Tour Diary #14

February 26th
Houston, Texas... how the hell are ya? After a long drive through a torrential downpour of rain for hours on end, we got stuck in rush hour traffic and it took us over a half hour to drive the last 5 miles of our trip. T'was a rough one today, but we finally made it, got some delicious Mexican/Cuban cuisine (which actually upset my stomach, but I'm trying hard not to devote this entire post to complaining!), played a fun show, and went to stay with a woman named Elaine who had a ton of really cool art in her house (you can see Nate wearing some of said art below).

Houston skyline... had plenty of time to take pictures of this while sitting in stopped traffic. Fun times!

Your guess is as good as mine

I realize I'm getting carried away with the animal pics, but I always get excited when we stay with a cute one! (maybe it remind me of Kristy a little bit? I don't know!)

Tour Diary #13

February 25th
After eleven consecutive shows, we finally had a day off, so we headed to New Orleans to hang out with some friends of CJ's and enjoy the city (which we very much did). Upon arrival, we boarded the streetcar and took it downtown to Bourbon Street. We were quite pleased to find that you can drink on the street in New Orleans, so we grabbed some beers for the walk to a restaurant called Coops, (that was recommended by our friend Jamie from Atlanta) where Chris treated us to a delicious dinner and drinks. What a gentleman! After dinner, we had a mission to find some good New Orleans music, so we walked to a couple different bars where we saw two excellent bands and danced into the night.

Fast times at Gas Station High

Warm weather rules so much!

We were the only ones in this bar, but the band was actually really good. Sounds like some shows I've seen in Des Moines...

The second bar we went to was better attended, and the band was also really good

Retired for the night with my new friend Toby

Tour Diary #12

February 24th
I must admit, I didn't expect Birmingham, Alabama to be one of the coolest cities on the tour. We woke up early so we could drive there and go to the local Fox News studio to see Leslie and the Lys tape a performance for the noon news. It was amazing and hilarious, the whole news staff was super laid back and let us watch the entire news show, and then we got to do out and do some dance moves on a song with Leslie and crew, even though I totally got cut out of the shot (bastards!). You can find the performance here, and I would highly recommend checking it out. Then we had a ton of extra time to go relax at the Bottleneck, which turned out to be an amazing coffee shop by day in addition to a great venue by night. This place had by far the coolest green room area that I have ever seen, with arcade games and such, but was unfortunately basically outside in an enclosed patio, in which is way too cold to hang out. Turns out that we just so happened to be in the south on some of the coldest days that they have seen this season, which is a little bit of a letdown, but I should definitely not complain because it is far nicer than Iowa right now (I miss many things about home, but the weather is not one of them).

The Fox News building

Hey Buttman

The ladies getting prepared to annihilate

The wacky weatherman Mickey Ferguson, ladies and gentlemen!

Tough acts to follow: Auntie Litter, a chef making hot wings, and......

Pet of the Week!

The gang's all here... but Nate is hiding behind Leslie's hair

How many times can I pretend to be a newscaster on this tour? Never gets old, huh?!

Great view out behind the studio. I wasn't trying to look tough by the way, the sun was in my eyes!

The amazing Bottletree

Inside the Bottletree, where all the magic happened


And now, a few of the animals at the house we stayed at (there were 4 dogs and 3 cats, at least that I saw)


OOPS!...

Tour Diary #11

February 23rd
As we were headed south towards Atlanta today, we got the first taste of warm weather when we stopped at a rest area and noticed that it was about 60 degrees and sunny! However, when we actually made it to the venue, it was dark and cold again. Total bummer. But The EARL made up for this by being an awesome venue and giving us the best meal of tour so far (tofu veggie pita and black beans & rice for me). We also experienced by far the most interesting local opener that we have shared the stage with (do yourself a favor and check out Danger Woman). After the show, an incredibly nice couple name Jamie and Katie opened up their home for us to hang out and sleep at, and even made us delicious pancakes in the morning! Thanks guys!!!

Ha, looks like a butt

Nate slicing a cucumber with a plastic spoon out of the back of our car. Life of luxury.

Chris got a little carried away at the rest stop.

Twilight in Atlantaville.

Bar/restaurant area at the Earl.

The stage.

Pretty sweet green room.

The one and only Danger Woman, ladies and germs.

Tour Diary #10

February 22nd
Everything seemed to fall back into line today in an amazing way. Chris, running on very little sleep, woke up early and took care of business, cleaning all the glass out of the car and making arrangements to get a new window installed (unfortunately the closest place this service was available in time was about 45 minutes in the opposite direction that we needed to go, but this was only a minor setback). While waiting for our car to be ready, we got to explore a nice little old-town area of Manassas, Virginia, in which we found a great old bookstore with a very cute cat residing inside, so we relaxed in there for about an hour, ate some lunch, and hit the road just in time to make it back on schedule for Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Since we have been travelling southbound, the temperatures have naturally been increasing, and I can't begin to describe how nice it was to be able to comfortably hang outside of the venue in a t-shirt! After the show, we met a very talented photographer named Enid who invited us to stay at her parents house about 2 hours south of Chapel Hill, and directly on the route that we needed to go. Posted below are just a few of my favorite pictures out of the many great ones that Enid took (check out her amazing portfolio here)

Amazingly cute cat that I was hangin' with at the bookstore in Manassas

I thoroughly enjoy a good piece of bathroom art



(The rest of these are photos taken by Enid from the show. Thanks Enid!)

Tour Diary #9

February 21st
Woke up early enough to do some laundry (been going without underwear for a couple days at this point) and grocery shopping for some healthier lunch options (contrary to what my 6 year old self would have told you, it turns out that eating peanut butter and jelly gets less appetizing by the day). After these tasks were completed, we took off toward our nation's capital (for all the toddlers that subscribe to my blog, this means Washington, DC), where we met up with a fellow Iowa native and good friend of Nate and Kate named Tushar. He was nice enough to take us on a tour of the beautiful BBC America television studio where he works. This was a lot of fun, as you will see in the photos below. I'm going to start a new paragraph for the next major event of our day, since it has the opposite tone of the fun half of our day.

For all of the restored faith in humanity that I've gained on the tour so far, it should have come as no surprise that the following would happen and bring me back to reality. Sometime around midnight, I walked the block to our car so I could bring it back and load our equipment into it. As I neared the vehicle, I noticed that one of our windows had been broken out, and upon further inspection found that Nates backpack containing his laptop and numerous other items of personal value had been stolen. Thank you Washington DC for living up to your reputation! Luckily, I am travelling with a very level-headed, rational group of individuals, so we were able to remain calm and put some plastic over our window and get to a hotel outside of town where we would fix the car in the morning and continue on our way. The scum of the world will not take us out of this ballgame quite so easily.



Washington DC subway

Tallest escalator I've ever seen in my life. Kinda scary

Tushar showing us around the BBC studio

Live on the air, delivering the hard facts

Conquered news team

Deluxe green room at the DC9

The stage at the DC9

Thanks scumbags!

Tour Diary #8

February 20th
After muscling our way through the can of sardines known as New York traffic, we had only a couple hours of driving to Philadelphia, which was nice because it allowed us to get there in time for some exploring and a much needed relax session at a coffee shop. We got to the venue, ate some delicious food, and then Nate led a group consisting of both bands in a yoga session while a growing crowd watched and snapped some pictures of the weirdo Iowa kids doing their rituals (it was a pretty great feeling). By now, you know how the rest of the story goes, we played a show with was again excellent, and then went to stay at our new friend Paula's apartment and hung out with her guinea pigs and cats. Gooood times.

Philadelphia in the distance

Fancy lookin' folks at the show

More people from the show

Little squeakin' dudes

...and, of course, a cat.