...and then it was all over

Well, we're home... We ended up driving straight back to Cleveland after our show on Saturday night in Chicago. The show was in a great little art space called Country Club Chicago that our friend Ed from Brilliante Records asked us to play. It was a nice place for the last show because it was really laid back in a nice atmosphere. My friend Karen came up from Indiana for the show, and four of us went out for Ukranian food before the show(my first time). Even the Borscht was tasty. It's easy to be skeptical of something with a name like that, but it was actually pretty good. My only complaint was that something from the meal kept sending air bubbles up my throat while I sang, but I guess that's a small price to pay for delicious food. So, like I said, we drove straight back after the show. Adam was the first to be dropped off at 7:30am, and I finally got home at 10:30, after unloading passengers, our equipment, and the trailer. Then I took a nice nap from noon until 9:30...





Let me back up and say that no matter how much I wanted to write more about California, it just didn't happen. But, luckily for us, our good friends Slings did a fine job of writing about it on their blog, so head over there to check it out...

Here are a few highlights from the last week or so of the tour...

Boise: Nolan let us stay at his Dad's house when he wasn't even going to be there. He called his Dad at midnight from the club to ask if we could stay over (keep in mind, we had all just met that night). Then he drew us a map on a napkin, gave us the passcode to the garage door, and told us to find a place to sleep and try not to wake his Dad up. That was pretty awesome. One of the highlights of that night was seeing the Less Than Jake "Hello Rockview" balloon shaped like a man hanging from his bedroom ceiling. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? I used to have the same thing when I was in high school... He also had the Hippos foam hand, which was an added bonus.

Salt Lake City: The really drunk girl who forced us to dance to the first band while threatening to make everybody sit down during our set if we didn't get up there with her.

Denver: Staying with my cousins Sarah and Bob, who cooked us a delicious vegetable stew over rice. I also got to help chop the vegetables, which was pretty fun since we'd been eating in restaurants and not cooking for ourselves for weeks... Then the show was like a Cleveland reunion. My best friend from high school was there with a bunch of his friends, along with one of my coworkers who just moved out west. And Ryan from Sleeper Horse lived in Cleveland and used to play in a band with Sean, so we had a really good time catching up with everybody. Check out a review of this show here.

Lawrence: We played with some nice guys, but our bands didn't exactly mesh too well. All the kids at the show were up dancing and having fun during the first two bands. Then we went on stage... I think it took about five songs for almost everyone to leave... haha. It was pretty funny to see everyone just walk out. I guess they don't like pop music in Lawrence? :) I dunno... it made me laugh, though.

Omaha: Turned out that we were the only band playing because one band cancelled a while ago, and Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk had lots of car trouble on the way to the show... So we ended up playing to about 6 people, all of whom were very receptive. We met the nice fella who runs Omahype.com, and he posted a review here. Sadly, our friend Steve had to work super late that night, so he showed up about 30 seconds after we finished our set, but we stayed at his incredibly nice house that evening. He and his wife, Emily, made us some pizza and stayed up to talk until about 2 or 3 even though they both had to be up way too early. I think he gets the prize for best shower facilities on tour. Although, what's the deal with not having soap in the guest bathroom shower, man?!? Come on! I had to use Jared's shampoo all over...

Minneapolis: We played at a place called The Garage, which is a teen-run, city-owned youth center. My favorite part was the Soul Asylum quote painted on the wall next to the rules about moshing... "I want somebody to shove". Some of us wondered if the kids who went there these days knew who Soul Asylum was, but it's hard to say... The quote was from this song. I'm happy to say that I still own this album. We also played with some cool guys and gals in now, now every children, so all in all it was a good night.

Well, I guess that just about covers it. Thanks for reading all of this... and sorry we didn't update it more often. We'll post a bunch of photos from the tour in the next few days. Thank you to everyone who booked a show, helped promote, came to a show, let us sleep at their house, cooked us a meal, bought a CD, made a joke about bears (the animal, the football team, etc.), or gave us directions to the highway. See you next time!

-Charlie

120 Bottles of Water, 78 Granola Bars, 80 Peanut Butter Sandwiches, 23 Bags of Ice and Six sweaty kids in a van...

The tour is winding down and although we've had a great time, I'm pretty sure we're all anxious to be in our own houses and beds while going about our daily routine - be it work, school, or unemployment. Sorry we haven't been updating this as much as we should, but there isn't as much time to do this as you might imagine - or we had hoped.

The last time we wrote we had just finished in Portland (which was one of my personal favorite stops, and the show was great). Seattle was also very fun for different reasons: We got to hang out with Kate Pugsley (who does all of our artwork), and we got to play with Minivan, and Commodore Duchess, who thoroughly impressed me. In all honesty, a lot of the shows are running together at this juncture and it's difficult to separate days.

There were a lot of Cleveland connections at our show in Denver where we played with Sleeper Horse, whose drummer, Ryan, was once in a band with our very own Sean Sullivan. A few of our old friends as well came out to the show and it was nice to see the familiar faces. It's pretty cool seeing people you know from Ohio along the way. We stayed with Charlie's cousin Sarah and her husband Bob who were very gracious hosts who made us a brilliant African vegan stew for dinner. Of all the places we stayed, this is where I felt most at home.

Skipping a few days ahead, we're now driving to our last stop in Chicago. The plan was to drive straight through from our last show in Burnsville, Minnesota, but we had some mechanical problems with the van, so instead of arriving around 8 am, it's now around noon with about 2.5 more hours of driving. On the bright side: at least we'll be missing the morning rush hour. We have Friday off and I think we plan on doing some of the things I love doing while in the city. Craig and I want to do the Shedd Aquarium and Adam is interested in Navy Pier. Hopefully we can get some of these things accomplished before our show on Saturday evening, after which we will drive back to Cleveland.

This will undoubtedly be my last diary entry for this tour, so for posterity let me just mention how much I've enjoyed this trip, no matter how bumpy the road was at times (both literally and figuratively). Three weeks is a long time to spend with five other people in a van, and over that amount of time I've come to have newfound respect, admiration, and love for each and every one of my band mates. I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else. Here are my semi-public, semi-private thoughts on of my individual fellow travelers:
Adam: It was a strange, interesting few days there, and I'm glad we were able to work through our different opinions and views. I'd definitely go out on tour with you again. You had some pretty big shoes to fill behind the drum kit and you did so admirably. Thanks for taking the time to go on tour with us.
Charlie: You're one of my best friends and have been for years. Touring with you was even more fun this time around. I appreciate your easy going nature and it helps keep me at least a little bit more relaxed than I would be otherwise.
Craig: Besides being the funniest person in the van, you're also one of the best listeners. When you're not making me laugh until I almost pee my pants, you're one of the most sincere people I know - even if you don't let people see that sometimes. I'm grateful that you are always willing to talk, give advice and in general just be a great friend.
Rachel: Your positive outlook on nearly everything is amazing. We can be playing to three people and you're still the same ol' sunny gal. I probably don't express it, but I admire that very much.
Sean: You weren't able to come on our last tour and I have to say that having you in the van this time around was much better than I had hoped for. I'm very appreciative to have gotten to know you better. You are a brilliant photographer (as I'm sure anyone who's seen the blog can attest), a talented bass player and a genuinely good human being.
Slings: The four or five days we spent with you on tour could not have gone any better. Every single one of the people in your "posse" was delightful. Thanks for taking us to the beach, having pets to entertain us and getting us into restaurants after hours. While California is much more beautiful, I hope you will make it out to Cleveland to play more shows with us in the not-to-distant future.

Signing off ...

Jared

friends

watercolor paintings, slings + (most of) us in ventura, california after our in-store on august 4th... fun!

Portland...

We are in Portland this morning. At our last show in San Francisco, I was told by two separate people not to expect much from a show in this town because "people don't go to shows in Portland." Well, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that the show last night super fun, and the Towne Lounge was full of people. Our friends Gingerbread Patriots played this show with us, and it was nice to finally meet them after having talked to them for the last year and a half or so... This tour has been really great for meeting some of our internet friends in person. Musee Mecanique also played with us, and those guys are super talented. I can't wait to hear their new album when it's done...

We leave for Seattle in an hour and a half (assuming Rachel is ready) for a show tonight at the Crocodile Cafe sponsored by Three Imaginary Girls. I am especially excited about Seattle because I get to see my girlfriend, who just moved out there a few weeks ago! More on Seattle later... And I promise we will talk about California again, too. We miss Slings dearly!

Here are some photos from the SF show taken by Ted from Bagel Radio...

-Charlie

California, where the mountains are so tall and waves crash blue around you...

Okay, where to start... I guess I'll start with last night and work backwards.

We are in San Francisco right now waking up in my friend Kaity's apartment. Last night's show at the Elbo Room was a success by all accounts. You never know about Monday night shows, but the bands were great, and lots of friendly people came out. I have to say that none of that would have been possible without the help of Ted from Bagel Radio, though... That guy was a huge help. He also runs a great internet radio station, so make sure you check it out. Speaking of internet radio, our friend Elise from Indie Pop Rocks on Soma FM came out to the show, too, so it was great to finally meet her... The night started off with our good friends in Slings. This was the last night of our 5 date run with them. Not sure what I'm talking about? Oh, maybe that's because we haven't updated the blog since New Mexico :) Anyway, Slings are one of the first bands that befriended us right after we started our band, and it was wonderful to finally meet and travel with them the whole time we were in California. We had so much fun eating and laughing and playing percussion on each others songs... I can't believe the shows are already over. This past week seemed to go the quickest of any part of our tour. They took us swimming in the ocean in Newport Beach, which was near the top of our priority list for this west coast tour. There aren't too many ocean beaches in Ohio, so it was pretty crucial that we take advantage of it while we could. More on Slings later...

So, I woke up this morning to move the van at 8am because apparently it is not easy to find a good spot to park a large van with a trailer in San Francisco, and in my drowsy, bleary-eyed state, I had part of "O Fill My Heart" by Slings in my head as I stumbled the 5 blocks to the van. You should check out their songs. I bet there is a ticket on the van now anyway because I think I moved it to a 2 hour parking spot, and I've been asleep for at least 3 since I got back... oh well. That's what touring is all about.

We played in Sacramento on Sunday afternoon to a nice crowd for one of Roger's Record Club shows. The show was a matinee, meaning everything was over by about 9:00, so Roger took us to one of his favorite vegetarian Vietnamese restaurants, but it had closed about 5 minutes before we walked over there... We were all kind of bummed out about that, but Charlie from Slings went over to the window, and after a series of pleading gestures and tummy rubs, they actually re-opened the restaurant to serve all thirteen of us! I think that is pretty much unheard of... Any time we've worked in restaurants, customers who come in 15 minutes before closing are cursed, and those who come late are laughed at through the window... so, needless to say, we had our minds blown by this event, and the food was even better! Yay for Sacramento...

Here are a couple photos from the show, including one of Craig's hot one-note guitar solo during "Days." No, Craig and I aren't wearing matching shirts. That's just your eyes playing tricks on you...





Yikes, there is so much more to say, but I should really take a shower and think about eating some breakfast. We'll update again soon with more about California and Slings and the fantastic people we met.

see ya,
Charlie

Everything in New Mexico is edible or DEADLY. (and awesome)

Hey bloggins, its been six days on the road so far. That's six days without my laptop. Six days without world of warcraft... Needless to say, life's been pretty hard. All this "carrying" and "sleeping" is starting to take its toll on my fragile, sexy (sexy) body. At the very least, I've got my Tolkien books to keep me warm...

I'm lucky; I fancy myself a photographer, cause by golly this part of the country is somethin' else. Fun Fact: Everything in New Mexico is edible or deadly. Let me drop some knowledge on you... within sight of the house where we played in Las Cruces there was a fig tree, an apple tree, a pomegranite tree, and a pecan tree. I ate figs STRAIGHT OFF THE BRANCH! The only thing that could have possibly taken it up a notch would be if 4 to 5 golden-haired wood nymphs hand fed me figs and fanned me with palm fronds while pouring the finest draughts of sweet morning dew into my mouth from their crystal chalices! That, unfortunately, did not happen. Rae Rae and I went behind the house and took pictures of junked stuff (featured in an earlier post) and I stared down a wild dog. It was suprisingly easy, probably because i'm ten times bigger -and smarter- than a dog. With one less puppy in my way, Rae Rae and I were left to admire the pecan orchard in peace (although it may have been pomegranites, they hadn't really given fruit yet).

That night we stayed with our new friends Jacinto and Mantissa and they dropped all kinds of knowledge on us, it blew my mind! I didn't count the amount of times I said "Man...thats WILD!" but I bet it was a bunch - give or take a couple. On the way out I got the wise idea to pluck a prickly pear. Dont let the alliteration fool you - its not as fun as it sounds... so about 20 tiny splinters later we were well on our way to Arizona. I learned a valuable lesson in Arizona: Dramamene cures car sickness by replacing it with a vegetable-like state of zombification. I dont even know why, but under that influence I bought some candy peach rings and post cards.

Take some care,
Sean

ps: California - your beach has the biggest cannonball comin' its way!

somewhere between nm and az

We're on the road now from Las Cruces, NM to Phoenix, AZ and I'm listening to Tori Amos' "Scarlet's Walk" album, which happens to be about as good of a road trip album as you'll find. If you have any desire to get a taste of what I'm experiencing, go find the album version of "A Sorta Fairytale". Staring out the van windows I can see for what seems like miles as houses are dwarfed by the mountains behind them. I'm finally starting to see what appear to be palm trees and cacti. Last night's show in Las Cruces was a lot of fun. We played what I think is our only house show on the tour and while attendance wasn't high, the vibe was pretty fantastic. The house was on a pretty sizable piece of land that contained trees of fig, pecan and pomegranate. Sean tells me the figs are quite tasty, but I have yet to partake of any of the picked fruit. Unfortunately the pomegranates were about a month away from being ready for picking. The house itself was large and had an uninhabited feel to it, I don't know about anyone else, but I would have loved to have hidden away there, away from the world for a few days. Our Solar System, who we played with apparently ran into some sort of monsoon weather on their way, so they were a couple of hours late, but the wait was well worth it. They played a really laid back set of nicely crafted pop music, as well as telling a few stories and reading a Mad-Lib they'd done on their journey to the show about bears... the band? Perhaps the animal. Either way it seemed appropriate. We'll see if we run into the overwhelming rain conditions in Arizona that they experienced yesterday. After the show we were lucky enough to find a place to crash and as an added bonus there was a shower that I wasn't afraid to use. Our hosts Jacinto and Mantissa let us take over the bedroom and Mantissa even made us pancakes for breakfast with our choice of bananas, walnuts and blueberries.

-jared

ps: as a side note, we learned as we were leaving that our charming host was an extra in the Transformers movie. How cool is that?

something to do in the dark

This post comes to you from the road. We are in the middle of our twelve hour overnight drive from Oklahoma City to Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was originally our intention to update this blog every day, but since we haven't done that we will back up and tell you how the shows have been. So far we have been very lucky. Our first night was the Toledo Pop Fest, which Jared mentioned a little in our first blog. The second night was at a new venue in St. Louis called The Bluebird. It was nice to see Berlin Whale and play with them again. It was also nice to see our friend and native Clevelander Annie Zaleski. She was nice enough to let us stay with her again...this time in a new air conditioned apartment, which more than made up for the three hours of sleep that we got the night before. Next we went to our favorite city from the last tour, Kansas City. This time we played at a different venue called the Record Bar, where they fed us delicious pizza. The show turned out to be really fun, and it also happened to be our friend, Robert Moore's birthday party. It was great to finally meet after talking to him for over a year. After the show we got hang out with The Republic Tigers, who we played with last time we were there. We were privileged enough to hear some rough tracks from some of their new songs. [a little side note...Charlie was dictating to me but had to take a break to sing along with Nelly when his iPod shuffled to "For My"'] We have all become big fans of Republic Tigers since they gave us some demos on the last tour, and just when we thought our minds couldn't be blown anymore, they managed to do it again.

We just finished playing in Oklahoma City. Although there were not as many people as there were at the first few shows, we were fortunate enough to meet some people who already knew our music and came to see us play. It's inspiring to go to a city where we've never been and discover people who already know our music.

We should also mention that while we do miss Patrick terribly, I have been having a lot of fun butchering the guitar leads in the front of the stage. Adam has done a really great job of taking over on drums even though he starting getting sick the day we left. He's a real trooper with a beautiful body.

- Craig & Charlie

p.s. We should also add that at 5am today at a rest stop in Texas, Jared managed to get the water from the toilet to splash up and get all over his pants causing a lot of sleep-logged distress.

long rides and loud snoring

So it's been a pretty whirlwind first two days of the Bears trek to the west coast. We've played the Toledo Pop Fest with fellow Clevelanders The Afternoon Naps, and Kiddo from Detroit, among others, did an in-studio for KEHX, and played in St. Louis, with many, in what can only be described as "amazing" bands... But the highlight so far, for me has been the amazing African Grey Parrot at the first house where we stayed, which apparently thought everyone's name was Brian. "Brian?" it would say. "No, Jared." I would reply. "Brian?" You get the point. Today we have a relatively short drive to Kansas City, where we'll play the Record Bar. Word on the streets is that they have some pretty great pizza there. Playing the shows is the easy part, but what tour has come down to so far: "Where can I get good food?" and: "Where can I sleep that I won't disturb anyone with my loud snoring?" If I don't make it home, it's because I've been smothered with my own pillow.

-Jared