Boston, New York, Philadelphia etc etc

Hey there! Been a while since I've been able to blog, and there's been plenty of blog worthy livin going on, which is really how we should all define our lives if ya ask me. Anyways, where we last left off we were at a hardcore eastcoast biker bar and for a flash there we were wildy out of place. The show ended up being one of the strangest of our careers (not sure if that's the right word...) and one of the most fun. We ended up getting along real well with all the crowd there and the owner Billy sprung for a hotel for us. Truely an invaluable gesture to a band on the road. We then sat there for the rest of the night drinking heavily with Billy and his crew, truly an intense way to start off our run of the USA.

Chop Shop Crew!

After New Hampshire, we headed to Danbury Conneticut and played at a large theatre. Since this is our first run of the states, it was pretty empty, but we ended up befriending one of the other bands, a band of jam band hippes, and made the best of it nontheless.

Max being a whiny bitch 

After Danbury we drove straight up to Boston and slept in a parking lot in the Harvard Campus. My mother would be so proud. Woke up the next morning drenched in our own sweet, and ready to get super touristy in Boston. It was everyones first time in Boston so we tried to make the most of it and ended up randomly walking around the downtown area etc etc. The venue we played at was one of the campus bars at Harvard so naturally we were much more intelligent and handsome then the crowd there. One of our managers was in the city aswell, and we got to have dinner with him which was rad. Later that night one of his buddies Jordi, hooked us up with a place to stay at the dorms in Harvard. We fit right in for sure.  We then headed to the big apple.

View on the way in

In New York the weirdness continued as we got to the venue, it was in Bushwick a hipster mecca in Brooklyn. We played in what wasn't neccesarily a conventional live music venue but more of an "art space". Nontheless we tried our best to rock the living fuck out of it. We were a band in the midst of some acoustic acts and poets, so I wasn't really sure how our music was going to go down, but a good majority of the crowd there bought our Wolf CD, which definitely put us in a good mood and reassured us slightly. It's become interesting watching our music go down with different types of crowds, we've definitely learned a lot.

 In front of the venue in Brooklyn

After our set in Brooklyn we headed to Manhattan and proceeded to drink heavily. Some of our friends were in town so the rest of the band went out with them. My girlfriend happened to be in the city so we headed to the Village to try and track down Bob Dylan's old haunts (to anyone interested, the Gaslight is a dance club now, and Cafe Wha looks largely unchanged).

The next day we walked around like a bunch of hungover zombies tourists, eventually driving to Phildelphia.

Our day in tourist trip didn't stop in Philadelphia, as we walked around downtown and visited the Rocky Steps. I got a great video of Mike going up them which I hope to upload later.

The show in Philadelphia was one of the better ones of this tour. The venue, The Grape Room, was awesome and we ended up making friends with a local band, The Great SOCIO, who let us crash at there hippie pad. Truely phenomenal, we finally got a decent sleep and headed out to Pittsburgh.

Heres a sideways picture of us in front of the venue in Philadelphia

 

Making Rocky our Bitch

 

The show in Pittsburgh was one of those shows where you just kind of play for the other band. Good thing the other band was awesome, called Robert Jon and the Wreck from L.A. Great guys and great band. Most of our epuiptment fucked up aswell, so we were all pretty bummed out to tell you the truth. Luckily some random nearby restaraunt owner was there to lift our spirits with free jerk chicken. We took us to the back of his restaurant and proceeded to make us one of the best meals I've probably ever had. Holy shit that was awesome.

Anyways we're currently in Akron Ohio playing at the Musica tonight. The Black Keys are from here so I might just have to slip the solo from Tighten Up into one of our songs tonight, regardless of the key. 

Jesse

Popping our American Cherry....

Yea we're lookin pretty tanned...

 

Hey there! Boy do I have a lot to blog about, already one week into our summer tour. Currently sitting here at the Chop Shop Bar  located on the east coast of New Hampshire, and it is as American as it gets at this bar. What a way to kick off our relationship with the United States by playing at a biker bar and almost getting raped...I'll get to that in a bit!

But lets back up just a touch. The tour started in Fergus, Ontario of all places. Our buddy Eric Limoges put us up at his bar called the Breadalbane. Probably the classiest place we've ever played at (seems like a strange fantasy where I'm sitting right now..) Anyway it wasn't like a get wasted and mosh type show, but it was fun nontheless. There was a lot of people there and we played outdoor with a waterfall as a backdrop!

This is a sideways picture of the statue in front of the bar.

The next day our buddy Limoges took us tubing in the Elora Gorge which turned out to be hella fun. We had to play at Sauble beach's "Rock The Beach" festival the next day so we took of and got to a campsite in Sauble that they provided the bands. We then met the security for the festival who were staying at the same campsite, and they were all hammered, which was kinda sketchy, but whatever we can roll with it...

We were supposed to play at noon the next day but due to the fact that all the people putting this festival on seemed to be hungover as hell, we ended up playing at like 2 or 3, which turned out to be ideal as there was more people around, the beach was fucking packed due it being hotter than fucking hell itself outside.

Mean Tangerine literally rocking the beach.

It's always fun playing on big outdoor stages and this was definitely no different. The stage was literally on the beach, and all our shit got really sandy, but the show was really fun, I think we're definitely sounding tighter and better than ever before.

Colin the intern

So after rock the beach we chugged our new van, appropriately named, Laura, all the way to Ottawa where our good buddy Andy Marr let us crash at his place. We spent the following day doing the most cliche touristy stuff in Ottawa that you can, visiting Parliament and all the sites, despite the fact we've been there a handful of times, its more rad in the summer for sure. The night of the show was that intense storm, which you may have heard about fucking that stage up at Bluesfest. We played not to far from there this historic venue called the Elmdale Tavern with a great band called Plush Garden. Check em out if you get a chance. The power went out and it was storming, which didn't help the draw but there were a handful of people there and we tried to rip it up as hard as we could, and had a damn good time doing it too. After that we went to this nightclub called Babylon for this 60's night where we preceeded to get really hammered and naked and rip that dance floor a whole new corn hole, or as the french say, maize hole.

I'm as bad ass in real life as I am in the picture.

The next day was an off day before Drummondville so we spent in in Montreal doing more touristy stuff, despite also having been there a million times. Sean our buddy whose came along with us, wouldnt stop flappin his mouth about this sandwhich place in MTL called Shwartz. So we went, and it was like beyond amazing. Apparently its a pretty famous place to, as suggests all the famous people on the wall. As if we weren't being touristy enough, we even got our waiter to take a picture of us there. Good Lord are we lame.

This was honestly the most delicious sandwhich I've ever had

Our show in Drummondville the next day was a good time too. Thanks to Steve Martin for putting it on (different steve martin then the one from Pink Panther). I tried to look up stuff to do in Drummondville online and found nothing really. So we just chilled. The city was cool tho, there was this outdoor festival going on which turned out to be pretty cool. The bar we played at had a solid outdoor patio and the show was tight as well. I'm pretty sure there bartenders rake in the tips.

Oh Sean...

The next day was when the luxury tour really stopped though. We'd heard a lot about how hard it is for bands to cross into the USA so we crossed every I and dotted every T before we crossed that imaginary line in the sand that divides not only countries but cultures and social values as well. Turns out crossing was pretty fucking easy actually, maybe we got a guy in a good mood but it took about five minutes. So onward we left to try and leave our modest footprint in a new country.

Regular Coors! Truly and American tradition right?

 

We didn't have anywhere to sleep and good God can we not afford to stay in a hotel so we pulled over in a truck stop, set up a tent and tried to sleep. This is where shit gets really Fucked up! When I woke up the next morning I just took a wee stroll in this wooded area and there was this guy like following me, and when I stopped he stopped, etc. It was a tad freaky to say the least. I then like kind of walked away from him and he just kept following me back to our van. When I got the van, he got in his car which was right beside ours and preceded fucking stare us down while we were brushing teeth etc. Then he started to suck his finger off. He didn't just like pop it into his mouth or anything either, he was making love to the thing while just staring at us. We then proceeded to threaten him and and raz him a bit and he just kept staring, it was so fucking weird. Part of me felt bad for him, I know that truck stops certainly have a certain reputation and maybe this guy was like hell yea fucking jackpot all these tanned studs, (we're like really really tanned right now) but part of me wanted to like kick his ass for repeatedly getting way too...you know like...up in all this.

Anyways it has been a very adventerous start to the tour to say the least. And were only a short ways in, we're having the time of our lives, and we'll be sure to keep y'all posted.

Jesse

Obligatory Studio Blog!!!

                                                      This is what a hit record looks like.


     Well you all asked for it so here it is, a STUDIO BLOG!!!!....Okay, no one asked for it but here it is regardless. Being in the studio for a band is generally as a happening and eventful time as touring is, the difference is fans tend really not to care as much because it obviously doesn't have as much to do with them. Just stop writing about it and get your stupid record out. That's what I always say at least. Regardless I feel somewhat obliged to write about it because these days here in the studio will determine the outcome of our potential careers in music probaby more than any showcase or gig.

                                                           Max finding his "chi"

So right now we have 17 songs. 11 of them are finished and good to go, and the last five we are working on this weekend. Literally as you read this we are working on it. Trippy? No not really. If you happened to see us at any shows recently maybe you might recognize some of em!

                                                          Stupid question, but um, whats a guitar?

   As for plans to release it? Right now were aiming at, what our manager called "Quarter 1" of 2012. Now, none of us knew what this meant, (except me...I'm what you'd call a "harvard man"), but after Googling it, I guess that means January 2012. Now you may very well be asking yourself "Holy Fuck that's so far away! How am I going to possibly survive until then!" Well don't you fret, we have plans to release a 7" with two songs on it at some point this fall, in physical form and online. Plus we have those samplers featuring three songs off the record, that we've already been selling (Songs are "On my way home", "Summertime" and "Ice Cold") So what I'm really trying to say, is quit your fucking bitching, we'll literally have like 5 songs from it out to the general public before the album is available, calm the fuck down, okay? We cool? Good. Back to pictures of us looking cool.

                                                                         Colin made it back from protesting animal rights just in time to record

                                                          And another one.

                                                      Mike is fucking stoked for this record! HOLY CRAP!

    Anyways that is all for now, we honestly cannot wait for people to hear these songs. It's kind of stressful having them in the bag without being able to show people, they sound like 10 million times (at least!) better then our crappy stupid smelly old songs.  Anyways thats it for now, hope that you are stoked for this new record!

                                                                    Super Orgy Pizza Party