Voodoo man from voodoo donuts Portland, Oregon.

Free Press Houston » Testify: Something Fierce’s Steven Garcia – More ‘79 than ‘77 in 2011

Tour blog reactive!!

The Something Fierce west coast tour in support of 'Don't be so Cruel' starts in a week. And guess who just found a Blogger app .. this girl.
Weird stuff is gonna pop up on here faster than your boyfriend's boner.

loggin daze .08

So our van, the sweet ass Burninator broke down about 20 minutes outside of Chicago. We got it towed to a repair shop but it was already around 4 pm on a Saturday and they were closing and wouldn't be open until Monday. So sadly, Madison, Milwuakee and Minneapolis shows had to be cancelled. Major bummer. But we did get to hang around Chicago for 2 more days which was pretty damn cool since it's the city I want to call my home. We got to eat some wicked good pizza and went to the beach (lake michigan I think.) All in all, we had fun.
Today we are in Des Moines with nothing to do. Our show doesn't start for about 7 more hours and we've already walked pretty much the whole downtown area. It's pretty boring. We did eat some kickass Scottish food. There's just something about potatoes and cabbage that makes me want to eat myself into a coma. It's an irresistable combination in my book.
We are starting our downward slope back home. I just can't seem to get excited about it, though ..

have some picture fun.

encouraging words from an Iowa gas station

the Burninator gets towed

Andrew ponders life as we wait for the tow truck

Steven looks gross as we wait for the tow truck

Andrew gets pumped for Mexican food in Chicago

HOT DOUGS!! dear veggies: try the Pete Shelley.

Iowa 80 is ..

the World's Largest Truckstop

This truck's name is Paul

Steven sat in Paul

political graffiti in Des Moines

I hope this doesn't come true.

loggin daze .08

CLEVELAND, OHIO

We played at Now That's Class with the ever amazing Greatest Hits and another band I can't remember the name of. Fun stuff though .. during the first band's set some crusty nasty ass punks came in and started swinging their shit around. They fell over onto some of our gear so Andrew and I moved it away. Then they went over and fell into Nils (G.H.) knocking over his beer and falling onto their gear. Punches were thrown around for awhile but it cooled off slowly. Very very very small turnout for this show. Had no place to stay so we all parked our vans in front of the bar to pass out for the night. Until then Andrew and I and a few boys from G.H. got a few more drinks at the bar and walked down to grab a bite at the 24 hour diner for some grubs.
The next day, we got up and went to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and walked around for a few hours. Awesome Bruce Springsteen exhibit and a great Les Paul showcase. Then we went to a Polish cafeteria frequented by Harvey Pekar and made famous by Anthony Bourdain.

DETROIT, MICHIGAN

Played with the Greatest Hits and the Dialtones at the Painted Lady in Hamtramck, a small Polish community surrounded by Detroit. Had some fun times .. nothing out of the ordinary.

picture time!!!

Nikki Corvette signed the girl's bathroom wall
Found out that a famous picture of them was taken in the alley behind the bar.

So of course I had to sign my name underneath

I don't even know what that means

Everyone has different Easter traditions.

love.
niki.7

loggin daze .07

PHILLY, PENNSYLVANIA

After we left Chuck's place, we found where we would be playing. (This was our double feature show .. Philly day show and Brooklyn night show). We were playing what is called the Molest Fest on Mole St. Found the street and walked over to Melrose Diner for some breakfast before. Then walked across the street to do some laundry. Our clothes kinda smelled like rotten smelly cheese by this point.
Went back to Molest Fest and met some cool kids and played beer wiffle ball where a home run was only won after chugging a full beer. Also, saw some old lady snatch which was way less than pleasant. The first act was this adorable Russian girl we saw walking by with her violin and we got her to play 2 songs for us. We played and stuck around for one band and a song of the next and then had to take off to make our show in Brooklyn.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

We caught a show last minute at Don Pedro's last minute on Manhattan Ave. Unfortunately, when we looked up directions, we got them to Manhattan Ave in Manhattan. Not Brooklyn. We called up Cyndi (Andrew's lady) and she got us to the one in Brooklyn just in time. We loaded in with about 20 minutes before we had to play. We were also sharing the bill with the Greatest Hits an amazing band from Seattle who we are sharing a few dates with.
THE RATS awesome three piece with a girls bassist who had April 5k's bass!
TOUGH SHITS really cool band. they won't stay small for long. I give em a few months before they blow up big time.
Our friend, Dave (Shout Above the Noise radio show from Allentown, PA) hung out with us for the night. He had also shown up to the Wilmington show. It was great to be able to hang out with him again .. we had first met him in Austin for the Power Pop fest. All in all, it was fun.
Slept in the van in a nice neighborhood and then got up to walk around. Got some good pizza and went to a few record stores. Got horribly doused in the rain and walked back to head out to Boston.

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETS

Played with the Greatest Hits again and some other really great bands. Met up with Vik who was a friend from Houston who recently relocated up there. Pretty uneventful night. Stayed with the singer from the Hospital Rats and the next day ate at a cafe on the MIT campus

BUFFALO, NY

We had two days off so we decided to go to Buffalo where both sides of my family are from. Had soem awesome pizza, hung out with family. My cousin Ryan took us to Niagra Falls and my other cousin Adam who is a pro golf instructor let us on the range to hit some golf balls around. It was really incredible to see how all my cousins have grown up. I hadn't seen my family in about 5 or 6 years so everyone and everything had changed so much I barely recognized it all.

This hat screams "rob me I'm a tourist"

Kill the Hipsters graffiti

Andrew had to pee on the NJ Turnpike. A Vitamin Water bottle was sacrificed

Awful traffic going into NYC

beer wiffle ball game in Philly

same as above.

little Russian girl played her violin for us.

love.
niki.7

loggin daze .06

WASHINGTON, D.C.

D.C.'s street system makes absolutely no sense. But we finally found the Velvet Lounge. We also found out that we had a serious voodoo curse of bad luck for the evening:
-Nervous Fingers had cancelled and the promoter had never found a third band to play so we would be the only band to play that night.
- Green Day was palying to the left of us and Fleet Foxes was to the right.
-got a parking ticket.
-got rear ended trying to find the White House. The woman was super nice and apologetic though especially when she found out we were a touring band from Texas and after we drove away she ran back up to us (we were in wicked bad traffic) and gave us $40, she said to help get us dinner for the night.
After all this, we decided our best option was to just go back to the Velvet Lounge and wait. We waited around as long as we could hoping to get a few more people in there but had no choice and finally played to all 2 people there. We had fun though, Danny from the Points and a dude named Billly kept us pretty entertained and the bar felt so bad they gave us free drinks. Also found a kickass chinese restaurant around the corner that had the best veggie fried rice I've had since Mings closed down.
Once again, we were homeless so we traveled out a bit to the Maryland Welcome Center and slept in the van. The next day we had off so we decided to just bite the bullet and get a cheap hotel room and we passed out until about 4 pm. It was well needed though. I was pretty sick by this point since I have the immune system of an infant and the boys were just plain tuckered out. We got up and went back into the city. Wandered around the landmarks for a bit. Saw the white house and took some innapropriate photos with the Washington Monument. By this time, Andrew's cousin Rosemary had called us and we went to meet up with her and her husband Walter for dinner at the Guards in Georgetown. Had a delicious dinner and several drinks until 2 am. Then, we went back to see the Lincoln Memorial (I'm somewhat of a fan of good ole Abe). It was an amazing sight especially in the dead of night with spotlights illuminating the white marble and his own words engraved around him. It was an amazing way to end our stay in D.C.

WILMINGTON, DELEWARE

Found the Spot pretty easily .. It was a more upkept, well run version of Super Happy Funland. Apparently, Wilmington is somewhat of a ghetto (who knew?) but we found some good eats. The boys rested up while I caught up on writing and read a bt. Around 630 we wandered around the streets and walked down by the Brandywine River. Saw a cemetary with graves dating back to the early 1700s (you Houstonians know how cool it is for us to see something more than 50 years old.)
Can't remember the first band's name but they were good - real fast punk post hardcore style.
MAD SPLATTER tight power pop in the style of Teenage Bottlerocket. busted out with some awesome covers of "Lobotomy" and "Hybrid Moments"
TIT PATROL I caught the last half of their set but they were really good sloppy power pop. Tight in all the right spots and loose when they could be.
We found a place to stay with Chuck from Mad Splatter and followed him to his home in Philly. He walked with us to the famous corner of the battling cheesesteak franchises Pat's Steaks and Geno's. We chose Genos and they nummed on cheesesteaks and I got some awesome cheesefries and Birch Beer. Woke up around 8 am the next morning and did the shower shuffle.

Gettysburg address

Mr. Tucker goes to Washington

New Myspace pictures?

Andrew gets in a cuddle with Tucker by the White House

graffiti in the Velvet Lounge bathroom