Also, Phil had a friend from college who showed up and Drew previously of Echobase and Friends of Dean Martinez was in town and came to the show.

This was our first show John Whooley and we didn’t know what to expect. We’d heard some music on their web site but it really didn’t do them justice. They had a drummer (making them a trio) that night – John from the bass/drums duo Clevis. They started the show with the two of walking out into the audience with a wagon full of gear attached to John W.’s pants. The wagon had some little amps and stuff and was playing a looped beatbox beat and John and Mariah (the other member of the band and his wife) sang over it. John had his saxophone and a delay/loop pedal which was attached to the pocket area of his pants. They were amazing, looping voices, and instruments right there. It was quite incredible… all of this was being done about 2 feet from the audience using battery powered equipment. They wandered around the bar and eventually back to the backstage area. Then they came out and played from the stage. They are very funky and all about creating positive vibes. John was incredible. His singing was humbling (see above) and his horn playing can only be described as shredding… however, he doesn’t do that all the time. He’s a great improviser but he doesn’t let the tunes degenerate into just a bunch of wankery. He played keyboards and guitar also. They were very entertaining and more musically interesting than we’d expected based on the music on their web site. Mariah was particularly impressive. She sang really well and was a solid bass player. She told me that she had never played an instrument before she and John started doing Mojow a few years ago.

The people at the Mint were really nice. The bartendress even gave me a free hamburger. ☺ Here’s the thing with LA – they invented “pay to play” where bands have to put down a deposit or purchase X amount of tickets and sell them to their friends and fans. There are several variations on this but it usually works in some ridiculous way like this – band pays the venue $200, venue charges patrons $7 a head at the door, of which the band gets a percentage – let’s just say the band gets $5/head. Each $5 goes against the $200 that the band paid the venue. So after 40 people show up, the band breaks even and the club has earned $80. It kind of sucks and I refuse to book us at these places… more accurately put – I can’t book us at these places because we don’t have 40 people that will come see us in LA. This is why I appreciate places like the Mint, The Knitting Factory and several others that are still not pay to play. They allow you to build a following rather than expecting you to come in with a huge draw right out of the gate. This is kind of like the difference between major labels and indies. It used to be that a major label would sign a band like Sonic Youth or Metallica or REM and allow them to develop. Now they’re only interested in sure-fire platinum albums. Pay to play has even spread to places like Fitzgerald’s in Houston. It’s pretty much the ultimate answer to the fact that everyone and their damn dog has a band these days and all of us seem to think we’re the next big thing. I suppose pay to play is a way for clubs in a town like LA to filter out the crap in the sense that if a band is together enough, they’ll pay the deposit and work to have people show up. The truth, though, is that all its really filtering out are the bands that don’t have any up front money, regardless of talent. I guess the next big thing had better have enough money to pay to play or else we’re all going to miss the future Kurt Cobains and Jimi Hendrixes… unless they don’t bother with LA.

And not bothering with LA was really my plan – if we hadn’t had such an awesome gig with Estradasphere in April, I probably would have just skipped LA. I really only planned on us playing there once and moving farther north but things got a little (lot) screwy with the cancellation at the Knitting Factory. Booking is the neccesary bane of my existence. Scheduling in general would be #2 on that list.

Blah Blah Blah… so afterwards went back to Jeff’s place (Jeff is Bill’s friend from his days working at High Fidelity in Austin). Jeff lives in Santa Monica and we took the long way home… then we went for MORE Jewish. Jeff is super cool guy and just lets us take over his apartment when we’re in town. I fell asleep watching more cable TV (see, it IS a good thing I don’t have it at home).

October 14, 2007 - OFF

2007-10-18T19:38:07Z

This was our day off… I don’t think anyone got up before 1 PM. Bill’s grandparents made us some tasty lasagna and a casserole style chili relleno (veggie for Philliam) which was a new way of serving this dish to me. Tommy got an earful from Bill’s granddad about various surgical procedures. After doing pushups and lying in the chigger-free, soft grass in the backyard, I heard my share of the same surgical tales… but the best thing was when I noticed the “Polish Kitchen” wooden decoration on the kitchen island. I asked Bill’s grandma about that and she said that it was Bill’s grandfather who is Polish (100% according to him) and that she is only Polish by injection. HA!

By about 7 o’clock the grandfolk were winding down. We stayed up and watched the Simpsons while Adam did some work. I eventually fell asleep on the floor after watching an episode of the Family Guy that was actually semi-funny to my brain only because it was set in Texas. I don’t like this show and I was disappointed when Aaryn Russell succumbed to its’ un-funniness. (I’m certain to be flogged when the other guys read that bit.)

Oh I also watched the Sarah Silverman Program and I liked that but I didn’t see Ron from the Tomorrow Show. I don’t have cable. Rick thinks I should get it but that’d just keep me from finishing up Mursketine part MCMLXXIV.

We got a little loud and eventually started doing our laundry. Tommy tried to take the golf cart out for a midnight spin and eventually he and Bill wandered off into the dusty desert that surrounds the community. I’ll have to get them to write and addition to this part of the journal because I was asleep by this point.

October 13, 2007 - Los Angeles - Steve Allen Theatre

2007-10-18T19:37:10Z

After eating breakfast and dealing with our violation of the 8 AM parking space curfew. We hit the road and drove… and drove… and drove. That road from Flagstaff to LA is long but beautiful. We got lucky and bought gas for $2.58 a gallon in AZ before passing into CA (where we were certain it’d be over $3/gal).

We arrived at the Steve Allen Theatre where we were to open and close the Tomorrow Show – kind of a variety show starting at midnight on Saturdays. It’s sort of like a place for stand up comedians, improv comedy troupes and musicians that cross into the comedy genre to hone their skills and try new material. I played this same show with Graham Reynolds and the majority of the skits were mediocre at best. This time was different, though.

Anyway, we got there early and went for some Thai food. The place we went featured Bill’s Thai doppleganger. Also, one of the waitresses had just bought a new booty skirt (we didn’t know what else to call it) and some white stiletto heel knee boots. She drew a lot of attention. There was also some “live” music. Basically, this guy had his laptop, a cheesy keyboard and a P/A on this little stage. He warmed-up with some muzak versions of pop hits from the 80s and 90s… rather, his laptop did this while he ate his dinner at the table up front. After several tunes, he finally started singing along to a number of US tunes and that was pretty good… still it was kind of like watching someone do karaoke and knowing that no one else was going to get to play the game.

We loaded directly onto the stage. Steve, the soundman, did a great job. This place is a real theatre – though small, it’s totally pro, has great sound and is clean, clean, clean unlike the places we usually play. The deal is, we get about 15 minutes up front to play and then play a song as people are leaving at the end… not a lot of stage time but it’s a great stage. Originally, I’d hoped to book this as a later show to follow our Knitting Factory gig the same night… when the Knitting Factory confirmed with me, I didn’t get too worried that the folks at the Steve Allen were sort of unresponsive. However, the Knitting Factory then cancelled ALL stages for that night about a month before our tour in favor of a Pink Floyd Laser Light industry party. Fortunately, Craig from the Tomorrow Show was willing to add us to the bill - so this was our Saturday night gig in LA. I sort of knew the format and what the show would be like but I didn’t expected it to go as well as it did. In the end, I think we were better off playing this place than if we’d done the Knitting Factory.

We decided to play Bald Mountain but hadn’t played it since a rehearsal the week before. So we ran it as our sound check. It was…. rough to say the least. We finished that, got dressed and then hit the stage to start playing at midnight. We opened with the Spanish Dance as people filed into the room. Bill’s sister Karin was in attendance. We followed that with Iron Fist of Stalin and then Cue the Tie Fighters and planned to play Bald Mtn at the the end. I started debating this though – often, the band plays to close the show and the people just start leaving (the show is essentially over at that point). If we played Bald, we’d wind up on stage for 15 minutes with no one to sell CDs or shirts to people as they left (we’re not traveling with a merch person).

I figured we’d deal with this as when the time came and decided to just enjoy the show. Tommy’s friend James showed up DRUNK about midway through and Tommy started sweating because he was so loud. He thought that the place was going to ask James to leave so he took him outside. The rest of us saw the best comedian I’ve seen to the Tomorrow Show but I can’t remember his name! He did a great bit about Atlantic City being the place where sadness goes to cry and his finale about Jim Morrisson was very good, too. Tommy and I also met Kate McCoochy (sp?) back stage. She was going to play a few tunes and was really nice – I’d guess in her early or mid-twenties. She played second or third and had some really sweet and well written songs that she sang along with her ukulele as well as one where she simply banged a spoon and fork together between lines. Her stuff reminded me so much of Sam Arnold (from Opposite Day) that at the end of the show I gave her my copy of Opposite Day’s “Fictional Biology” – unfortunately, I didn’t have the cover but I really thought she would like Sam’s songs and I had a feeling that she’d forget all the info I’d given her about Opposite Day with out something to remind her. The funniest thing about her act was when she said she’s thinking about naming her album “Playing with McCoochy” (say that out loud and you’ll get it)

The hosts of the show (Craig and Ron – who actually plays all the doctors on the Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central) were super cool to us. I didn’t really get to talk to them very much though because I was too busy talking to Kate backstage about Opposite Day. When the show came to its final act, Craig mentioned us again and told the audience that we had done a song at the soundcheck and that he hoped we’d play it when we came back up. He even started yelling, “if you can hear me, please play it!”

So that rested my doubts about Bald Mountain. I guess that the guys had told ron and Craig about Bald Mountain so when we took the stage they announced it as, “The Invincible Czars performing Night on Bald Mountain!” That was pretty cool. We played it just fine – not perfectly and it definitely lacks something without Rick’s trumpet… however, Phil is a great reader and had an old chart of the piece that was a combination of his part and Rick’s for when Rick can’t make a show. He hadn’t played it in a while but he did a great job and we sounded massive, yet clear and not too loud in that room. Steve did such a good job – but he told us later he didn’t really do anything. Haha! I guess we just lucked out with our volumes and stage placement.

So… no one left! People just stayed right there. I figured at least some would leave but no one did. Even Kate stuck around and I was sure she must’ve thought I was trying to hit on her after my enthusiastic diatribe on Opposite Day. James was LOUD! He was screaming at us while we played. At times he even got over the music at our loudest points! The show had been relatively short that night so Ron let us play another and we did A Glezele Vayn. People STILL didn’t leave so he had us play one more and we did a great version of “Working Song”. We always open up the middle to improv and this one was just the right combo of guitar wankery, fiddle fiddling and Bill banging on his keys. (Although I must mention that the BEST exit from this improv section was when Phil, Bill and I played the finale from Opposite Day’s “Monroe Doctrine” on top of Tommy and Adam playing the riff from Working Song when we were in Phoenix.)

After the show, we hung out and talked to Josh (the manager of the place) and Steve for a long time. They were really awesome dudes and Josh is a fan of Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3 so we had some stuff to talk about.

Eventually, we loaded our stuff and headed back up I-15 (or as they like to call their freeways here in CA “THE Fifteen”) back out into the desert to stay with Bill’s grandparents in Helendale. So basically, we drove another hour and half plus and got there at 5 in the morning. Bill drove and I sat up front but that last 15 minutes was hellish. I had start hallucinating from tiredness and Bill was freaking me out by driving with the lights off and stuff down these roads he knows so well from his childhood and teenage years.

Finally we arrived. Bill’s grandparents and uncle were there and already awake (of course). We just went in and crashed. I don’t remember a lot other than that.

October 12, 2007 - Flagstaff, AZ - Hotel Monte Vista

2007-10-16T18:08:06Z

We’d been looking forward to this show quite a bit. Tommy was right to say that the hotel is more like a hostel. It reminds me of my college dorm – someone is always awake and every activity is broadcast for everyone else to hear through the cacophonous walls. It’s terribly hip though. How many other hotels would book a band like us for their lounge? It was also sort of a special return for Bill because it’s the place where we inducted him into the band official (see old tour journal entries from 2004’s summer tour). Also, we get to play long at the Monte V. At this show, there happened to be an opening band so we only got to play 2 hours instead of the typical 3 hours.

We woke up in Phoenix and pretty much just hit the road after bidding Christine farewell. Phil suggested we check out the local radio stations and we wound up on some station that intrigued us. It sounded like pledge drive for some nationwide public radio station. The hosts of the show kept talking about various cities being or not being “fully funded”. We couldn’t figure what this pledge drive was meant to benefit. Then, finally, an underwriting announcement came on and it was obvious that this was, in fact,, some nationally broadcast pledge drive for a Christian public radio station. This made us laugh because Adam invented a game called “Jesus or Poontang” in which you listen to random radio stations and determine the subject matter or inspiration for each tune to be one of the two (and it always does seem to be one or the other). We thought it was funny because we weren’t even playing the game and they managed to fool us… this time.

Flagstaff is really a cool town. We arrived pretty early – around 3 or 4. The Monte V gives bands a room for the night but our room wasn’t ready – someone had been in there then ight before and was still there. . So we waited, wandered around town, got some food at the Downtown Diner and even played pool. A couple of hours later the guy still wasn’t out of there and told us he’d be out in about an hour. I still don’t who this guy was or what he was doing in there – especially since the standard contract at the place says you have be out by noon the next morning. When he finally came out at 7:10PM, the room was totally clean and he exited with a couple of violin cases.

This was the same room we had when we played the place back in 2004 with Tom Bowman and his legendary wooden dowel – which he stole from the Monte Vista room’s window. We were pleased and tickled to see that and identical dowel had taken its place. Adam found it and I immediately took it to show Bill. At this time, Adam set out on the town, Tommy stretched his slackline for some balance practice in the park and Bill, Phil and I took about an hour and a half nap. Later we pissed Bill off by playing the backpacker guitar and a piece of a broken tambourine Tommy found under one of the two bunk beds. I guess he wasn’t awake enough for that.

Oddly we felt slightly hungry and went over to the Alpine Pizza place where Adam found us later. Here we had a really tasty and quite overpriced pizza. Who the hell counts whole wheat crust as a topping?

By the time we returned to the hotel, the band from MN was playing. They were good and very tasteful. Seemed like people liked them pretty well and I thought they were good… however, I missed most of their set because I was busy upstairs reviewing Iron Maiden songs we’d never played live (and barely mastered even in practice) that were on the set list for the night. It was a bummer that, during the actual show, we ran out of time (seriously) before playing them.

We set up our stuff and had Tommy facing sideways. I love this set up because everyone can see him – particularly Phil and I. Phil and I are always on stage left, which stinks for right handed string instrument players, because we’re usually looking at our fingerboard hands (the left) and have to turn around one way or the other to see Tommy, usually losing our line of audibility to our monitors or amplifiers (meaning we turn our heads away from our own amps and then can’t hear ourselves as well). With Tommy on stage left, everyone can see him. The sound on the stage was really good and I didn’t even need ear plugs even though I was right by Tommy.

Adam made a great set list of clustered songs and we followed it pretty closely until the end of the night. Our first set went well. I’d told Tommy and Phil what to expect when we were in the room preparing – the people at the Monte V are usually tourists and they’re not there to hear music… we’re just a soundtrack to their evening – background music. The fact is, though, that it’s hard for the Invincible Czars to be just background music. We’re a little too… engaging? Loud? Powerful? Obnoxious? You’re your pick. Regardless of anyone’s opinion of our music, I don’t find a lot of people who can just ignore presence on stage. I’m trying to be conceited about it but it’s true, we’re not a background music kind of band – love us or hate us, we’re pretty active entertainers.

Anyway, as a result I always get a little agitated when people stand there watching us like they love it and then give us the golf clap… or no clap. This show was no exception. Even though I’d told Tommy and Phil about how the show would be, I still got annoyed near the end of the set when people weren’t even acknowledging us. Gotta get over that. Now – I buy the argument that frequently they don’t know when our songs have ended. It happens a lot when we go into Mursketine II from Mursketine. Adam’s so seamless that it just sounds like another one of our unexpected (as expected) changes within the song of the moment. However, at the Monte Vista people get DRUUUUUNK. I had no idea how wasted this audience was until the very end when they came up to try to talk to us – many wanted our hats, wanted to know where we were from (which was funny since Adam had mentioned it about 500 times from the stage) and one even stole a shirt from us when I wasn’t looking. Argh!

We had prepared ourselves for LOOONG improv sections in songs like Gleezle Vayn, Working song (Brown Whornet) and many others… however, I was keeping my eye on the watch and trying to allow for enough time for us to get to ALL the songs we’d put on the list. Well, this turned out to be unpopular with Adam and Bill. When I pointed out that we only had enough time for our second set to be 30 minutes, I think they understood why I’d been so quick to end some of our jams – even though they were good. We had some of the best improvs we’ve EVER had at that show. I personally think, though, that their shortness prevented them from going too far and becoming boring. ☺ the final tune in our first set was Working Song and I usually take a longish guitar improv solo. Bill thought I was going to do this as usual and exited the stage for some air. Unfortunately, I was turned away and didn’t see him leave. I brought us out of the improv and turned to find him gone. I thought maybe he got annoyed that I took too long of a solo. Ha!

Anyway, I got semi-defensive about this critique and said I’d love it if someone else would direct the improve sections. This is almost always a joy killer on stage. Fortunately, I was less hot headed than usual and we rebounded and had some really good jams in Doctors Excuse and ESPECIALLY the set opener Arabian Dance. We played our countrified version of Iron Maiden’s “Invaders” in the first cluster of the first set and later some one requested that we repeat it… but we played Run to the Hills with a broken snare drum instead. Adam started singing about Moloch the owl god during Cue the Tie Fighters and attributes this to the fact that Tommy and I almost simultaneously broke the snare drum head and my strap lock (which I recovered in spite of the fact that it went flying in pieces into the darked room among a large group of dancing audience members.)

Also, the whole night was peppered with versions of “If I Had to Do It All Over Again” (also by Brown Whornet)

Afterwards, we left our stuff on stage and went to our room for some shut eye. There was even a parking spot that we were able to occupy overnight. Unfortunately, though, one of the employees claims he told us to be out of the spot by 8 AM and confronted Adam about this at 1 PM the next day. Adam replied that this was laughable… we didn’t even stop playing until 2 AM. Anyway, this was the only fiasco of the whole visit to Flagstaff.

October 11, 2007 - Phoenix, AZ - Modified Arts

2007-10-16T18:04:27Z

10/11

Bill and I were the first up and we hit the nearest Trader Joe’s for some breakfast items. Bill cooked and I practiced guitar (typical). Later Dev and I jammed a little bit.

Anyway, we repacked our van and drove to Phoenix. We were looking forward to the Phoenix show because we’d get to play with Chief Beef again – but also for the first time with By the End of Tonight. On the trip, Tommy and Phil started taking crazy photos of the lights by swinging their cameras like pendulums and taking photos of passing traffic. Phil managed to create a collage of half notes.

Whilst loading in, a couple of guys with a shopping cart approached us and asked, “What kind of music do you guys jam?” I told him our band name was the Invisible Cars and when he asked if we were death metal. Bill immediately responded in that we are, in fact, LIFE METAL. I decided that should be our new genre. After the show, the same dude came up to me and told me we were “bad ass” and I simply responded that, “We told you we’re LIFE METAL.” What kind of a response to a compliment is that? I kind of feel bad for acting weird towards dudes with shopping carts full of all their possessions – but at the same time, it’s hard to know how to communicate with these guys or when something is going to go sour. The weird, the homeless and the crusty punks always seem to gravitate towards bands. Why do they think we have money? Why do they think we’re eager to part with it if we do? Probably most of them are harmless and, as Tom K. has pointed out, probably have real and serious mental problems (in the case of the crusty punks, I think that problem is that they seem to think that everyone owes them a living or something). However, you just never know when someone’s going to freak out or try to steal a bit of your gear while you’re not looking.

Chief Beef sounded great in there and I thought the sound on stage would be good. It was not. The room was bright as hell but the stage sound was ultra muddy. Chief Beef was loud and clear thought. Their bass player, Christine, is the best overall lady bass player I’ve seen in a very long time. Excellent tone, great harmony vocals, solid rhythm and interesting lines. She lays down a solid groove but also ventures outside it to take the lead at times. To me they sound a bit like Soundgarden if John Wright (NoMeansNo) was their drummer. They are very precise and efficient.

We’d planned to play Bald Mountain but without being able to hear myself, I knew it would be disastrous if we attempted it so I cut it while we were on stage. Afterwards, a guy came up and asked why we didn’t play it. Ha! I guess he’d heard us online and read that we play it. Oops. People stuck around while we played, though, making for a more fun show. After our last Phoenix show 3 years ago (see old tour journal entries), I didn’t have high hopes but this audience was having a good time and that made up for the crappy stage sound.

Adam has been working from the road and a field team from his office was in Phoenix. A couple of the guys came to the show and brought one of their clients with them. He was super enthusiastic about us. It had been a long time since someone congratulated us for simply existing as a band.

By The End of Tonight was powerful. At times I thought they were going to break the stage or perhaps themselves. It had been a long time since I saw them live. I didn’t realize they are so young! James (bass) told me he graduated high school in 2004. Whoa! They were very friendly fellows and we talked with James for a while before the show. Hopefully we can play together again in TX in the near future. Stefan (guitar) had some major trouble with his distortion pedal and wound up using the amp distortion on his Randall… which sounded more like Pantera than BTEOT. The drummer’s snare was also getting fidgety. At one point, on of the guys said, “this is the most unprofessional show we’ve ever played. I feel like we’re at the high school battle of the bands.” So then I started yelling, “Hey, man, do ya’ll know WALK? How about Cowboys from Hell?” in my best Hank Hill voice. My favorite part of their set was when Stefan just started standing on all his pedals at random. When they finally finished, I asked, “does this mean ya’ll guys aren’t gonna play CEMETARY GATES?”

We loaded out, I did a shove-it on somebody’s skateboard (after 4 attempts) and then we headed back to the home of John and Christine from Chief Beef. Here we learned that John was previously in MINIBOSSES! At SxSW 2005, Rick had hosted Aaron from the Minibosses and we met and hung out with them at their show way back then. I remember meeting John because he was the new guy. Didn’t even recognize him when we played with them in Austin.

John and Chirstine have a big Labrador named DW who must hold the record for most licks per second. He was quite handy when it came cleaning up the salsa I spilled all over the floor and myself. Also, they have a robot that vacuums their floor. It’s impressive and seems to do a good, but inefficient job. No real rhyme or reason to it’s method.

Octiber 10, 2007 - Tucson, AZ - Vaudeville Cabaret

2007-10-16T18:02:26Z

We woke up at 5 AM and started driving around 6 so we’d make it Tucson in time for our first show. Not much to tell about the drive. We ate some good deli food in Las cruces, NM. Also, our cruise control has been disabled for this tour due to a recent announcement by Ford that speed controls in older E and F 150s with over 100K miles have been causing under-the-hood fires for many owners. (so I had it disconnected since the parts aren’t available to repair it yet.)

I had been trying to advance the show (meaning confirm all the details with the booker) for about a month but heard nothing from the venue. We were on the calendar so… we showed up at the venue and I learned that the booker hasn’t worked there for weeks. Lovely. No wonder we didn’t see a single flyer that we’d sent.

This is actually pretty typical – it’s weird that the band-club relationship has become one where the bands are expected to practice, be good, draw people, promote the show and the clubs get all the money for the alcohol sales and sometimes take a cut of the door… I guess that’s the result of the democratization of music – everyone’s in a band and it’s created a kind of Apartheid. So many bands want to play and the clubs know that most will play for free or very cheaply. If a band demands a higher cut of the $, the clubs can just stop hiring them and get the bands who’ll do it for free. It’s a shame because it affects the quality of the music in clubs and the shows that bands are able to execute.

But I digress… the highlight of the pre-show evening was when a crusty punk on the other side of the road yelled at us (Czars and Br’er) to ask if we had any money. Of course, none of us do. “We’re on the road – we’re bands,” we replied to which he responded, “Faggots!” That got a groan out of everyone.

So all this added up to the fact that I was now the person with the most details about how the night. Ugh! Fortunately the people running the place were cool. There were 5 bands (!) on the bill that night at we were headlining. That meant we’d probably go on at 1 – which was 3 our time (meaning we were all semi-conscious for nearly 24 hours by the time the show was over). I immediately started asking the other bands how long their sets would be. Calle Debausche was a really good Tucson band headed by our friend Dev. They were willing to play short. Br’er from PA were only going to play 5 songs. They told me this was their 4th show ever. The 3rd act was to be Dearling Physique but there was some drama here. The guy was a one man act and contacted me a month earlier to try to join several of our bills on this tour. By that time, all the bills were already full. He was also booking Br’er a whole west coast tour. Br’er informed me that DF had screwed them over and that they barely knew him (why did they have some stranger book their tour?). So they were not happy about this guy and I got the impression he wasn’t going to show up.

Fortunately, he didn’t! The other Tucson band, Flagrante Delicto also played a shorter set so we were actually on and playing by 12:30 (miraculous).

Tucson is a tough town. It reminds me a lot of Houston and Berkeley – people will be into a band but just kind of sit there looking bored the whole time. I personally think that Tucson is a bit spoiled like Austin – everyone wants to play Tucson. It’s easily the hippest town in Arizona and even booking a show there is really challenging. We decided to play a number of tunes we hadn’t played in a while since we figured it’d be a pretty low key weeknight show – good chance to practice! The audience was into it and stuff but they weren’t like people in Texas who actually WANT TO and WILL participate or dance if engaged as such. It turned out that this was more of a ROCK audience than a dance crowd and we learned that the hard way. In the end people were having a good time, though. They went crazy for WP, Brown Whornet’s working song and even managed to coax us into playing Immigrant Song – which we have now played a total of 2 times with Tommy on drums and neither of them have been in a rehearsal.

April 21, 2007 - San Francisco - The Elbo Room

2007-08-07T21:25:13Z

We woke up and ate some really great Mexican food with our friend BIG COTTON in Santa Monica before heading north to SF. Not much else to say except that Santa Monica is... really super nice.

The drive up was pretty uneventful... except for the fact that we were fighting about the set list. There are three camps when it comes to the set list:

1) Bill, Phil and Josh (me) - would prefer to play the same or similar set list(s) every night

2) Tommy and Adam - would prefer to play VERY different set lists from night to night

3) Rick - will play anything any time except "Fanfare of the Imbeciles" and "Mursketine II".
(JAB - or anything else in a major key!)

When we arrived at the Elbo it was raining... just like the last time I played there with Golden Arm Trio only not quite as hard. Anyone who's ever played the Elbo will likely never forget the required pre-show workout that they call "loading in". The stage is upstairs... and we have a lot of stuff (BILL!!!!!!).

The people at the Elbo were already annoyed with Estradasphere for some reason so that made for tense night. Apparently the owner claimed that Esphere had damaged a piece of gear the last time they were in town. This was all par for the course - this was the one show that had never confirmed us and about a month before the tour, informed Estradasphere's booking agent that we wouldn't be included on the bill. Fortunately, enough people in the area vouched for our quality that he chose to have us afterall. whew.

RIGHT before setting up on stage, Tommy and Adam kicked the set list debate up a notch. Now... what was funny was that they are in the same camp from the list above! In the end Tommy was very pissed off and played the whole show with hardly a smile. When it ended, he packed his gear and hit the streets alone. For me, this was the second least fun show we played on the trip (the worst was Sacramento at the Blue Lamp a few nights later) but one of the better sounding! We played "Love is a Fist" and the audience actually knew it this time. We'd played it before in the bay area but no one seemed to know it.

This was also the night that someone filmed us playing "A Night on Bald Mountain" and they posted it on you tube here ----->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFGTV0HrkNs

The only bummer about the clip is that he ran out of tape or juice or something near the end and it's missing about 2 minutes of the quite section of the piece.

We actually have some better footage that we should put on you tube.

We saw a lot of friends at the show - particularly John from Hammers of Misfortune/Ludicra. He was our soundmand and we stayed at his place that night. It was pretty cool to stay at Hammers Central! Although, Bill and I didn't get to sleep there ---> we wound up sleeping in the van with all our equipment. Since you have to park in the streets overnight in SF, it's a common practice amoung bands to sleep IN your van. Bands often do this when I host them in Austin. I guess I learned why.

FYI - if you're in a band and you stay with me - you don't have to sleep in the van. It's Austin.

The next morning was bright and sunny, but nice and cool. Bill was unhappy to wake up with my posterior about 5 inches from his face. I started thinking, "When do we move here?" and haven't really stopped yet.

April 20 - Los Angeles - Knitting Factory

2007-05-16T22:46:30Z

We woke up and left Tucson EARLY as the show in LA was supposed to start at 7:30. Egad!

Along the way we stopped at The Thing on I-10 and attempted to re-create the not so famous photo of Brown Whornet in front of The Thing. Phil actually paid the dollar charge to see the thing at The Thing. I can't remember what he said it was.

As soon as we crossed the state line into California, gas went up from $2.99 to $3.25.   I remember being particularly tired on this trip and I kept trying to sleep in the back of the van but we were getting whipped around by the desert wind and I kept waking up in fear that we were being thrown off the road. No wonder they put all those windmills out there.

We stopped at an In And Out Burger where Tommy ordered six hats in addition to his food. I was surprised they didn't charge anything for the hats.

The Knitting Factory is in a weird place. I had just been to Hollywood in November with Graham Reynolds' Golden Arm Trio (in fact, I missed two Golden Arm Trio tours and a chance to play on Graham's DVD of Battleship Potempkin because we were doing this tour - but alas, Estradasphere!). The Knitting Factory is right on Hollywood Blvd where all the street actors/performers come out - near the Chinese Theater and all those other places that they like to premier Hollywood pictures. It seemed so odd for a cool club like the KF to be in what seemed like a really fancy strip mall meets Disneyland kind of setting.

When I think of the Knitting Factory, I think about all the weird music that's been performed at the one in NYC - the first performer I ever recognized that played/plays there is John Zorn. This is NOT what plays at the Knitting Factory (at least in Hollywood) every night. They had all kinds of music. Still, it's cool that a club of this size is still willing to host some pretty obscure stuff. The Hollywood KF has at least three rooms of live music - the Main Room (which I didn't see), the front bar (where we played - this was probably a 300 capacity room) and the Alter-Knit lounge (I also didn't go in but it's for smaller acts).

Everything about this place was totally pro and it was nice to deal with them. The usual flakiness that we have to deal with at most venues was NOT present at this place.  When we arrived, Estradasphere was already soundchecking.  Fortunately, we were informed that the show would not start until approx. 8:30. Our soundman Jake was hilarious and a pleasure to work with. I wish we could play this stage every night. It sounded really good.

This was the best show of the whole tour - great sound, we played well and a great audience. We learned that night that the individual members of Estradasphere are mostly from the LA area so all their friends and relatives were out. Wow.  I remember looking out and seeing a few very LA blonde gals who would normally (in my mind) have never paid a second of attention to us raising their drinks and haedbanging as we played. Afterwards one of them came up to tell me we rocked. It was surreal.

Rick nearly deafened me onstage when we played "Blood and Thunder". He was so loud in the stage monitors that I actually stopped playing and RAN behind Tommy's set and my amp.  I was still extremely loud so after my vocal part I finally took a running leap over the railing of the stage and onto the floor with the audience where I was finally safe from Rick's vocals... just in time for him to stop.

Afterwards we all kind of split up. I watched some of Estradasphere's set but after 4 nights of the same show by them, I was ready for a break. I was also starving.  Phil, Tommy and I ate Thai food with an old high school friend of Tommy's who lives in LA.

Oddly, the power went out twice during Estradasphere's set. I missed this but I heard they just kept playing - all the acoustic instruments held it down I guess.

We wound up the night and we drove to Santa Monica where we stayed with Bill's friend Jeff from his days at High Fidelity (the stereo shop in Austin).

April 19 - Tucson - Solar Culture Gallery

2007-05-10T22:27:32Z

Another long drive from Las Cruces to Tucson. It took us a while to find the place because the street names were screwy and there was construction. Once there, the waiting began. We had arrived almost as early as Estradasphere so we witnessed their entire stage set up. This takes a couple of hours.

Somewhere in there we took a look at a pretty impressive collection of huge geodes and other interesting rock art at a gallery next door. I also was caught in the middle of playing my backpacker by Jason Schimmel who came out and tested my VERY rusty jazz imrpov skills on a little of "Take the A Train".

Solar Culture actually made dinner for us - a tasty vegetarian southwestern lasagna of sorts (imagine lasagna with tortillas instead of noodles). For DIY musicians, I can't stress the value of touring with someone bigger than you enough - originally I had asked Solar Culture if we could play there on 4/19 and they wouldn't give me the time of day. Now here we sat eating food they'd prepared for us.

Our soundman for the night was good. He'd done sound at SxSW for Calexico at Exodus (not there anymore) and I remember that it sounded really good. The audience was calm but very enthusiastic. They were NOT confused by what we were doing... That was a nice contrast from the Ft. Worth crowd. There was a band there that wanted to help us with shows in Tucson in the future but I lost their contact info. If you guys read this, email me! We played "The Troll" for the first time on the road that night and the guys from Estradasphere actually came out for that one - I guess because it was new to them. We played a different set every night but had a few staples (Cue the Tie-Fighters, Mursketine, Deeksha, Ounce of Confidence and Bald Mountain were in almost every set).

We stayed with an ex-Black Lodge ICSer name Dev. He'd moved out to Tucson about a year earlier and contacted us when we'd posted a request for help booking Tucson show. This was before Estradasphere had decided to do Tucson. We didn't get to see a whole lot of Dev as we woke up before him and headed for LA. I was rather sorry to have to leave Tucson so early. It's a pretty hip town and LA is... LA.

APRIL 18th - driving all day

2007-05-10T22:08:51Z

We were playing leap frog with Estradasphere all day driving from Ft. Worth to Tucson - we stopped for the night together, though, in Las Cruces, NM at the Teakwood Inn. If you're ever in Las Cruces, don't stay at this hotel.

The only thing that happened of any real significance that I recall was stopping for dinner in Odessa. This place is truly dead and reminds me of Texarkana. We had been planning on doing a show with our pal Alex Van Heinous out there but I don't know if it'll happen at any time in the near future. When we get a Texarakana kind of vibe, it usually means trouble.

Anyway, it was cool to hang out with the Estradasphere guys. Many of them were feeling ill and just crashed but we did hang out in our room with Timb and Lee for a good while, just talking and laughing and stuff.

17 April 2007 - Ft. Worth with Estradasphere

2007-05-04T19:27:41Z

This was a crazy day. Adam was smart and took the day off. Bill, Tommy and I all worked. We wound up not leaving until nearly 6 PM in the middle of rush hour traffic. Right before the end of the day, a major issue came up for me and I left 1 hour later than planned. Of course, when we all met at Rick's house to load the van, we had too much stuff and we had to start choosing things that needed to stay behind.

TANGENT:
-----------------
In retrospect, I wish we'd left some CD's and T-shirts behind: On previous tours, we've sold much more stuff than this one. One of the woes of being an opening act is the fact that most people attending the show are there for the headliner and when the night's over, they're going to buy the headliner's CDs/merchandise. That happened night after night. I'd estimate we sold only about 20-25% of the merchandise we've sold in the past on tours. That's a pretty significant drop, especially considering the higher quality of our merch these days... and the fact that it's the same price as in the past.

Still, the benefits of going with Estradasphere far outweighed this issue.    For one, the audiences liked us. We had someone in almost every city say they'd never seen/heard a more perfect opening act for Estradasphere. Second, the show pay was way better than past tours and heck, even most local shows we play. For those who don't know, the music business isn't a good career choice for those who wish to get or stay rich, especially if you're playing original music and even moreso if you're doing something outside the mainstream. That's why the bands that you love need your support and presence at their shows. Innovative music doesn't pay the bills. That's why there are 500 bands that sound like AC/DC or Blink 182 in your town and only one that sounds like a cross between Devo and Ravi Shankar. If you have bands in your area that are doing something different and you like them, I admonish you to support them by attending their shows... otherwise they will cease to exist.
-----------------------------------------------
END TANGENT

So once we finally got everything settled, we hit the road and showed up at the Wreck Room to find the soundman in a bit of a tizzy because he didn't know WE still needed him to do our sound (Estradasphere has their own soundman and lots of their own P/A equipment).  This would be repeated at several shows.

Luckily there was plenty of room onstage and Tommy was able to play his own drum set. The audience that night seemed rather indifferent. I think we really lost them when we played "A Night on Bald Mountain" - which was totally opposite of all the other tourdates at which we played it - most of the time people loved it! Nights like that REALLY remind me of why I moved away from D/FW.  They did like our version of "Blood and Thunder", though. Sometimes, I think the audiences just don't know when we're done and I understand that: our music is pretty unpredictable.

Another thing about this show was that we were still a bit rusty. That's touring for you. It's kind of like making pancakes - you have just let the first one or two be little ugly.

That night, I remember that Jason (Estradasphere) got on stage and said, "We are so glad to be back here in Texas." The night before he'd said the same thing only he said, "Austin," instead of Texas.  At first I thought it was funny that he didn't say Ft. Worth... because most people wouldn't be so excited about Cowtown either. Then I thought, "He's been on the road so long, I bet he doesn't know what city this is..." Later he told me that I was right.   He did a good job of playing it off.

The end of the night was LOOOOOOOOONG. We were supposed to stay with a friend who didn't wind up attending the show so we asked Billy the bartender if we could stay with him again. The only problem is that then, we had to wait for Estradasphere to pack ALL their stuff and load out and THEN we had to wait for Billy to close the bar. We didn't actually get to his place until about 4:30 AM (the show ended at 1:45!).

Billy's place is always cool, though. He has comfy floors and two bathrooms plus a kitchen where we can make breakfast for ourselves. Billy's place is also smoke free.

16 April 2007 - Estradasphere Tour Night 1 - Austin

2007-05-03T22:22:53Z

This was night 1 of our tour with Estradasphere.

When you open for Estradasphere, it's crowded on stage because they like to soundcheck, lightcheck, etc. earlier and then leave everything set up. This was one of only two nights that Tommy played on Lee's drum set and boy did we learn a lesson: Lee is about a foot taller than Tommy. Without adjusting anything, Tommy spent most of the show stretching to hit cymbals and just being generally uncomfortable.

I also used Jason's cabinet and just plugged my tonemaster head into it. For ALL the nights we did w/ Esphere we used a combo of Tim's bass combo, Adam's SWR amp and Rick's 4x10 Avater speaker cab (2 amps, 6 speakers).

Another lesson learned was not the cross each other's lines of sound - Adam was deafened by my amp, while I could hear nothing but Phil.

It should also be noted that the sound onstage at the Lounge is still... quite awful. They've got the room sounding better, now they just need to make it so that we can hear ourselves up there. Imagine putting a wooden box around your head and playing a show. That's what it sounds like up there these days. This is an improvement from before when it used to sound like locking your head in a metal safe and playing a show.

We all felt mediocre about the show but all our friends said it was one of our most powerful shows ever. I remember not being able to hear a note I played on "Erlkonig". We also ended the show with "Love is a Fist" which we hadn't played in Austin for a long time.

Estradasphere sounded awesome and I loved their truck commercial song. It was also great to hear "Huger Strike" live again.

Those guys really know how to put on a show and being with them every night taught us a lot about production. Though I must say that I would hate to be bothered with all the stuff that they mess with for simple club dates. While I admire their ambition to put on a show that's as striking visually as it is aurally, I would hate to be in Tim's shoes before the show! Many of the venues we played were annoyed with Estradasphere by the time we would show up to the clubs (especially in SF). Tim is like their producer in every sense. He's the one really making sure everything from lights, stage sound and house sound are all perfect and under their control. As Lee (drummer) told us later, they leave nothing to chance.

After the show, most of Estradasphere stayed at my house and were up and gone shortly after I left for work the next day... that's right, some of us went to our day jobs the next morning. That turned out to be quite a fiasco...

6/17/06 - Dallas, TX - POLICE ACTION part II

2007-05-03T21:43:25Z

6-17-06 SaturdayNEW!!
Dallas

Not much was too remarkable on this trip until the night in Dallas. We played the night before at the Black Dog Taven in Ft. Worth. Always a good time. The Dog let's us play all night and by the time we get to the 3rd set, we're nice and warm and trying all kinds of new stuff.

Dallas can be indifferent... but so can Ft. Worth. Fortunately, we had a great soundman and had a fun time on stage. The only annoying thing about the venue was that they host a DJ on Saturday nights in their upstairs area. They don't charge a cover to the people who come in saying they're going upstairs. I guess it's cool that lots of people got to see us for free since there was really no one policing the attendees. However, at the end of the night, it was pretty uncool when we were paid. The other bands were good, especially the Freek Out who were really nice folks making fun music akin to PONG. They use two basses at times and really pull it off. Two basses can be muddy if not done well. The people who stuck around for us got to see us have a lot of fun on stage. One guy (Dallas musician Daniel Johnson - not Johnston) was so into Mursketine II that he actually came up to the stage and shook our hands saying, "Thank you!"

After the show it was raining. Rick got the van and he, Bill and I started loading our gear in it. Daniel's Brazilian wife had started making out with another girl back inside and was drawing QUITE an audience of dudes and girls watching the dudes. THis included Tommy and Adam. So, we were loading in the rain with tons of people out walking the side walk. Lower Greenville Road can be a bit like a small 6th Street (in Austin) on the weekends so there was constant foot traffic. I turned around with Adam's amp and put it on the ground because I had to move something else. I put it down, pointed to it and said, "keep an eye on that," to Rick but I don't think he heard me. I moved what I needed to move inside the van, got out, looked in the bar really quickly and then Rick came out of the van and said, "Did you just put Adam's amp in the van?" I told him I'd put it on the ground about 25 seconds ago but when I turned my head the amp was gone. Rick just started running in the direction of the foot traffic and told me to drop what I was holding. I threw Tommy's drum rug back into the bar and chased behind him. The perpertrator was only about a half block ahead of us crossing the street along with a herd of other people out on the town. He had Adam's amp in one hand and his other arm around his ladyfriend. We started yelling at him and ran right out into the middle of the road where Rick got him in a headlock. When he did that, the guy dropped the amp and just kept walking. I didn't know how many guys might have been with the dude but when I saw that amp hit the ground, I grabbed it and just started running back to the van. When I turned around Rick still had the guy in a headlock of sorts and finished crossing the street with him. He and all his friends were absolutely blitzed. No one even tried to fight Rick. A guy on the street asked me what happened and when I told him he said, "There's a cop car right there, go file a report!" Rick was way ahead of me, though. He actually walked back onto the street and slapped the hood of cop car. Meanwhile, the thief and his group of friends had blended nicely into the crowd and Rick couldn't identify him. I'd never gotten a good look at him and was just glad to have the amp back. When I walked over to the cop car, Rick was letting them have it. Basically, they were annoyed that he'd stopped them. They thought he was trying to alert them to a fight and told him that they couldn't have done anything anyway. That really pissed Rick off. I remember he said, "So it's okay to steal as long as the people you steal from get it back??!?! I should've just kicked his ass!" Then the lady cop said, "Well what did you stop us for? Did you want me to kick his ass for you?" That is weird that the police were more concerned about drunken frat boys fighting each other than someone stealing a $500 item.

3/10/06 - Ft. Worth with Jucifer - POLICE ACTION part I

2007-05-03T21:42:37Z

3-10-06 Friday with Jucifer NEW!!
Austin - Ft. Worth

Looking back on this trip, the whole thing was hilarious but it wasn't much fun when it was happening. We didn't manage to hit the road until about 6 PM, which is normally not a problem but this Friday happened to be the beginning of Spring Break... ugh! By the time we reached Roundrock it was 7:15. Between there and Temple our maximum speed was 40... and even that was just for a few minutes. Finally, somewhere before Waco, the traffic broke up and we were able to 55 for a while. Rick was already in Dallas/Fort Worth on a work related assignment so he was not with us on the ride up. Around 9:30 the guys at the Wreck Room started wondering if we were going to show up and called. By then we'd been booking it and were only 45 miles away.

We arrived at the Wreck Room and unloaded directly onto the stage which was already nearly full with Jucifer's amplifiers. For those who haven't borne witness to the power of Jucifer, they use about 25+ amps/cabinets - all for a single guitar. We crammed our stuff and selves onto the stage, did a quick soundcheck and hit the skins.

The audience reaction was... mediocre. I guess they were expecting fewer notes and a LOT more volume from a band opening for Jucifer. They did like especially like our cover of "Blood and Thunder" quite a bit. The sound guy seemed to feel the opposite way. He was convinced that we'd won over some new fans that night. The truth can probably simply be chalked up to opening band syndrome: if people are there specifically for the headliner, they simply view any opening band as the thing preventing that headliner from being on stage at that moment. In any other situation, they may love that opening band.

This was also our first time to play as a full band in 2 weeks. I had been away the entire week prior to perform music for a wedding in Salt Lake City. Upon my return, Rick had been assigned the job in Dallas.

We had to cut our set short. We'd planned on playing a long set since the bill was just us and Jucifer. Even still, we played almost a full hour. Jucifer was to be next but they must've taken 45 minutes just get ready. I had heard them once at a SXSW many years ago at Emo's so I had an idea of what to expect. When they finally started, I thought the Wreck Room's P/A had blown and was making a hideous noise. Jucifer was easily the loudest band I've ever experienced that night. AFter about 5 minutes, I realized the drummer was playing. I couldn't hear him at all. Even with my ear plugs in it was extremely loud so I went outside and listened to the rest of the show from the Wreck Room's back patio where I could actually decipher what was being played. This was kind of lame: As Bill pointed out, Jucifer is an exercise in volume and not harmony, melody, rich tone or dynamics. By sitting outside, I didn't experience the full show. Still, I don't know if I could've bore a lot more than the 5 minutes I did. That was some SERIOUS volume. I wasn't alone... eventually all the ears of the guys in the band and several others became fatigued and joined me outside.

After the show, we spoke more with Jucifer's light guy who said he'd like it if we could play with Jucifer every night. I was surprised that he had seen us AND that he'd liked us. I told him we'd do it but I don't know if he was truly serious or if the rest of the group shared his enthusiasm for our music.

This may come as a shock to non-musicians, but often headliners like Jucifer never see their opening acts. When you're on the road and in clubs every night the fun of that world of nightclubs fades quickly. Often when we open for a bigger band, we never even get to meet them (such was the case with Melt Banana). The exception to this was NoMeansNo. John Wright of NoMeansNo watched our entire show at Emo's in March 2005 when I asked him if he would. The fortunate thing about that was that he convinced his brother Rob to watch the show the next night in Ft. Worth. Normally he isn't even AT the venue when the opening bands are playing. He told me that it was refreshing to play with a band like us because they play with bands that sound like NoMeansNo every other night and it gets tiring. Stinking Lizaveta has also shared this sentiment. At their last appearance at Emo's in 2005, Alexi (bass) told me that the band on stage was very good but that he was very sick of instrumental math rock because EVERY opening act for the prior 3 nights of their tour had been just that.

Digressing... we loaded our gear and proceded to Brandi's house (my sister in law who lives nearby). We stay with Brandi and her family every time we play in FW. They live about 25 minutes from the club but it's quiet and comfy. When we got to her house, though the door was locked. We didn't think that knocking or calling was appropriate. It was 3:00 AM. So we decided we'd just sleep in the van (with Rick and Bill in Rick's car) until morning and then go in when the familty woke up. Bill will want it to be noted that I urinated in the street. I had to go. What can I say?

After about 5 minutes, Rick got a brilliant idea - we should park down the street near the community park where there are no street lights. It was tremendously bright so we moved both vehicles to the cul de sac, parked in the dark and got down to our sleeping clothes (fortunately, MARCH is a great month in Texas - not to hot or cold to sleep outdoors).

No one actually got to sleep because shortly after parking an SUV came down the street and stopped right by our vehicles with its lights on. Then the driver navigated back out of the cul de sac and down the street still in view. That was weird. My initial thought was that we'd intruded upon someones drug deal spot. We waited it out a few minutes and then decided we'd better go back and try Brandi's place again. We drove back down the street and knocked on the door this time but no one answered. The mysterious SUV had followed us, parked way down the street and turned his lights off. I guess he thought he was being stealthy...? We stood around for about 5 minutes staring down the street at the SUV and then decided to simply call Billy from the Wreck Room (who'd offered to host us for the night anyway) and go back to his place. So we all got back in our vehicles and drove our of the neighborhood.

We didn't think too much when we saw the first police car pass us... until he turned around and followed us. Then we passed another. Eventually we wound up at a major intersection RIGHT by the police station with about 5 cop cars around us. We didn't really know what to do so we just kept driving toward the freeway until they finally pulled both vehicles over (two separate police cars).

As the officer approached the van, I realized I didn't have my insurance card. Aaryn Russell (Muppletone) and I had just gotten back from a weeklong trip to my parents' house in SLC where we'd had to replace all the sparkplug wires in the van. I remembered dropping all the documents out of the van when we had to empty it to get to the engine. I must've lost my insurance card up there. Adam flipped and I remember he said that it was a "huge $&^@in' oversight, dude!" The cop must've had a chuckle after seeing me, Tommy and Adam in the van with no shoes, down to nothing but our undies. After he took my Driver's License and I had told him the reason we were parked where we did, he came back to the car to tell us that the neighborhood had had something like 20 burglaries in the last month and they thought we were the culprits. I'm still not sure of why he believed us. Probably because we didn't exactly look like we were about to burglarize anything based on our attire. Rick's theory was that we had identical stories in both vehicles. While this was happening in the van, Rick was telling the same exact story to another officer. In the end, no one got a ticket (not even me for failure to show proof of insurance) and they just let us go. We wound up driving back into town and sleeping at Billy's. Fortunately, he had not even left the Wreck Room after all that time.

When I think back on this, it's SO weird that they didn't at least search our van. First of all, we told them we were musicians which is usually a red flag to search the vehicle for drugs. Second, our van was full of stuff. If that neighborhood was so over-burgled, why didn't they at least look at what was in the van? Last of all, as far as I can tell, they didn't do anything to verify my story with Brandi. I thought surely we were going to wind up going back to her place and waking up the whole family so they could identify us. Whatever the reason, we made it out of that situation with no trouble. I suspect that ultimately, we didn't look like we were about to break into anyone's house so they just let us go. Billy's floor was pretty comfy.