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

loggin daze .05

Holy crap .. we've been living like filthy kings, I swear. Lots of van sleeping, little showering and from the lack of updates here, very few wi-fi opportunities.

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

I totally forgot the names of the other bands immediately. I blame it on being sober. But they were awesome. We played at this punk house and had a wicked cool time. Met Ryan of Cold Feet Records who was a really chill dude and hung out with us. Also met this kid named Chaison (I don't know if that's the right spelling) who apparently drove like 3 hours to see us. Which is pretty shocking considering we can't get people to drive 5 minutes to come see us back home. Went and got some food at Cookout which is a pretty cool diner place. Like Sonic, but edible. We stayed in this massive house rented out by a bunch of punk kids and stayed up watching them trip on acid and several other drugs. Woke up the next morning, did some laundry and ate pizza. At some point, I fell back asleep waiting for laundry to finish and Steven tried to put a deer head in my sleeping bag until I threatened removal of his testicles.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

The part of Richmond we were in was pretty cool looking. Played at a sushi restuarant/ bar called Nara Sushi. other bands:
CAPTAIN, WE'RE SINKING apparently, the rest of the band couldn't make it but the singer bravely (or foolishly?) went on without them and belted out a few decent tunes.
HOLY MESS fast paced punk with cut off shorts and Jacob style bike hats. Dueling scream vocals vs. sweet crooning. Reminded me of Brickfight, especially with their energy and wit between songs.
UNDER NATION a little more MXPX featuring drum and bass vocalists and one hell of a guitar player. Damn catchy stuff.

Realized we had nowhere to stay once we were done playing and Steven and I were discussing our options at the bar next to a guy drinking and chain smoking. Turns out he was the owner of the bar and offered to let us stay there for the night as long as we were out by 11 am when they had to open. So we stayed up drinking and watching vampire beach movies until we fell asleep. Andrew stayed up most of the night, still drinking and eating some chicken and rice dish the owner prepared for them.
Found a super cool diner the next morning before taking off to D.C. Had amazing bagels. If you know me well enough, you know I eat bagels from Hot Bagel Shop at least 3 times a week so I was going through serious bagel withdrawl.
Then, on the way out of town we noticed a museum offering free admission featuring a super neat Vietnam exhibit. So we spent a few hours wandering around and wreaking havoc on the innocent.

Andrew enjoys a hot dog from Cookout

Kids in Raleigh ask the serious questions

The cure to bagel withdrawl

Andrew as Paul Revere

Steven dressed as a pretty colonial lady .. in hysterics

Notable North Carolinian and alcoholic

This kid still makes a good point.

This guy scares the crap out of me.

Kathy Griffin?

Dr King stuffs.

good point.

love.
niki.7

loggin daze .04

holy bajeebus .. lots to update on.
So the next day in Atlanta, we ate at this rad barbecue joint with awesome music. I got these awesome spicy hot green beans. Steven got a little friendly with a tree and we lost the plastic covering on our bumper which we are now carrying around in the back of the van. Went to Little 5 Points and wandered around the shops for awhile. The record shop we had gone to the first few tims we were there is now gone so we walked around. I found a hole in the wall shop and picked up a few records.
We got to Knoxville a little late, around 830 or 9pm.
first band (no, that's not the name. I forget the name) chaotic fast punk. good potential but seems stuck in the high school band phase.
WARRIOR PRINCESS fun 6 piece with a GO! Team vibe teetering on the punk edge with the stage energy of a very young Sideshow Tramps.
A girl named Jackie, who we had met the last time in Knoxville put us up at her place and told us storie of an old man who haunts the house which freaked Steven out to no end (he's really freaked out by ghosts).

more later.
enjoy some pictures..

a cross somewhere along the road

creepy dude from Tuscaloosa

Egans in Tuscaloosa

awesome soda from Birmingham

the dude we stayed with had these horses that my grandmother had.

love. niki.7

loggin daze .03

We are here hanging out in Atlanta at our good friend Micheal Holler's awesome house with his adorable dogs.

Tuscaloosa was a surprising good time. We got there pretty early so we walked down the University of Alabama campus and strolled down greek row to see how the other half lives. Interesting sidenote, new bingo halls qualify as front page news in Tuscaloosa. We played at Egans which is an awesome dive bar covered in old photos and flyers. Bands we played with
TEEN GETAWAY awesome indie rock. obviously very in love with the Pixies and vocals that could tie in a race with that chick from Pretty Girls Make Graves.
FORTY LASHES self proclaimed ska band that may or may not have Christian connotations (we never asked). In actuality, they sounded closer to RX Bandits.

Stuck around and found a place to stay with Spin, the drummer for Teen Getaway who lives just an hour away in Birmingham. However, a long night of fun times and free Buds turned it into closer to 2. The next morning, stopped off at Bottletree cafe for some awesome food. I had this vegan chili bean and rice burrito that was to die for. Seriously.

Made our way into Atlanta and got to the Drunken Unicorn. Found out that the Copyrights were not playing and instead we played with
THE VINYLS a great rock band who probably spends their free time listening to Exploding Hearts records and a singer who was a dead ringer for Steven who had this awesome growly blues voice. Very catchy stuff.
DOOMED YOUTH metal band of the Anthrax fraternity. Not my cup of tea, but at least they weren't boring. There's nothing worse than a boring metal band.
THE DAGGERS very very catchy powerpop full of hooks and cute bass walks with a kickass drummer who sang backup (I love when drummers sing back up and I love it even more when they do it well! ie. John Baldwin of Teenage Kicks infamy)

It was turning into a really fun show until a fight broke out at the end of the Daggers set. What happened exactly, I will not say but as Steven put it "cocaine is a hell of a drug." Unfortunately, it drove away the decent size crowd that was there leaving about 10 people for us to play to. But in all fairness, 10 people is a good size crowd in Houston and at least we weren't in 100 degree 100% humidity.
Atlanta, you are never boring.

I'm on a borrowed computer so no pictures today. Maybe tomorrow.

love. niki.7

loggin daze .02

nuggets of wisdom from something fierce #1: the period between noon and two is lunch time. everything in this window can and should be blamed on lunch titties.

Before leaving for tour, Andrew, announced he had a total of 2 pair of underwear for the entire trip. They are this new brand that keeps sweat off your nether regions and you can wash them in the shower. Steven is skeptical and horrified. I am curious for the sake of science and the prospect of never having to buy new underwear for tours. We hopped onto 45 a little before 2 pm and around quarter to 4 we were saying goodbye to Texas. Beinvenue en Louiseine.

Our first stop was at Saturns Bar on St Cloud st in New Orleans, LA. When we got there, we noticed a flyer announcing that King Louie (yes Goner kids, that King Louie) would be headlining the bill and we nearly shat ourselves. He never showed up. It was a good show, nonetheless. Uneventful, but enjoyable. We made friends with a guy named George who had heard of us when Answers was streamed on punknews.org. He graciously allowed us to crash at his place despite having to wake up at 630 am for work the next morning. It was much appreciated.
Other bands that played last night:
BUOYANT SEA a one man band with a drum machine and serious hygeine issues. It was honestly, better than I expected. Usually, a drum machine is my cue to head for the door.
POPPETS coed guitar duo from my new favorite land of power pop Sweden with an iPod full of drum beats and harmonies that would make Pete Shelley an Steve Diggle jizz all up in their pants.
ESTROGEN HIGHS grungy college rock from Connecticut with clangy guitars and slow dreamy bass walks. I'm a sucker for this stuff. Surprising vocals reminiscent of the Replacements.

We woke up at 630 to a beautiful sunny morning and wandered over to the French Quarter for breakfast at Cafe du Monde. We sipped on coffee and I was introduced to this wonderful nugget of dough called a beignet as we watched people walk up and down the streets. We left when the cafe was ambushed by a million Lutherans in town for a convention. Seriously, it was like Night of the Living Dead, except the zombies were Lutherans .. and Andrew only wishes he was as cool as Tony Todd. After wandering around the city, we discovered that the only things up at 8am besides us were the pigeons. A bright red one followed us for about a block before realizing we had no food to give him and went off to harrass a mother pushing a stroller. We ended up at Harrahs to test our luck for a bit. My first time gambling and I managed to swipe $17 from slot machines. The boys sat at poker machines but left after a few dollars lost.

So now, we are in Tuscaloosa, LA waiting for our show at Egans Bar to start. We have about 5 hours left to kill.
I did manage to catch this sweet quote from Steven while reading in the backseat: "I wish I had taint in my teeth. I would floss the hell out of that taint." and I leave you with that.

now enjoy the pictures!!

this is what breakfast looks like in New Orleans. Houston, you have been schooled.

things are written in French sometimes!

Joan of Arc. I think she's super neat is all.

I don't know who this dude is but I liked him ..

so did Andrew

Steven didn't really care

Andrew put his hand on some titties

Steven got her in the cootch

the ceiling in Harrahs.

suggested eating rituals from the bathroom in Saturns.
and finally, words of hope

love. niki.7