End of USA Tour, Possibly our van, Keep on Keepin on.

In front of my future residence

  

How's it going, on this blustery old fall day?  Days are getting shorter, subsequently the nights are getting shorter, and our van is still a fucking piece of shit.

Just wanted to do a quick little blog recapping the last couple days of our previously mentioned small excursion into the USA.

It's like they knew we were coming and erected a statue of Mike's boner.

Where we last left off, we were in Frostburg, Maryland. Never heard of it? That's ok. Neither has anbody have we, or anyone else we talked to basically outside of Frostburg. That night we ended up finding the cheapest drinks we would all tour, or actually in my entire existence. Ready for this?..........10 cent beers. I fuck with you not. Despite how pathetically broke I am, I went for it and tipped a whopping 25%....Totaling at 2 and a half cents. Yes, please shower me with compliments of how considerate I am....

Anyways that wasn't at the venue we were playing at, the venue we played at was called "Dante's", and it was a pretty cool places. In a week that had a couple strange venue's on it, it was nice to play on a real big stage. But we kind of just roll with whatever situation we're given, stage, floor, dark corner, rollin with the punches is what we do best.

New band member

On stage in Frostburg, one of the local patrons who could rip the saxophone came on stage with us to add some horns to a couple of our songs, he was a great lover musician, and it was cool to add something new to proverbial fold.

Everyone was feeling mighty sick at that point, sleeping in our van and being freezing cold turns out did not bode well for our health. So the next morning we got the hell outta there, to perhaps one day return, who knows. I should mention that all the people we met there were real nice to us. 

"Hi I'm Max, the stupidest piece of shit alive"

Anyways, the next day we played in Arlington, which is kind of sort of part of Washington D.C. unofficially (as one resident explained to us).  So we mustered up the energy to check out all of the touristy Washington stuff.

We thought this was the white house for like half an hour

Seeing the white house was actually spectacularly boring but the Lincoln memorial was cool. The show that night, we played at a place called the Cowboy Cafe (we knew we'd fit in instantly given our love affair with romantic comedies starring Hugh Grant  cowboy movies. The show there was fun and people seemed to dig it and buy cd's and t shirts all that important jazz that keeps us on the road. Bands are really just T shirt companies, we make more from t shirts than anything else, it's really the only that keeps us going, so ya know, if you're at a show in the next little bit and the shirt you're wearing sucks, check one of ours out?? 

See; dark corner, as mentioned above

After the show we got invited to a party with some local folk so we figured we'd go there and try and find a floor to crash on. Unfortunately at one point some drunken asshole came in, said he hated Canadians and we got kicked out of the house. What a bunch of fuckfaces if I do say so myself. There are generally speaking subtle differences with American and Canadians, but I just don't see any Canadians doing something like this (except Scott, he's a dick) but maybe I'm just painting us all with a very broad stroke of kindness. Not sure anyone I've ever met would kick someone out of a place for being "American", as if right? I'm sure this was just one asshole and obviously most American's wouldn't do this, but it still left a salty cholorine-"y" taste in our mouths.

The place we played in Lock Haven

Not to make this too much of a sob story or anything, but on the way home from Arlington, shit really started to suck. Somewhere about 60 miles outside of Buffalo our van completely and utterly fucked off on us. It stopped accelerating and instead started to hiss very loudly. This is just such a bummer because we obviously need that van. We ended up having to tow it back from Buffalo to the border, than from the border get picked up by another tow company and back to our place in Toronto. If you get anything from this blog....get CAA. Haha. Our total trip would have cost us over 800 dollars, if we didn't have CAA. Fortunately we do, so it was free. Wish the same could be said for our transmission replacement.

So yeah that was our second foray into the United States. I think we're doing a decent job on starting to build a bit of a following there and it's definitely been extremely cool to us, however this one just ended on a bit of a bummer note. But we'll bounce back, keep soldiering on. If there's one thing we always do, it's soldier on.....It's what good waffles do.

Good Waffles

 

 Some Random Observations  

• Some guy came up to me in Arlington and was like "you know what we call Canada right, America's hat! Get it, like cuz it's on top of America right!"  You know what we call America? Canada's dick.  He thought it was pretty funny, he was a pretty good guy actually.
• Cannot believe how much prices vary in the states. The average pint cost like 2 and half bucks. That would be terrific on my wallet and just terrible on my liver/reputation/livestock....k I don't have any livestock, but good god, under the circumstances in which I did, and there was cheap pints, they would most likely be neglected.
• Cannot wait to hit the road again. Gotta say it's depressing a little bit to be back home. I feel like in some fashion we're really only "us" when we are on the road.
•  We have TONS of new songs! Can't wait for everyone to hear them. They sound awesome. In some ways we're starting over and it's pretty different stuff. Not to suck our own schlong, but I'm not sure it really sounds like anything that's out there right now. Maybe that's just wishful thinking though. You can decided in the upcoming year as it's all released. 

Thanks for reading. I'll be sure to report any other news or musings in the future. Hope this didn't bore the shit out of you.

Jesse

Read my blog and tell your friends to too, if you feel like it.

Susan Sarandon is a huge fan, she asked us to sign her tits

 

Ahh being on tour. When your body feels like garbage but you're too drunk to notice.  Just joking, we're alive and well. How are you all doing? Well I should hope. Though this has only been a short little jaunt, it's been an eventful one! Feels great to be back ripping it up on the road.

We started out in Boston, which has in our brief experience there been a cool city to us and this time was definitely no different. The venue we were playing, like our last time here, was right on the Harvard campus, and was having a party for it's law students when we got there. I think it goes without saying that we fit right in, and had the students approaching us asking for law advice and our study notes for the bar exam. Which we of course all completed in our free time. I think it also goes without saying that they had some free catering there and we snuck our way in, downing quesadilla after quesadilla. The next half hour so, isn't blog worthy necessarily as it was cumulatively spent in the bathroom. 

I, uh, should mention that these photos are photos from my camera phone taken of my actual real camera, sorry folks!

Jokes aside, the crowd in Boston was awesome and started dancing as soon as we started playing, and for once I'm pretty sure it wasn't a coincidence. After we finished playing, a very nice lady gave me a Wilco sticker, not sure if it was random or she was aware of my deep love affair with the band, nontheless it's now on the inside of our van. I'm rambling but whatever.

That night we had the luxury of sleeping in our van. In the summer it wasn't that bad, I mean it was really sweaty and stuffy and crazy hot, but I'd take that over what we had to do that night. It was so so cold, Massachusetts was already covered in snow and it was well below freezing. It was really one of those moments where you're questioning the decisions that lead you up to that moment. The things I've done for music, fuck me. 

Crowd in Boston getting down!

We decided then regardless of budget there was really no way we could sleep in the van again, and headed to our second ever show in New York City. Instead of playing in Bushwick under a subway line, this time our venue was right in the heart of Greenwich Village, so we were pretty stoked about that. Being just the richest brokest band in the history of all time, we had to get the nicest sketchiest and least scary scariest motel ever in nearby New Jersey, and by this time it was for some reason, an orgy of snow and sleet.  Our van isn't really in good enough condition to drive in regular weather let alone this so it was no time at all until we had already smashed into another car. Luckily they were pretty "chill mother fuckers" about it, because there's just no way we could afford the insurance if that premium went up. And everyone was still alive and everything too, which was an added bonus.  Anyway we paid the 20$ toll for the Holland tunnel and continued onto Manhattan lucky that our van wasn't smashed up to bad and no one got hurt. 

Hey, our motel didn't have towels, clean sheets, or peace of mind, but it did have free porno, something I'm sure the Waldorf would never offer.

The show in New York was pretty great, we played two sets at this bar called Wicked Willy's that was hoisting a Halloween party costume party. We didn't have costumes, but that didn't stop me from pretending. After, the venue had professional beer pong tables where we proceeded to challenge the locals.

After the snow storm

The next day the weather finally fucked off and we walked around Manhattan trying not to break the bank. After that proved impossible we decided to leave the city. We had a day off, and it was too cold to sleep in the van still so we got a cheap cheap hotel somewhere en route to our show in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

We had another day off and proceeded to spent 11 hours in the same bar, never once venturing outside.  We were in this town called Hazleton, and we were just bored as hell looking up places to go. It was on trusty old "Yelp" that we found the Battered Mug. The oldest bar in all of Hazleton. This place was literally an exact replica of Moe's Tavern, handful of locals sitting quietly in a drunken stew. In a matter of hours ( well actually in a matter of like 6-8 hours) were pretty much no different. This place had a shuffleboard, and we just sat there drinking $1.50 pints for, yea 11 or so hours. Another one of those moments where you kind of question what the hell brought you here. I should have probably been in class back in Toronto, but the Battered Mug for whatever reason felt a little more like home.  At a bit after midnight Mom (Colin) came and picked the three of us, and our buddy and roadie Eric Limoges, up and we passed out at the hotel, from what I remember. I should also mention, Max would not shut the living fuck up about how good he thought he was at shuffleboard. We're still waiting actually. Man I hate that guy.

Toto we aint in Mount Britchets anymore

We were pretty close the next day to our next venue, in Lock Haven. It was a coffee shop and we played to the fewest people we ever have in the history of our band. Just Eric Limoges and the two people working who were both extremely nice and one of them let us crash at there place that night, a very kind gesture indeed.

This brings us up to yesterday. We played in Conhoshocken, a ritzy neighbourhood in Philadelphia. The people at the venue were super cool, as the show was supposed to be an acoustic show, and they let us play a regular set...because we don't know how to play an acoustic show. The venue was called Guppy's and it was run by a fellow Canadian who even served Poutine. How awesome. The bar was also hosting a cancer benefit that night and it turned out to be pretty packed.  I think we made some fans and friends and we actually headed to a local strip club after where Colin's mom was dancing  where we had a couple beers and left. We usually don't "do" strip clubs, but this seemed like a fitting occasion. Turned out one of the dancers was actually from Nova Scotia too. Sweet huh?

Me looking handsome, but hey what else is new

Anyways I'm just sitting here in "Charlie's Motel" in Forstburg, Maryland where were playing. Not sure what to expect, no one we'd talked to thus far in the past week has even heard of this town, but I hate these guys and wish they were dead as long as we're in it together I'm sure it will turn out great. Tomorrow we play in Arlington which is apparently a super awesome place so we're stoked for that too.

Till next time

Jesse

Ice Cold

This song is called Ice Cold. Figured it was about time to upload it online. Anyone who has our Wolf EP will be familiar with it, as it appears on that. So this is basically for the people who haven't got a chance to hear it yet. Figured maybe it would help jump start the ol' YouTube account, which hasn't been givin the proper love she deserves in the last couple years. Seems like "YouTube" is the proper way to showcase your music now. Guess all those Myspace plays mean nothing now! Nothing! And surely by the time we get this up and running, they'll already be implanting chips in our brains and we'll become an army of mass murdering machines. Incapable of feeling or being able to appreciate music or any kind of art.  I digress. Hope ya like the tune though. Not sure if she'll make it onto the final cut of our album. Might be a bit too fist pumpin radio rock for myself, but maybe that's just me

Video Below

I break my hand, Mike goes to jail, Max finished Harry Potter 7.

Those moments when your life feels like a road runner cartoon

 

Hey there! Been a while since I've been able to blog and a lot has happened. I'll have to apologize in advance that there won't be any pictures with this blog because I'm currently unable to upload any, so I'll do a big facebook album when I get home. And this is a long one and the last one from this tour! Thanks so much for reading, and we hope to see everyone at some shows soon!

Where we last left off, we were about to take the stage in Canmore Alberta. It was a really cool place, and we got to stay in their "band room" which was a sweet hang out pad, and we took definite advantage of being able to sleep in our own seperate beds. Also there was this couple there that told us they were going to walk down the aisle to our tune "On My Way Home" at there wedding. What a compliment eh?

With no time to lose we headed for our next show in Penticton, where the show was pretty uneventful, but the times we spent there...truely memories to last a lifetime...

After our show there, it was so nice out we decided to head to one of the many local beaches, for some swimming. We had no bathing suits, so under the moonlight we all stripped down to the nude and swam out to a dock in that one summer night no one would ever forget. Any onlookers were treated to a scene right out of a harlequin romance novel....sigh..

After that we headed back to the bar owners house who was nice enough to let us stay at her hippie pad. We had some tea and even smoked some marijuana together, truely a rare moment in our bands history. Despite what our reggae tinged past may suggest, we our not a stoner band in the least.  But hey, when in Penticton right?

The next morning things really went, as they say, "in the shitter". With our homoerotic late night swim still fresh in our memory we headed out to the same dock we were at the night before, for a quick swim before we headed to our show in Vancouver. About 30 or so yards out there was a floating dock, that we were all hanging out on and jumping off of. After a while the dock was shifting slightly and in one of the most well thought out moves in my life I started trying to rock the dock, and chanting "rock the dock". Then, like the buffoon I am I slipped and fell, falling on the ladder and into the water. Upon getting out I looked down and saw my finger had gone to shit. See image above. The doctors told me I went into shock, so I didn't feel a thing. Making it convinient for jokes and waving to curious onlookers.

When we got to the hospital, the look on the doctors faces after seeing my finger was really the farthest thing from reassuring as each nurse and doctor gasped in horror. And I'm thinking you probably just watched some guy die, how is this grossing you out? You have to put peoples guts back together and you look horrified at finger on a strange angle. Ah well, I digress.

The people at the hospital were all really nice though. Unfortunately we did have to cancel our show in Vancouver as my finger was in no condition to play. Sorry to the folks in Vancouver who were planning on coming out, we will reschedule asap!

I got out of the hospital later that day, and Colin had an uncle who lived in Osoyoos, just south of Penticton so we headed there for the evening. I wish I could upload some of my pictures of this place, because juxtaposing this place with the van we'd been sleeping in would blow any mind. It was truely a sensational place, and many a thanks go out to his uncle Rick for having us.

The next morning, unaware of how close Osoyoos was to the USA border Mike and our good friend and roadie Sean headed out for a hike. After not hearing from them for about five hours we started getting a little worried. It was then Rick informed us that the border was about a kilometer away, so we headed there with low expectations. Sure enough they had unknowningly crossed a fence on to US soil, and were swiftly picked up by homeland security. With a show in Seattle a couple days away, we were slightly fretted but releaved they weren't dying of dehydration up in the foothills. Mike said Sean and him took to prison instantly, giving each other coat hanger tattoos, and doing chin ups, etc. Two for two on ultra homoerotic experiences in southern BC.

After a couple hours they let them go with a warning, figuring they were harmless. We then spent a couple days in Vancouver relaxing before we headed to Seattle. I went to work on a film set with my cousin and the other fellas headed up to Whilster. Man was it good to get away from those guys! We then saw our friend Sean off, as he was headed to Victoria for University. We wish him all the best and miss him already. We then headed off to Seattle for our final taste of the USA for this tour. Getting across the border went really well as well, which we were somewhat scarred for givin Mike's whole thing with being arrested for illegaly crossing the border. But it went fine!

The venue in Seattle was literally right at the foot of the space needle, and some rock and roll museums dedicated to Hendrix and Nirvana exhibitions. After getting mostly treated to free food in Vancouver we ate at one of the most expensive seafood restaurants in Seattle. The view was sensational, and we were broke as hell after. Whatever right?

After our show in Seattle which was rad, we had to drive straight to Red Deer. Anyone thats ever looked at map should know that that is far as hell! But thats what touring is all about, or touring in Canada at least.

Our last three shows of the tour all took place in Alberta and were with a local band called Half Chance Heroes. Good guys! In Edmonton we went out to a highschool party after our show after some kids in the crowd invited us. It was awesome and we drank heavily. This time Mike and I opted to not try and kill each other either, we're really growing up fast folks!

Sometime in the last couple days Max finished reading Harry Potter 7 as well. He started the first one when we left and had read the entire series while on the road this past month. After he finished the 7th book, he just started rereading it. I'm really concerned about my friend, as that is some strange behaviour for a quasi literate 21 year old.

Last night we played Calgary, at one of the coolest venues in all of Canada called Verns run by a wicked dude named Clint. We stayed there until five in the morning and to tell you the truth I just woke up now and started blogging.  The show in Calgary was definitely one of the most fun and we're all glad as it was a fitting way to end such a long and eventful tour. Now I have to go back to my stupid life with all sorts of stupid stuff I have to do, that I don't want to. Were doing another USA tour in October though, so were stoked on that. As well check our "tour dates" tab on our facebook page as we've put up some local shows for the fall in London and Hamilton as well as a handfull of others. Thanks for reading these blogs, sorry this one had no pictures. I'll end with the most cliche quote I can think of, cuz I'm unoriginal as hell.

"What a long strange trip its been"  - The Grateful Dead

Max dissapears, Mike and I fight, etc etc

Greeting from the Rockies!

 

Hey there! How's your summer going? Why am I even asking as you can't really answer. But hey let me go on about myself and our band for a while k? Cool. Man has there been a lot of stuff going on since the last blog. We last left off when we were in Akron, and boy what a night that was. Just a pathetic display on our part, truely disgraceful.  The show was actually really good. The venue was rad and there was a decent crowd and I'd like to think we made some fans there. After the show some people asked us to come to a local party, and who are we to turn that down? We then proceeded to drink heavily, perhaps a little too heavily. We went to this party, and after a while we noticed Max was gone. We then proceeded to spend about two drunken hours looking for him but to no avail, that guy was no where! In the mean time while we were looking for him Mike and I got into an all out fist fight in front of all these potential new friends, and we really truely were trying to hurt each other. Colin got in the middle of it and eventually it all blew over. We didn't end up finding Max either. We drove back to our hotel, hoping he'd turn up the next day.

I was no where to be found

Anyway, sure enough the next morning Max called us from an abandoned gas station and we went to pick him up. Apparently he tried to take a nap at a nearby bench and woke up and just didn't wake up until the next day.

The next day after we picked Max up and headed to our show in Clevland. But not before we checked out the Rock and Roll hall of fame. They let bands in for free, so that was definitely super rad.   We touristed the SHIT out of it.

If only I knew how to rotate the pictures.

Our show in Clevland was solid too. We played with this awesome band from Brooklyn called Goodbye Picasso. Cool guys. Also the venue was right across  the street from the Clevland Indians stadium  and after the game, halfway through our set, they set off what was truely the greatest fireworks show in the history of the world. And I say that having seen the fireworks show at Disney land. So needless to say every single person in the bar went outside to watch this show, so we ended stopping our set to watch too. How can we possibly compete with giant colourful explosions?

This is what a Firework looks like

From Clevland we headed to Flint Michigan where really nothing spectacular happened. We played, people seemed to like it, then we headed to Chicago! Man is that city ever amazing. Kind of feels like Toronto too.

Chicago!

Our show in Chicago was pretty sick. The venue had a record store attached to it and we proceeded to geek the fuck out for a while. Also while in Chicago I checked out the Wilco buildings! Look!!!

Yankee Hotel Jesse!

But hey, there's no way anyone except for me cares about that, so I'll stop writing about that. Chicago was really enjoyable though, can't wait to go back.

After Chicago we played in Minneapolis which I was super stoked for, as two of my favourite artists came from the area,  them being the Replacements and Bob Dylan. I truely love both of them, so it was awesome to play there and channel my inner Bob Stinson (RIP).

I should also mention that we are all growing our beards out, so that's why we look so sketchy. 

The next day we started our way back to Canada, and oh what a greeting we received when we got back on home turf. We played at this venue called the Death Trap, and it looked like how you are probably picturing it in your head right now. Midway through our set people started yelling at us calling us Faggots and etc etc. It really bummed the shit out of us to tell you the truth. Not being called homosexual or anything, but I took it as he was yelling at us being like I hate fags and you guys are fags. Such a bummer, why do people have to be so rude, and so homophobic? We weren't even acting eccentric or anything. We found one of the guys after and were debating kicking his ass, but once we confronted him he started asking us to hit him and we didn't want to provide him the satisfaction. Man did Winnipeg leave a sour taste in our mouths.

Anyways we hit the Rockies today and spirits are definitely much higher. We play at the Drake in Canmore in like ten minutes, so I'm gunna go now. Hope you enjoyed this!

Jesse